Vintage At The Southbank

On Friday my lovely girl and I took a little trip to london to visit the Vintage Village at the Southbank.

As soon as we arrived we were greeted by the sight of the vintage style seaside, themed river bank.

Brightly painted beach huts and vintage ice cream and fish and chip vans were dotted along the river bank.

Once inside the vintage village as well as all the lovely vintage clothes and home wares stalls there was a pop up vintage tea room.

On the vintage high street there were a range of shops including the beautifully decorated Horrockses shop.

The dresses on display were gorgeous and the prints were the inspiration for the lovely vintage style bed linen.

In the shadow of the London Eye the Chap Olympiad took place.

I arrived just as the cucumber sandwich discus throwing event was taking place.

Also on the high street was a hair salon courtesy of Batiste if you fancied a couple of Victory Rolls and right next door a beauty salon courtesy of Benefit to add the finishing touch.

A colourful vintage fun fair was also in full swing.

Of course Cath Kidston had set up shop and were launching their new Autumn range.

We had a great day, the sun shone and there was a fabulous outdoor food market at the front of The Royal Festival Hall. I managed to track down Vicky of Vicky Loves Vintage who was selling in one of the marquees. Vicky is a regular seller at our vintage fairs but this was a completely different league !

Of course I made a couple of purchases but I was quite restrained.

I found this gorgeous double eiderdown in the Oxfam pop up shop.It is in wonderful condition, lovely and plump with no stains. I gave it a quick wash and dried it on the line in the sunshine yesterday. This was a real bargain considering where I found it and certainly much cheaper than on ebay.

I also found this cute Chad Valley seaside pail on the lovely Acorn and Will stall.

This pretty vintage French 1930s fabric covered box was another bargain find.

All in all it was a wonderful day, I will certainly be back next year if it returns.

Update Part 2

Yesterday, I finally managed to get out to a boot sale although very late on. I obviously missed all the best bargains but still managed to find a few nice things.

I found this pretty blue rose, vintage silk cushion cover, I have added a nice feather pad . The chair is one of pair Mr C found at the tip shop and painted in an Annie Sloan paint ,he mixed the blue colour himself using a white and dark blue.

I also found some pretty china , a sweet green and pink carnation dressing table set, some cute vintage crocheted crinoline lady egg cosies and a china crinoline lady.

Going back to our first Olney Vintage Fair, I thought I would share a few photos to give you

a flavour. My sister and husband were visiting from Scotland with their children and they got roped in to running the tea room. They were completely exhausted by the end of the day.

As usual there were a wonderful array of stalls. The hall looked really pretty and we had a steady flow of visitors throughout the day.

There was a nice mix of vintage and handmade with some lovely new sellers too. Some had travelled quite a distance including the lovely Amanda from Charente Vintage who had travelled from France.

We had a lovely day which made all the preparation worthwhile. The next day we were up bright and early as we were selling at The Winslow Vintage and Handmade Fair. This is a lovely event outside in the market square. We were pretty tired but luckily it was a sunny day and we were able to sit behind our stall on deck chairs and relax and listen to the music.

After all the fairs we needed a day of relaxation so we headed to one of our favourite National Trust properties, Wimpole Hall Farm.

It was a lovely way to relax, ambling around the farm looking at the baby animals and of course sampling the tea and cake in the tea room.

Things are very busy again now, with only two weeks to go until our first fair in Market Harborough. And before that I have to squeeze in a little trip to Vintage at The Southbank !

Catch Up Part 1

As I explained in my last post, life has been very busy this last month or so and I have struggled to find time to think about blogging. I have still been trying to keep up with all the lovely blogs I follow but apologies if I haven't had time to leave a comment. Hopefully things will settle down again now for a week or two.

A few weeks ago my lovely girl and I had one of our little trips to London and decided to watch Trooping of the Colour. It was a truly colourful and exciting experience with us being really close to the gates of Buckingham Palace. We had a great views of all the Royals as they came past and the bands and horses were amazing. This was Kate and William's first public appearance since their wedding so the crowd was really excited.

This isn't a very good picture of the balcony , the ones my lovely girl took were far better, probably because she is loads taller than me !

I have managed to squeeze in one or two boot sales and amongst my finds were the pretty crinoline lady tea pot, the Lotto game and rose pyrex dishes.

I also found this Lizzie Long Legs doll and the Noddy tin.

This large Asiatic Pheasants plate is beautifully faded

and I found yet more crocheted blankets.

This was a wonderful find in a local charity shop. I spotted it in the window after the shop was closed so despatched Mr C to wait on the doorstep the following morning when the shop opened. It is a very large and beautiful barbola plaque in the prettiest blue.

I treated myself to these to add to my collection, they came from a friend who had them displayed in her kitchen but finally agreed to sell them to me. They are a pair of Goebels salt and pepper pots and just the sort of things I love.

Mr C found me yet another little cupboard which he painted and repaired. It is now just waiting to be filled with more little bits and pieces , I am sure that won't take long !

Finally I must mention the wonderful fair we attended near Warwick organised by the lovely Amy of Blighty Boutique and her mum Annie. We had a great day and had the chance to catch up with friends as well as meet some lovely new sellers and customers.

I will be back over the weekend with my update part 2 with some photos of our Vintage Fair in Olney last weekend and some more of my vintage finds.

Olney Vintage Fair

I am afraid I haven't had the chance to visit Blogland much over the last few weeks. Life has been very busy at work and home. I have been visiting lots of new places with my lovely girl checking out possible universities, I have been to London and seen the Queen at trooping of the colour, I have had a stall at Amy's fab fair in Hatton Park and I have seen Take That ! This Saturday is our first Vintage Fair in Olney and we are really busy with last minute preparations before I head off again tomorrow to another uni open day. I will be back next week with a proper update of what I have been up to with some photos to share.

If you are free it would be great to see you on Saturday.