For an easy way to find out how old someone is, just ask them how they spent Saturday mornings as a kid. If it involved heaping bowls of fluorescent colored cereal and watching cartoons about otherworldly creatures at 6AM… you’ve found yourself an 80’s child. Both Sean and I spent untold hours parked in front of our television screens, watching with equal amounts of awe and laughter as epic battles were waged between our heroes. Is it any wonder we gravitate towards 80’s t-shirts?

Sprite covered
Rainbow Brite shirt

Freaky Mumm Ra
Thundercats shirt

Candy covered
Care Bears shirt

The characters were usually cloaked in goofy outfits and had funny sounding names, but they all has a pretty serious mission; Rainbow Brite and the Care Bears kept vitality and love in the world, GI Joe was battling global “terrorists”, the ThunderCats prevented an ancient mummy from controlling the planet, and He-Man and She-Ra were defending the entire universe. We never watched the animated offerings from Lucas, but the Star Wars movies were so influential for us and that plot also involved protecting the galactic from evil. 80s kids were definitely presented with some mature themes and we loved it.

Ninja Turtle
costume shirt

Nobody puts Baby
in a Corner shirt

Darth Vader
costume shirt

Of course the 80’s were also influenced by the Me Generation mindset so we also ended up with fantastically silly or mundane plot lines. The Ninja Turtles were kind of a hybrid, as they fought off potentially multidimensional domination by evil, but they also used surfer slang and ate ice-cream topped pizza. (Which, by the way, is absolutely delicious. Thank you TMNT for prompting me to try that back in the late 80’s.) And then we’ve got a boatload of movies like Dirty Dancing where the drama stems from coming of age and a simple need to dance. Goonies, Ghostbusters, and Back to the Future were also some “heavy” 80s movie offerings that tickled our imaginations as well as funny bones. It was an amazing time for media and for just being a kid.

All things considered, I’m really grateful that I got to spend my adolescence in the polarized yet magical decade of the 80’s. How about you, fellow 80’s children?

Ghostbusters
costume t-shirt

Delorean Back To The Future shirt

Goonies shirt

RELATED: 80s Clothing for Women, 80s Clothing for Men, our main 80s Clothes Store, and Vintage Metal Lunchboxes

It’s a new month and that means another awesome vintage store shall take the spot light. I hope you all added last month’s hot vintage seller, Filthy Gorgeous Vintage, to your favorite eBay sellers list so you can stay up-to-date with their latest auctions.

This month Blue Bird Apparel is Mable’s featured Hot Vintage Clothing Store and is always rockin’ the vintage styles from the 40’s to 80’s.

Blue Bird Apparel operates out of Rhode Island and currently has some killer vintage coats and sweaters definitely worth checking out. They add over 50 recycled vintage pieces to the store weekly so be sure to add them to your eBay favorite sellers list so you don’t miss out on anything.

Below is a sneak peak of some hot auctions going on right now from Blue Bird Apparel.

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Since we announced the addition of the Hot Vintage Clothing Stores monthly feature we’ve been finding new stores to feature from helpful visitors like you. We want to thank you all for your suggestions and to keep them coming in.

This month Mable’s is featuring Filthy Gorgeous Vintage because of their wide variety of 60s, 70s, and 80s clothes, their stock is from both coasts of the US, they ship worldwide, and more. View the Hot Vintage Clothing page for more info.

Below is a sneak peak of some hot auctions going on right now from Filthy Gorgeous Vintage.

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You’ve all seen our page stuffed full of our favorite vintage stores from eBay right? Well, now feast your browsers on the Hottest Vintage Clothing Stores; where we pick one super rad store and feature them all month long. From there you can view the hot vintage store of the month and all their super hot auctions.

Every month a new seller will be featured as the Hot Vintage Clothing Store of the month hand-picked by Mable’s. Of course we are always open to suggestions, so send them in.

This month we are featuring Mama Stone Vintage because of her influence, style, and more. So check out the Hot Vintage Store for August, bookmark the page, and read more about why Mama Stone is at the top of the list.

Below is a sneak peak of some hot auctions going on right now from Mama Stone Vintage.

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We’re barely a week into summer and now feels like a great time to try something new. In an effort to inspire ourselves and create an entirely eco-fashion friendly wardrobe, we’ve decided to take the Wardrobe Refashion Pledge:

We, Mables.com, pledge that we shall abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 4 months. We pledge that we shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for ourselves with our own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. We pledge that we will share the love and post a photo of our refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftyness brings! Signed Lauren & Sean

So from July 1st – October 1st we’ll be sharing our adventures with creating, living in, and loving our “preloved” wardrobes. Honestly, being huge fans of vintage and reconstructed clothing, this won’t be a big stretch from what we’re already doing. We like the idea of making a commitment to it though, and sharing our journey with others. We look forward to trying out new refashioning techniques, scouring vintage clothing stores on eBay and better connecting with the sources of our clothes.

Are you interested in taking the Wardrobe Refashion pledge with us? You can sign up for 2, 4, or 6 month period and rest assured you will be in great company. This is the 3rd year and participation gets bigger each time. There are currently over 400 members in the Flickr pool! Whether or not you’ll be joining us in this DIY fashion adventure, what do you think of the idea? Could you avoid buying new clothes for a few months?

The title of this post is very accurate. Whether you’ve been to Mable’s blog before or are a new visitor, you’re about to read something a bit different than the usual company or shopping blog. We’re about to get really honest.

Next month will mark Mables’ 2 year anniversary of blogging. It’s been a fun journey, full of interesting products and sales, as well as a learning experience for us personally. And like everything in life, this blog is not static; every post is an evolution of sorts. We’ve been brainstorming about possibilities for growth on Mables.com and today we’re proud to announce the next step for us. We’re changing the way that we write so that each post is really representative of products and innovations that we feel are important to talk about. Our focus on “Unique Gifts” hasn’t really been specific enough. It’s allowed us to talk about everything from handmade Valentines to replica jewelry and even blogs as gifts. Initially, we wanted to cover those diverse topics so we could offer “something interesting for everybody”. After 2 years of blogging like that we realized it just wasn’t us. That’s not what we genuinely want Mable’s to be. We quit our day jobs so we could be pioneers, not take the path of least resistance.

Starting today, Mable’s Unique Shopping Blog will become more focused on the topics we most enjoy and find important. For better or worse, it will also be written very honestly. In the real world we shoot from the hip, and our blog is really going to reflect that. We’ve always been a bit unconventional, but radical honesty is our goal now. In a world where it seems like every inch of space and every opinion is for sale, we want to be a transparent alternative. If we hear about a really great sale at Giant Company X, will we still let our readers know? Sometimes, but most of the time we will be writing about eco-friendly products and technologies, vintage items, independent companies, and a few geeky gadgets. These are our passions, and we’re choosing to follow them. Several of the blog categories might end up becoming a little bare, but we’ll really fill up the other categories to make up for it.

We hope you’ll join us for this new adventure. Come by and watch our progress, let us know how we’re doing, and share your links to other organizations or people who are trying to blog this way. We’re not sure what the outcome will be, but it’s a risk we’re excited to take. One final question: what do we call this kind of online communication? Blogging with Integrity? Honest Blogging? Blogging From the Hip? What are your thoughts?

* Integrity image courtesy of Right Brain Terrain, creators of amazing Alternative Motivational Posters

On the Mable’s Vintage Clothing page we list our favorite vintage eBay stores, but every now we just got to feature sellers who stand out from the rest. Enter MakiMaki Vintage: a vintage boutique specializing in one of a kind dresses and other exclusive items.

MakiMaki features vintage clothing from the 1950s, mod ’60s, hippy 70s, and radical 80s. Shae, the store owner, used to be a stylist and it shows in her fabulous photos that sets apart MakiMaki from the other vintage clothing sellers on eBay.

MakiMaki has been making waves lately in the media and has been featured in VenusZine, Dorian Magazine, as well as on MTV just to name a few. I imagine one of the reasons her store is so popular – besides her great clothing & photos – is the intuitive navigation that categorize by shoes, dresses, jackets, etc. which is a huge plus for an eBay store.

Be sure to stay up to date with their latest vintage finds by subscribing to the MakiMaki Vintage blog, or by becoming a friend on MySpace or Facebook.

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