Makeovers

Before Christmas Mr C bought me an old dark wood, glazed cupboard. He could see it's potential and knew I had been looking for something with deep enough shelves for some of my bigger books.

He gave it a coat of Farrow and Ball in 'Lichen' and polished up the old hinges and it has been completely transformed. All I need to do now is fill it !

This very old rustic pine chest was found at the local recycling shop. Mr C has also painted it in Annie Sloan Chalk white, rubbed it back a bit and given it a wax. He will be taking this down to the unit at Brackley Antiques Cellar when it is finished.

This old suitcase also came from the recycling shop and has a lovely blue silk lining.

I recently bought a carrier bag of fabric from a local charity shop for the princely sum of £2. Inside were all sorts of pieces of vintage fabric including an unfinished patchwork bedspread.

At the bottom of the bag were approximately 100 patchwork squares in five different designs. My lovely girl and I are considering having a go at putting them together to make a throw for a bed.

Weekend Finds And Fair Preparations

This weekend was pretty hectic, with a late night work's event Saturday and getting ready for next weekend's Vintage Fair. Saturday morning Mr C and I popped over to Brackley to the antiques centre and had a wander. Oddly for me the only things I bought were brand new ! The spotty red dog tin above is a replica of an old French tin and came in lots of different sizes.

The large Union Jack cushion was spotted by Mr C and was a bargain ex-display cushion.

I bought the chalk paint in 'Cream' to have an experiment with. It can be layered and waxed to give a distressed effect. It can be painted straight on to any surface with no need for any real preparation or priming and sells itself as 'a paint for girls' ! I tried it out on an old wooden cutlery holder I wanted to give a make over to.

Evenings have been spent making more paper chains to decorate the hall at the Vintage Fair. This is actually quite therapeutic in front of the TV. I bought these spotty ones from the Dot.com gift shop at the last Country Living Fair. I notice they are doing some great vintage ones on their website for christmas.

These are a couple of pressies Mr C received for his recent birthday. The 1930s water colour was spotted by him on Jo's (Hesta Nestas) stall at the last fair in Stamford. I arranged for Jo to send it over for his birthday and he was very surprised and pleased. The book is the new Farrow and Ball 'Living With Colour ' by Ros Byam Shaw. This is a lovely book and I thought it might inspire Mr C to get his paintbrush out again !

The photos are gorgeous and show all sorts of styles from elegant town houses to modern apartments and country cottages.

Finally these were charity shop finds last week. The two saucers were found in a different CS to the sandwich plate and tea plate but they all match.

The Baileys cup was another 50p charity shop find. I have put it up on my dusty kitchen mantelpiece with my old cups and egg cup. The two cups were purchased on ebay some years ago and came from America although I am sure they are English. I think they are from around the 1930s and may also have been made for some sort of advertising purpose. If you know anything about them please let me know. What I do know is that they are quite old and I think the Baileys cups must have been based on them.

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.