February Bicycle Basket Bazaar

Yesterday was the monthly BBB in Northampton's old fishmarket. I met up with Deb over coffee and cupcakes in the Fishmarket Cafe to finalise plans for the Vintage Fair in March. Sharon (The Crafty Trundler) and her daughter joined us for a coffee which was lovely. We caught up with some of the sellers who will be at the fair in March including Lindsay (Elsie Sparrow), Kris, Lucy and Caroline who is a new seller this time. Of course I couldn't leave empty handed and came away with some of Lindsay's hand made lovelies to put away as presents , although the teacup candles are for me.

The fabric in the background is a large remnant of bark cloth I found for a £1 in the charity shop opposite the Fish market.

I also bought these beautiful embroidered pictures from Caroline who is a new seller who will be joining us at the fair. I need to find a frame for the boats picture so I can get it up on the wall in my bathroom. The colours are still wonderfully bright and the detail is amazing. The other garden picture will go in my newly painted hall along with my Sweet Peas picture.

This pretty, vintage knitting or sewing bag was another charity shop find this week.

And finally Mr Cornerhouse seems to be on a bit of a roll and has framed another one of my old prints. This is one that has been waiting to go up in the bathroom for ages. It cheers me up on wet and windy days like today and reminds me that hopefully we do have a summer to look forward to !

Jobs Done

Finally the painting is finished in our hall and I have a lovely blank canvas to play with. This has been a long job but was worth the wait. We chose a range of Farrow and Ball whites to make the hall as light as possible and Mr Cornerhouse changed all of the switches for lovely brass ones from Olivers Lighting.

He framed this 1930s print I have had for ages and limed the old frame.

We found this rusty old cast iron doorstop a few months back. Mr Cornerhouse decided it was going to be a little project. He spotted the similarity with the light house in the Cath Kidston wallpaper in our bathroom . He stripped it and repainted it with colours as close a match as possible to the Cath Kidston colours.

Here is the finished item looking much better. I know you shouldn't really repaint old doorstops but it was in a terrible state and wasn't a valuable one.

This is a lovely old wooden clothes horse I saw advertised on Freecycle last week. I already have my grandma's old one which I use every day. I thought this would be good for displaying linens. If you haven't heard of Freecycle go and have a look at the website and register for your local one. It is a brilliant idea and over the years I have enjoyed giving as well as receiving from people local to myself. The idea is to keep things out of landfill and to recycle instead. You advertise for things you want or for things you want to offer. No money changes hands and you are encouraged to to keep it as local as possible to reduce the need to drive any distance.

These were a great bargain last week, £1.20 in the local Red cross shop. They are a brand new unused packet of Bluebell drawer liners, they are in the Cath Kidston current collection and sell for around £10.

This is a lovely crocheted blanket I found in a charity shop this week. It looks great after a gentle wash and reminds me of one I had on my bed when I was a little girl.

I found a few new treasures for the Easter Vintage Fair in Northampton. These are a great 1950s set of lemonade jug and six glasses in wonderful condition. I think they look very Cath Kidston in style with frosted pink and pretty sprigs of flowers.

I have a bit of a weakness for baskets, this is one of two I bought this week. The painting of pansies is really pretty and the linen tea cosy is very sweet.

As it is an Easter fair I have been keeping my eyes open for vintage Easter goodies. I love the double egg cup with rose decoration.

Rainy Tuesday

On Tuesday I went here with my lovely girl.

Yes you guessed, we had a day out in London and we visited that shop that we all know and love. We went to Northcote Rd in Clapham and visited the branch of Cath Kidston there as well as the Living Vintage shop Hen has often posted about in her blog HenHouse. We enjoyed a yummy lunch in one of the local cafes and had a browse around a couple of antique shops and the very enticing Cabbages and Roses shop. I treated myself to a couple of things in CK, no excuses really other than it doesn't seem right to go all that way and come back empty handed !

I have had my eye on this lovely green cardigan and the great tiddlywink necklace for a while. The bag is really handy to keep folded in your handbag as a spare shopping bag, I have another one in the Birthday design and use it all the time for my charity shop finds I unexpectedly come across.

Most of the day was like this, very, very wet and rainy... but we didn't let that stop us. After the weather we braved in New York just before Christmas this was nothing . Unfortunately it wasn't the weather for outdoor photos so I didn't manage to take any to share with you of Northcote Rd. The pictures on Hen's blog are great so you can always have a peek there.

We popped in to Anthropolgie for a little browse. There were lots of lovely things as always but the things I picked up were all very expensive so sadly had to be left behind. This was the display of bed linen, you can't really tell from the photo but they were in an old wooden rowing boat suspended from the ceiling.

We had to visit here to keep our energy levels up ! We tried the new Hummingbird Bakery on Wardour Street which was fine but not as pretty as the Portobello Rd shop.

Here's the remains of what we brought home, a pretty vanilla cup cake, the scrummy red velvet cake and of course some chocolate cake.

Hope you are all having a lovely week .

Etsy Midlanders

Etsy Midlanders is a group of etsy sellers specialising in home made and vintage items. I am lucky enough to be part of the group so I thought I would give you a link to the team blog and also show you a selection of the wonderful things for sale from some of our local sellers.

Crinoline Lady tin $19.00 from annie69

Hand embroidered pendant $39.00 from Hensteeth

Vintage Valentine cards $6.00 from Vintage Wants Not Needs

Vintage cards $4.00 from Brimborion

Mini Blythe Cutie, original acrylic painting $30.00 from Slipper Satin

Needle felted guinea pig $40.00 from Sally Bailey

Poem Reel $32.00 from Felt At Home

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Advice Needed And Latest Vintage Finds

A few weeks ago I went to a local table top sale and spotted this old standard lamp. My mother in law has been on about wanting a traditional style standard lamp for ages and as this was in full working order and literally only a couple of pounds I bought it for her. I bet you can guess what happened next. I got it home and decided I actually quite liked it. I started imagining it with the shade re-covered in a nice Cath Kidston fabric and the wooden stand painted in a pretty Farrow and Ball shade. Do you think I am completely losing the plot ? Is it as hideous as my daughter would have me believe ? How easy is it to re-cover a shade or to get it re-covered by someone skilled at that sort of thing ? Advice needed please.

These cups and saucers were a charity shop find last week. I bought them to use in the tea room at the vintage fair but have actually started using them and rather like the pink and green design. I seem to be drawn towards combinations of pink and green.

This is a lovely old silk laundry bag in the palest pink, decorated with pink rosebuds. When I bought it I thought I would re-use the fabric but I can't bear to cut it up.

I spotted these pretty cardboard drawers at the weekend, they once held Terry's chocolates. The tin was a charity shop find at the weekend. All of these treasures will be coming with me to the vintage fair.

These 1930s and 40s handkerchiefs have wonderful, colourful designs on them.

I love the colourful handpainted dots on these buttons, not sure how I am going to use them yet.

Northampton Easter Vintage Fair

As you may have already seen on Debbie's blog 'Home Thoughts From Vintage Wants' The Northampton Vintage and Home Made Fair is taking place on Sat 20th March at St Matthews Church Rooms. Last time was a great success and lots of people have been asking about the next one. We provisionally booked the rooms way back in November. Since then a lot has happened including Deb's big house move. Over the last few weeks things have been pretty stressful here too with Mr Cornerhouse having three emergency admissions to hospital. Nothing too serious thankfully but exhausting and difficult for all concerned. My lovely girl has had GCSE exams and A Level choices to make , so all in all my blog and fair preparations have taken a back seat. Deb has thankfully taken control of the situation and has sorted out the flyers and printing. The photo took us a while. We had prepared the photo before Christmas using shelves again like last time but then changed our minds and decided we should try something different, hence the basket to fit with the Easter theme. Hopefully I can now try and catch up with all your lovely blogs and start some serious planning for the fair. If you are interested in having a stall please contact myself or Deb and we will send you a booking form. The stall holders from last time will be given the chance to book a stall first and then we will offer any stalls left to newcomers.