VintageGriffin.com

Anne Taintor has reworked traditional, mid-century images (largely women) into whimsical and wry products.

Taking the images and splicing them with modern-day humor makes these offerings fresh, funny and great to give or receive. And if you're giving, you can even wrap them in Anne Taintor gift wrap, which employs the same marriage of vintage image and modern tagline.

Beyond the cariacture of ink-stained mommies striving to personalize family albums, rubber stamps have gotten a lot more sophisticated in the past few years. Particularly compelling are the wide range of artistic and vintage images available, that make collaging much more inspiring.

There's a certain "low-art" or "no art" element to this craze (one does not need a lot of artistic talent to ink a stamp and press it to paper), which has parallels to the love victorian ladies had for scrap and scrapbooking, and the mania that 18th-century ladies had for their print rooms. Yes, it's true that using stamps (usually) means that one did not create the image integrated into the project or collage. However, let us remember that Matisse himself spent a lot of time collaging at the end of his career. One can use stamps creatively and artistically. Composition, color and found objects are all part of the creation.

Elie Tahari has made a really strong foray of late into vintage and antique styles. Taking silhouettes and details and integrating them with deconstruction, overstiching, piecing and incredible textures.

The Audra jacket is but one example, but an example that's worth noting as Elie Tahari's spring 2006 line starts going on sale.

If you're having a vintage-themed party, sometimes it's hard to know where to go to get all the little details right. Throwing a 1920s gambling murder mystery? Hosting a Titanic event and need the right playing cards for the first class smoking room? Here's a little detail that should give you no trouble at all: finding period-correct playing cards.

A lot of folks are collecting vintage and antique costume and textiles now. They think they're doing their best for their beloved family christening gowns, wedding gowns and samplers by bundling them in whatever boxes and paper they have around and putting them in the attic or basement. Where are they going wrong?