YELLOW PAGES

If you're crazy about vintage books like our dear Shihui, Bras Basah Complex will be the ideal hideout for you to spend one whole afternoon there. Vintage books are even easier to be identified for their ages than apparels as the publishing years and editions are printed clearly. Children books are among the best keepsakes, from my point of view. & don't find me eccentric, but there's this epic aged smell of the yellow pages which make them even magical. Illustrated bibles, history books, encyclopedias, vintage Snoopy and Garfield's, nursery rhymes, Jane Austen's, postcards, you name it. And some are priced at 3 for S$10.

We also found a great chill out place today at Strictly Pancakes, Prinsep Street. They probably serve the best pancakes in Singapore!

MIDFEB

SHOP THE STORE

VALENTINE

Handmade leopard fur collar, vintage plain black silk top, Twonine bandage skirt, vintage Crocodile bag, assorted vintage button rings.

Love comes in all forms: partner, friends, family, pets, strangers, teachers, yourself. It's really sweet to see people around sending flowers and balloons and wishes and you can never find a wider grin on each person's face. Today, I did all the cheesiest stuff I could think of: cheesy phrases on paper bags for the loved ones, cheesy hearts napkin as a bib during dinner, and a pair of cheesy heart shaped aviators as a gift for myself! It made them laugh so hard they couldn't say no to my cheesy way of expressing love!

Please ignore my oily face and hair after a long day outside but I just wanted to show you all the valentine's outfit. I didn't plan this firsthand. but unexpectedly it's period day 1, hence black becomes the dominant color. And coincidentally, it serves as an experiment with the handmade collar. It's my first time wearing a detachable collar. At first I felt uneasy as the collar got 'dislocated' all the time. I tried to tie the ribbon shorter behind. That works. But I would suggest you might need to hide a pin underneath the collar to secure it better with the neck area of your top.

Last but not least, happy Valentine's day to all CGV readers and customers! We love you all!

QUADRILATERAL

Just a photo sharing post of my personal boxes family collection and vintage postcards I've gotten from my ex-classmates when they're in UK. If you're an old customer of CGV, I've always included a postcard as a thank you note in the parcel. But as time goes till now, the humble collection of postcards can't really cope with the amount of thank you we have to say! Maybe it's time to design some retro postcards! Though it take two weeks or more for the snail mail to arrive, it's probably one of the best traditions that most contemporary people have long neglected or forgotten.

The boxes are from various sources. I got the basket bag from a local wedding supply store. The beautiful beaded clutch was a surprise gift from the really sweet ex-classmates during our Bali art exploration trip. The hand painted rose wooden box was a birthday gift from my junior college sweetheart. While the rectangle 'nursery' luggage is from Lovely Lace. It's an ideal container for keeping jewelries from getting rusty and oxidized. If you've visited us during our pop up event, you'll see it sitting daintily on the desk as a display case and adornment piece.

P/S: Thank you so so much for the over-overwhelming response for the DIY collar! We'll introduce more easy DIY tutorials in future as well!

PETER PAN COLLAR

Today we had some DIY sessions in the store. It's a peter pan collar made of faux leopard fur, a leftover of a major failure from our last winter project (we're trying to make a vest!). But for this decorative collar, it's really easy and everyone can do it. And don't you think that some of the detachable collars sold outside are overpriced?

All you need is
a piece of fabric (at least 24cm x 20cm)

(You can purchase the faux animal fur cloth at Spotlight, felt is another good material)
scissors
ribbon
needle and thread
button

pencil/marker
fabric glue/hot glue gun (optional)

Copy/print the collar palette template here. Draw and cut out the two collar pieces. If you would like to sew the edges, please make sure to leave 0.5cm or more wider of the original template. If you're using any the faux fur fabric, do make sure that the direction of the fur flow to be downwards or the collar will look weird.

Remove any flying or cutout fur and thread if you're using faux fur.

Overlap the the wider ends of the collar and sew a button on them.

For the two thinner ends, glue or sew the ribbon straps

It's really that easy. All you need is just 20 minutes. But if you really love our version of fur collars, we managed to make not only 3 but 10 collars out of our piece of leftover, which means it's another giveaway! After much discussion, the team thinks that one giveaway is simply not enough to express our gratitude. These peter pan collars might not be perfect, you might even spot some flyaway fur, and might be itchy for some (due to the fur material), but they're all handmade with love. And best of all, all 10 are sewn with different vintage buttons in the middle! The first 10 customers will receive this beautiful fur collar. All fur collars will be posted via Poslaju/Singpost normal postage to your doorstep. Thank you very much!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED