Velveteen Lounge Living Room Tour - Retro Kitsch Decor & Cocktail

We can't leave the house, but we can let you in - virtually, anyway! Welcome!

Green Bamboo Lounge: Another Fabulous Home Bar!

Join us for a visit to another fabulous home bar!

Christmas Home Decor, Cocktails and Appetizers Included!

Today we're throwing our doors open for a tour of our Christmas decor, cocktails and appetizers included! We're enjoying a bowl of Old Yule Wassail and an easy shrimp appetizer, so be sure to join us!

Beautiful Holiday Bows Made (sort of) Easy!

Who else has the best intentions for creating beautiful holiday packages, then ends up stuffing gifts into bags at the last minute? I DID order some fabulous wrapping paper from Spoonflower this year, including this delectable Enchanted Tiki Room print from Modern Tiki Lounge, so I've got that part under control, but what about bows? I tend to save and reuse them year after year, until they're dented beyond repair, but this 1969 guide from Hallmark has me thinking I might need to up my game. Could it be time for fabulous retro ribbons and bows? Time to start knotting and tying!

Of course, those store made bows will always be there for you if you decide to park it, make a cocktail and relax instead. I have a feeling that's what I'll do. 

Porco Lounge & Tiki Room in Cleveland - Painkiller Recipe!

Are you ready for happy hour? Me, too! Today we're visiting Cleveland's fabulous Porco Lounge & Tiki Room for their delicious Painkiller! The title is apt - any pain you're feeling will evaporate after a couple of these little miracles. Cheers!

Kate's Lazy Meadow - Road Trip with Cocktails!

Joining us for a visit to Kate's Lazy Meadow, in Mt. Tremper, New York! We have a cocktail inspired by lazy meadows and a 1958 appetizer so easy you could assemble it blind drunk. Who knows? It could come in handy someday. 😏 Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Kitsch

Thanksgiving is not the easiest holiday to decorate for. It's like the forgotten child between Halloween and Christmas, both of which I love, but Thanksgiving is the holiday we get to host, so I want to make it count! I'm very pleased with my display, especially since I spent a total of $2 in new items to pull it together. It has a slight "poultry" theme, since I happened to have the Miss Chicken Big mug and Foghorn Leghorn glass already. I definitely use what I have!

Inexpensive Home Decor: Wrapping Paper

I recently blogged about framing record album covers for inexpensive wall art, but what if you're trying to fill a larger space? Posters and paintings are great, but wrapping paper is another cheap and easy option. At the very least it's a great placeholder until you find that perfect work of art, but a fabulous pattern just might be the perfect solution to your decorating woes! I found this paper, which I love, on Spoonflower and the costliest aspect of this project was the frame:

If you're really ambitious you could even switch your papers out seasonally! That's the great thing about an inexpensive project like this - the commitment level can be as low as you like. Grab a roll of paper and some scissors and cover those walls!

Halloween at the Vermont Country Store

We happened to be in Vermont last weekend and the Vermont Country Store was kind enough to allow us to shoot some video for upcoming episodes at their Rockingham location. If you are at all into retro culture or are nostalgic for the trappings of your youth, you would lose your mind at the Vermont Country Store! They have everything from food to home goods to clothing to toys and more, all reminiscent of the past, yet still fabulous and useful. I was enthralled with their Halloween section and came home with some new decor to add to our display, which I'll share as soon as I'm done. Here are some shots of their Halloween offerings. I could go broke in there!

Do you decorate for Halloween? I'd love to see your displays!

Our "New" Bar Stools

Our new bar area means that we finally have room for the bar stools that we've had for a few years now. They were purchased secondhand for an outdoor party and, other than outdoor parties, they'd mainly been in the basement, gathering dust and cobwebs. Being an older item, they're solidly built, but were a little plain, so we gave them a facelift!

I'd already taken the staples out of the fabric when I took this shot, but you get the idea. Perfectly okay, but pretty boring.

Removing the staples was by far the worst part of this job. Whoever put them in originally put them in to STAY. About two hours and 200 staples later, they were free of their fabric!

The shot I took of using the fabric as a pattern was bizarrely out of focus, but you get the idea here - press the previous fabric flat, trace around the edge and cut your new fabric out. Easy!

Fit your new fabric over the stools, then staple, staple staple and hammer, hammer, hammer! Remember how frustrating it was to take out all of those staples in step one and create the same frustration for the next owner!

And voila! Your custom bar stools for the cost of a couple of used bar stools and a yard of fabric! We were lucky in that the padding that the previous owners had used was still in good shape. If yours isn't, or your stools don't have padding, you can pick foam padding up at the fabric store. We used barkcloth, from the home decor section, for our new covers. A fabric designed for furniture is your best bet for something that will get a lot of use. Don't forget to take a coupon if you're visiting a chain fabric store, since they all have them!

Please be seated! What can I get you to drink?

The Velveteen Lounge Tour of Records Begins

On our live broadcast Sunday evening we mentioned that there are record album covers decorating most of the corners of our house. They change seasonally and, in some cases, with every Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en episode. I love decorating with album covers because they're typically very inexpensive, fun and they make unique wall art. And how many pieces of wall art can you listen to?! Here are just a few of the album covers we have on display right now:

Our tiki dining room

The headboard of our bed

The Liberace Powder Room

Nautical cocktail records - a collection within a collection!

If you're inspired to begin collecting album covers for your walls, here are my best tips:

Great album covers are everywhere! You'll be able to find striking covers most quickly if you visit eBay and stores that specialize in vinyl, but don't overlook thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets and library sales. It takes longer to amass a collection that way, but you'll save lots of money!

If you're looking for albums recorded for mid-century cocktail parties, "how to" records and the like, look for bins marked "Weird," "Strange," "Oddities," etc. These are typically not arranged by artist.

Allow plenty of time when hunting for records. Many of the best scores are in the $1 bins, which stores typically keep on the floor, below the shelves with more valuable records. They're usually in no particular order, so it can take a while to comb through all those bins!

Dress for crawling around on the floor. I often don't follow my own advice and find myself on the floor in a little dress, trying to stay covered. Not ideal. Comfortable shoes are also recommended.

Craft stores, such as Michael's, carry album frames, which make even the cheesiest $1 records seem downright artistic! Save money on those frames by downloading store coupons, which they always have online. Don't pay full price, since you will never need to!

More of our albums coming soon, since they change constantly!