.....Bargain Hunting!

Last weekend I had a crazy weekend with a house full of relatives to celebrate my niece's 14th birthday. My Mum and Dad recently moved to Northampton from The Scottish Borders to be closer to  both us and my sister's family. This weekend was the first time in ages that we were actually at home for The Malvern Flea so we decided to make the most of it and take everyone along with us so they can experience the flea market fun!

The weather forecast predicted heavy showers at lunchtime so we made sure we got there nice and early to make the most of the dry weather. It was lovely to be there having a mooch about without looking for things I could sell on. 

As always we came back with a car full of goodies and first up was this irresistible gold velour button back two seater sofa. Due to spending the last few years dealing in vintage and second hand furniture our house and furniture is constantly changing and I knew when I first sat on this beauty that it would definitely have a place in our new lounge.  

Toby instantly fell in love with it and has already claimed it as his own personal sofa.

My next find was this retro print of a Paris scene which goes perfectly in our lounge with my Fettik painting of Paris which I got for my 30th birthday.   

Over the past few months I've been getting together quite a collection of brooches and I'm always instantly drawn to the jewellery stalls at the Flea to see what new treasures I can find. I normally go for celtic style brooches or something with a bit of a sparkle but I instantly fell for this unusual candelabra shaped brooch. I think it might be made out of pewter and it has cream painted candles. A bargain price of £4 and it was mine!

When I was at The Goodwood Revival I discovered the usefulness of a shooting stick. All the ones I saw there were modern copies made of shiny aluminium so when I found this little beauty at The Malvern Flea I was ecstatic! It only cost me £10 (after a bit of cheeky haggling) and it's in lovely condition for it's age. 

Can't wait to try this out at Goodwood Revival 2013!

.......Nostalgia at Goodwood Revival 2012!

Last weekend I had the great pleasure of accompanying Miss Clare Bridge of Second Hand Rose to the vintage festival of the year...Goodwood Revival 2012. We had such a blast and caused a bit of wine induced mayhem as well as selling a few vintage clothes and accessories along the way.

  

Tesco at Goodwood

We saw so many amazing outfits but this pink number below was one of our faves....although we weren't entirely sure which era she was going for!

As The Revival was mainly about racing cars there were some amazing vehicles just parked up on show.

Being an owner of an old Mercedes this custom built station wagon was one of my favourites. My partner Tom shattered my illusions a little when he said they're very rare....a girl can still dream!

A Merc just like my Stanley!

As we were camping and working long days without much time to preen and pamper ourselves we decided to treat ourselves to having our hair coiffed at the vintage salon on the Saturday. I was amazed at what they managed to achieve, especially when they managed to tong my unruly mop of a fringe into very neat 40s style rolls. I did have a slight fear of causing an explosion when lighting the gas cooker later that night to fill our hot water bottles (yes I admit it we were very girly campers!) but thankfully managed to avoid any disasters!

This year the organisers decided to leave our part of the site open until 10pm instead of the boring 7pm like last year. It made all the difference to us as we actually managed to have some fun when the sun went down. We enjoyed some wine, some amazing live music and tried our best to pretend we knew what we were doing when dancing with some dapper gents dressed head to toe in tweed. Even our fox stoles had a bit of a dance! We met some lovely people and enjoyed living in a bit of a fantasy world for a few days. It was a bit of a shame to come back to reality and 2012!

Mr B Gentleman Rhymer

Elle and The Pocket Belles

It's hard to tell but the guy in the middle wearing the hat is Mr Chris Evans.

All in all we had an amazing weekend and it was nice to prove that us girly girls can manage on our own at a festival.....even if we did almost cry a little bit when we couldn't get the tent pegs in and had to call upon our gentlemen neighbours to borrow a bigger mallet.

Roll on Goodwood Revival 2013....looking forward to seeing how you can top this year!

.......Seaside Fun!

Last week we had a nice break from normal life and started the week off with a few days in lovely Bideford in Devon with our friends Gareth and Lucy and their crazy dog Larry. 

We did some walking, quite a lot of napping and even more wine drinking. 

On the first day me and Lucy hit the town and had a bit of a girly shopping morning. We checked out the super cute Bideford Market and then spent a few hours mooching round antique shops and the obligatory charity shops. I didn't find too many treasures but did pick up a few old knitting patterns to add to my collection.

Bideford Market

My charity shop haul. Two for 20p!

On our last full day went on a lovely 6 mile riverside walk to a place called Appledore and back. It was a stunning walk and I took the opportunity to take some arty photos of the shipwrecks we saw on the way. It also gave me a chance to play with the features on my camera such as monochrome and vivid.

When we got to Appledore we found this charity shop. I loved the shabby seaside-esque exterior. Makes a nice change to see an independent charity shop with a bit of character.

My favourite seaside tipple.

Larry biting the sea water.

Slightly soggy Toby.

Toby worn out after the long 6 mile walk.

We had a lovely time chilling out with our friends and the dogs had a blast driving each other crazy. Definitely a trip to remember.

Bye!
x