Friends Sometimes Do Have Benefits

As a special promotion to all of my Facebook fans, I'm offering free shipping on all vintage clothing until the end October. To participate is easy. Just click here, become a fan and then go to my shop and choose out what you like. Let me know in the notes to seller box that you are taking part in the Facebook promotion and I will refund you the shipping price over PayPal. If you want to buy later or just feel like saying hi, then become my fan anyway. I'm often offering special deals through Facebook and that way you'll be the first to know.

xoxo Rebeccah

New Thank You/Business Cards

I've been making my own business cards for my shop ever since I opened it, writing a personalized note to each customer thanking them for their purchase. I'm a hobby photographer anyway and with a little photoshop magic you can easily print words on the pictures. I get them printed at the same professional online photo lab where I have everything printed. They always have a matte finish and a vintage-esque white border. The first photograph I used was the one above (with Curious Knopf Vintage printed on it of course.) It is of a vintage cowgirl and was taken in the bathroom on the fabulous Plains Hotel in downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming.

I have relatives in Cheyenne so we stopped there for a night when we went to visit my grandma in Nebraska a little over a year ago. Cheyenne is a sort of rundown (so many empty store fronts, what a shame) but still charming old West town and the Plains is great if you're passing through (it was my second time staying there.) My second thank you/business card was also taken in the hallway of the Plains. The woman in the photograph is my sister. I ordered 30 copies, so I've been using it for a while, but I'm actually not all that crazy about the layout.

On a side note, I loved the problem-with-cowboys stories my 18 year old cousin who grew up in Cheyenne told us when we visited. Most Cheyenne teenagers grow up in suburban sprawl like the rest of the U.S., but there is a small percentage of real cowboys growing up on ranches. He said they tend to smell and spit tobacco during class which is annoying. There is also a very old law on the books that if they ride their horses to school, the school is required to give the horse shelter and brush it and feed it during lunch time, so some of them do this. What a hoot!

Anyway, my most current thank you/business card is the one pictured above. The photograph is the detail of a 1920s photograph of the German actress Lotte Lenya, most famous for her work in Kurt Weill pieces (she was also his lover for many years.) I wanted to maybe offer it as a print in my new photography shop Augenblick Photo, but it's a bit too out of focus for my taste (not that all photographs should be in focus, but if they aren't, there should be a reason...) It turned out fabulous, especially with the white border. I ordered 20 copies and the first one is going out in a package tomorrow, so if you order soon you'll have a lovely one all of your own. ;)

Shop Update: My Secret Garden

So summer is winding down and we are heading slowly into fall, but in my mind I seem to be in spring fever. This is partly because we didn't really have spring this year in Berlin, more like a long, especially cruel winter that one day turned into summer and then REALLY turned into summer in the form of a series of vicious heat waves. Sigh. Back when I lived in California I never imagined I would spend this much time talking about the weather....

Anyway, on a more cheerful note, take a look at some of the lovely floral prints I have recently added to my shop:


Vintage 1960s Mistress Mary Quite Contrary Black and Floral Dress


Vintage 1970s White Peasant Skirt With Red Mum Embroidery


Vintage 1960s or 1970s Orange Roses Trachten Skirt, a wool blend with gorgeous lace trim and black velvet detailing


Vintage 1970s Sheer White Dress, with black and white floral pattern and embroidery


Vintage 1960s Colorful Floral Jacket Blouse

Happy spring everyone, uh, I mean enjoy these final weeks of summer. ;)

Could Be I Want To Keep It...

The photographs are a bit too dark, I priced it just a tad on the high side...Dang it, it could be that I just want to keep this dress. If it suddenly disappears from my shop then you'll certainly know why. :)

P.S. The fabulous red wool hat here that has made its appearance several times already in Curious Knopf is by the hat maker Fiona Bennett who also just so happens to be my brother-in-law's girlfriend.

How Much Fun Can You Have With One Little Old Vintage Scarf?

The answer? A whole heck of a lot! I posed with this scarf today and, boy, did I have fun. Granted, it was pretty easy since it is a gorgeous 1960s silk Italian scarf in a retro Hawaiian print. Just try and not have fun with that. I dare you. ;) Here are some of the different photographs. I didn't post all of them because a few are just a little too goofy even for a goofball like me. Here goes:


I'm pretty sure I'm humming The Hills Are Alive here, though of course, the song would better fit some of my Trachtenmode pieces....


According to Wikipedia, it's a little known fact that Mary Magdalene was actually very into retro tiki Hawaiian print which she combined splendidly with religious pathos. Who knew?


This one I call my Isadora Duncan look, though I suppose the scarf would have to be a tad bit longer...


And this is my Mata Hari (come on, let me flatter myself. ;) )


Here I am, doing the discerning Haufrau, trying to decide if what I have in my hands is a quality item. Come on, lady. The scarf is from the 60s, made in Italy of 100% pure silk, is in mint condition. Geez. What else do you need to know?


I also think the scarf would make a fab belt, but it would have to be on someone with a slimmer waist than mine. Thank you little old scarf for providing so much entertainment on a humid late summer day!

The 10th Day...

So today is officially the 10th day since I had my last sale. And there were probably about ten days between the sale before that. I've decided to take things easy at my shop. If everyone else is going to the beach, why shouldn't I?
I recently poured a lot of energy into my shop, Curious Knopf. I worked on the photos, made lots of great vintage finds, posted, renewed and posted. But when you are doing all this work, but not making any sales and only having a few hearts trickle in, you can't help but get frustrated.....
Of course, I have been having some fun along the way. I've liked posing in some of the larger clothing (modeling is harder work than one might assume....) And, of course, I love going on the vintage hunt. But I'm not buying anything new for a while. I have about 20 odd things to photograph and post, and I will gradually get them into my shop....
....or I might just sell off the entire stock on ebay and call it a night. But if I do, I'll at least stop by here again to say so long folks! It's been swell. Sayonara. Ciao ciao. ;)

Why Not Just Use Berlin?

So I'm seriously in need of a new mannequin for my shop. My old one is beginning to get a little bit funky in the back and it is too big for anything smaller than a size 8 (and somehow also doesn't work for some larger clothes like the last photograph of the 1950s shirtwaist dress, which is a size 10, and the first photograph of the late 1950s striped dress and matching jacket, which is a size 12.) I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do. I'd rather use the one I have until I simply can't and I don't really want to buy a second smaller one because it would be just floating around the apartment and our place isn't really that big. In the meantime, I've decided to simply use Berlin as a backdrop. The dark gray is the front of an apartment building on Müllenhofstrasse in Kreuzberg's Graefekiez and the white is in the fabulous Riehmers Hofgarten where I would love to have an apartment but where it's pretty much impossible to get one....