Suitcases are like buses.

For a while I have wanted to buy some of the gorgeous, old leather suitcases complete with the faded art deco style travel stickers of places visited on the grand tour in times past. I was just hoping to use them as storage but the price of these in my area was a little too high.

I decided to look for something not quite so old but still vintage to stack on top of the wardrobe or under the bed. I found the large brown suitcase for just £5, it is in very good condition, the lining on the inside is immaculate and comes with a key.

Then a couple of days later some body put the two blue ones on free cycle, they are in lovely condition too and the larger of the blue ones is lined with red silk. Three at once... couldn't believe my luck, the children were just as excited as I was and they have already made plans for what to store in them.

Although not quite as old as I was originally looking for they are just as useful as a storage solution and at a much more reasonable cost.

Vintage and an Important Birthday

It's been a while since I shared some of our vintage finds but trust me there have been enough for a few posts. I'll start with just a couple of small but beautiful finds.

I have needed a new tea strainer for a very long time, it was the one item I forgot every time I went shopping, but walking home the other day I spotted this in a charity shop. It didn't actually look like this when I found it lurking at the bottom of a basket, it was so tarnished and appeared quite black. I fell in love with the shape and paid the 50p asking price and hoped we could bring back it's beauty.

My husband managed to get it really very shiny, much brighter than it looks in the photos and we found some marks on the back dating it to the early 1920's. So not only have I finally replaced my broken, modern tea strainer I have managed to do it in vintage style.

Another recent purchase is this little French perfume bottle, it still has an old, faded Parisian label on the bottom. I paid just over a pound for this but it is very pretty and makes me smile when my youngest daughter spends time in front of the dressing table putting on her beads and tiara before squirting the atomiser... she is just too cute.

Next I would like to introduce you to a wonderful lady, who inspires my love of vintage and my thriftiness...my grandmother...who celebrated a very special birthday last month and got a letter from the Queen. Happy 100th Birthday Nan.

Magpie Monday latest

It has been quite a while since I managed a magpie Monday post, but we do still  regularly frequent the charity shops that are nearby, even though the prices seem to have shot up in the last year or so. The first item is the most expensive thing we have ever bought from a charity shop, my husband came home with it one day and on telling me it cost £30, nearly sent me into a panic but it is now a much loved family member... a rather loud one!

The wood needs a good waxing but the clock works perfectly and chimes on the hour without fail. I had been wanting one for quite a while, since we found out it was impossible to fix my Grandfather's old one, so it was a lovely surprise from my husband... now we know what the time is from anywhere in the house without even looking.

Next is just a cheap trinket picked up for 50p but I have been looking for one of these for years, they seem to be very popular amongst the vintage collectors. I wanted to stand it on my cut glass dressing table set to keep up the Parisian faded elegance theme I seem to have going on. I now have to look for another one for my daughter who has an urge for a pink one in her room.

I seem to have so many things to pick from but I'll finish up this week showing you some of the books we have found. These old ones were 50p each, a little ragged around the edges but fascinating to read. I am a huge Agatha Christie fan and read her books with great enthusiasm in my teens but sadly I no longer have the books I had then. So I have decided to collect and read them all again, so these two will be added to my library.

This last Photograph shows some of the other books we have managed to find lately all for about 30-50p each. This is a huge bargain for us as we are home educators and the children love to read books... it's handy to have books on as many subjects as possible so that we are prepared for any eventuality. Although our library does appear to be about to burst at the seams.

This post will be linked with missielizzie from the me and my shadow blog for magpie monday.

Vintage surprise

  Trying to get back into blogging after my break with a 'Magpie Monday' post about a lovely surprise I recently had. I have been on the look out for a large vintage dark oak mirror to go above the fireplace, and hadn't really had much luck until I spotted one on an auction site. It was large, about 3 foot by 2 foot, so I placed a couple of low bids and waited to see what happened, unfortunately two other bidders got involved and the price shot up very high and I didn't get the chance for any more bids.

  The story doesn't end there though, a few days later I had an e-mail giving me a second chance offer for my last bid which was just £6! I was stunned and elated, but decided to pay quickly and pick up the mirror.

Here it is... my vintage dark oak beautiful mirror... still can't really believe my luck! The photographs really don't do this justice at all, they don't show all the details clearly or the beautiful rich colour of the oak. It is incredibly heavy and my husband had to use very sturdy fixings to ensure it stayed on the wall. The mirror has a beveled edge, and beautiful carved beading and carved detail around the edge, not to mention that it looks gorgeous hanging on the wall.

This next item isn't really old or vintage at all but I loved the pattern and colour, it reminds me of something my eldest daughter would choose. It is a sugar bowl and cost £1 from a charity shop. I haven't used it as a sugar bowl as I'm sure the children would see it as an invitation to eat the entire bowl full neat. I have used it to hold small berries or to put my homemade tartare sauce in for a little tea time glamour.

This is the base which shows the pattern as 'Greensleeves'. A quick post with a couple of my recent finds, just to show you lovely surprises do still happen.

A Little Vintage and The Cat Returns!

I haven't done a Magpie Monday post for a while and this is one with a slight difference, I have not had much time for shopping and have just been trying to buy things I really need or like. Firstly I found this tablecloth with lovely Autumnal colours for just 75p, the colours actually remind me of the ones used in some of the Clarice Cliff designs. The only tablecloths we have are the modern plastic ones which are very useful for messy crafts and some given to me by my Grandmother, which are too special for me to introduce to the children just yet, so this will come in useful. I am not sure whether to keep it as a tablecloth or use the fabric for something else but so far my daughter has been using it for picnics with her dolls.

Next is a couple of wooden cotton reels I found, I had to pay 50p for these but I do love the wooden ones and the colours are very pretty.  They are now taking pride of place on the top draw of my sewing basket.

I found this bowl or saucer for 25p, to be honest I really don't know what it is, but I liked the simple lines of it, maybe it was an under saucer for a plant pot?... I bought it for my cat, not for normal cat food but for the special treats he gets like a little tuna or chicken.

This bowl is now back in use after 4 months as my cat sadly went missing at the beginning of June, but I am pleased to announce he is now home, he just strolled right in like nothing was wrong the other day. We are all very surprised and happy to have him safe at home again.

Lastly for today I have a glass lemon squeezer my husband found for me for just 50p, we had an awful modern plastic one which did not work well and I really have no idea where it came from anyway. I love these glass ones, so easy to use and they catch the pips... I now have plenty of little volunteers for lemon squeezing.

This post is for the magpie Monday series hosted by missielizzie.

Bargain Finds

It has been a long time since my last Magpie Monday post so I thought I'd pop in to say Hi and show you some more things. First a granite pestle and mortar, my husband came home the other day with this... not an easy task believe me as he was on his push bike. I had wanted a large one this exact colour for a long time, my old one was white. He found this on his travels for £2.75 in a charity shop and thought he would surprise me.

Next is a bowl that I found in a box of junk at a car boot sale a while ago, it was totally black and gunky but it kind of spoke to me so I paid the 50p asking price and went home to see what was underneath. This is what I found... it is a silver colour (epns) and says 'Celtic pattern' on the base, I think it may be a sugar bowl and it has a blue glass liner. This has been used for all sorts of things over the years and is currently holding crystals.

Kind of a mystery item now, I found this at a jumble sale for 2p not really sure what it is but It may be home made?... it is a gold aged little pot, wooden I think but for the tiny price tag it was definitely worth it.

Looks very vintage... but although it is very battered and doesn't do much but sit on the shelf and gather dust, it has a very important job... 'keeper of the tiny treasures' it holds the tiny things I don't want to lose and the kids love to look at.

Lastly something with a more practical use a display cabinet for 80p, my husband had to modify it slightly. My son collects fossils, mostly teeth but he has a few others, this fish is far to delicate to be played with but it seems a shame to hide it away so the display cabinet is the perfect solution. 

This post will be linked over at missielizzie's blog me and my shadow for the Magpie Monday post.

Charity shop glassware

For todays Magpie Monday post I thought I would show you some of the glassware we have bought from charity shops all of which is in everyday use here. To start with here is my trifle bowl, I love this bowl it is slightly frosted and has a wheat pattern and it says 'France' on the bottom. The photographs do not really do justice to the glassware, it is much prettier in real life and this cost just 10p from an odds and ends box!

Next are these pressed glass ice cream dishes, (that's what we use them for anyway), from the same odds and ends box for 10p each. There were only five of these and we have since broken one of them but they make the children feel very special when eating their ice cream, so worth every penny.

Last item from the odds and ends box today is this shaker, it is about 4 inches high and we tend to use it for sprinkling icing sugar or cocoa powder also 10p.

Something a little more colourful now, this turquoise blue glass bowl was only 35p, I'm not really sure of it's original use but we use it under a plant pot on the hall stand or sometimes to hold a group of candles. It is a very beautiful colour.

I've managed to pick up a few bottles over the years which are used for various things, mostly to hold the small flowers my daughter accidentally picks whilst smelling them! The one on the left says 'kutnow's powder' and is a lovely blue colour, the middle one has 'eiffel tower lemonade' on the front. These were 50p and 25p, the last one was free as it was dug up.

Finally today is this black glass perfume bottle, my husband bought me this for 75p mainly so that we could use the atomizer on another bottle. I have a lovely glass dressing table set but the atomizer on the perfume bottle was missing, so he had the idea of using this one. As yet though I haven't changed it over as this black glass one looks pretty on the bedroom shelf next to the ostrich feather fan.

I seem to have quite a few perfume bottles... That's it for today then this post is for the magpie Monday link up, please feel free to wander over there for more charity shop finds.

Wild and Free running.

As you may remember from previous posts, I recycled all my daughter's jeans into shorts for the summer to get extra wear from them as they would never be big enough for her next year. So we had to buy more jeans... which is something we did not find very easy at all. Everywhere we looked only had skinny fit jeans... these maybe in fashion but for my 2 year old, they are not something she wants to wear as she finds them far too restrictive, and there really should be much more choice for the active toddler.

So we were faced with a challenge to find her some looser fitting jeans that she liked and she could move freely in! As we are fond of recycling things, I had a quick rummage through the bags of clothing that I had put aside as it was no longer a good fit and found some of my sons old jeans. He is a little older than my daughter, so I decided to merge a pair of his with a pair of her old ones.

This is the first step we have added the pink scarf belt from my daughters old jeans to my sons old pair. My daughter loved this belt and she loves pretty embroidery on jeans too so this leads to my next step.

We cut the embroidered flower motive from her old jeans and stitched it to the new jeans with contrasting cotton. This however could be done much easier with special stuff for iron on patches.

These then are the finished jeans... very simple, strong, loose fitting and with a little touch of the things my daughter loves... We call them 'Big Brother Jeans' and best of all they were free, just took a little time, a few adjustments and she loves them... perfect for garden play.

Here they are on, 'what do you think?' perfect jeans for a little girl who loves to run wild and free through fields and explore the woods and climb trees with no restrictions.

Plenty of room for cartwheels and other tumbles.

Dancing too!

Crawling  and rolling in the dirt!

and even sliding down steps. My daughter is a very 'spirited young lady' and being able to move her legs freely and to have the most fun is very high up on her list of priorities.

To have a CHOICE of different styles of jeans would be lovely but just to let you know we will NOT buy clothing just because it was the only thing available! We are also saving more of my sons old jeans to try and decorate them with fabric paints in the future, another fun project.

I have recently been given lots of patterns on free cycle, some modern and some vintage and we will be trying to make some of our own clothing by adapting these. There are also many patterns and tutorials available on line to try.

Just to let you know after our third trip into the city and after visiting lots and lots of shops we did find a pair of looser fit jeans that she liked. What a challenge!

Charity shop finds

For this weeks magpie Monday charity shop post I thought I'd start with the replica copper ship lanterns we found in a charity shop for £3.99 last week, my husband loved them instantly. They hold tea light candles at the moment which would look quite atmospheric on the patio for outdoor eating on a summer evening but my husband has been wondering whether he can convert them to run off solar power.

Next as my little ones are important too, I thought I would show you a couple of the things that they have found. This train set cost cost us £1.75 it is a fisher price geotrax set, normally very expensive, we took a bit of a chance because we didn't know it worked but luckily after putting it together everything works. There are more parts than you can see in the photograph but they only built a small track today, hours of fun!

We found this wooden doll's cradle for £3.00, it needs a small repair to the rocker at the bottom and a re paint but the work will be worth it and will keep my husband busy. This is so sturdy that my children can sit in it, perfect for my daughter.

I also bought some circular knitting needles, two pairs for 25p bargain price, not really sure how much these cost in the shops nowadays but they can't be as cheap as that!

 this post will be linked as a magpie monday post on the blog me and my shadow by missielizzie.

Vintage finds

I have recently noticed on twitter that a group of people have been blogging about their vintage and charity shop finds, and linking up as a Magpie Monday post. So I thought I would join in as this is one of my passions, and will start off this week with a couple of very small, cheap items that I have come across.

I have been looking out for various transfer printed plates in different colours for a long time now, I personally love the way food looks when displayed on them. So far I have only found one that I really like as vintage transfer plates seem to be very popular where I live and the charity shops very rarely have any in. The above plate was just 50p and not really that vintage but it is well liked here.

It has a frontier picture on the front and my daughter loves looking for the horses and cows in the scene, the above photograph is of the stamp on the back of the plate, appears to be American.

These candlesticks I originally saw and dismissed I'm ashamed to say, as they are not quite a matching pair I know that sounds so bad! After returning home, I realised my mistake and my lovely husband offered to go back to the charity shop and purchase them for me, luckily they were still there. They cost 80p for the pair, what a bargain! The slight differences are not really noticeable as they sit one at each end of the mantelpiece.

This little posy vase cost just 50p again and really wouldn't look out of place in many of the modern colour schemes, it reminds me of an owl for some reason, which is probably why I like it. It is hard to see from the photographs but the top colour almost has a texture to it.

 This is the bottom of the vase... I guess it comes from Devon!

Well that is an introduction to some of my stuff... what do you think?







The link up is over at the above blog, me and my shadow by missielizzie.