oh hi it's NICE-ETC - The blog for Nice.Etsy.com - Vintage & Handmade by Caitlin Holcomb

2009-07-10T16:51:00.002-05:00

Don't forget the first ever Los Angeles Renegade Craft Fair is this weekend!
Boy do I wish I could be out there!

2009-07-10T13:40:00.004-05:00

Friday Found Photos

I wonder where they were off to.
Click the image for all sizes and a better look at her dress.

2009-07-10T02:22:00.005-05:00

Alexa of Pop Elegantiarum sent over this photo of her new Hooray banner in her nursery! It's ready for the arrival of her baby girl. Isn't it sweet? I am partial to the bassinet. I remember my younger brother being in one long ago. I wasn't strong enough to carry him in it but I did do a lot of scooting him around on the carpet, haha. Thank you so much for this photos Alexa! Makes me so happy :)

2009-07-07T20:09:00.004-05:00

I received such a thoughtful surprise birthday package from Sarah of Cursive Design! What sweet ladies I know! She wrapped everything so nicely- I love the ribbon bow taped down on the box and the little tags on each item (you can click the photo to see what they say). I can't believe she sent me a necklace..I have been wanting some of her jewelry for so long. She's extremely talented..I'm a huge fan of her work and aesthetic. I've already worn it out on several occasions..it's very easy to throw on and I think I really appreciate that with jewelry. It's lovely- all of it is. She also made me a wall jewelry piece..you can see the other side of the medallion here. It goes so well with my work area and I enjoy flipping it back and forth. Thank you so much, Sarah. That was really so, so sweet. :)

2009-07-03T16:35:00.004-05:00

Friday Found Photos

Isn't this lovely? June 1920.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend...Independence day is tomorrow for the US.
I hope the sun comes back out. What is up with this summer?

2009-06-30T11:35:00.002-05:00

I want to congratulate Danielle on winning the Mini Deer Plaque giveaway at Oh, Hello Friend!
I was so happy to participate with a giveaway on such a sweet blog. I'm sure that if my readers weren't already familiar with it, you'll be fans of it now :)

....and Danielle, the winner, is the lady behind the Etsy shop Dinosaur Toes which I have been a lonnnng time fan of! She has such beautiful things and James has found gifts for me on more than one occasion! I don't believe I realized that she has a blog, so I'm looking forward to reading more about her.

2009-06-28T12:51:00.004-05:00

My birthday was nice. James and I just played it by ear. We brought a sort of brunch to the lakefront and hung out there for a while. It was warm, but not so bad close to the water. If you haven't noticed by now, haha, I pretty much wish I could be near the water every day of my life. I wish I could spend a winter by the water in Michigan, just to know if I could make it through all of their snowfall....I think that being by the water just might out weight the cons of snow. Maybe. Thoughts?

After that we thought about renting bikes since I didn't bring mine and James' is injured...but I wasn't wearing the best shoes (didn't want to ruin them), which I felt crummy about. So we decided to walk in search of swan boats..and walk and walk. Boy, was it hot. And you know what, those swan boats don't exist. I think their area is under construction. It was pretty disappointing. I really wanted to go out on a boat haha. It was an adventure though because we ended up strolling through the zoo- I am not a zoo person. Just not that into it. But it was fine to stroll through it.. also took a quick walk through the conservatory (it was hot, haha).

These two were quite a pair.

I'm not sure what these flags were for? But they were pretty..

Had a nice light dinner outside at Irazu because Kuma's had a huge line even on a Tuesday. It's getting old. Then had some ice cream and watched some Curb Your Enthusiasm. I was having serious withdrawals after not seeing it in maybe over a year! It was a nice and casual bday.

2009-06-28T00:57:00.006-05:00

Friday Found Photos

I forgot Friday's Found Photo, haha. This is a simple one. I think the angle is interesting.
Sort of reminds me of a real-life version of the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz.
I wish her flower corsage weren't so bleached out.

2009-06-26T19:23:00.002-05:00

PHEW! Some of you may have read that I intended to debut the vintage collection on Tuesday...but my birthday, and later on the endless bummer of constant splitting headaches (not related to any sort of birthday hangover, for better or worse), sort of got in the way. I hope it was worth the wait!
And please don't forget to enter the giveaway Danni is having on her blog :)

Thank you all so much for the birthday well wishes!

2009-06-23T11:34:00.002-05:00

weekly giveaway: nice!
Originally uploaded by ohhellofriend

Hello! Just wanted to pop in and let you know there is a give away happening at Oh, Hello Friend! You can win one of my Mini Deer Plaques! It's extra exciting because Danni and I share the same birthday today!
I wanted to debut a small collection of vintage clothing, but that will have to wait until Wednesday. Late night yesterday I was able to get up some cute vintage housewares in the shop. I hope you enjoy those in the meantime and head over to Danni's blog to wish her a happy bday!

2009-06-19T13:52:00.003-05:00

hahah oops. when i posted have some fun, i didn't mean to give a link to my own blog! i meant to link you to here! have some fun.

2009-06-19T02:03:00.000-05:00

have some fun.

2009-06-19T01:42:00.006-05:00

Friday Found Photos

I collected some photos recently at a flea market and I think I'll share
some of them with you each Friday until I run out :)

This girl actually belongs to the lot seen here. On the back it reads:
Graduation dress - (nylon)
Blue with gold dots

It can be enlarged for a better view.

2009-06-17T20:30:00.002-05:00

I received a surprise birthday package in the mail from Anabela!
She is so sweet and has sent me so many pretty things..it's like a birthday party in a box! This truly made my week. I told her that I might take all of those 'happy birthday' flower signs and stick them all in my cake!

My birthday is Tuesday the 23. It really, really snuck up on me this year. I haven't given it much thought, really..who knows what we'll do to celebrate. Any ideas? Not even sure if we'll celebrate on the very day or what.

One thing is for sure though, I have a special treat for you all coming up.

2009-06-15T20:08:00.003-05:00

This was me late last week. I took a blanket outside to work on my banners and it was a very pleasant experience. All banners will now smell like sunshine? I am determined to bring as much work outside this summer as possible! Last summer, though I did make all my Mini Deer Plaques outdoors, I still was not outside quite enough. I'm actually considering plugging in my sewing machine out on the patio table. Does this make me completely nuts? Is there some technical set-back I am overlooking that has stood in the way of anyone else doing some outdoor sewing? Because otherwise it seems to me like an obviously amazing thing to do.

The weekend was good. Friday we made it to a very secret bonfire that was incredibly close to my summer 09 woods party calling. I hope there will be more! ...Saturday I was supposed to wake up and get on over to a rummage sale but I just could not get out of bed....but it was semi-ok because the 2 cool kids we were going to go with were the same ones from the bonfire and they were understanding....aaand it turned out that the rummage sale was a bit of a no-go. At least during Saturday's early morning rains.

Saw a movie, and even though parts of it were pretty, I wasn't that into the idea.

Sunday was a bit extravagant for us...we got up and had bagels and coffee for breakfast, and Fritz pastries for after breakfast. It's a new place and it's pretty tasty. You know, I'm honestly not a big pastry person, but I love the idea of them. And just looking at them. I had a pineapple streusel cake and it was very tasty. We enjoyed these treats on the porch. Afterward we decided to give that same rummage sale a try..it was eh, but we went late. I did score a vintage wire corner shelf.

and p.s. - local ladies, we should organize a flea outing...maybe to wolfe's??

2009-06-14T17:26:00.005-05:00

oh man..did you ever have one of these? I think I had two in 6th grade! I got myself a black one, and then someone gave me a blue one I believe. ....and did you have those tiny case purses..they were like, little treasure chests. I can't seem to find an image, but they were often shiny black or clear vinyl with multi-colored glitter. The backpack purse and the "treasure chest" purses were both found in the shopping mall at Claire's and Afterthoughts, duh.

2009-06-11T17:13:00.003-05:00

Mia commented with a link to this image that comes from this blog, and I love it! If they had prints, I might have to purchase one! And I'm pretty close to heading to the grocery store to pick up some wafers. Soooo good and so nice looking.

2009-06-08T18:18:00.004-05:00

We made it to the flea market this weekend..I was very, very picky. Maybe it was the unexpected CHILLY weather accompanied by windy sprinkles of rain. I was fast, but not too fast, and very efficient. I just came home with some very pretty scarves from various decades, random jewelry bits, and old photos. James and I had a lot of fun digging together through the piles and trading back and forth the ones that made us go "wow", "ha", or "oh man". haha I'll have to scan our finds a bit later.

The lady and feline up top was one of the things I resisted. It was more than I wanted to pay, even after a lazy bargain attempt. I'll live vicariously through this photo. How random is this though? What is UP with that cat? Is he not happy to be in such a striking lady's arms? I hope I don't terribly regret not snagging this and putting it in a different frame....

2009-06-05T18:07:00.003-05:00

If you're on the east coast, don't forget to head to the
Brooklyn Renegade Craft Fair this weekend!
Lots of friends and awesome vendors will be there!
Click here for more info and click here to see the participants.
(and be sure to show off all your goodies after this weekend- I wanna see!)

2009-06-03T18:40:00.005-05:00

Meagan just commented on my Detroit post leading me to this blog called Sweet Juniper which I am really looking forward to reading. I have seen the photos of James Griffioen, but didn't realize he had a blog about living in Detroit (and raising a young family with his wife). Looks like it may help me put my visit into perspective (it's resulted in many conversations and ponderings). Thanks!

2009-06-03T17:10:00.015-05:00

A Really Long (but worth it, I think) Post About Our Recent Trip to Detroit

Over Memorial Day weekend James and I went to Detroit. The electronic music fest. was going on..we didn't go to the festival, but instead explored around a bit and headed to an after party later in the evening. The festival was on the riverfront by the GM building. It was funny because you could walk along the river walk and be right beside the fenced in festival goers. Who knew that so many people still dress like ravers. Especially noting that a lot of these raver-dressed people were young. And it wasn't ironic. We kept thinking of this recent post on Sorry I Missed Your Party. I guess there are always strange factors to festivals though.

"Detroit, Everything will be alright"
in the window of an empty building downtown.

Detroit was and wasn't what we expected, I think. For most of my childhood my family lived about 20 minutes outside of Detroit, in Redford, but I didn't have much experience downtown. James had never been. It was late afternoon Sunday when we got there, and the next day was a holiday, so it may not be a completely fair assessment, but the downtown was pretty quiet. It's like the equivalent to Chicago's loop, a business area with a few restaurants and not many shops, so it's very quiet on the weekends.. but Detroit still had much less activity- and there was a festival happening right in front of it. You could walk across city streets with out looking for cars.

At the river front.

Just realized I'm not sure how this was taken without any kids in it!
There were so many little ones galloping about!

Bridge from Detroit to Windsor.

James was pretty beat from driving and we ended up walking around downtown and the riverfront for the rest of that day. Had dinner at Niki's pizza, which was decent. Sat near some young seemingly wealthy college students with endless annoyingly loud and conceited stories. Maybe I was just hyper-aware and thinking everyone would be sort of humble, given the financial state of well, the entire state of Michigan. Although, these kids would have been annoying in any setting.

After dinner we drove around a bit.. saw the famously abandoned Michigan Central Station. It is so large and so apocalyptic. We went at dusk and that was probably a perfect time to visit. I can't even describe the feeling.. it's something else.

We also went by the old Tiger Stadium, which I found out today could be completely torn down in the next two weeks. This is very sad and if you are interested you can read more about that here. I was thinking out loud earlier and wondering why Major League Baseball can't get involved in old ballparks. Wouldn't it be neat if they could help resurrect them into something for the community (especially in cities that could use a hand). There were talks of turning the old park into a youth baseball field and a sort of museum. I don't know what happened to that idea and why it's a better thought to turn it into one more massive empty lot for Detroit.

We stopped by the Magic Stick for a drink, just because we stumbled upon it. It was what you'd expect. They were playing the Dead Kennedys and at the same time a teenager walked in with a Dead Kennedys hoodie. ...Headed back to the hotel and then out to an after party.

The next day we drove over to Belle Isle which was fun. It is larger than either of us expected. It is an island and has ponds, a water park, endless picnic spots, a nature museum, conservatory, boat club, golf course, maritime museum, and other things I'm probably forgetting. It use to have an aquarium and zoo (follow that link for abandoned photos), but they have closed.

Ariel view from www.seedetroit.com

After that we headed to the Heidelberg Project. Tyree Guyton began this project in 1986. Taken from the Heidelberg.org site:

The Heidelberg Project is an outdoor community art environment. The elements of the canvas contain recycled materials and found objects, most of which were salvaged from the streets of Detroit. Each work of art is carefully devised to tell a story about current issues plaguing society. As a whole, the HP is symbolic of how many communities in Detroit have become discarded. It asks questions and causes the viewer to think. When you observe the HP, what do you really see? Is it art? Is it junk? Is it telling a story? That’s for you to decide.

Read all about it here.

Tyree inherited this house from his Grandfather and his Mother lives there today.

This home was near the Heidelberg Project.
With it's windows and doors missing, this home was very dollhouse-like, lovely wallpaper and all.

We drove around a bit more after this..found Holcomb street (my last name) which lead to massive urban prairies, or leveled lots. We found out about this area from a recent bit on Detroit that the Chicago Reader did:

Holcomb between Mack and Charlevoix Just a place to start: Drive around the east side and you’ll encounter whole city blocks of green interrupted by the occasional house—not to mention many a house interrupted by green. For as rural as it feels, it can be a bit menacing. Packs of wild dogs have been reported; staying in or near your car is probably best, but if you decide to explore, pepper spray or a baseball bat are recommended.

We didn't bother with pepper spray or baseball bats. The Reader didn't make such a suggestion at the end of every Detroit location, yet it was still hard to know if this was a serious comment or not. It was early afternoon on a beautiful Memorial Day...maybe they would have been required at night? I do not know. This Google Map view between Mack and Charlevoix really shows all the empty lots well..go about south and east and west.

One of many.

Then randomly stumbled upon this street (shown above). I think there are a couple blocks like this. We went North on this one..these are really nice houses, many of them gated, however even a lot of these homes weren't completely upkept and showed signs of owner neglect (for whatever reason, and there are probably many). There was just one home on this block that was smaller and very much in shambles. It was a sight to see, let me tell you. I would have taken a photo (it was just that out of the ordinary compared to the other homes) but the owners were outside sitting on their decaying porch smiling and enjoying the holiday.

Headed out of town, and accidentally found the old Packard car plant. It is massive. Just massive. Taken from the same Reader segment:

The Packard Motor Car Co. ended production in 1956, leaving behind a 3.5-million-square-foot behemoth of a factory complex that’s been falling apart ever since. Designed by Albert Kahn, sometimes called the architect of Detroit, it’s now home to squatters, feral dogs and cats, and rats. It sheltered rave parties in the 80s and a paintball course called Splatball City in the 90s; and remains a popular (though also illegal to enter) location for photographers and other explorers. Be amazed at the ephemera that has found its way in—boats, toys, and increasing amounts of illegally dumped garbage from surprising places.

Next we headed to Redford, so I could show James where I grew up! I am a very nostalgic person, and I had such great times growing up in Michigan. I lived in Plymouth until I was 3, and then once my younger brother was born we moved to Redford. When I was 10 we moved to a Chicagoland suburb here in Illinois.

We took a main road out of Detroit into Redford just to experience how things change. Pretty interesting, and just a 20 minute drive. Our old house isn't as cute as it was when we were inside, haha. They put blinds up and don't have as many flowers. It looks like they put a taller fence up in the back (we just grew ivy and hollyhocks up our metal fence which was good for us kids so we could still climb over it!). My room was in the front on the right. We had a cherry tree in the backyard with a wooden swing that my dad put up. The house was built in 1952.

This photos is at an awful angle because the owner was out and about and I got nervous haha. Also! One of my old neighbors was out washing his car. This was a very surreal experience haha. I was very close to saying hello but backed out in fear of awkwardness and what do you say? Do you go into your life story after the age of 10? I grew up with all boys around. It was a drag at times, but way more often did I have a ton of fun climbing fences and playing capture the flag-like games...I was bummed out when my new Illinois girlfriends weren't as into doing that as I was, ha.

I showed James a bit more of my old town and I think he enjoyed it. Long ago he took me for a drive through his childhood haunts as well. We made a quick stop in Plymouth where I showed him the old house we rented in, the dollhouse shop that was on the same street 2 minutes away walking, and a couple favorite ice cream places.

It was a nice trip. Everyone knows I have a huge soft spot for Michigan, I think it's safe to say James' (a life long Illinois resident) grew a bit that weekend as well. We both want to head back to Detroit, definitely. Have you been recently? Or do you have Detroit memories? I am constantly hoping the best for that city and everyone in it.

There are more photos on my Flickr.

EDIT:
Meagan just commented on my Detroit post leading me to this blog called Sweet Juniper which I am really looking forward to reading. I have seen the photos of James Griffioen, but didn't realize he had a blog about living in Detroit (and raising a young family with his wife). Looks like it may help me put my visit into perspective (it's resulted in many conversations and ponderings). Thanks!

2009-05-30T01:05:00.001-05:00

ny times on niceness
via a cup of joe

2009-05-28T21:44:00.001-05:00

2009-05-27T17:02:00.008-05:00

Hey! I'm excited to let you know that the oh so nice Melissa invited me to her Tea & Talk series!
Head on over..I hope you enjoy. Some of those were some life-evaluating questions!

Also, can I add, in that photo I am holding a container of chocolate as big as my head.

2009-05-22T00:13:00.002-05:00

Over last weekend I went with James to see the Olafur Eliasson exhibit at the MCA. We were aiming to head to the new modern wing at the Art Institute, but didn't feel we had enough time for that..so instead we opted for sticking to one exhibit (thanks to Sarah for the reminder the other week). It was very good. I really suggest heading out for it.

Afterward we quite randomly decided to take a trip to the top of the Hancock building. I suppose if you live in Chicago, that's something you have to do on a whim (unless you have visitors in town). It was a PERFECT day for it. I really enjoy seeing all the details in such large structures...all the people and cars going by..and looking out over Lake Michigan.
It was a nice afternoon.

Check out this last one haha..James took it. Nice comp.

Do you like to go up in tall buildings?