....Festival Fun!

Festival season is still in full swing so I thought I'd do a little post about a couple that I've been to this summer.

First up was Secret Garden Party Festival back in July. I went technically as a trader offering weaving workshops making festival headbands and friendship bracelets. I shared the marquee with vintage traders Second Hand Rose and Minimum Mouse so had good fun watching people enjoying the fun costumes for sale. 

It was a surprisingly massive festival with amazing treats for the eyes such as a giant straw fox, a sunken shipwreck - complete with attacking octopus, walkways of colourfully lit shrubbery and jellyfish paper lanterns. It was like being in a dream! 

The food selection was amazing with almost too much choice but as it was quite a long festival we managed to squeeze in quite a few culinary treats. 

Here are some general pics for you to peruse.

My little craft area.

The King!

The stall next to us sold nothing but tails so of course me and Clare decided to try some on for a laugh. They were actually really well made but definitely purely a festival accessory! 

Disco in a shed!

One of the highlights, as it happened to be a heatwave this weekend, was being able to swim in the lake to cool off. It also was a big help for those early morning hangover headaches! 

Lissie  performing.

Celeb spotting! We spotted Proudlock and Francis Boulle from Made in Chelsea so had to take a sneaky pap shot!

Another of the highlights was embracing my crafty side and booking in for a Moccasin making workshop. We got to choose our own leather or suede and then we set to work. The suede I picked was so super soft and it makes the perfect cosy house slippers! 

Ta dah!

We had some fun times and some not so fun times (being kept awake until 6am by thumping Yacht Club speakers!) but we had a good time and started festival season with a bang!


Next up we headed off as normal festival punters to Leopallooza in Bude in Cornwall. We went with Tom's brother Henry and his fiance Sarah and it was their first ever music festival. 

The journey down was interesting as it was the first time we had travelled with 4 of us in our campervan Ratty. It was a surprisingly easy journey with a couple of stops for breakfast and ice creams before hitting Cornwall about lunch time. The sun was shining so that was a great start!

Here's our little camp for the weekend!

When we first arrived we set up camp and cracked open some cans. As the sun was shining we decided to chill out for a bit and have some fun people watching. This guy was our favourite in his skin tight leggings and no top! We saw him a couple of times over the weekend in different leggings but still topless! 

Here's Tom and Henry fooling around on the cool surf board benches. A great idea for reusing old surf boards but they were completely wrecked by the end of the weekend.

Leopallooza is a super cute little festival, a stark contrast to Secret Garden Party, and is set in a beautiful forest setting. The best bit was that we'd paid a bit extra each to have VIP tickets which made much more of a difference than we thought. We had access to the backstage area which had it's own bar, sofa area, DJ tent, loos and showers (although these broke halfway through the weekend). 

We saw some great bands and live music with an eclectic mix from hard rock to mellow acoustic.

Straight Lines

Bebe Black

Albert Jones

Eliza and The Bear

For such a small festival the food choices were great with a very unusual fresh fish stall selling mussels and various fish. Not your normal burger and chips! The crumpets from this lovely stall were delicious and very handy in soaking up all the cider!

We met some crazy people!....

So much fun was had by all and I'm looking forward to going again next year!

...........Girl Guides!

Firstly I have to apologise for not posting for so long, it's been a hectic few weeks!

A few years ago I read what soon became one of my favourite books. "How the Girl Guides Won the War" by Janie Hampton is a true story about the amazing actions of Girl Guide troops during World War II. I was astonished to read about how they kept morale up in bomb shelters and concentration camps where there was little or no hope. 

Since reading this I've been inspired to search for and collect anything to do with the Girl Guides and Brownies dating back to WWII and before. The collection started off slowly but recently I've been really lucky to find a few gems which inspired me to write this post.

My trusty tiny suitcase which holds my Girl Guides treasures.

This little gem is a lovely paper weekly publication called "The Guide" and dates back to October 24th 1938. It's in amazing condition for it's age! There's a wonderful article in there about making and decorating lampshades and at the back there is a page full of classified advertisements. The advert that caught my eye was an advert for Hospital Vacancies in which applicants are invited to undergo training in Chronic Sick Nursing with a starting salary of £30 a year. How monetary value has changed! 

My next little gem is this double layered "Be Prepared" girl guides fabric badge. When I had the shop I bought a job lot of scout and girl guide badges at an auction. There were quite a few so, as per usual, I nabbed a couple of them for myself and sold the rest on. This was the start of my collection before I knew I even wanted to collect these things!

Here's another one I kept. It's a knitting badge so very apt with my love of wool.

One of the first pieces I bought, once I decided to start hunting for Girl Guide memorabilia, was this super cute Patrol Roll and Subscription Book. I bought it at an antiques fair in Bromsgrove for just £2.50. What a find!  

Inside the first page you can see that the Patrol was called Kingfisher and the first entry dates to April 1940. Such a piece of history and I love the fact you can see the names of all the girls in that patrol and when they had attended. What's so interesting about this little book is that the Second World War had started 8 months earlier and it just shows how determined those young ladies were to keep on going. 

A couple of Girl Guide badges.

We come lastly to the piece de la resistance of my collection. My lovely friend bought me this whistle with built in compass for Christmas last year and I absolutely adore it! It has "Girl Guides" engraved onto it and looks like it comes with the original string too. The whistle even still works! This has pride of place in my collection.

.....Heirlooms!

As I have a love for all things old I thought I'd do a quick post about some of the things that I love that have been passed down to me from my family. When I became a Vintage dealer most of the items I stocked were, in some way, family heirlooms and I always liked the fact that they had a history and sometimes a nice story.

These articulated enamel fish earrings were my older sister's and I always remember them from growing up. I wear them alot and I like the fact they're not both the same colour.

These jet beads were my nanny's and it's thought they date from the Victorian era. 

This lovely amethyst and marcasite silver brooch belonged to Tom's Nanny J and it's so beautiful. I didn't know her especially well but it's lovely to be able to pass something down from her to my daughter if I ever have one. 

This lovely tan leather clasp bag was also Nanny J's and it so lovely that she kept it in such lovely condition. I love the fact that it has an adjustable strap to make it either a handbag or a shoulder bag. Very practical!

Ta ta for now!