Tag: retro hair

Samantha Goes Hawaiian and Finally Finds Her Creative Spark to Create New Jewelry

Published on by hellosamanthadear12 Comments

Weeeeeee! I finally felt inspired to make some new RINGS! 💕 I’m so happy. These I made for myself, but I’ll make more in the near future to put on Etsy!

I haven’t made jewelry in at least a year; I’m not sure why I stopped, but sometimes my creativity comes to a standstill and I simply just be for a while. I’ve learned not to be too hard on myself for it either; I figure, it’s okay to just wait for creative inspiration to bloom, whenever that may be!

But I’m back at it, and it made me feel GREAT! So excited to make new stuff again.

The bunny ring is actually a cupcake topper, and I added the roses and the rhinestone eyeball! Right in time for upcoming Easter. 💖

Lastly, here’s my Hawaiian-themed look for the day. Hearing that it’s going to be in the 70’s for awhile apparently had a tropical influence over me!!! 😉 Also, I couldn’t decide between either yarn bows or butterfly clips so I wore both. *cue party music* I feel like a mildly edgier version of Gidget.

See ya next time!! 🌺

I’ll Take Two New Pairs of Socks and a Coke, Please

Published on by hellosamanthadear20 Comments

Hey, hey! ❤️ Finally I own a pair of black socks with white stripes; I have always wanted a pair like this! I have these and now, a burgundy pair of socks, which you’ll see in the second outfit. 😃

You can find these socks on Amazon, the striped ones here, and the burgundy ones here! I really love these outfits; they were fun to wear.

I have been enjoying the unseasonably warm weather here in Central California AND!!!!!!!!!!!! I TRIED THE NEW COFFEE-FLAVORED COCA COLA DRINK!

I enjoy a soda every now and then, and I knew I had to try this bad boy! (I was honestly pretty crazy-excited to try this).

There are three flavors: Vanilla, Dark Blend, and Caramel. I figured the Dark Blend would be too strong for me, and I don’t like Caramel. So Vanilla it was!!

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. That’s right, five stars! It has three layers of flavor you experience when you take a sip. First you taste Coke, then vanilla, and then after you’ve swallowed it, the coffee taste lingers on your tongue. An absolute joy! Drinking it was an experience and I savored each sip. ❤️

Boooom! See ya next time!

The Blue Book – A Glimpse into Former East Germany

Published on by hellosamanthadear12 Comments

You all know me by now; I love collecting mementos from the Cold War era! Finding vintage items from the USSR isn’t hard at all; there are countless online sellers living in post-Soviet countries who have entire Etsy shops dedicated to such vintage goods. But finding vintage items from East Germany, however, is an entirely different story!

I’ve read many insightful books on East Germany, and yet it still seems like such a mysterious shadow of a former country. It only existed from 1949 to 1990, as did its other half, West Germany.

East Germany was a communist country though and didn’t have free trade (it was a satellite state of the Soviet Union and therefore, behind the Iron Curtain), and finding vintage items online from there is harder, 30+ years after Germany reunited. There are less online sellers who sell things from the former DDR….

…but I found this!!! And boy was I shocked to come across it on Etsy, from a seller in Berlin. It’s a 1970’s membership book of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organization (it was for East German youth aged 6 to 14).

The photo of Erich Honecker is a real throwback; his portrait was everywhere in the East back then, as he was the leader of the country at the time.

I seriously can’t believe I have this. It’s a real thrill finding historical items from the Iron Curtain countries, and I’m thankful for the Internet, which enables me to further dive into my strange-fascination with fallen communist regimes! 😃

Funny side-note: while Google researching this pioneer organization, I found a vintage poster for it in Google images and the girl reminded me of myself as a kid…we even have the same TEETH, hahaaaa!!!

Now, let’s end this post with an outfit!!! I love this one because it has all sorts of color shades going on and that pop of red and pink. 💖❤️

See ya next time!!! ❤️ Do you have any collections? Feel free to share in the comments!

Butterfly Migration Onto My Head

Published on by hellosamanthadear14 Comments

Hi folksssssssssss! 💕

I realized this past month I have been wearing mainly neutral tones, WHICH IS GREAT, TOO. But I feel like I really needed a color splash into my outfits. And thus you have THIS LOOK with an array of colors! Yeah!

I also feel like I haven’t been utilizing all the hair clips I own, which is a lot. So I doubled it up with butterflies! I actually am really happy I did this, because I didn’t realize how awesome it would turn out. 😄

I’m not sure how I slipped out of wearing brighter colors, but I’m happy I’m back at it. It just felt GOOD to be wearing brighter colors again! Sometimes I slip into habits and look back and realize, wait, when did I stop wearing bright colors? Then I lasso myself back into it again.

Once again, Mikhail Gorbachev, the host with the most glasnost, graces my blog post! I finished reading Perestroika and then discovered he wrote a new book this year! (Did you know he’s 89 years old!?) This one is really cool because it deals with current international affairs. So I’m learning a lot about the “state of the world”.

I love Gorbachev’s writing style. He provides that informative guidance; he’s like a father figure, but rather than guiding me through life choices, he’s guiding me on why nuclear weapons are bad.

Know the social/political commentary comic, Doonesbury? That was mainly all I read during my childhood years! My earliest memory of Doonesbury was reading commentary on the Gulf War. Kinda dark stuff for a kid. Imagine me reading that in Beauty and the Beast pajamas as I downed a pouch of Capri Sun. The visual is accurate.

But, looping it back to my outfit in this post, regardless of my heavy reading choices, I’m still all about the rainbows and butterflies when it comes right down to it! 💖 And on an ending note, here’s a cool photo I took of my car with lots of pretty colors:

Bye-bye for now!!! 📚

My Vintage Dress That’s Actually a Soviet School Uniform

Published on by hellosamanthadear9 Comments

Woohooo!!! The dress I’ve been waiting so long for finally arrived in the mail! 😍

It came from one of my favorite Etsy shops based in Ukraine that specializes in vintage USSR items, that I mentioned in my last post. When I first saw this lovely dress (I’ve been wanting a brown dress for a really long time, especially for fall), I was amazed to find out it was a 1980’s-era school uniform. All that was missing from it was the white apron and collar/cuffs, but the foundation of the uniform dress remained! And it’s in great shape, to boot!!! ❤️

I’ve always thought Soviet school uniforms were so cute! I found a great photo on Google for reference:

I’ve been fascinated (okay, obsessed) with The Cold War/US and USSR relations/the Eastern Bloc/the collapse of the Soviet Union since I was really young. I have no idea how or when it started; it’s just always been an interest of mine, it seems! So the dress is an absolute gem in my eyes, since it encapsulates both my passion for fashion and history.

Check out the old tags on the inside of the dress, written in Ukrainian:

It makes me wonder what student(s) previously owned this 30+ years ago. If only a dress could talk! And then I think of how awe-inspiring it is that it made its way to me from so far away. I’ll definitely take good care of it and I’m so happy it found a new home with me! ❤️

Lastly, my current read (because it goes sooooooo well with the content of this post and you already know I’m a history nerd), Perestroika by Mikhail Gorbachev (the former president of the Soviet Union).

I’ve been wanting to read this book, written in 1987 (the year I was born, haha), to see how Gorbachev intended to restructure and reform the USSR, which ultimately collapsed in 1991. Had the Soviet Union not fallen apart, would his reform policies have worked in the long run? We’ll never know…but now I have a piece of this collapsed, now non-existent part of history, in the form of a dress. In a lot of ways, I think the dress found me.

See ya!!! ❤️