Living the Vintage Life.

Lately I have been feeling myself revert to a decade long ago, when times were simpler and people seemed to care more about, well, everything. I love old things. I already told you about my record player. How I love her so. It is so much fun to grab a record here and there while I am out with Dennis, then come home and listen to its warm crackly sound. In an age of mp3 players that fit in the palm of your hand and can hold every song you own, something so big is only a novelty to most, but I really do prefer it to my ipod docking station when I am at home.

I have added a couple new-old analogue technologies to the house recently, one of which being my new Brother Charger 11 typewriter. It is in great condition and works perfectly. I was lucky enough to find this little mustard-yellow beauty at a local antique store for twenty bucks! The man who sold it to me told me it belonged to a retired little old lady who was still doing some typist jobs on Sundays. Cute!

They are around $75 online but most of those still have the hard plastic cover/carry case that made this super-heavy instrument "portable". I do not foresee taking it on the go with me so I figure I will just sew a sturdy fabric box-type cover for it to minimize cat hair. When I got this I was having trouble figuring out a few things since the manual is obviously no longer with it, and I found the information very hard to come by online, so I will offer up some of what I learned.

First off, it needed a ribbon when I got it, and I looked all over online and found some for around ten dollars, but I decided to just go to Office Max and see what they had - you should have seen the look I got when I asked them where they kept the typewriter ribbons, lol.

None of the boxes mentioned that they were compatible with the model I have, probably just because it is too old, but any plain double-spool 1/2 inch ribbon will work (the picture on the box just looks like 2 little film reels), and I grabbed the one they had for about five dollars and it worked great! I had a little trouble figuring out how to put the ribbon in, but all you have to do is pull the cover straight up off the top of the machine (from what I can tell it does not lock), and the prongs/spool rests will be obvious. Press some letter buttons to make sure which way they turn, and slip the spools on so that the ribbon is being pulled, not pushed along when you strike a key. Then gently thread the ribbon through the foot in the center of the typewriter. If you are really gentle you will not get hardly any ink on your hands, but if you do remember that rubbing alcohol will take it right off, even out of clothing.

Also, if you are wondering why there is no key for the number one or an exclamation point, it was omitted for simplicity (tee-hee). If you need to make a one, just use lowercase L. And for an exclamation point, type a period, then back space and type an apostrophe. I just about died laughing when I found out about that as I did not even notice it when I bought the machine!

A lot of people have asked me what the heck I am planning to do with my new typewriter, and I really just want to use it to write letters and songs mostly. It's just good old fashioned fun, and very satisfying to boot, every time you whack the keys with enough force to get an imprint and make it to the end of the line to hear the little bell.

Another addition to my transition into the early 60's is my new Diana Mini camera. She really is new, not vintage, but the retro styling is superb and everyone asks me if it is old. It is tiny, only about as big as my digital pocket-sized one, though a lot thicker. It uses 35mm film and is basically a toy camera, though I am very pleased with the two rolls I have shot so far. it shoots square format and half-frame, and you can switch between formats within the same roll of film. It has a hot seat for a flash and you can connect a tripod, cable release, or any other photographic doodad you want to it. It only has 4 focal ranges and 2 f-stops, plus a bulb mode for long exposures. In short: Best. Camera. Ever. Here's some of what I have shot, and I will be scanning all the really good ones and posting them on my flickr soon.

I shot a bunch of 1/2 frame ones while Dennis and I were having a picnic at the lake. Ths one was my favorite so it is in our bedroom now.

I found this fantastic little photo album at Kinokuniya Stationary in Japantown in San Francisco. The toy camera craze started in Japan so I was not suprised to find the perfect album to store the format in. I have my pictures printed 4x4 instead of the standard 5x5, which is good because I do not think 5x5 would quite fit in the little album (Meant to be right?), and I use the sloppy black border. Having them a little smaller than usual adds a sweet feeling to the pictures when you see them in person.

This one is my favorite from the square-format roll I shot. Oh, did I mention it is super easy to do double exposures with this little camera? You have to wind it after every shot, but you get to choose how much so if you do not wind it all the way they will overlap.

The half frames always get printed 2 to a 4x6 print, and I ask for the sloppy black border on those too. I have an interesting art project in mind for the ones that did not come out, but it is a big one so I will not be sharing it fr quite some time!

This is one of my favorites from the 1/2 frame roll. Dennis just recently bought a sweet little '74 Toyota Corolla. It is a deep tealy-blue and is absolutely adorable. I wish I could drive it but I do not know stick, but he promises to teach me. I took these photos while he was finishing up talking to the guy he bought it from.

Sorry for the kind of bad photos of my kind of good photos, lol. I will work on getting those scans done when I find the time, probably next weekend! Oh, by the way, I used Picnik again to do the top 3 photos. I love that site, I just wish it was a program I could use without an internet connection like Picassa.

*If you would like to sign up for the Finish It challenge, you can e-mail me at ohthecuteness@hotmail.com or go to this post and leave a comment, and be sure to read all the rules. Be sure to include a link to your blog if you have one, and go join the flickr group here. The list of participants and links to their own unfinished objects is here. And my ongoing list can be found here.