Lorain Antiques: Probably the best vintage shop I've been to, EVER!

Happy Thanksgiving! We're probably on our way to Bowling Green as you read this, ready to eat lots of field roast and vegan mashed potatoes! I thought I would celebrate today by posting about something I am thankful for, this amazing shop!

We hadn't done much vintage shopping on this trip. There was just so much to see! I read about this place on the Modcloth blog a few years ago (I keep extensive notes on places I want to go someday. Nerd alert.) Now you all know I have been to many vintage shops and antique malls over the years. And I've become a little spoiled with the great estate sales in Nashville. But Sweet Lorain's was something else! The best vintage shop I've been to EVER!

The first thing I saw was not one, not two, but SIX poodle bottle covers! You know, the ones I collect. It was a theme, if you were interested in something, they had 10 to 100 of that thing to choose from! It was incredible!

 Want some vintage necklaces? They have hundreds! There was a three tier display of enamel flowers too! I was zipping around with my mouth hanging open, not even sure where to look first! The guy working there said "Are you in your happy place?" Oh was I ever!

 I wondered if they had knee huggers or Dream Pet deer. They only had a bin full of each.

 Since it was close to Halloween they didn't have much Christmas out yet. i can't even imagine!

 And I know what you are wondering, how were the prices? They weren't flea market cheap of course, but everything was very reasonable! No price tag made me call the vendors delusional, which is something I do a lot. I never quite figured out how it worked, was it like an antique mall with different vendors, or did the owners of the store buy all this amazing stuff!

 I still can't get over it. I'm so used to the experience of walking through an antique mall and seeing one cool thing every few booths, with an occasional booth full of stuff I like. This whole place was full of stuff I like! I could have spent my entire souviner budget here!

 Even the bathroom was cute!

 So pink! So cute! The stalls were painted pink.

 The walls outside the bathroom were lined with vintage bathroom stuff. Loved every bit of it.

And the furniture! Not just one dinette set, I bet they had 10! And couches! And LAMPS! They might have had over 100 lamps, all cool! My head was spinning!

 I was very tempted by this poodle lady, who stores a set of curlers in her skirt!

 The last thing I need is vintage bar ware, but I love to look!

 And then there were these fish bowls FULL of vintage photos! Woah! I think we looked through six or seven. I didn't even get a close up look at the salt and pepper shakers. I just didn't have the strength!

 How many sections of vintage dog figurines can one store have??

 I didn't even get to the vintage clothes, which was probably a third of the store! I'm not much of a vintage clothing shopper, as I'm not really a vintage size. But I can't even imagine what is lurking in there! Travis found a BUNCH of cute men's jackets, but they were a little out of our budget, us being at the tail end of our vacation.

 I was tempted by this apron. Who is Larry? Who made him this apron? Is it a self portrait of him in just underwear, glasses, and boots?

 Here is just a tiny portion of their purses. You could spend hours digging here! We were going to go to a movie about an hour and a half after we got here, but I told Travis to forget it! I'm not sure how long we ended up staying, but it was hours!

 The man working there (might have been the owner) was great too. He sussed out my taste within moments and kept bringing me things I loved! He also printed off a list of his favorite places in Cleveland. Actually, Cleveland was the friendliest place we visited on our trip! Everyone was so nice and gave us tips on places to go and let us pet their pugs (I might have stopped two people and asked to pet their pugs. I was missing my girls!) Sweet Lorraine was amazing. We will be back for SURE!

 Here is what I brought home. The two best poodle covers of course, a POODLE TEA POT! I've seen lots of deer ones like it (I have two actually) but never a poodle! Two pennants and a pile of photos. The pennants are the start of our redo of the "Jesus hallway" in our house. I want to fill it with pennants and plates of places we have been.

 Close up of the poodle set! The cream and sugar bowls are missing the tops but I don't care! Beautiful!

A Christmas Story House and Museum

 Do you love A Christmas Story? I really do. If you haven't seen it but are a fan of vintage stop what you are doing and watch it. The story takes place in the 1940's and is full of the most amazing sets and costumes (not to mention it is hilarious!) I can't wait to watch it! I might not make it all the way to December.
The film takes places in Indiana, but a lot of it was filmed in Cleveland. A man who owns a company who now produces the famous leg lamps bought the house used in exterior (and some interior) film shots and renovated it to get it as close to the movie house as possible. And you can tour it!

 There is a little museum across the street full of great photos and costumes and props.

Apparently there was a deleted scene with Ralphie and Flash Gordon. And there is the famous snow suit. That chenille robe! When the movie was made they didn't know it would become such a beloved classic so lots of the costumes got absorbed back into the Warner Brothers costume department.

 I was always so jealous of Flick's cool aviator hat! They actually sell reproductions of all the kids hats in the gift shop, but it didn't look as cool on me as I always imagined. Ha!

 The gift shop was really great. There were tons of leg lamp themed souvenirs.

 The hats! They had the hilarious elf hats from the movie too! And Randy's bib!

 There was also a section dedicated to Christmas Vacation, which is Travis' all time favorite movie. He was in hog heaven! He got this apron: Save the neck for me Clark!

 Cousin Eddie hat.

 Then it was time for our tour! The guide makes it seem like they tried to make all the furnishings match the movie exactly. Not true, but they have lots of period stuff and they let you touch everything and take photos! We loved it!

They have all kinds of props. Like a bowling ball and a bee bee gun under the tree. You get about 30 minutes to take all the photos you want. Most people clear out quick so we were able to take as many as we wanted!

 "Fra-gee-lay, must be Italian!" That scene makes me laugh every single time. And there is Travis posing just like Ralphie when he had his bunny pjs on. He is always a good sport when I want to take photos, but he was just as happy I was while we were here.

 He even put the soap in his mouth! Ha! Real soap! I love that they had a hamper by the toilet with a decoder ring, Little Orphan Annie comic and that "Drink more Ovaltine" message.

I especially loved the kitchen. There was a group of ladies in the doorway watching us take pictures. They were laughing and encouraging us and one lady said "I want YOUR pictures!" Ha!

 "Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie."

 Can you believe they let you touch everything and sit in the chairs and jump on the beds? I loved it!

 "Meatloaf, feet loaf, double beetloaf."

The Christmas story house and museum is definitely worth a visit! We had such a wonderful time!

Cleveland! Land of Dreams!

I didn't know what to expect from our visit to Cleveland, but it ended up being maybe our favorite stop of the trip! I actually have two more posts about it, because I couldn't fit the house from A Christmas Story and the BEST vintage store I've ever been to into one post! I can't wait to share it all with you! But first things first, we stayed on the top floor of this great house. Air Bnb again, of course. It was so cheap and it seemed bigger than our house! We stayed in the Lakewood area of Cleveland.

Big Fun is such a good store! We were able to make it to two out of three locations on our trip. I found it when I was looking for photo booths. The one here wasn't in use, bummer! But it was still amazing! That dog house is front is lockable and you can leave you dog in there while you shop! How convenient.

The whole place is full of old toys and games. Look at all those Care Bears in the window!

And My Little Ponies! The old ones (the good ones!) I had so many when I was a little girl. I didn't see a Pegasus with jewel eyes, which was my favorite one.

Oh man, now I'm seeing what looks like a Bookshelf game! That Mr. President one! I didn't notice that when we were there, we could have added it to our collection.

They had old game boards in the floor. What a great idea! I would love to use this idea in some future house in my future rec room.

There was also this card catalog full of tiny toys! Some vintage, some new, all cheap! I found some tiny vintage cake decorations and other weird little treasures. And pogs! We keep saying we're going to have a pog tournament! We needed slammers, thank goodness for big fun.

We ate lunch at Johnny Mango World cafe.

We pretty much got everything on the menu, which was kind of a weird hodge podge, but it was good. The fried plantains were my favorite! I really need to learn to cook those. So yummy.

You know we had to stop by a monument to "Dogs of All Wars." This is the final resting place of Smokey, or Yorkie Doodle Dandy (how much do I love that nickname???). There is a great Huffington Post article about her here (including a photo of her parachuting!). She was found in a foxhole and become the mascot of a unit in World War Two. Her most famous exploit was helping to run some communication lines through a tunnel, saving days of man power and probably some lives. She is also adorable. Maybe my favorite war dog? We actually first found out about her when we went to the AKC Museum in St. Louis.

What a great monument!

We made it over to Sweet Moses on the recommendation of the guy working at the awesome vintage store I mentioned. It is a restored soda fountain and it has a whole vegan menu! Yay!

Travis had a vegan banana split! It was amazing! I had a chocolate and strawberry sundae that was also good, but not very photogenic. Mmmm. I wish there was a good shop to get vegan ice cream around here.

We ended our day in Cleveland at the movies seeing Fury. It is tradition for us to see a movie on vacation, and Travis couldn't wait any longer to see the one WW2 movie he hasn't seen. That might be an exaggeration, maybe not. It was good though. And I loved Brad Pitt's haircut (I know you were wondering.)

These three silos are outside of a chocolate factory to the south of Cleveland. What a great town. We'll be back for sure.