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 .

Christmas Shopping In New York

As promised last week I am sharing some more of my New York photos . These are all of shops and cafes and a few of my purchases.

This was a lovely book I treated myself to from Barnes and Noble. It is full of wonderful pictures.

This is the inside of the famous Dylan's Candy Store.

The Christmas displays in the department stores were amazing. Unfortunately it was hard to capture the window displays because of the reflections on the glass. These were taken inside Henri Bendel. The store has beautiful Lalique windows.

This was a lovely cafe called The Magnolia Bakery. The banana pudding and red velvet cake was out of this world. It reminded me of the Hummingbird Bakery in London only with real vintage charm.

The inside was decorated with paper chains and I loved the vintage glass lights.

On the shelves were wonderful vintage toys and tins.

This was a window display in one of the many department stores.

This picture isn't great but they were vintage dolls put together with vintage tins used for their bodies. They were incredibly expensive. Interestingly some time ago a buyer from the US bought a vintage tin money box from my Etsy shop. She later sent me a picture showing me that she had used it to make one of these using it as the body for a doll all made up of vintage parts. I had never seen anything like it until I saw these which were almost identical.

This was the Cartier shop wrapped up in a red ribbon.

This was one of the wacky window displays in Anthropology.

I am afraid I just had to take this because it was so disturbing ! This was the American Girl shop, just full of dolls and accessories.

The M & M shop was enormous.

There were M & Ms in every colour including loads I had never seen in the UK. We came away with bags of pastel coloured M&Ms and a green M&M bone for Josh.

The amazing Apple building.

Polar bears in F.A.O Schwarz.

I loved all of the Muppet displays. They hand make muppet puppets here and have shelves of eyes, noses, wigs etc. You can watch them being hand made in the workshop.

We were entertained by dancers playing Christmas songs by dancing on the keys of an enormous piano.

This was a traditional New York diner. All chrome and wood inside and very retro. It was a bit like the inside of a subway car.

The breakfast we had was enormous, piles of pancakes and maple syrup, steaming cups of coffee and plates of  bacon and eggs sunny side up. The only thing I really missed was a nice cup of Earl Grey tea.

This is my vintage style apron I treated myself to from The Magnolia Bakery. I love the red ribbons on the pockets and the 1950s style fabric. It looks great hung in my kitchen with all the other splashes of red.

I know this is a bit sad but these are two tea towels I bought from Anthropology. It is a lovely shop but pretty pricey. These were cheaper than the prices in the UK branch on Regent Street and one of them was in the sale so I couldn't resist. I love the appliqued designs and pompom decorations. The only problem is they are too nice to use.

A few more pictures from 'Vintage Vavoom'.

I treated myself to a few American magazines. I love reading my favourite magazines every month Like Period Living, Homes and Antiques and Country Living so wanted to check the American equivalents. I think I prefer the UK versions but they did have some wonderful pictures.

And finally a pretty mug my lovely girl bought me as a surprise in Anthropology. Much of my time was spent in clothes shops with my lovely girl and that's where most of my money seemed to go. I didn't find a single antiques shop and there are no charity shops of course. There is a weekly flea market in Hells Kitchen but the snow stopped that unfortunately.