vintage shoppping

Well, everyone else seems to be doing it, so why not me? There seems to be an explosion of blog posts at the moment of people showing off their latest charity shop finds. I don't know if it's a coincidence, or if all this good weather we've been having in Britain is slowly turning us into a nation of shopaholics. Global recession, Eurozone crisis, pah!

Anyhoo, not wanting to be outdone, I've done a bit of bargain hunting myself. My eldest daughter goes for ballet lessons (I know, I'm living the middle class dream - deal with it) in a little village near our home and visiting the 2 charity shops in the village has become part of my Saturday morning routine. Most weeks I come away empty handed, but this week was different. Check it out! Eeeek!!

The jug I thought was beautiful and was actually something we needed. The other stuff I bought because they  were cheap and I liked them. The pink tea set I've seen selling on Ebay for way more than I was prepared to pay, so when I saw this set of 4 trios (cup + sauce + side plate - cos I speak the lingo, you know) going for a song, I had to snap them up. The Queen Elizabeth Coronation trio I'm pretty sure is not vintage, but since I've bought nothing jubilee related at all I thought it best to enter into the spirit of things. And talking of things monarchy related, I thought I'd snap this cute teapot up as well - complete with it's original label! Result!!

I know I've blogged about this kind of stuff before, but, as Jem on Beautiful Clutter says, if you're not into vintage teacups, then you're probably reading the wrong blog. I am kinda addicted to buying this stuff. In fact, when I paid for my items, the lovely man in the charity shop asked me if I was having a tea party. I didn't have the heart to tell him no, so I lied and said yes. Oh dear, surely the next step for me is hiding my stash around the house and denying their existence..... might have to get my fix somewhere else......

Happy shopping, peeps!

Michelle x 

ps. My name's Michelle and I can't stop shopping.......

blogs I love

Aaaah, the joys of blogging.... the relaxtion.... the calm........

.....ha ha don't make me laugh! Actually, my blogging experience is nothing like this at all. First of all, I very rarely get a post written in one sitting. My typing is usually punctuated by a little girl asking for Peppa Pig and chocolate, an even littler girl trying to sit on my lap and both girls trying to touch the keyboard when I'm not looking. The joys of motherhood, eh?! For every fight I break up there's a cuddle and a kiss for mummy and that makes it all worth it. Just recently I was reminded that all too soon they'll grow up and move out and I will miss being referee and chief nose wiper. Plus, as I often tell my eldest, no one likes a whinger, so i should just sit back and enjoy it.

I'm quite new to this blogging lark - I've only been blogging and twittering since March this year. Since I've started though I've discovered a load of blogs that I really love, so here are just 3 of my favourites:

abeautifulmess.typepad.com - the mother of all blogs. In fact, this blog was the inspiration for me to start blogging in the first place. If you like vintage fashion, food and travel, this blog is for you. Elsie and her sister, Emma, have kept this blog active for years, so the archive posts are worth reading too.

athriftymrs.com - another mother of a blog. If you like to save money (and let's face it, who doesn't?), then this is the blog for you. Watch out for her 'Saturday Savings' posts if you like to spend on ye olde interweb. Mrs Thrifty will also have you in stitches.

beautifulclutter.blogspot.com - vintage teacup heaven. If you share my love for vintage stuff, then you'll love this too. I especially love the photos of all her vintagey bits and bobs.

That's it for now. What do you think of my list? Can you recommend any great blogs? Leave me a comment and let me know.


Speak to you soon!


Michelle x


ps. This post was sponsored by a Drifter. Hmmm, tasty chocolatey 1990s goodness.....

unfinished business

Am I the only person who starts jobs but never finishes them? I thought not. I've got a fairly long list of new crafts I'd like to try. It's a fairly substantial list and it gets longer every day. The thing is, I promised myself I wouldn't start a new craft until I finished the one I was working on, and at the moment, I'm working on this:

(guess which one's mine)

It's a cross stitch pattern by Emily Peacock and I've been working on it for (wait for it) 3 years!! Although it's supposed to be made into a cushion, the plan is to have it on my wall - far away from chocolately fingers! I absolutely love the print and I'm sure seeing it on my wall will give me a tremendous sense of achievement, but right now, I just want to move onto the next thing.

Do you ever get like that? Do you start projects only to get bored halfway through, or are you a good 'finisher'? My wishlist of things I'd like to try next ranges from the specific to the vague and it looks a little like this...

1. Learn to crochet

2. Make some crochet bunting

3. Make a crochet blanket

4. Start my 'Coffee' cross stitch

5. Make more things out of my ridiculously large pile of vintage scarves (seriously, they're no good to me in a box)

6. frame more pictures of vintage ladybird book illustrations.

7. Make more things with bows

Hmm... I can't wait to get started on that little lot! Which one should I try first? What projects are you waiting to finish off? Let's make May finishing off month!

.......or maybe June.....

.....no, let's make it July....

..oh dear..

Gotta go - I've got more procrastinating to do!

Michelle x

Haworth

You've heard of Haworth, right? It's a little village in Yorkshire that's famous for being the home of the Bronte sisters. It's also home to the most wonderful festival of vintage. Every year this delightful village hosts a 1940s Vintage Weekend where the residents and shopkeepers dress up to celebrate the best of Britain.

I wasn't able to attend the festival on the Saturday and Sunday, so me, Mr C and the girls popped down on the Friday and made a day of it. The weather was freezing cold - who'd have thought we'd still need our winter coats in May! - but it didn't matter because there was lots of fun to be had...

Our first stop was the vintage fair, and as you can see from the pictures below, it truly was a thing of beauty. When I walked around I began to regret bringing Mr C with me as I knew I wouldn't be able to justify buying the Elizabeth II plate (among other things...) Sigh.....

From there we went for a walk around the town. All I can say is, I've never seen so much bunting...

While the rest of the troops were taking a well deserved coffee break I stumbled upon what has to be one of the most beautiful shops in the world - Rose & Co Apothecary. I'll use 3 words to describe it. Total - Vintage - Heaven. Enough said really.

If you're thinking of taking a trip to Haworth, I highly recommend you pay a visit here and to Oh la la Vintage...

I've been living in Yorkshire for 15 years now and I'm ashamed to say this was my first visit to Haworth. It definitely won't be my last. Thanks Haworth!!

If you want to know more about the 1940s Weekend, click here.

If you want to know more of the wonderful stalls I saw at the fair, click on the links below:
-  Vintage and retro styled 40s/50s clothing shoes and accessories www.missbamboo.co.uk
- Vintage hair and make-up artist who can recreate glamorous looks for weddings and parties www.bethanyjanedavies.com
-  Vintage reproduction clothing from golden era (and trousers to DIE for!) www.20thcenturyfoxy.com
-  More vintage clothing www.purplerabbitvintage.co.uk

Hope you feel inspired to get your retro on after that little lot!

I did!

Bye for now


Michelle x

farm shops and treasure hunts

Yesterday was one of those wonderful days that started out with such promise and then actually delivered. The sun was peeping through the clouds in the morning (which is rare in these parts) and I was feeling great. I dropped my eldest daughter off at nursery and went to meet my friend, Lucy, for a coffee at Hinchliffe's farm shop and restaurant.

If you live nearby and you've never been, I highly recommend it. This place is great. The building is divided into two. There's the farm shop and butchers on one side and the restaurant on the other. The restaurant is delightful and is really accommodating for kids - there's even a hamper stuffed full of toys for them to play with. Although the plan was to only have a coffee, I'm sure it will come to no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I succumbed to the sugar monster that lives inside me and ordered a plate of American pancakes, maple syrup and bacon as well....mmmmmm....nom nom nom...... Obviously no pictures of this exist because, once again, I was too much of a gannet to pause for thought before digging in. 

As well as the shop and restaurant, there are animals that roam around in pens outside, so after coffee (and extras!) we went to see the animals with the kids. My youngest had a blast saying hi to all the animals....well, almost all of them - a shire horse with a head almost as big as her entire body gave her cause for concern!

Once we'd finished seeing the sights it was time to go home and all that was left was for me to say a big THANK YOU to both Hinchliffe's and my mate Lucy who made such a great morning possible. Thank-you!!

The sunny happiness didn't end there. Later on, at home, me and my eldest daughter had a great time making treasure maps and hunting for *treasure in the garden. She pottered around and kept herself busy whilst I took snaps of the lovely greenery. I even filled a vase. Lovely.

Aahh, ain't life great when the sun comes out? What have you been doing? I hope the sun's shining where you are!

Smell ya later!

Michelle x  

* By 'treasure', I mean a pear, a handbag and some Smarties wrapped in foil - the innocence of youth, eh!

I've finished!

Well, I've finally finished giving my blog a well needed makeover. Big thanks have to go out to Mr C, who is a whizz at these things and saved me lots of stress by clicking and tapping at the laptop whilst I shouted instructions. Do you like? I hope so. let me know what you think.

Byee

Michelle x 

changes are afoot...!

Hi folks

I hope you are well. If you're thinking that things are looking a little strange on this blog, don't worry, your eyes are not deceiving you. I've decided to make a few improvements. However, I am having to fit this in amongst the usual mum stuff - nothing major - just wiping tears, making food, ensuring the kids don't starve/kill each other. (Plus, this post was a great excuse to show you my favourite pair of shoes - they're real beauties aren't they!) 

Hopefully, I should be finished primping and preening the blog in a couple of days, so please bear with me.

That's all folks (for now anyway)

Ciao

Michelle x 

birthday card shopping

I'm hopeless with birthdays. I forget to send cards, my presents (although awesome) are usually late every year. It doesn't just end with friends birthdays either. I'm pretty hopeless with family ones too. I've tried to explain my  mental block with important dates as Dateline Dyslexia, but that excuse was pretty much blown out of the water when my brother-in-law pointed out that the cure for it was a diary. 

Anyway, I found these cards by cathtatecards.com  and they made me chuckle. So much so, in fact, that I decided to buy a stack of them so hopefully, I will be less Dateline Dyslexic in the future. Wish me luck. Here they are....

and last but not least......

I hope they made you chuckle too!

Over and out

Michelle x 

back to work beauties

Hi folks. I hope you had a great day back at work today. Here are your Back To Work Beauties - 10 beautiful things you can find on Etsy. This week's theme - Stars. 

Enjoy

Credits: Top (1, 2, 3), Middle (1, 2, 3), Bottom (1, 2, 3, 4)

I hope you liked this week's selection,

Sleep well

Michelle x 

bank holiday

 The Bank Holiday is over, kids are back to school and our working weeks have begun again. I always put loads of pressure on myself when it's a Bank Holiday to do something extraordinary, but this time around we made no plans. However, a simple trip out to local farm shop turned into something much more memorable when I happened upon a Vintage Emporium. To call oneself an 'emporium' is a big boast, but in this case it was rather apt. This may have been my first visit, but it won't be my last and I promise to blog about it in the future, so watch this space....

The other significant thing I did this Bank Holiday was make American pancakes with maple syrup and bacon. I don't like to boast (actually, I kinda do), but they were SOOO YUMMMY!! Needless to say, they didn't hang around long enough on the plate for me to take a picture of them, so you'll just have to believe me. If you've never tried these before, I can't recommend them enough. There are loads of recipes for these on the internet, but I tried this one.

Have you tried something new or found something new recently?

Have a great day peeps!


Michelle x 

free stuff

Come look at my new cup. Isn't she lovely? Not only is she wearing my initial, but she was (virtually) free too. Interior design website, mydeco.com are offering Easy Living readers a £20 voucher to spend in their online store. I'm usually very wary of these things, but it appears to be no a strings attached offer. Judging by all the retweets there have been on Twitter, it's definitely brought them a lot of publicity which was probably the point of the exercise. Anyhoo, who cares, I've got a beautiful new cup!!

If you're interested in the offer, then click here, but hurry up, it runs out on the 27th May. If you're in a hurry and don't  have time to browse, here are a few of my favourites....

Happy voucher spending...

Michelle x 

Christmas list...

Dear Santa

I know this is a little early, but I wanted to beat the Christmas rush. Today I have been a really good girl. So far today I've taken my daughter to school, I've done 2 loads of laundry, I've done my ironing, I've fed and played with my other daughter, I've tidied my shelves, cleaned my living room, hoovered upstairs and last night I even did a bit of exercise!

I have been really good. So please can you get me one of these?

Or one of these?

Or, better still, one of these?

Thank you in advance,



Michelle x

ps. Say hi to Rudolph for me.



(All bags are from The Cambridge Satchel Company. Click here to see more)