Cheep | Live well, cheap.

A Story of Living Without

Tonight! Story Story Night presents LIVING WITHOUT: Stories of Letting Go at 7pm (doors at 6:30pm).

Dan and I put together a podcast for Story Story Night every Monday. We needed a teaser story for this month's theme,
 so I made one myself. Crafty. Cheap. Also Cheep. 

Hear a story from my life about the sensory experiences of a shy American teenager living without language in a Russian winter. If you listen to the end, you can even hear me sing a Russian song.

Listen here:

Jessica Holmes: Living Without in Russia

Or subscribe and listen to the Story Story Night podcast on iTunes and radio.BoiseState.edu.

Vintage Costume Jewelry

(I wrote this for Bricolage co-owner Chelsea Snow's crafty cute zine.)

Pre-1980s costume jewelry is like the 2010 high-end kitsch sold for godforsaken amounts at places like Anthropologie and (shudder) Claire’s. Except that pre-1980s costume jewelry is actually made out of real metal, stone and glass, and not of craplastic (crap + plastic).  And pre-1980s costume jewelry is stupid cheap.

You may have heard a rumor that precious gemstones are being picked the hell out of existence. And did you know that petroleum makes anything? So do jewelry makers, or should I say, jewelry mass producers. The flimsy pieces sold at retail chains reflect poor quality, both in materials and craftsmanship, at insane prices. Never again. Just say no to craplastic.

Instead, visit Antique World Mall (4544 W. Overland Rd.-Boise), Atomic Treasures (409 S. 8^th St.-Boise) and other antique and second-hand stores. Keep an eye out for costume jewelry and four key things: real style, real metal, real stone or glass and REAL cheap.

Antique World Mall is a glorious place. It is sprawling, and each lane is named after a European city, like Paris or Brussels or Budapest. Different antique dealers rent out small cubicles that line each lane—overflowing with eclectic merchandise from the past 100 years. It’s magnificent. You begin to understand different vendors’ tastes and obsessions. You also learn different people’s price points, and where to find the best steals.

For cheap-ass but exquisite costume jewelry, avoid the pretty glass display cases (for the most part) and look for the items bagged in plastic in the baskets beside them. This is where most dealers keep the vintage costume jewelry, and where I picked up the vast majority of the jewelry I have (pictured).

Remember your four rules: real style, real metal, real stone or glass and REAL cheap. By real cheap I mean under $5, but if it’s quality and exquisite, go up to $10. Remember to keep your eye fresh by checking out the lovely fashionistas’ jewelry, and by browsing but never buying the retail stuff.

Having a diverse jewelry selection instantly widens your range of looks. It also brings a bit of beauty and joy to your daily life, and to the people who see you. Enjoy it. 

Cheep Backgrounder

Starting a public-facing blog begs self-examination. I think things like, “Seriously, who do you think you are? What do you know about any of this stuff? You think you’re a simulacrum of Tim Gunn and Padma Lakshmi and Anthony Bourdain and those Brits from Changing Rooms (the much better BBC precursor to Trading Spaces. And yes, I watch too much reality television) on a die-hard budget. But who are you really? A nobody.”

Well that’s just it really. I am a nobody, and I felt like one nearly all my life. I wasn’t born with a 75% off Calvin Klein jumper on and a fabulous art-deco mobile over my vintage crib. I was a shy, utter depressive from the age of 11 to at least my mid-20s (RIP, soul-raking sadness). I dressed in rotations of cliché awfulness: like a hobo, like a punk, like a preppie conformist. I ate meat and potatoes and once-frozen vegetables for dinner nearly every night, along with all the processed crap that makes up the blighted American food landscape. I never felt comfortable in the spaces I was in but never knew what to do about it, especially hating fluorescent lights and plastic and blocky, cluttered entertainment centers and the strip malls of my youth.

I never had money. My parents were solidly working class, and gave us all we needed, but I always envied the Mormons and their antique-laden homes and L.L. Bean clothes. When I broke out on my own, I was broke. Eating potatoes sans meat mostly, and dressing in whatever I could find.

For me, the process of Cheep discovery is not petty. For my sad and lonely and disused mind, I needed to change my outer world before I could transform my inner life.

I told a white lie earlier. I don’t think I watch too much reality TV. The fashion, food and décor shows on cable networks changed my life forever. They showed me a different way to look at style and cooking and spaces. They gave me ideas. They trained my creative eye. They gave me an appreciation for color, variety and speedy transformation. Of course for me, all of these things had to come cheap, or they were out of my reach, so that over-riding principle ended up guiding every choice I made.

So here’s my point: I was hopeless. I was dreadful at all of this—fashion, food, décor, place and mind—but I got better through steadfast yet incremental education. And when I did, everything else around me changed: my career, my confidence, my relationships and most importantly, my mind. I started trusting my instincts and abilities and own personality. I came into my own. I blossomed. I feel I am still blooming.

Then, when I started dating Dan (after years of singledom as a result of all of my handicaps), I realized how bad he was at décor and fashion, and I helped him. We transformed his house and his wardrobe on the cheap, and I saw the ripple effects our changes had in his career, confidence and in other people’s perceptions. And I realized, hey, maybe I’m onto something here. Maybe I can help more people find a way to deal with the need to dress and live and think, without the crushing debt and conformity. So here I am. Here is Cheep.

Cheep fashion show from Kelly + Nicole

Cheep peeps: first, an apology. I have been thinking about Cheep for over 2 years. I compose multiple Cheeps in my head every day. But, unfortunately, I do not always post them, especially this summer, the summer my business decided to go cuh-ray-zee. My business is Jessica Holmes Copywriting, in which I write things like websites and TV spots and print ads for other businesses and ad agencies. It’s about 2-years-old too. This is my business card (1 of 4). I'm going to get this bird tattooed somewhere on my person:

 
 

Anyways, stupid business. Trust me peeps, I will start Cheeping daily. This is not some passing fancy. No. 

Fortunately, while I am spending the majority of time writing about esoteric topics like dental implants, surrogates are going forth and being Cheep in the grandest fashion possible. Kelly Lynae Robinson and Nicole Orabona are two lovely and fashionable friends of mine. Kelly, a brilliant songwriter, singer, guitarist and ukulele stylist, began her career in my life as a bandmate with my guy Dan Costello. Nicole is her long-time best friend. Now Kelly and her filmmaker boyfriend Jason Willford are some of our closest friends. They’re in my writing club, The Serious Bad Ass Writing Club, and often come over for spontaneous, drawn out meals and violent foosball matches. 

Nicole and Kelly recently visited Re-Style, a department thrift store benefiting Northwest Animal Companions. It just opened on the corner of Glenwood and Chinden in Garden City, and sounds quite fashion-forward. I can’t wait to visit it. Kelly called me today and said, “It was like some lady exactly Nicole’s size saved all her clothes from the 50s, then she died, and her entire wardrobe was donated.” Did I mention Nicole is stunning and modelesque? That’s right. Get some popcorn. Cheep fashion show starts in 3…2…1…

 

Pink taffeta party dress (Re-Style). $10.99.

 

Orange linen dress (Re-Style), $8.99. Blue train case ($2.99-Note: I have a red one of these and it is a indispensable on trips.) 

 

Mod tunic (Re-Style), $6.99. Framed flower embroidery, $1.99.

Rust tweed suit (Re-Style), $13.99.

 
 

Red taffeta party dress. $9.99.

 

Ruffle dress (Re-Style), $8.99. Brown suitcase, $6.99.

 

Velvet MiniDress (Re-Style), $3.99. Disco!

White dress (Re-Style), $6.99.

 Leather coat (Re-Style), $17.99.

Doesn't this look like a photoshoot from Anthropologie? Cheep lovelies. Thanks dears. If you want to send me pics of your Cheep fashion finds, email me.

Until next time (soon, promise).

Cheap marketing

Random, lesser casualties of the Great Recession: marketing copywriters (like me), and smoke/tattoo shops (like my sister and her husband's business in Albuquerque, NM). 

Apparently, when it comes between rent, say, and food, say, people don't buy elaborate, beautiful glass, body or word art. 

Thankfully, creativity wins all battles. I built my own freelance copywriting business with ink blot birds (4 for my business, 1 for Cheep) and my handwriting, all free with help from Mike Landa. Now, two years after Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG, et. al. crash landed on the American economy and my cushy ad agency job, I am thriving.

I knew I could use what I've learned in marketing to help my sister too. Creativity is a muscle. You use it or you don't. If you think you don't have creativity, you may just have a weak muscle. It needs exercised. It needs practice. It needs to look around. It needs a bit of freedom to roam.

While contemplating my sister's plight--thinking of their store in the high-end neighborhood of Nob Hill on Central Ave, thinking of the way you can't name the glass pieces in the store by their given street names but must call them "flower vases" or whatever--this idea just came to me, all complete and laid out and targeted. Later, on a visit to Albuquerque, I photographed the pieces, got digital artwork of the tattoos, and with the help of my amazing boyfriend, Dan Costello, designed these four postcards:

1.

2:

3:

4:

I've always wanted to do a simple, clean ad campaign like this. I adore it. And got 1000 postcards printed locally for $220. On the back, each version has a 10, 15, or 20 percent discount on glass when someone brings in the postcard. Not only does it measure the effectiveness of the campaign vs. the effectiveness of the discount, but it brings back your postcards, so you can redistribute.

I'm also designing a website for them using the blogging software TypePad (I also designed CheepTips.com and StoryStoryNight.org this way too, for less than $9/month to host all three). I've heard great things about WordPress too.

I chose the URL "GetMoreTna.com." Because it's memorable. 

I love my job.