Knitting a dress is always something I've wanted to do but being a very slow knitter, I haven't attempted it yet! I'm in love with this beautiful 1957 dress with its simple bodice and skirt to flatter any figure.
See my free patterns page for more vintage knitting, crochet and sewing patterns.

My kids return to school next month and although I'll miss them while they're gone all day I will be so happy to have more time and space for sewing again! I've been pouring over all kinds of websites looking for sewing inspiration and I collected some beautiful freebie patterns that I'm dying to try. \

Sewing can be more expensive than buying ready-to-wear clothes so free patterns are great for a sewist on a budget! Here are 20 free 1950s style dress patterns and tutorials, I hope you enjoy them!
 For more freebies, check out my Free Patterns page

 Twirling Sundress tutorial from Mama Says Sew

This beautiful twirl dress features a ruffle neckline with short sleeves and a twirly circle skirt. Sew it in a fabulous novelty print or solids for a great vintage basic in a capsule wardrobe.







Day Date Dress Tutorial from Elle Apparel Blog

This classic day dress features short sleeves, a gathered flowy skirt and sweet collar. Perfect for the office and date in the evening.



Barbara Dress pattern from On the Cutting Floor




The Notebook Inspired gingham dress from All Free Sewing

This sweetheart bodice halter dress is inspired by one of my favorite romantic moves, The Notebook and best of all, it has pockets!! 

Sun Dress tutorial from The Sassy Sparrow

Gingerbread Coffee Date Dress, this is modified from the Coffee Date dress pattern from Burda Style
(click the link to the right of the photo)


Date Night Dress pattern from Love Sewing Magazine

Little Black Circle Skirt Dress free pattern from Craftsy



Mixed Stripe Flare Dress from Bluprint



Elsa Sweetheart dress pattern from Burda Style 





Box Pleat Party Dress from Sew Vera Venus




the easy tee dress pattern from Its Always Autumn

1950s Carmen Dress pattern from Ralph Pink

Garden Party dress pattern from Honig Design







Rosemary dress free pattern (dark green below) from A Robot Heart






Easy boatneck dress tutorial from OhOhBlog



Katjusha Swing Dress size 34-36 from Burda Style


Sundress Bodice Pattern from Vera Venus

Sweetheart halter dress  and  50s sleeveless box pleat dress free patterns from Sew Vera Venus 

Summer is in full swing and it seems to get hotter every week here in St Louis. With heat and humidity, roller sets and pin curls go flat in minutes. Here are 5 easy vintage summer hairstyles to keep you cool and fuss-free till autumn.  See my other tutorials on my Beauty Tutorials page



                      

Lazy Beehive

The Notebook Allie's hair 




1940s Ribbon Braid Updo




How to put on a snood

        

Here's a pretty crochet pattern from 1946 for little flower earrings and a matching brooch with little red beads.  Check out my free patterns page for more free vintage crochet, knitting and sewing patterns.


                              
                                         

Here's a pretty spring and summer knit blouse from 1946 for a simple but elegant blouse with a sexy netting over the midsection.

Check out my Free Patterns page for more free vintage knitting, sewing and crochet patterns. Enjoy!




** this pattern is posted for free so that everyone may enjoy it. Please do not sell this pattern but please do share it! **

I am so in love with this 1957 scarf, that dramatic widow's peak is begging to be done in black and red or metallic sparkly yarn. I hope to see several of you ladies rocking these on Instagram this winter! I know I will! See my free patterns page for more vintage knitting, crochet and sewing patterns.

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, the only one we'll get this year so I'm planning to wear my DIY Friday the 13th brooch. This brooch is inspired by a spectacular vintage Bakelite brooch with several cute bad luck charms.



Fork and knife:
A crossed fork and knife in some parts of the world shows that you are not finished with your meal. In others, it's bad manners. An old superstition is that a crossed fork and knife symbolizes a cross and
represents death.
8 ball:
to be behind an 8 ball means that you're in a bad spot or experiencing bad luck
black cat:
If a black cat crosses your path, they say you'll have 7 years of bad luck
Ace of spades:
In fortune telling, the ace of spades is the Death card
match sticks:
during WWII, a superstition held that if 3 soldiers lit their cigarette from the same match, one of them would be shot or die in battle. This was known as “3 on a match” or “the unlucky 3rd light”




I've included the templates and full photo tutorial for this brooch in my e-book, Pins for Pinups: DIY Brooches for Retro Girls. This brooch uses printable templates, which are cut out of thin rolled clay, so there's very little clay working skills needed. (Trust me on this, I tried to sculpt one by hand and it was a mess!)

Pins for Pin-Ups includes 11 other step by step tutorials for vintage inspired novelty brooches, using a lot of materials from your recycling bin or things that you already have around the house. This ebook is delivered automatically via email in PDF format, so you can read it on your computer or any device with a PDF reader! 

 

           

Happy Easter! We colored our eggs, the Easter bunny brought a bunch of candy for the kids and we're spending the sunny afternoon relaxing.

While looking through my old magazines this week, I found this adorable 1950s college girl stripe cardigan knitting pattern. I've never knitted anything with more than one color before but I think stripes is a good place to start! I love the high collar and elbow-length sleeves. You could pair it with a skirt or jeans and wear it year round!



 



Be sure to check my free patterns page for 60+ free vintage knitting, crochet and sewing patterns and more free vintage pattern downloads here on Va-Voom Vintage Enjoy!

                

I needed a cute new brooch for spring. I love lemons so I thought "Hey, let's do a lemon brooch tutorial!"



I've made a million brooches in felt and shrink plastic so this time I wanted to do something different. I love the look of laser cut plastic jewelry but since we don't all have a laser cutter, I sat, thinking about what materials we could use for something like laser cut jewelry without the expensive machines.

My blog planner was laying at my feet and the shiny laminated plastic cover caught my eye. Laminate....plastic.... How about cheap plastic folders? Eureka!



You will need:
a few cheap plastic folders :yellow, white or clear/frosted, green. I used the back of this coupon organizer for my white plastic
E6000 craft glue or something similar
a pin back
scissors
this printable template { Download HERE from Dropbox }

trace your template pieces onto the folder with a white crayon or dry erase marker so it'll wipe away easily

cut out two yellow wedges and one white sectioned piece. You'll need a craft knife to carefully cut out some of the inside bits. Wipe the traced pattern away


Glue the two yellow wedges together


Glue the white section on top and wipe away excess glue.



Glue a pin on the back




And how cute is that?! You could do oranges, limes, strawberries, watermelon and all different shapes with these plastic folders. I love it!



If you enjoyed this tutorial, check out my ebook, Pins for Pin-Ups: DIY Brooches for Retro Girls, where I teach you how to make 12 vintage inspired brooches using supplies from the recycling bin.

I'm dusting off some spring hats this afternoon to freshen them up for the season. I've had a lot of questions about what types of hairstyles you should wear under a hat so here are a couple of simple, quick ideas from Senior Prom magazine, March 1951

My Great Grandma Alma was a young woman during the Great Depression and a young mother during WWII. Her daughter, my grandma was a housewife, my mom was a housewife and now I am too. Although all of us housewives have to make sacrifices to afford to stay home, we also save a fortune if we do it right.

Great grandma taught me some of the essentials of being a great housewife when I was just a pre-teen and how she survived the Great Depression by being smart with what she had. Here are 9 things my grandma never threw away. Save money and live greener with these clever vintage housewife tips....

Worn clothes/towels/sheets
Never pitch fabric because you can always use it for something new. In grandma's time, ladies sewed dresses from beautifully printed feed and flour sacks or whipped up a little girl's dress from her mother's old dress.

A man's suit could be cut and sewn to make one for a lady and any remaining scraps would become an heirloom quilt. Today, most of us won't be hacking up hubby's old suit to make one for ourselves but we can still apply this make-do and mend mentality. Learn basic sewing repairs to extend your family's wardrobe.

 I've rescued so many pairs of my husband's jeans with a new zipper or hem, darned a favorite sweater for myself and my sister and made a big stack of great dish rags with threadbare towels. Even an old sheet can be sewn into new pillow cases or a little summer dress.

 I used old sheets and scrap fabric to make some much loved Christmas gifts for my kids last fall and they didn't cost a penny. I made giant Nessie stuffed animals, softie dolls, furnished a dollhouse and sewed the entire 1959 Barbie wardrobe with a bunch of fabric scraps.



Aluminum foil
Depending on the first-time use, some foil may be beyond a second life but if it can be rinsed off, use it again! Re-use foil to cover left overs more than once or wad it up, stick it in a potato or onion bag and you have a great pan scrubber that you didn't have to buy.

One winter, our car wouldn't start so my husband popped the hood to find that the battery terminals weren't looking so hot. He used a small wad of tin foil to scrub the corrosion off the terminals and the car fired right up and ran without any problems.



 

Buttons on shirts
Even in 2016, buttons are expensive! With a 50% off coupon, I'll easily spend $1 or more for a lousy pack of 4 buttons. Thanks to grandma, I never throw away worn clothes that still have their buttons.

Re-use buttons on clothes you've sewn yourself or to replace lost buttons.  I also take zippers from worn jeans, pants and dresses. With a good stock of buttons in a jar, you'll rarely need to buy any, which brings me to our next no-pitch item

Jars, boxes, jugs or any container
Great grandma must have been quite the jar hoarder because the jar obsession has passed down to my grandma, my mother and now me. We rarely pitch a jar, be it glass or plastic, big or small!

 Use jars for spices and grains in the kitchen, to hold your hair ties, q-tips and cotton balls in the bathroom. My husband has jars of screws and nails in his workshop and I use them in my sewing room, cleaning cabinet and of course, one with holes in the lid so the kids can catch critters in the summer. Decorate jars so you can keep them out in the open and no one will guess that they may have deemed them ready for the trash can.

Mason jars are now selling for a pretty penny, especially the colored vintage looking ones. Color your own for a trendy look on a dime store budget. My mom made her own Moroccan inspired lanterns from old spaghetti sauce jars.

Save boxes as well. Shoe boxes are worth their weight in gold in my house. We use them for our craft supplies, snack organizers in the pantry, holiday decor storage and kids school projects. Break boxes down to store flat, if you're low on space.



Bones from a chicken or cut of meat | Veggie Scraps
My family loves a rotisserie chicken or nice roast for dinner and the left-over bones make wonderful stock. A box of chicken stock costs around $2-3 at my local grocery stores but it's easy to make your own for free.

a freezer bag in the freezer and toss veggie scraps and chicken carcasses in the bag. When you're ready for a great soup this winter, toss the contents in a pot of water, season with herbs, salt and pepper. In the Great Depression house, not a scrap of food was wasted.


A Diaper
This one won't be for everyone but the truth is, Great grandma never threw away a diaper because she used cloth. When my daughter was born, I was a stay at home mom with plenty of extra time for laundry so we decided to give it a shot and try cloth diapers to save money like grandma used to do.

Just shake solids into the toilet and flush away and have enough on hand to wash about every two days. Stains are quickly bleached away by hanging in the sun. We saved a fortune and we never added a diaper to the landfills. And a fluffy cloth diapered butt is so cute!

Now that my kids have outgrown their diapers, we've sold the ones in good shape on Craigslist and saved the rest for great cleaning rags. 

Bacon fat
To this day, many of my family members hang on to bacon fat. Oil and lard costs money so why pitch that flavorful, wonderful bacon grease?  Keep one of those recycled glass jars in the kitchen to store bacon fat. Add it to gravy, soup, cornbread, potato salad and potato cakes. Bacon fat keeps in the fridge for a month.

Newspaper
My home was built in 1930 and we've found old newspaper in the walls as insulation! Grandma may have used newspaper for : gift wrap (use the funnies!) glass cleaner, storing breakables, compost, starting seeds, make a pinata, packaging material in the mail, pet cage liner or to start a fire


 

Soap scraps
Those pointless little slivers from a soap bar can still be put to use. Put the scraps of bar soap in an old pantyhose leg or worn out stocking and tie it off. Stick it by the sink for kids (who, in my house use way too much liquid soap) or next to the garden sink.

My husband's grandma makes these amazing olives for every family gathering. They're so perfectly retro- an olive, cream cheese, lunch meat on a toothpick.As people filter in, drop their coats and get the kids settled, they all grab several at a time from the platter and if you're late to the party, you're out of luck because they'll be long gone!

A few years ago, I arrived early enough to help out in the kitchen and got to learn how she makes these little jewels. They're messy, fiddly, pretty time-consuming, considering how quickly the plate is emptied but if you're looking for a great retro recipe that is sure to impress, this is the one! I brought these to a 1950s cocktail Christmas party two years ago and everyone loved them.


You will need:

a jar of green olives, drained
a pack of cream cheese
thin sliced corned beef lunch meat
toothpicks

First, let the olives sit on a paper towel so the brine dries a bit. Wet olives are a pain to roll. Wash your hands well because you'll be digging in the cream cheese.




Grab a little ball of cream cheese, flatten a bit and wrap it around the olive. Seal the olive in the cream cheese with your fingertips or roll it in your hand so its completely covered. You have to work quick because the heat of your hands will soften the cream cheese too much and it'll be a sticky mess if you aren't careful. Your first few will be a mess but keep it up!






Slice the corned beef and wrap one long thin slice around the cream cheese covered olive. Secure with a toothpick and set on the plate.



This is a great recipe to do with someone else because one person can be the cream cheese roller and the other can handle the corned beef. Pj's grandma and mom usually sit and make these a few hours before the party while they're waiting on the main dishes to cook. You can also make them the day before and keep them covered in the fridge.