It's a Jewellery Finding Saturday!

Every 1st Saturday of the month we have a little ritual, we get up early and go to Farnham Maltings Antique and Craft Fair. As with any regular event like this sometimes it can be good, sometimes you won't see a thing you're interested in.

Well today it was all about jewellery! First up I found a box of jewellery that was only £1 a piece, now that's a bargain in anyone's book and honestly she had  some ok stuff in there. I limited myself to 4 pieces a couple which I'm going to pass on to friends as they are not really me but at £1 each I couldn't pass them up!

This is gorgeous but not really me, so I'm giving this to a friend. Can you believe this was only £1?

Next is this very pretty necklace, again it's not really my thing so I will pass it on.

The next two are for me, I do love a bit of sparkly!

I also like this little brooch there is something very autumnal about it, lovely colours. (amended - I've been told this brooch is by Exquisite part of the Leaf Series and they regularly sell for £15-£20, so a superb bargain for £1)

However then I really did treat myself. I rarely find something I think oooooh I really like that, and to be honest I paid more than I usually would but I rarely treat myself to something and I really did like it. So this is my treat for the day!

Isn't it gorgeous? I love the colour, style and well just about everything!

If you live anywhere in the vicinity of Farnham they have a Vintage Fair on Sunday 6th May. I didn't go to the one last year but apparently it was fantastic, however I heard this from the traders side of thing so I'm assuming the prices are probably beyond me! I will probably go and check it out though.

Turned on

Now that made you look didn't it? I'm talking about the book Turned On which is in fact about Decorative Lamps of the 50s.

In my little season of books I love, I had to feature this, it's not as glamorous as the last 2 but I do love lamps, I have talked about this before, lamps are my thing and if I could afford loads I'd have loads whether I had the space or not!

This is a nice little book, it does give you a bit of background to the electric lamp and in fact electricity in the home but for me it's all about the pictures. Sadly some of them are pretty small and haven't come out well through my scanner, but I've included a couple here.

It would be an exaggeration to say my life would be complete if I had these lamps below but boy it would make me happy for a very long time!

I adore the colours in this one and the overall styling, I also love the concertina shades, I don't have a lamp with this shade, they're usually only from the US and I haven't found one within my budget with the shipping within my budget also, shipping is really expensive when it comes to lamps like this!

Sorry about the scanning quality I suspect it's my fault, must mess about with the settings at some point.

Anyway my point is, if you love lamps from the 50s you'll love this book, it's a nice little one to flick through.

Talking of lamps, I spotted this beauty on ebay the other day.

I've never seen this design before, I prayed that no one else had spotted it but I started to see the bids build, I was even prepared to go over my usually stingy budget, however she started to go waaaay past even my top price. How much did she eventually go for? £282!! She is lovely though, but wow!

Mid Week Love

I'm trying to do a mid week love post every week as the internet is just full of fabulous stuff and although I always try to share via Twitter or FB sometimes it gets lost in the mix.

This week's Mid Week Love is reserved for only one person, LisaFreemontStreet. I confess to being pretty late in the game to her online tutorials and haven't seen too many more than the one below but this is so good I had to share it.

Many of you won't know yet but I know some of you do, as you get a little older your eyelids droop a little or you start to get lines around the eyes, this is a real problem if you have always worn 50s style liquid eyeliner! I noticed about a year ago - despite being pretty lucky in the lines department - that every time I started to do my eyeliner it just didn't come out right. At first I just could not work it out, there is a degree of denial at this point and you think you're just going through a phase ;o)

Anyway I actually happened upon this tutorial and I thought how great, Winged Eyeliner and False Lashes for Maturing Eyes, that's me I thought.





I have tried this technique and as you can imagine it works, it's very strange especially if you have been doing this for years and it used to be just a quick swish swish and you were done but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I confess I also tried false eyelashes too for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I love them!

I hope this helps some of you out there, and if you're not there yet, have a peek, remember the technique, you'll need it one day!!

A couple of great bargain buys!

Those of you who read this blog will know that I'm always on the look out for a bargain when it comes to my vintage buying. I don't have much cash to spare but that doesn't mean I can't buy nice things!

First up is my smaller of the two bargains, but nonetheless just gorgeous. I saw this bag on ebay and it was describe as 50's 60's shabby chic kooky handbag, well I sure am glad that was it's description cos I scored it for £1.04, oh yes this lovely yellow 50s bag. Isn't it a great shape? It's also perfect inside, it was a little grubby outside but I gave it a clean and now it's perfect on the outside!

But my real great bargain find last week was a sideboard - do you call them a credenza in the US? I've been looking for one as I'm only just starting to get my dining room back after it's been the storeroom for the business for years. The room needs stripping down, repapering and painting BUT it is finally a functional if rather unfinished dining room and is now complete with a fabulous new sideboard for the amazing price of £5.50, yes you heard me £5.50!!

Here it is!

As you can see from the first picture it now contains 2 whole dinner services, plus a few extras, it's really roomy and had empty a whole cupboard up in the kitchen. I've also got more access to my dinner services, I rarely use them as it used to entail emptying cabinets to get to them and I couldn't be bothered, but now...

I decided to put my lovely Oriental lamp on it, she hasn't had a permanent home for a while, so I'm glad she now had pride of place here.

We finally have got a permanent place for our beautiful lazy susan too.

And a place for our insulated coffee pot which we use every morning.

And last but not least our diner table finally has a proper space to fit in.

The decor will be up to scratch soon and I'll be sure to post when I'm done.

Some great bargains buys eh?

Book Launch at the Ric Rac Club

I know I'm behind the times a little with my posts and apologies for this. I went to the book launch of Naomi Thompson's Style Me Vintage: Clothes last weekend - not the one just gone!

But I spent all my time chatting and didn't even get my camera out so I had to wait until a couple of other bloggers got their photos up and asked if I could steal them, too much chat not enough picture taking.

We got ready for the night out at Shona's house, it was fun and the first picture is from Shona's In the Heyday  Blog, and also include myself and Charlotte from Tuppence Ha'penny. We did a silly Charlies Angels shot!

The party was fun. It's not the sort of thing I've been to a lot and although I'm a very sociable type I was slightly worried that it would be more networking than chat, my fears were unfounded!! I had so much fun meeting lots of people I'd only ever met online previously.

There were some very stylishy dressed people there with all decades represented! Naomi seemed to have fun but looked rather dazed and overwhelmed, I'm not surprised, a successful book in print and lots of friends to help her celebrate her success, it was rather overwhelming!!

The following photos are all courtesy of Charlotte from Tuppence Ha'penny, thanks Charlotte!!

This is one of my favourite pictures, these girls are all lovely, but when asked to pull a bitch face they do it to perfection, love it ha ha!

It had all got a bit much for Paul at this point but I was still standing!

Another of my favourites! I do love it when people are dressed up beautifully but pull faces! The lady on the left is from Naomi's publisher but in the middle is Gemma from Retrochick and the very fabulous Margaret from Penny Dreadful Vintage pulling her best gurning face he he!

It was a great great night and I hope to meet up with all these lovely ladies again soon!

A right old spectacle!

Well at the grand age of 45 it's finally come to me that I need reading glasses. I did get some standard ones last time I was at the optician, he basically said, you don't quite need them yet, but you will before you come and see me next time, so he gave me a prescription. The other day I got a splinter in my hand and I just couldn't get it out, so I thought, mmmm perhaps I'll try with those glasses I was given, wow the difference!

So I am now using them for reading and the computer as I remember, but right now I'm not wearing them eeek!

Anyway of course I really don't want standard Specsavers glasses, I didn't mind when I didn't have to wear them but now I do I'd like nice vintage ones. So I got on Etsy and Ebay for a look., however all the ones I liked were on Etsy!

I know I'm a 50s chick but I really don't suit true cats eye shape, they look crazy on me as I have quite a small face, I do like a bit of bling though!! However they are all rather pricey for my budget but I'll carry on looking you know me I always find a bargain.

I do love these though.

Gold Tinsel Glasses 1950s from THAYEREyewear on Etsy

1950's Black Lucite Spectacles from Veramode on Etsy

1950's Aluminium Glasses from Sorocco on Etsy

Chartreuse Green with Gold Confetti from ArtifactVintage on Etsy

As I said all rather pricey so I'll keep looking!

Also I would really like to thank you for such a great response to my hair setting invention, I hope it works for you as well as it worked for me!

My Hair Setting invention!

I've been setting my hair for many years now but one thing I've never been able to do is sleep in curlers. I have very thick hair and need a lot of curlers so it is just too darned uncomfortable for me to sleep in them, they just stick in my head and I don't get any sleep at all.

Of course I have options, I have heated rollers and if I want to set my hair without heated rollers I need to spend the day in curlers, however if I need my hair setting in the morning it would be really good if I could sleep in curlers. So what to do....

Well I was standing in the queue at Tesco the other day and I spotted some cheap sponge curlers 3 packs for £3, and I suddenly had a brainwave, so I'm sharing it with you!

These are the curlers.

I removed all the plastic bits and then cut up some fabric, and wound the piece of fabric round the middle plastic bit that originally went through the curler.

Then start to push the fabric through the curler.

All the way through until it looks like this

Eventually you'll end up with some looking like this

The advantage of them is that they are like curlers without the hard bit and have more substance that just using rags, which I have done in the past but again as I have thick hair it's harder to do, whereas with the curler it just makes it much easier.

Here are a couple of pictures of me with them in

I must confess I wasn't sure if they would work, I was perfectly comfortable in them and would have slept very soundly had my husband not snored like a walrus through the night!

So now the big reveal did they work? Well this is me having just removed them

And once brushed and styled, YES a success, I'll definitely be using them again, I don't need to set my hair every night I'm lucky that way but I now have a method that I can use overnight to sleep in. I'm pretty pleased with myself!

I'd love to know if anyone is interested in using this. It's really worked for me. Of course I set it dry as you can see, I've never been able to set my hair wet or even damp, it just doesn't dry, so dry set all the way for me.