Green Fingers

Well, after promising the earth in terms of blogging, I let myself down.  I was distracted by the garden and the fact that it has been sorely neglected.  There was no excuse any more and that's where I have been spending all my free time.

The photos are deceptive.  The flower beds are meant to look bare as I have been forking and digging out crocosmia and some other yellow flower that have totally taken over the ground.

And what a nightmare job it has turned out to be.  Bags of the bulbs and roots have been taken away by the council recycling people.  I know that there will be a few bulbs etc left but I am hoping that they will be easy to get out next year and I have (hopefully) halted the invasion!

New plants have been planted instead.  Now all that is left to do is to sit on my new bench and wait for the new plants to flower.

Still on the green theme, I bought this lovely felt bag thinking it was an old one.  1940s or possibly 1960s.  Took it home and nopw can't decide. 

Do any of you ladies agree with me?  I know it's difficult to tell from a photo.  But what do we think>  New/Old?

Old or new, Dulcie certainly took a shine to it!

Left Behind

I was so busy the day before Love Vintage that I completely forgot to collect the embroidered pictures from the framers.

I picked up two embroidered pictures on my travels - very beautiful but completely filthy!  The linen was stained and brown, the glass was filthy and the backing of the pictures was practically non-existent.

I took a chance on them and bought the pair.  Several hours later the linens came up beautifully.  That left just the frames that needed work.

So off I went to the picture framers and tried not to cringe as I took out the manky frames.  The worst part about it was telling the lady that one frame needed new glass and PLEASE could I keep the mounts (as they were just the right side of shabby chic)!  Oh, and could they add new backs and hanging string please.

But the end results were worth it.  Shame they didn't make it to Love Vintage.  

But there will be other events.  So Cinders will get to go to the ball ..........................

Back with a bang

Well, what can I say?  I lost my blogging mojo for SO long and hopefully it has returned to stay.

Nothinjg like diving in at the deep end and update my sorely neglected blog with photos from Love Vintage which took place last Saturday.  It was a glorious day and the sunlight streamed through the windows of the Victorian school.

We had a wonderful selection of stallholders with just one thing in common: vintage.

So there was something for everyone.  What more could someone who loves vintage ask for?  

I was very restrained and only succumbed to a lovely chenille bag.  I was lucky enough to be given some money for Easter and this bag fitted the bill perfectly.  The contents of my handbag have been whittled down and transferred into my new bag.

So I would like to apologise my long absence and hereby do solemnly swear to blog more often.  But in the meantime, please enjoy the photos ............

Success!

That's it. After months of planning the day of Love Vintage has been and gone. And thankfully it was a very sucessful day. The night before was a sleeplesss night which meant that I was up and at the hall long before everyone else started arriving.

The doors were opened to the public and the waiting began. Thankfully there wasn't too long to wait before people starting coming in and looking at all the stalls. Then Maggie and I could breathe a sigh of relief.

We had 14 stalls all in and here is a selection of some of them.

A small portion of my stall with some of the vintage goodies that have found new homes

Maggie's stall which was also severely depleted by the end of the day:

Here's the lovely http://thewasherwoman.blogspot.com/ Liz who travelled to us with all her vintage goodies.

Helen had a wonderful selection of kitchenalia

Yet more gorgeous kitchenalia from Nest Living

As well as these and the other stalls, the other draw was the tearooms. The tables all beautifullt laid with vintage tablecloths from my personal collection, flowers on the table and all served on vintage bone china. A perfect way to end a shopping spree!

We had a fabulous day and would like to thank everyone involved (the stallholders as well as the customers who came through the doors).

Which means we are planning another Love Vintage Fair. Love Vintage 2 which will be held early next year.

If would like to have a table or find out more about Love Vintage - please get in touch. And if you have any photos that you took on the day, I would love to hear from you too!

Kitscherama

You know how sometimes you come across items that just err on the right side of tasteful? Well I think the mirror that I bought at the boot sale last week, fits that criteria completely.

It is a 1950s/1960s - not entirely sure which era - metal work mirror. I spent a minute or two looking at it and debating whether I wanted it and tentatively asked the price.

When the response was £1 that clinched the deal. So into my bag it went and it finally was hung in the right position today.


Not sure how everyone else in the house feels but I love it. And the green leaves seem to go perfectly with the eau de nil polka dot Swedish blind in the bathroom. The next thing on my To Do list is to hang two Victorian painted mirrors that were also bought last week at the boot sale. I think I may give Stephen a day or two to get used to this mirror before I dare hang the others!

Surprise

It's been a long day. Determined to make the most of the Indian Summer we are having and use up the pot of fence paint I found yesterday clearing out the shed, I have been out the garden all day. The fences have been painted and plants cut back ready to be dug out to make room for new ones.

The main impetus for all this work started with me buying a rusty old wirewirk planter. And so the cleaning/sorting fenzy begins. It started (and ended) with the jet wash. Don't you just love them?


The wrought iron table and chairs were jet washed prior to re-painting (not today at some point in the future). Then of course I moved on to the floor. We have been in our house 7 years and it was a revelation today that the crazy paving is slate and the pointing inbetween is pale.




After that I got a but carried away and ended up jet washing anything and everything: the wooden table and chairs in the back garden, the plastic guttering and clearing out the accumulated moss inside. And last but not least the paths. I just can't believe what a difference it makes - the floor is so much cleaner.



A much more enjoyable job was to plant up the pots I already have. The stand still looks a little bare, but I shall remedy that with more pots and flowers. But right now I am off for a well earned rest and a cup of tea!

Incapacitated

So much for my posts becoming more regular! It has been a combination of school holidays and a bad back. Thankfully it's something I haven't suffered from before, but last week I was putting a box into the dresser and my back just gave way!

It necessitated a phone call to the Doctors and Stephen collected my prescription for me: anti-inflammatories and painkillers. Several days later, things seem to be getting better. Hopefully there won't be too many more days shuffling and hobbling around!

On a brighter note, I did a little Etsy shopping and treated myself to a necklace from a seller in the States. I didn't have to wait too long and this is what arrived.



Such pretty packaging. And inside certainly didn't disappoint.

It gets better .....................


Retail therapy can certainly go some way towards aiding recovery!

Digressing completely, you can't miss the current blogland vintage and handmade fairs lovefest. And isn't it always the way that there is never anything like that here in Wales?

A friend and I were moaning about this fact and are thinking of putting on an event like that here in Wales. But before we do, I thought I would see whether there would be a demand for this type of event. Well, what do you think? Please comment and de-lurk and let me know your thoughts. Who knows, it could become a reality.

Treasures

As it was a lovely day, weather wise. yesterday, I popped to a local car boot sale/market. I wasn't expecting much, but came away with a bag full of jewellery bits and pieces.


Everything was piled into a vintage suitcase.


I left the suitcase as it wasn't anything special and it was the jewellery I was interested in. So a deal was struck (after all it would have been churlish not to haggle) and everything was tipped into my shopping bag.


After running over and trawling through the contents, I made the executive decision that I ought to buy the whole kit and caboodle.


The yesterday evening I started to sort through the jumble. There are individual diamante earrings, beads and buttons galore. And was I glad I bought everything. Included in the jumble are necklaces that have been broken but the beads have been kept. A quick search on Amazon yesterday led to a jewellery stringing book being purchased as I would love to be able to restring the necklaces (It's hideously expensive to have it done at the jewellers). Now I just need to untangle the jumble of necklaces and decide what can be restrung and what will be used in future projects.

Celebrations

Next week is the last youth club before Halloween and as the Village Hall organises a party, we are having Halloween Celebrations rather than a full blow party. But these things tend to escalate don't they? Which is why I found myself volunteering to make trick or treat party bags for the children with the fabric that belongs to youth club.

Not just any old fabric, but horrible polyester. It is truly awful and usually I wouldn't even contemplate sewing with it, but needs must and all that. The bags have been sewn together and I am now waiting for some black ribbon to arrive to act as ties.

Please excuse the photo as black fabric is very difficult to photograph.


Looking forward to Christmas, I was lucky enough to find a box of vintage Christmas decorations (there was a hint on the box!)


Inside the box is filled with vintage decorations.


And just to ram home the sheer loveliness of these decorations, here's a close up!