I think every family is a little bit dysfunctional, but we learn to love each other anyway because that's what family is all about. You love each other despite one another's quirks and shortcomings.


It's been FIVE years since I've seen my little sister and my Mom! My family back story is a little complicated, so I won't go into it, but this past week spending time with my family have been so wonderful!

Then a few days later, my fella flew down and joined us in the sunshine state (and met my Mom and sister for the first time!) My past week was spent getting a little r&r, doing some vintage buying for the shop, playing pickle ball with my Dad + sis, ping pong with my Mom + sis, going to Disney, and laughing with my family. Twas pretty wonderful I'd say!

Robby said my family is super easy going. Which is true, we're all pretty chill. My mom and I are probably the least easy going though. Anyhow... here are some photos from my trip!

It's so nice to finally take a breath and just be mellow yellow for awhile. I suppose that's the inspiration behind this blog post...the apparent yellow peppering the Adored Vintage instagram feed lately and also the general mood I find I'm in.

What do the colors golden and yellow bring out for you or in you? I've never been a huge fan of yellow to be honest... but lately, it seems this pretty golden hue has been inspiring me a lot.

The past couple of months for AV have been incredibly hectic and crazy. AV is such a close part of my life, it nearly IS my life. It has been weeks of non-stop work and I am really happy to announce all the big things are done and now it's time to settle back into a daily groove.

So what have I been up to lately?



The biggest thing... the grand opening of my brick + mortar I share with my fella, ORN HANSEN. For awhile, we talked about someday opening up a men's and women's general store...and after 4 months of building out the shop, choosing brands, and all the other craziness that goes into opening up a brick + mortar store... we finally opened our doors on September 26th!

Following that, I popped up again at A Current Affair, the premiere vintage marketplace in downtown Los Angeles. As always, I got to meet loads of wonderful people and some of you gals that follow AV on Instagram! I always get so giddy when I get to meet you in real life!

This past weekend, one of my dear friends and I, took some much needed time off from our jobs and spent it exploring the streets of San Francisco, drinking loads of coffee, and singing loudly in the car with the windows rolled down.

So much more of course, but I really don't want to bore you with a laundry list of how busy I've been. I'm sure you can tell.

What's new in your life?

Although my trip to Portland was a daily go-go-go, I had the most wonderful of time exploring the city with my fella and discovering new things to love about the city of roses! We spent two days shopping the city non-stop, partly for myself and mostly to restock the vintage shop! (And I've got several treasures to show you!)

All around the city were flowers and so much damn green! I think I about said "It's so frickin green here!" roughly 100 times. We'd go around a bend on the road and I'd let out a big "Ahhh it's so frickin green here!!!" As if I had never seen the color green in all my life! A short trip across the border to Washington landed us at the Pendleton Outlet where I got some terrific new staple pieces for my wardrobe. A rust orange long blazer that reminds me of a riding coat, a nubby grey wool sweater, and a fitted vintage cut dark denim chambray.

I also met up with some very adorable vintage gals. Julie from Fabgabs Vintage, Janey from Atomic Redhead, and the lovely Solanah who was our Vintage Gal of the Month earlier this year. There are some really cute pics Solanah took over on her blog, Vixen Vintage if you'd like to see better photos than my small black and white of us four.

This was a jam packed trip including a celebration of my fella's grandparents 60th wedding anniversary (I pulled out my florist hat and decorated the cake and created the flower arrangements), playing golf on a real course for the first time, hiking up to the top of Multnomah Falls, and meeting wonderful new friends such as Christian from 1924.us, who has inspired me for some time via Instagram.

Oh, there were all those gorgeous flowers I kept squealing over in Edgefield and tasting the most amazing biscuits in my entire life at Bob's Red Mill.

There are several more photos I didn't post, so if you'd like to see more from my Portland trip (including peeks of vintage!) then follow @adoredvintage on Instagram or you can simply visit here: Adoredvintage on Instagram.

It has been one crazy busy year so far (can't believe it's MAY already!). I really did have intentions to do a once a month recap of the month before via Instagram, but well, other things have taken precedence. I post new happenings on instagram, so if you feel so inclined to follow my daily adventures as a vintage shopkeeper you can find me @adoredvintage.



I also post a lot of previews of what will be arriving in the vintage shop. Oh and occasion I post a fruit tart. I average one fruit tart photo a month. Sad. LOL. Or is it?

This year will forever burn in my mind and heart as the year I felt the most alive. Both my personal and work life was one hell of a roller coaster and I did my best to not fall off the ride even though at times I just wanted to say "To hell with all this!"

I am so grateful, so thankful, and so overjoyed about everything that happened this year. Even thankful for the bad for it taught and showed me that time and time again I stood back up and dusted myself off and kept on going. This year has been a year of forgiveness, of healing, and of love.

And of course it has been an amazing year for Adored Vintage! A few close personal friends know the story behind the name change and why there is now a "D" added to Adore. I won't divulge any details here, but it worked out all right in the end!


In JANUARY I shared the first photos of the studio when I still shared it with my friend, Esther Jean. Throughout the year the studio underwent quite a few changes. Like when I decided to repaint the studio (for better lighting) and when the studio was just for AdoredVintage in the first official tour of the atelier.

In MARCH my downtown vintage atelier was featured on Apartment Therapy: Inside the Lovely Studio of Adored Vintage! I was so honored by the feature! This was my third feature in Apartment Therapy! In MARCH I also participated in A Current Affair: Vintage Marketplace which is the best vintage event in Los Angeles. Great space, great music, an open bar... all for $10! Pretty rad! Um I also met one of my style icons, Clemence Poesy, at my vintage booth!


SPRING was probably the roughest time of the year for me. I was all over the place. I was pretty much hating/complaining about my full time job every moment of the day, working super late (until 11PM sometimes) at my studio to keep my vintage shop running, and was basically just stressed every damn day. I got down to 93LBS at one point and was smoking cigarettes every day.

I really had to get myself together otherwise I knew everything would fall apart. Hesitantly I started attending a new church. I had several reservations as I've never been that religious, more spiritual. But little by little I started to trust and open up to this new community and my life and the way I saw things started to change! It was early SUMMER that my life started to turn around. It was like a rising from the ashes (haha silly pun on cigarettes as I stopped smoking at this point)

During the SUMMER I started working on a new design for a new vintage website. I had debated on changing the name, redoing an entire new logo... but in the end I stayed with the name I really adored. And so came adoreDvintage!


At the end of SEPTEMBER I opened AdoredVintage.com and within a couple of months the site traffic went from an average of 150 a day to an average of 1200 a day! By OCTOBER I had left my full time job to work on Adored Vintage full time and I haven't looked back since!

At the start of the year I had 2 clothing racks in the studio. Now I have 6 and they are overflowing! This DECEMBER, I decided I wanted to open up a shop and also live there and within the same month I had found the place and signed the papers! (God answered my prayers and lightning fast too!)


Also this month I made a rather large investment for my company and it's growth for 2013. I don't want to say too much as of yet, but let's just say my inventory is about to be multiplied by FIVE within the next 30 days.

In 2012 we hit over 1700 daily visits on Adoredvintage.com, over 7,000 Facebook fans, over 4,000 Instagram followers, over 4,000 Twitter followers, and over 7,000 Pinterest followers. A GIGANTIC THANK YOU, thank you, thank YOU for all of your love, support, encouragement, prayers, and fellowship!

As I reflect over the year I am deeply humbled by the grace God has given me. I am deeply encouraged by the support and love from all of you, my friends, and newfound family. And I am so excited for 2013! LET'S DO THIS!!!

This past weekend my fella and I took a little trip into the mountains for a little R&R. One of the things I really love about California is that in a couple hours of time your entire scenery and landscape can change. In 2 hours you can be in the desert, then the mountains, then along the coast! Ahh, California I love you!





The first leg of our trip was just lots of open skies and open road. We stopped off the side of the road at one point so I could pick wild flowers to press later. The compilation photo above is probably my favorite of my fella and I. We're both wearing our every day garb (him usually in a plain white shirt, me in my favorite denim button up)...it started sprinkling when the photo was snapped of me and clearly I was enjoying that. *hehe*



There was no internet service at our final destination so for nearly 24 hours I was without access to the entire world. The first few hours my mind was basically in a wild panic..."what the hell am I suppose to be doing now?!" But after awhile we just walked around, visited the town center (which consisted literally of one boutique, one cafe, one pizza place, one bar, one church, and 3 real estate offices). Happily the next morning I discovered that the cafe had free wi-fi. Hooray!

The next day we did some serious antique shopping. I think we filled up my fella's truck with tons of loot! Yippie! The little mini California road trip ended with an impromptu stop at a historical landmark, Fort Tejon, which is where the following photos were all snapped.



more photos from my instagram: adoredvintage