.........Neck Warming!

This weekend my house has turned into a building site as Tom, his brother and his Dad are here fitting our new bathroom. Well, fitting it enough so we can have a bath.  

So yesterday I decided to escape into town for a few hours to hit the charity shops and run some errands. I was being surprisingly restrained for me while I was having a rummage as I don't really need anything in particular. I still managed, however, to come home with three items...weirdly all hand knitted scarves. I think the cold snap we've been having this weekend inspired my choices just a little.

I'm a sucker for all things hand knitted and so couldn't resist this two tone autumnal number, complete with cute little tag saying "hand knitted by Christine". In the same shop I spotted this cosy black hand crocheted scarf. I don't own a black scarf so this will be a welcome addition to my ever growing scarf collection.  

I was almost worn out and ready to go home when I popped into the last charity shop on my way back to the car. There wasn't much of interest, and I was ready to get home and put my feet up, but on the way out of the door I spotted this super cute pastel tartan mohair scarf hanging on a coat rack. I love all things welsh wool and this had the golden ticket label on it saying "made in Wales". At just £2 it had to be mine.

 

Annoyingly I'm now hoping it will stay chilly a bit longer now I'm kitted out in enough knitted neck-warming attire to keep me going for another Winter. I'm sure these will come in handy though for next year.

......Fun Ooop North!

A couple of weeks ago I set off all on my tod to Manchester for my high school friend Kim's hen do. Here's a very flattering photo of me in my "big mamas" sumo wrestling suit during the daytime retro games activity. This will be the only photo I will be putting on here from the hen do as this post is mainly about the fun I had when I had a little mooch around the Northern Quarter of Manchester checking out the more unusual shops.

On the Saturday, before the sumo wrestling and shot drinking started, we were left to our own devices so I took the chance to have a bit of cheeky second hand shopping. 

Firstly I found this cute shop called Retro Rehab. It reminded me very much of my shop minus the furniture and bric a brac so brought back some nice memories. 

Next up, just over the road I found a great huge vintage shop called Mint. Full to the rafters with clothes, accessories and curios of all shapes and sizes. Loved the use of old bikes as decor and if I hadn't already bought some I would've been very tempted by the navy blue doc martens boots I found hiding under a fluffy hat.

 

I've always been in love with old cameras and have more recently been learning a bit about Lomography. I was so excited to find this shop which sold only Lomo cameras whilst I was awandering! Didn't know what to look at first and the lovely lady in charge let me take some pics as I was so overwhelmed. 

 

After being inspired by the Lomography shop I went back to the hotel and had a go at taking some arty photos out of my room window with my iphone and was quite impressed with myself with this one. This is a lovely old window and roof hidden amongst all the modern concrete monsters. I vintaged it up a bit with Vintique, my new fave app on my iphone.

I had a great weekend up North, most of it involving getting a bit tiddly on wine and vodka roulette, and it was a great surprise to find such interesting shops. I will definitely be planning a weekend up there soon so that I can explore the other little weird and wonderful shops which I didn't have enough time to mooch around.

.........Bargain Hunting in Bruges & Gent!

At the beginning of February we took an unusually early road trip to Belgium to stay in Bruges for the annual beer festival. 

We stayed in Bruges in a lovely rented house only 10 mins walk from the city centre. It was lovely to stay in a different part of Bruges to where we normally go and we discovered some great shops, bars and eateries. 

Cool shop window display.

It was nice to discover a newly opened vintage shop called T2 when we are wandering about on the Saturday. We'd been to their branch in Antwerp a year ago and got some bargains so it was fun to have a mooch. I picked up this lovely tartan skirt, a loose knit cream mohair cardi, a lovely cosy dark brown mohair woven scarf and a green tartan wool cape. A great haul!

On the Sunday we drove to Gent to visit the weekly flea market. It was great fun, if a bit chilly, looking at all the interesting things for sale. 

Surrounding the flea market are some great second hand shops such as the Oxfam vintage clothes shop. 

There isn't normally anything in there within my budget but I got lucky this time. I found this lovely pair of second hand Doc Marten boots in a pale beige grey colour. They were my size and fit perfectly and for only £15 they were a bargain! Complete with the original 90s beads on the laces. When I was a teenager I only ever had Doc Marten shoes and was always jealous of my friends who had the boots...now I have my very own pair! They're very comfy and will be a staple in my suitcase for our tour round Scotland in our campervan in May. 

Clare showed us a hidden gem we'd never found before. An amazing junk shop selling everything from world war helmets, antique banjos and real snake skins. 

Strangest hat stand I've ever seen but loved it!

I did manage to make a purchase in this shop, spotting the hidden gems in a cardboard box at the back. I fell in love with these vintage adult sized shoe lasts complete with original leather still attached in places. We're doing up our lounge with a Victorian industrial theme so these will have pride of place on a shelf in there once it's all finished. 

When we'd had our fill of scouring through old junk we hit the tourist shops and had the obligatory cone of "frites" before heading to the first chocolate shop we could find. I loved this sign outside! The choccies were so yummy and Tom discovered his favourite chocolate of all time in the form of a praline. 

Two of Toms much loved pralines with my flower shaped vanilla cream. Nom nom!

Getting back to Bruges we hit the beer festival again and after spending our tokens we hit a traditional beer bar where I had some more of one of my new favourite tipple...apple beer! Great way to end the weekend.

  

.........Highland Fling!

This year we're planning a two week road trip round the Scottish Highlands and Islands. So in tribute to that (and also partly to do with me being Scottish!) here's my post about my favourite fashion must have .... tartan!

Emma Stone wearing a cute little tartan jacket with simple skinny jeans.
Photo courtesy of the Telegraph.

A few months ago I found a stunning red pure wool tartan scarf which has been my constant companion over these colder months.

Here are some tartan things I'm coveting this year...

Tartan converse!
Photo courtesy of Amazon.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.

I didn't think I'd like the head to toe tartan look but quite fancy this leather collared skater dress from Missguided. I like the orange colour and it also comes in a more muted navy and green tartan.

Photo courtesy of www.missguided.co.uk.

Photo courtesy of www.missguided.co.uk.

I love having something to look for when doing my usual charity shop rounds so bring on the tartan search!

........New Hair!

As part of my "New year new me" plan I went for a bit of a change at the hairdressers. I went for the same old blonde but spiced it up a bit with some bright copper chunks put in underneath and on the bottom layer of my fringe.

Fearne Cotton was my inspiration for the length after seeing this photo. As I wear my hair both straight and naturally wavy I thought this length would be a nice change to give it more body. My hair looks quite bushy and full when it's wavy but it's an illusion as it's quite thin really.

At first it was a bit hard to get used to but I'm loving the fact that it dries much quicker now it's shorter. Quicker to wash too! 

Ta ta for now!

.........Summer House Studio Space!

Hi!

At the beginning of last year we decided we would make the grown up decision to turn our front reception room (then being used as a rarely used arts and crafts room) into an actually usable reception room aka the new lounge. 

Of course I didn't want to get rid of the craft space completely so we decided to build a summer house studio at the end of the garden. It always looked very bare down there and we thought it would add some interest to the garden. 

Here's how it went...

The pieces of the summer house were made from untreated solid wood so we decided to use our festival trading marquee to protect it all during the build. 

The base is down.

Its actually starting to look like a building!

The paint goes on to protect the wood.

Ta dah! All finished and weather tight. Complete with different coloured door and windows to our original plan as we chose maroon at first but then worked out that it would look like a certain football team's colours from a City not too far away. Ha ha!

Toby enjoying the new room.

Finally have a purpose for this amazing log that Tom found in our log pile a few years ago. The perfect doorstop. So amazing to have that shape naturally!

As always happens when you have an empty space in your house the summer house quickly got filled up and unfortunately was left like that for a few months. Just before Christmas we decided it was time to finish it off properly and invest in all the wiring etc to give it the last thing needed to make it come alive - power! It took a few dark cold nights with torches to get it all set up but now it's all finished and is so cosy and snug I didn't want to go back in the house!

For the past 8 years or so I have been avid textile artist dabbling in weaving, feltmaking, knitting, crocheting and hand and machine embroidery. That many subjects involves a fair bit of equipment so the summer house was a perfect size for a studio. It also gives Tom a space to use when he's doing his silver clay jewellery making and painting.  

We have light!

One of my prize posessions - a handmade table top weaving loom which was made by a female weaver in the 1950s.

While sorting out all my things I found I had three almost identical old typewriters! Once I know which  one works and which one I can get ribbon for then I can hopefully whittle it down to one and sell the rest.

My fave recent purchase all the way from Bruges Flea Market. Old  metal bicycle tax discs. 

Here's to a year full of crafty goodness in 2013!