Saturday I’m smitten… with vintage markets

It’s been a while since I’ve been thrifting…
(and I’ve kind of been craving it
if you can crave such a thing?)

So with Christmas on the way,
I got up early this morning to head to a few markets
with the intention of finding some presents
and potentially a cosy coat for me
since for some reason I don’t have one.

(I blame my overenthusiastic
charity clearouts in the summer!)

Here’s some snaps of what was on offer
at one of the markets… I think I snapped
much more than I bought!

A toy typewriter…
so so so tempting but I resisted!

I used to collect badges when I was little.
I had a whole pinboard of them from every
exhibit/museum/zoo I’d ever been to.
I still have a thing for them now.
Love the design of this cookbook…

Love these angry little owls
and their ‘be wise save’ message.

A beautiful opera glove holder!
Who knew such things existed…
very Downton Abbey!
A Daily Mail (!) annual for girls
on a reworked blue chair.

Was rather tempted to buy this just as it’s so random…
a book for logging who you got your Christmas cards from!
Vintage books… I should have bought
the one on coffee for my coffee-addicted husband!
No market is complete without cake!
How gorgeous are these ice-cream sundae cupcakes?!

****
So what did I pick up?
Well, I can’t show you everything as some
are presents… but here’s the things I got
as happy December gifts to me!
A cosy vintage cape… not quite a coat
but it was such a bargain from the
lovely Totty Rocks gals I couldn’t resist.
Years ago, I used to stalk these 70s German elephant
moneybanks on ebay. But they always, always
went above my price range… so happily
I found one today. In your face, 2007 ebay!
A Sergeant Major moustache…
apparently this came out of a 1950s magic box.
I can’t really think what magic tricks you’d
do with a moustache but there you go!
A pair of vintage shoe clips…
I’ve resolved not to buy any new party outfits
this year and just update my old ones instead.
Love how these clips transform a dull pair of shoes!
Oh yeah… and cake.
You didn’t think I’d leave without some of that!

Our kitchen table has a whole lot of craft clutter on it
right now (mostly from my printmaking class)
so I thought it might be easier to snap the cakes
on the floor… I thought wrong!
Yup, I got one picture before my cake
was in danger of getting licked by a cat!
So in order to save the cake, there’s no more pics!

I’ve also entirely forgotten what flavour
my cake is… so I won’t know until I have it.
Looks rather pretty and festive though.

*****
So I think that makes for a good little haul
and I got a few presents too…
tomorrow, I’m going to try and get up
for the car boot sales too.

Let’s see if I can get all my Christmas shopping
done without any high street shops!

Happy Saturday everyone xx

Saturday I’m smitten… with my new sideboard

I have a new sideboard.

I didn’t need a new sideboard.

(Actually in truth very few people ‘need’ a sideboard.)

But here’s what happened:

The wonderful little cake shop Auntie M’s
was closing down in Glasgow.

I’d been in quite a few times partly
because of their lovely baked goods,
but also because it looked like
a gorgeous little Mad Men-esque
set of a living room.

I loved the couch, I loved the drink cabinet,
but every time I was there I mentioned
how much I loved that sideboard.

***

So when Auntie M had posted
that she was closing down,
I felt really rather sad.

And then she mentioned that
she needed to find new homes
for her vintage furniture…

So we adopted that sideboard.
How could we not?

Auntie M, we will look after him well
(I decided he was a boy!)
and I wish you the best of luck
in whatever you do next…
I know it will be amazing.

****

Happy weekend everyone xx

P.S. Thanks for your lovely comments
on yesterday’s post, I was a bit nervy
about posting it so that’s made me
feel much better. You guys rock 🙂

My type of thrifty finds… a new typewriter and more china

We’ve not had much time for car booting lately.

All our theories of having a quiet life once married are yet to materialise.

That said, we have picked up a few treasures recently…

My favourite find: our Good Companion typewriter.

In perfect working condition… with its own case

And check out the crest on it!

Somehow it seems more glamorous
because it has a crest on it!

We’ve also been collecting a spot more china.

I actually agreed to lend our china to
a lovely bride for her wedding this week…

Only problem was that some of our china went missing
from our wedding… so we were quite a few sets short.

Thankfully, we managed to source the ones below
(and someone very sweet gave me some too) so we had enough.

I still pretty gutted about some of the things we’re missing though.
Especially my cups with the yellow skirted lady on them.
But maybe I’ll find replacements one day!

Anyway, here’s my favourite of our recent china finds:

Also since I found the Meakin teapot, cups and saucers…
the husband has got pretty good at spotting Meakin himself.
So much so that he picked up these coffee pots one day…
at this rate, he’s going to become a better thrifter than me!

Found any good thrifty finds recently?
At car boots or charity shops?

I’m finding it harder and harder to pick things
up at charity shops in Edinburgh.
The other day I saw a tea set in one for £100,
another had one set for £65.

Obviously it’s great for the charity if someone can afford that…
but it’s well out of my budget. Popping into charity shops
used to be one of my favourite spare time activities,
so I feel a little sad that it’s not affordable any more.

On the plus side, I have been out and about discovering
new junk places so there’s hope yet!

(And I’ll just need to donate to charity some other way.)

*****

A bit of car boot loot…

A typical weekend conversation…

Me: How about we go car booting on Sunday morning?

Him: Ok. What time do you want to go?

Me: Super early… so we can get the best stuff.

Him (knowing my inability to get up in the mornings): Ok.

*

A typical Sunday morning conversation before 9am…

Him: It’s ten to nine. Do you want to get up?

Me: Zzzzzzzzz.

Him: Zoë? Hello?

Me: Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Him: Ok, I’ll give you another 30 mins.

*

A typical Sunday morning conversation around 10.30am…

Me: Why didn’t you wake me up?

Him: Um, I did try.

*****

Some days however we manage to drag ourselves (ok, me)
out of bed and head to a car boot sale. And on these days
we very rarely come away empty-handed.

Here’s a few of my favourite recent finds…

A 60s ‘Topic’ teapot by J & G Meakin.

A bit of a departure this one for me…
usually all my china is gold-edged
delicate little vintage numbers but I just
love the colours and that pattern.

This set came with a bit of a car boot sale reminder though…
always check what you’re buying.

As well as the cups, saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug,
there were also some cute side plates. The lady that was selling them
was super nice so I didn’t bother to check them all…

And yup some of the side plates were broken.
Still a bargain but disappointing all the same.

Got ourselves some more glass jelly moulds…
one of these days we do need to try
out our posh jelly recipe book.

Some pretty measuring tape…

Though post-wedding I don’t give a flying fig
about my waist measurements etc.
(As a consequence I think I lost weight
just because that’s how my world works!)

A big cosy yellow blanket…

This one was a charity shop find rather than booting
and from the label it appears to be rather old… but in perfect nick.

It seemed rude not to buy it.

A polaroid camera for 20p.

I love this camera. I love the stripe.

I love the shape. I love that cheerful big red button.

It just makes me feel happy and that’s definitely worth 20p!

It also looks rather good on my little roll-top desk display.

(We think we hate our flip clock though. No-one warns you
that these make a god awful noise when they flip round.
Loudest, most heart-attack-inducing noise ever!)

And of course after a hard (ok not that hard) morning
car-booting, it is essential that you treat yourself to ice-cream.

Irn-bru and tablet ice-cream of course.

Well, you need a reward for getting up early on a Sunday.

(Look at the concentration!
That’s how good tablet ice-cream is!)

*****

Anyone else found any lovely booting
or charity shop finds recently?

*****

P.S. For all those asking, the ice-cream came from
the ice-cream van opposite the John Hope Gateway
at Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens. Thoroughly recommend!

Tea cosy (and cupcake) love

Recipe for a relaxed Sunday morning breakfast…

1. My new Robin and Mould tea cosy. Isn’t he pretty?

2. Daffodils (my favourites) bought for me by the other half.

3. The pretty plate I found at Saturday’s flea market.
How cute is the cross-stitch detail?

4. A rather delectable lemon meringue cupcake.

5. A too good to share (but I did because I’m nice) chocolate orange cupcake.

6. Some green tea. (Even if I do love Kusmi’s packaging more than the tea.)

7. My favourite teapot… and it holds a proper amount of tea.
(I always feel cheated if a pot holds less than three cups.)

8a. A nice teacup or two.

8b. Well, a nice cup for me and a more
macho coffee cup for the other half.

Put it all together and you have a very happy Sunday morning indeed…

… especially when I discovered just how warm my new cosy keeps my tea.

I am truly a tea cosy convert!

*****

Have a lovely Monday everyone xx

Hello Christmas… goodbye 2010

So Christmas is nearly here… which might explain why there’s large paper
snowflakes hanging on our wall… and snow shapes on our windows!

I found these vintage snow stencils last year in a charity shop.

A total bargain as I think we’ll be using for years to come.

I’ve also framed this lovely old Days of Christmas tea towel.

(I found it in the old table that belonged to the other half’s aunt…
the same one that I found the vintage paper straws in.)

The lords a-leaping make me laugh so!

For the first year ever I made a pact with myself – no new Christmas decorations.

Partly a bid to save some money but also because we have enough already.

The only cheat was that I’d already bought this ‘Russian doll’ Christmas
set back in October when I was looking for Halloween decorations.

So I kind of / sort of stuck to my pact!

Here’s my little snowman I’ve had since 1999 and the new
Christmas decoration – wonder if they’ll be around for as long?

We also put back up the reindeer mirror… or the other half did.
(I’m not as handy with a drill!) I’m currently searching for some
mini vintage mirrors to fill in the spaces but Edinburgh charity
shops are proving fruitless so far… darn!

In the spirit of recycling, I dug out our old letterpress tray
and filled it with old baubles… (excuse the dust on the
floor – that’s from putting up the mirrors!)

And inbetween working (really, really) long hours, we’ve managed to squeeze in
a little crafting… some hand-stitched cards and some tiny gingerbread houses.

The other half has also been hard at work trying to finish finish our kitchen for
Christmas – and doing some crafty surprise presents for my little cousins.

But I’ve had to abandon my heart wreath plan – next year for that one!

Of course not every is a fan of the new decorations… one of our
residents has been redecorating the tree any chance they get.

Anyway, for this final post of 2010, I wanted to wish you all
a very Merry Christmas and a very very Happy New Year.

I hope you all get spoiled rotten, have maximum chill-out time
and a ridiculous amount of fun you lovely, lovely people!

Thanks so much for making blogging such a pleasure
in 2010. Here’s to having even more fun in 2011!

Fun and games with drinking straws

A while back we inherited an old drop-leaf table from the OH’s aunt. It wasn’t really our style but it certainly helped us out as kitchen surface when we had no kitchen. However that dull worn table had a lovely surprise for us – inside its drawers there were lots of fab random bits and bobs, including these delightful paper straws.

Now I had a bit of an obsession with straws (currently made worse by having white braces!) but it’s the packaging that I absolutely adore… It’s just so educational! Did you know that straws are good for parties? Or that they’re good for picnics?

(How cool is the little boy’s Indian headdress?!)

But the piece de resistance… the games on the back of the box!

Who knew you could have so much fun with straws?!

(I’m so going to have to try this one at some point!)

And just in case you’re wondering the straws are pretty great too… such lovely, happy sunshiney colours.

However I can’t actually bare to use them for drinking so at the moment there’s a few just sitting in an empty glass on the sideboard… Might need to think of a better way to display them soon!

Happy weekend everyone xx

P.S. If you want to play any of the games here with stripey straws… Lynne from Tea for Joy sells a lovely range of them at her shop Papermash.

Friday I’m in love… with our crafty felt rug

We’ve always fancied having a Pinocchio Rug but it’s a little on the pricey side. Then the other weekend I spotted two rectangular Pinocchio-rug-alikes tucked away on a bottom shelf at the back of our local Paperchase.

They had no packaging or price on them but I was pretty sure they cost less than the £100s the real thing does. After half an hour of fruitless searching on the system, the poor checkout girl decided to just make up a price… £40 each.

“What are you going to do with them?” she asked, “Put them on a wall?”

“Eh, no, I’m going to make a rug.”

She looked at me like I had suggested something insane…

“I’m going to sew them together to make a big rug,” I tried to explain. This still did not seem to be a suitable response.

Anyway, on getting them home, it became obvious that we’d need a third rug.

One email and call later to Paperchase and a very helpful man explained that I had rather drastically underpaid for my first two rugs… and to get a third I was going to have to spend the same as I did on the first two. Oh, well!

So we sewed the rugs together…

… but you can’t sew in our flat without attracting the attentions of the Fox-Owl-Cat. (Left to her own devices, she will try to eat the thread and it’s not pretty trying to pull that back out of her mouth!!)

The (nearly) final thing… Just a little sewing still to go, leaving that bit to the OH as he’s much better at sewing than I am. Of which the following is evidence:

These are the fleecy cloud ‘snooze’ cushions the OH made me for Xmas (which I’ve been meaning to show for ages and then forgetting)…

Aren’t they fab? Their expressions made me laugh so and – along with my wolf suit the OH and my sis made me – were certainly a very cool present surprise.

Hope you all have a good weekend – I’ll be helping building a kitchen, working on a writing project for Sunday, and hopefully catching up on some sleep… life has me beat at the moment!

Friday I’m in love… with a large and growly bear

Remember we saw a bear in Yosemite Park? Well, we also saw this bear… The Large and Growly Bear.

The book was hidden away in a little junk shop in Half Moon Bay (a wee town outside San Francisco) and though not exactly in mint condition, I totally fell in love with the illustrations and the story… and it only cost a couple of dollars.

It tells the story of a bored bear, who decides to go and scare the other animals for fun. But then he sees his own reflection and scares himself – and realises that scaring people isn’t so fun after all. Cute huh?

How dopey is his expression? Brilliant!

I love these moles… how adorable are they?!

Happy Friday everyone xx

Closet clearout… dresses for sale

I’m having a long overdue clear-out of clothes that I don’t wear or that don’t fit anymore. (I need to make room for the vintage wedding dresses I’ve been acquiring!) I’ve been meaning to do it for ages but I get sentimental about clothes regardless of whether they work for me!

There’s 9 things for sale at the moment – but if I get time I’ll add more this week. Anyway, if you fancy a yellow polka dot 1950s dress, 70s wedding dress or even a cape, then have a look at my listings here… (Try not to laugh at my serious ‘how on earth am I meant to stand?’ expression!)

The seriousness got less serious when the cats decided they wanted to get in the pictures too… Bet this doesn’t happen to Kate Moss!

Meet our newest project… velvet chair

So we went to Ikea tonight. We were going to buy our kitchen but as with all these things, it took longer to put it all together on the system than we thought it would. So by the time we were finished, Ikea was closing.

We left empty-handed. But we didn’t come home empty-handed.

We were driving through the streets of Edinburgh, dodging the tourists who aimlessly wander out into the road at this time of year, when we clocked two people putting this velvet chair into the street.

The guy must have seen our expressions as he shouted to us “Would you guys like it?”

15 minutes later and the chair was sitting in our living room – already a firm favourite with our owl-fox-cat.

We think he makes a good brother to our Cowboy Parker Knoll…

And all because we took a fruitless trip to Ikea!

Serendipity or what?

Happy longest day of the year everyone xx

How coffee is made…

Bought this vintage book “How Coffee is Made” recently from Present & Correct for a coffee-lover…

I just love its 60/70s illustrations – especially the ship – and the fact that it’s in French.

It’s not converting me from my green tea though!

But it is making me long for some sunshine… it has been a while!

Hope you all had a good weekend x

A thrifting we will go…

So tomorrow’s post should be the making of the infamous suit (I’m learning just how secretive and sneaky my sis and OH can be!) but for today I thought I would show you my favourite Xmas find.

Now me and my sis love going thrifting – so Xmas is a perfect excuse to take a day, just the two of us, and go explore our favourite places for some abandoned treasures (and potential presents!). Here’s a few pics of us hard at work…

And here’s our favourite find, a vintage Cadburys Roses tin… isn’t it pretty? (We didn’t actually find it in the snow I have to add – I just thought it looked pretty to take the pics there!)

A few more thrifty finds…

Last Tuesday I shared some of my charity shop china, this week I’ve got a few more of my favourite finds from charity shops, junk stores and ebay/evilbay. One person’s junk really is another person’s treasure!

1. Letterpress tray (with letters from Shelf )and letterpress letters…
I bought this tray originally to put lots of little things in but I like it best with the LOVE letters… every now and then a drunk friend will change it to say VOLE of course!

2. Teak pear and apple… the charity shop I found these in had put these with an ashtray… I didn’t want the ashtray and the man behind the counter couldn’t get his head round why someone would want wooden fruit without one! An odd conversation!

3. Brass Moroccan tray… this is huge and needs to be Brassoed but I love how it gleams. Just need to find a pouffe/stand for it…

4. Tin globes… anyone who visits this blog knows I am a mild (ok, major) obsession with tin globes… these ones came from Winter’s Moon, ebay and my colleague’s attic!

Next week if I haven’t got all Xmassy, I’ll share some more…

Crazy about charity shop china

I may have mentioned once or twice my love of charity shops… but being me I hardly ever get round to sharing my finds. (Partly because I tend to write this blog late at night and that doesn’t work so well with taking pics.) However I had a bit of free time on Saturday and a charged camera so finally I can share some of my thrifting.

First up I thought I would show you some of my charity shop china.

This is something I can’t help but hunt for in charity shops and the other half has dragged me away from many a tea set pointing out that we already have more plates, tea cups and saucers than we can ever use.

Anyway here’s a few of my favourites… Hope you like them.

1. Yellow dinner set
This set called to me from the window… it’s yellowy, with that gorgeous green colour and golden gilt, and the pretty flowers inside. The only problem was that there’s a lot of it – and I had no idea how to get it all home. (I only took a pics of a few pieces but there’s cups, plates, bowls, saucers, side plates, soup bowls and two gravy/milk jugs.) Thankfully, every single piece made it home in, eh, one piece.

2. Blue gravy boat
I’m a sucker for that gilt edge it has to be said… and I loved the shape of this one. Plus it cost 20p. You can’t really argue with that.

3. Golden teapot
My little sis found this teapot… and I use this pretty much every day. I love it and swear that it makes better tea than my other teapots.

4. Indian Tree plates and others
In one of my favourite charity shops (they play 1950s music and have cute chairs for the old dears to sit on when they get tired while browsing) I found a huge collection of Indian Tree china. So huge in fact that it made 1 1/2 dinner sets. I love that although it’s all the same design, the pattern is slightly different depending on the maker. We discovered recently that the other half’s Gran has exactly the same china.

5. My favourite bowls ever
I adore these bowls. I really do. They are my favourite china find ever. I wish they’d had more than two – but it’s certainly better than having none.

Howdy! It's a suitcase cat bed!

Some posts back I blogged about the world’s most awesome cat beds – and after a while (as always tends to happen) I came to the conclusion that we could easily make one ourselves.

So I found a vintage suitcase…

Took the legs off an old footstool…

Grabbed the leftover fabric from the reupholstering of our Parker Knoll…

Petted this cat…

And, with the other half’s help, this was the end result:

Yes, we have spoiled cats…

…but at least they’re cool spoiled cats 😉

P.S. The suitcase bed is proving so popular we may have to make two!

P.P.S. Thanks to Daydreams in Lace for the blog award – very sweet of you. Will get round to passing it on soon 🙂

Yeeha! It’s our before and after Parker Knoll!

Ages and ages ago I picked up an old Parker Knoll chair from a Freecycler. Its previous owner had used it as the ‘naughty chair’ for their wee girl (who was very happy to see it go) but she’d grown out of it.

We decided that we’d use it to do our first reupholstering project… and as with all our diy decisions, we then decided to start work on something else completely.

So for months it’s been hiding under a fleece and has been much loved by the cats alone… And then we bought some Cath Kidston cowboy fabric (for a completely different project) and came to conclusion that it would suit the Parker Knoll.

So here it is… I think it needs a cushion (something red and bold I feel) but it’s looking pretty good for a chair we got for free!

But the story doesn’t end there… we had quite a bit of the cowboy fabric leftover so we decided to tackle another ‘project-in-waiting’. This time involving an old footstool, a vintage suitcase and a cat. I’ll show you the pics of that in the next post!

Penny for luck

So on Saturday I picked up this cute brooch from Marche Marche. I bought it for a friend but I’m beginning to think I should have kept it for myself.

We could do with a little luck to get us through this coming week. We’ve got lots of stuff going on – most of it good – but I have no idea how we are going to fit it all in.

We have three nights and two days before my birthday… with a few more days before our Halloween party… and before then we want to finish painting the flat, make our costumes, do the day jobs, do a rather large freelance job, sort out our tenant’s leaking bathroom which is leaking into downstairs flat for no apparent reason, Halloween-ify our flat, buy stuff to Halloween-ify our flat, convert 200 80s records to mp3, pick up a chaise lounge from Glasgow… and a couple of other even more random things!!

Wish us luck! xx

Let there be lights

Hello everyone… how was your Monday? I just wanted to say a huge thanks to all of you who have left comments here, sent emails and given me some very helpful/sound advice, you’re the bestest invisible friends a girl could have!

Anyway, with all the excitement that was last week, I totally forgot to share this pic I took recently at the Underbelly – it’s my new reference for how I would like the lighting in my hall to look. Not sure it would look quite so pretty with energy-saving bulbs but I love the different heights and the way they’re clustered together. Now I just need a drill, lots of light cables… oh yeah and an electrician.

I’m thinking it would look stunning in our long hall which has this colour scheme going on…

Well, we have a black wall and a front door that’s in the process of going yellow. (Need to get my butt in gear and paint it in other words!) As much as I love the black (which I really really do) I think having a lot of lights will help balance out the darkness. What do you think?

P.S. I know many of you were probably expecting a wedding-related post but I’m still going through all the blogs and sites you all suggested! Great fun but making me go ekk slightly too!

P.P.S. If you guys approve, I thought for at least now I would do a weekly weddingy post – probably on a Weddingnesday – that way I can still share some of my finds/thoughts without going too bridetastic on you!

Second pic via Living Etc

Why I shouldn't be allowed to sale shop…

On Sunday me and the other half took a long overdue trip to Habitat (overdue because I’d sort of been nagging at him that we needed to go as a table we wanted was on sale at a ridiculous price). Turned out to be the last day of the sale so we got some silly bargains – which does make me worry that Habitat are going down the tube – including a Ribbon lamp that I’ve been in love with for ages.

Anyway, we were nearly out of the store – having spent £60 on two tables, one lamp and one pendant light – when I spotted the print/canvas below. And just like that our most bargainess trip nearly turned into a very expensive jaunt.

But being ever thrifty, I decided to hunt down the illustrator and see if I could find it for cheaper. Which happily I did. His name is Terratag and he does lots of prints and tshirts that are as much Shoreditch as they are Shinjuku.

So I’m very happy with my find but it does remind me why I shouldn’t be allowed to go sale shopping – because I can’t just stick to looking at the sale stuff and inevitably end up falling in love with something that I didn’t need or even know about before I saw it. Not perhaps my worst trait but pretty useless when you’re meant to be saving for a kitchen!

P.S. If you like General Pattern‘s lovely prints, you may either want to make a beeline for Habitat or avoid it depending on your budget as they’re doing huge canvas versions of his prints. They’re also doing a rather more affordable postcard pack too (which I forgot to say was also one of the things we bought on Sunday!)