A Vintage sort of Sunday

Today is one of my favourite days of the month because it means it’s the For the Love of Vintage Fair. 

This is a fabulous fair that I only discovered at the beginning of the year, it’s packed to the rafters with handmade goodies alongside vintage clothing, accessories and tit bits.  Mum and I absolutely adore it and for such a small little fair (approximately 17 stalls) we’re there for HOURS.  It’s the sort of place where you need to look around then go back to a few things that caught your eye, then start from the beginning again then have a cup of tea then go around again.  

It doesn’t just have lovely stalls but it’s such a wonderful atmosphere, everyone is so friendly, the stall holders actively want to have a natter with you as do most of the people attending it, there is such a vibe it’s an absolute delight to be there and I’m usually still smiling a few hours after.  

Live music is such a wonderful thing and Becky who organises the fair always has a very talented (or two) local musician there to entertain us all.  This month I had Roux and Hurricane with me so frequently ended up jiving away with one of them.  Hurricane was quite taken with the music and spent a lot of time standing in the way of everyone swinging her hips to the beat.  What it is it about good live music that just lifts the spirits?

It’s hard to know where to start first to tell you about this little treasure trove of a fair, I think I’ll start with some absolutely DIVINE dresses courtesy of Devine Dolly.  I am such a Rockabilly girl at heart and it’s a style I’ve drooled after for years but I never had the confidence to go for it, I’m getting there slowly but surely and for the last few months I’ve been styling my make up with a definite Rockabilly theme and am rarely seen without my bright RED lipstick.  Anyway, the fabrics the ladies at Devine Dolly use are such good quality and they have a collection of styles that I just can’t wait.  Once Peanut is skin side and I’ve lost the baby weight I’m going to invest in some pretty dresses from here, it would be criminal not too.

Now to this scrumptious stall from Typically English.  I’m sure that she makes nearly everything on this stall herself and it’s using the most gorgeous vintage laces and pretty vintage style fabrics.  This is one of those stalls that I kept returning to so I could touch things and on every visit (I think I counted 6) I noticed something else.  I’d love to spend an afternoon with Helen, as I’m sure her home or workshop is a very fun place to be.  Those 6 trips back to this stall may have, ahem, led to some purchases

Look at all these sparkly things! Courtesy of Ragtime Vintage.  They were also the sellers of the pink dress below.  I absolutely feel in love with some crystals in a bowl on this table but I’m on a budget so couldn’t stretch this month.  If there still there at the next fair they are mine!

Look at this beautiful little number.  I drooled over this for a long time and I’m gutted to have left it behind but it’s a few sizes smaller than I was pre-pregnancy (not many now I’m losing so much weight) and I’m not sure of my body shape after Peanut so the sensible thing was to walk away.  Ragtime Vintage is ran by a Mother and Daughter team and the Mother said that she’d be able to make me one whenever I need so I’m making sure I keep her contact details so I can hold her to that.  I need this dress in my life.

Next up was another treasure trove of a stall and another one that I kept going back to time and time again.  Also a peek of the Hurricane touching *rolls eyes*  I know she gets this from me but she just touches every thing and she’s one of these children that always manages to get grubby no matter what I do.  She’s cute with it though so I let her off.  Thimble-Stitch have some vintage haberdashery that my Mum laughed over as it took her back to her childhood along with the tins below, threads, buttons and pretty fabric. I may have made some purchases here too.

Well all that shopping gave me an appetite and I’d promised Roux and Hurricane that if they followed me around and let me browse without too much trouble I’d gift them with cake.  Roux latched onto this and declared “Ok Mummy, we get to choose it and you have to pay for it”.  Hmmm, my boy is a bit too worldly wise for a 4 year old.  He’s right though, that’s what generally happens.  

The tea room at the fair is always ran by The Sitting Room (who coincidentally was where we stopped for cake yesterday) and they follow the vintage theme with an abundance of home made cakes and a very good cup of tea served in tea cups on crisp white table cloths.  

Roux was taken by some rocky road, Hurricane saw the rainbow cake and giggled that it was so many colours, Mum had Victoria Sponge and I had this lovely chocolate and hazelnut gluten free cookie.  I could have eaten this all over again and I wish I’d got one to take away.  Never mind, it gives me an excuse to visit their quaint little tea shop again.

This isn’t my picture, I’ve been naughty and lifted it from their Facebook page. So now to my purchases… the best bit.  I’ve been making lots of the monsters that I’ve briefly mentioned and family and friends are demanding more.  They only take scraps of yarn and I love making them so I’m using them to pay for baby sitting and other favours.  The jar of vintage buttons are intended to be monster eyes, a beautiful necklace from an up and coming business that isn’t currently hooked up to the internet (Kitty Franks) She’s now online, check the link below, the fabric, sequin trimmings and brooches are going to be needle cases for myself, Mum and a few as gifts.  Hurricane spotted the flowery lace and asked if I could make it into something for her hair.  She’s nearly 3 but very demanding! and the pin cushion is very strokeable.  I was considering making one myself but my wonderful Mother decided to buy this anyway as it so pretty.

I should have been making a start on the needle cases tonight but I’ve spent so much time looking at the websites, facebook pages and blogs of not only the ones I’ve mentioned here but others that I couldn’t photograph due to the sheer amount of people crowding the stall that I’ve ran out of time.  I’m itching to make them though so it won’t be long!

I’ve recently been introduced to Handmade Monday, I’m not too sure how it works right now but I’m definitely a fan of home made, especially when you’ve got fairs like The Love of Vintage to go to and gather inspiration plus local goodies – spoilt for choice.

In an effort to buy local, hand made beautiful things I’m trying to keep a record of shops/individuals that sell amazing creations and items.  Here’s todays list of places I think you should visit.

Typically English – Helen, typically.english@yahoo.co.uk

Ragtime Vintage – ragtime-vintage@hotmail.co.uk

Thimble-stitch – Kate Watson, https://www.facebook.com/ThimbleStitch

Devine Dolly – https://www.facebook.com/devinedolly

Kitty Franks – https://www.facebook.com/kittyfranksvintage

Freda’s Vintage Clothing and Accessories – https://www.facebook.com/FredasVintageClothingAndAccessories

Niamh’s Boutique – https://www.facebook.com/niamhsboutique

The Profile Gallery & Sitting Room – https://www.facebook.com/Profile.Gallery

Turtley Awesome 4th Birthday

I’ve just spent this evening debating what to do with the helium balloons left over from eldest’s Birthday earlier this month and realised I still needed to edit photographs so in the spirit of blogging my life I decided to do my first proper blog on his special Day.

So, he’s been Ben10 mad for 18 months now and was determined he wanted a Ben10 party featuring all his favourite characters. He’d started planning it the minute his last Birthday had been and gone (Pirate themed) and had been asking to go on the laptop to look at cakes. Then, one day, just after Christmas, I spotted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was being shown on TV and it made me feel all nostalgic – unfortunately, this led to a new obsession and I ended up having to organise a rather retro party.

So, what do you do when you can’t actually get official (or unofficial for that matter) merchandise unless you import from the US and pay a fortune? Well you craft it obviously!

Pinterest helped here quite a lot but the collage above is a little peek at what I did. We’re moving to a different town over the next couple of months so I wanted him to have a party with all of his friends meaning I was organising a do for 35 children. Not a small feat.

I booked the local leisure centre as they have a bouncy castle, sports equipment and then another room for food and games. Feeding that many children meant my tight budget was going through the roof so I decided to do a little lunch bag for each child instead. I was amazed by how cheap this was. I ordered the green bags from eBay and spent an evening cutting out bandanas from crepe paper and gluing on with a marker pen smile. I filled them with a sandwich, some chocolate fingers, raisins, a yoghurt and a cake I’d baked with a topper again from eBay.

The party bags consisted of a cellophane bag jam packed with sweeties and a VIP badge with a wonderful insert made by a really good friend and Godparent to my daughter. I wasn’t sure how well they’d go down but the children loved them and wore them straight away. The Birthday Boy was still wearing his days later.

She also made me some brilliant posters and some Cowabunga bunting. Unfortunately I was running around like a headless chicken all day and my DSLR is missing in action so you’ll have to forgive some of these photographs.

The balloons were just 4 helium ones with crepe paper bandanas and eyes glued on. They lost their bandanas fairly quickly and the Birthday Boy and some of his friends ran around with them on their heads instead.

The cake let me down a little, I was feeling tired and quite nauseous from my bump so threw it together as quick as I could. He was happy with it though and really, that’s all that counts.

I also got a lovely personalised t shirt that I ended up having to handwash each night for the week so he could wear it every day.

My final touch was some TMNT nails as requested by the Birthday Boy himself, I forgot all about doing these and ended up remembering at 1am so quickly slapping some polish on. He’s requested I do them on him soon.

Finally, a list of all the wonderful eBay shops where I purchased a lot of my party supplies. I’d normally try and go for local but I left it to the last minute, I can’t believe how fast they all delivered and that everything was such high quality so I’m more than happy to link them all up here.

Tshirt
Lanyards
VIP Badge holder
Cellophane cone bags
Cupcake toppers
Lunch bags and Napkins

Oh, and one very last thing. I went to a small Church craft fair today and bumped into some lovely Ladies from BC Crafts and they had the most amazing Ninja Turtle. Unfortunately it was Michaelangelo, had it been Raphael and I’ve snapped it up! I hope they don’t mind me sharing their photograph here as I’m going to double check with The Boy which one he definitely wants and get one ordered. I’m wondering if they can work on a Shredder to complete the collection.