Northampton Vintage Fair and Bank Holiday Plans

This week has been pretty hectic, back at work catching up and waiting for the dreaded GCSE results. In the end my lovely girl made me very proud and did really well.

Deb and I finally got our act together and made some flyers for the Northampton, Vintage and Home Made Fair on OCT 23rd. Most of the stalls have already gone but there may be one or two left if any new sellers are interested.

I am now off work for a long weekend. I guess there may be a bit more baking going on,

quite a lot of this ......

and possibly a bit of this. I found two lovely old heavy wooden bedside cupboards at the local tip recycling shop and they need a lick of paint. These are some more of the lovely scraps in my new scrap book.

The lavender is dried and stored away in four large glass jars.

I have started sewing lavender hearts with recycled linens and vintage buttons. I do this every year but will try and make more this year to add to my stall at the fair.

I had a couple of charity shop finds this week including these pretty glasses

and this 1950s/60s Molly Brett print. I will try and get these listed in my Etsy shop over the weekend.

Anyway I need to get myself moving as there will be lots to cram in over the next few days. I know my lovely girl is planning a day out for us and I have lots of jobs to catch up on. Hope you all have a lovely bank holiday weekend with at least a bit of sunshine.

Last Days Of Summer

Last week I had a break from work and had a lovely relaxing day catching up with my friend Debbie. We had a great day visiting my home town, catching up with my mum on her birthday for coffee and trawling the local flea market and numerous charity shops.

My favourite find of the day was yet another vintage scrap book full of the cutest scraps. The seaside pictures are so nostalgic, the black and white scraps of English seaside resorts show that things haven't really changed in many ways, children still love paddling in the sea and donkey rides.

Sadly, I think the best of the Summer is over and the blackberries are ready for picking. We have had loads of blackberries, gooseberries and red currants from mother in law's garden.

It seems the rain is here to stay for some time to come.

Yesterday I came home from work to a house full of lavender. Mr C had finally harvested our lavender ready for me to use for lavender bags and hearts. I do this every year but almost left it too late this year to pick it. Hopefully it will be ok and if the smell in the house is anything to go by the oils are still strong.

Back to my trip with Debbie last week, it was lovely having a guilt free day indulging our mutual love of mooching around charity shops. We fitted in another local market town on our way home and between us were loaded with bags. We both agreed it was much better shopping with each other rather than with husbands who we know have a tendency to become bored after the first couple of shops leaving us feeling guilty for dragging them round. Debbie did especially well and found some amazing things for her little unit at the Northampton Antiques Centre.

I found a petit point dressing table set with 10 pieces and this pretty Midwinter Stylecraft toast wrack with sections for butter and marmalade.

I also found this great heavy glass fruit dish and bowls. It matches the glasses I recently bought in london.

On Saturday I found a couple of books and the Victorian papier mache rose pot at the antiques market on our market square.

Today I have been a little under the weather and had to have the day off work, the first time in over a year. I slept most of the day but when I woke up my lovely girl had been busy with her Hummingbird Bakery cook book and had made some delicious vanilla cup cakes.

Anyway, back to bed I think. Sitting at the computer isn't making me feel any better unfortunately, hopefully I will wake up feeling back to my old self tomorrow.

The Week So Far

This week I have some time off work and so far it has been pretty exhausting but good fun. At the weekend my sister and her husband and three young children came to visit. They live in Scotland so we don't get to see each other very often. We had a great time and made the most of the sunshine by eating in the garden.They were due to break their journey home with a couple of nights in Leeds but I suggested they head off on their own and leave the children with us for a couple of nights. They didn't need to be asked twice and were out the door pretty swiftly ! We have had a couple of days of paddling pools, parks, baking, lego making and ice cream eating and now the house seems very empty.

My lovely sister returned from Leeds with presents for me, these gorgeous cup cake bath melts that look good enough to eat. They are from a great shop called Rose and Co, check out their website and pictures of their beautiful apothecary style shop which apparently also says vintage dresses and other lovely things.

She also bought me another pretty Pip Studio cup and saucer to match my blue one and the sweet yellow rose. The little rosy pot in the background was a charity shop find along with the violets hat pin holder and are about to go in to my Etsy shop.

After they had all gone home Mr C took me to check out the new Recycle shop in town. This is where things that usually get taken the tip are being sold. Sadly gone are the days of rummaging on the trestle tables at the tip but the new shop is a much more civilised affair. Just as I arrived a lady was paying for the most amazing set up Cath Kidston style wooden kitchen chairs , I was very jealous ! However I found some nice old children's books so didn't come away empty handed.

This also arrived this week, a pretty vintage fabric, shoe holder. I am not sure what I will use it for yet but I don't think it will be for shoes.

Finally, please humour me while I show you pictures of my loo and bathroom ! I have waited so long for this ! Mr C has finally tiled the loo floor with blue/grey tiles from Fired Earth.These have been stacked up in the bedroom for ages and I have lost count of the times I have stubbed my toe. He has also painted the bathroom in a great shade by Farrow and Ball called Green Blue. The flooring still needs to be laid in the bathroom but it's a start. It also gave me an excuse to re-arrange my little shelf . The bathroom isn't pretty as such but I love it. The house is 1920s and the bathroom has the original tiles on the walls and we re-fitted the original deco chrome heated towel rail. The new wall colour seems very keeping with the period and I love the way it changes colour in different types of light.

Enjoy the rest of the week, I am off out now for coffee and cake with Mr C.

Exploring London

Last weekend I had a great couple of days away with my lovely girl in London. It's not far for us to go and my daughter loves it, especially planning to explore new areas. We managed to find a cheap rate at The Hoxton where we have stayed before. It is a great hotel with delicious food at The Hoxton Grill. Also it was bang in the middle of the area we wanted to start exploring. First off we headed to Spitalfields and explored the wonderful covered market. There are some great little shops and cafes in the surrounding streets and a lovely buzzing atmosphere. We stood and watched a tea dance taking place in the middle of the market square.

We then headed off towards Brick lane and stopped to look at the wonderful houses with their original painted shutters. This area was once home to Huguenot refugees who were weavers and needed the tall houses and high windows.

Brick Lane was bustling and had such contrasts of styles and cultures.There were lots of wonderful smells in the air but it was too early for curry so we headed in to a traditional style American diner and had a milkshake.

There were lots of vintage clothes shops in surrounding streets. This one was crammed with shelves of scarves, pretty aprons and pinnies, hats, eiderdowns and linens. We walked a bit further to Columbia Road where the famous flower market takes place on a Sunday. Most of the shops were closed because it wasn't market day, including a shop full of vintage lovelies. I will definitely be heading back one Sunday.

Next stop was the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. I could have spent a lot longer in here but we were pretty tired and hungry by this stage but still had a good look round. One of my favourite things was the doll dressed in green at the top but Snow White and the Seven Dwarves were lovely too.

The dolls houses were fascinating but quite hard to photograph because of the detail.

I love this picture of the two boys with their sailing boat. It would be great to track down a copy.

The next day we were up bright and early to go on a tour of the Houses of Parliament. Very touristy I know but something my daughter really wanted to do. I can honestly say I really enjoyed it and found it fascinating. The place is enormous and full of amazing Victorian interiors and paintings.

We then headed off to Chiswick and explored the shops including of course Cath Kidston and The Old Cinema. After a delicious lunch I checked out the charity shops, and made a few purchases.

Final treat of the day was a trip to Harrods and sharing this very naughty Harrods Special ice cream sundae.

My charity shop purchases were this Beryl, Woods Ware tea pot which matches my cups and saucers.

Also this wonderful set of vintage place mats decorated with scenes of Cornwall by George Hann. These will probably go in to my Etsy shop although Mr C seems to have taken a liking to them.

I also bought this pretty set of glasses which match a jug I have. The prices were much higher than I would pay in a charity shop at home but still worth it for such lovely things. The Cath Kidston makeup bag is in one of her new designs 'button rose'.

We headed home tired but pleased we had seen some new places and planning our next trip to Columbia Road !