A Lovely Day Out at the Vintage and Handmade Fair

Hi there everyone!

I thought I'd tell you about a lovely Vintage Fair that I go to in a little place called Chipping Sodbury.  The fair is on a few times a year and they also do a Vintage Textile Fair and a Vintage Jumble Sale - details can be found here.

Last Saturday I set off early on the bus and went along to the fair with a friend.  It's always very busy there so best to get there early.  I have been the first one at the door for the last few fairs and received a goody bag which the first 100 through the door get!  I usually pay my £1 entry, get my hand stamped, take my goodie bag and go for a wander outside until the fair is open!  There is another little vintage fair held over the road on the same day at St John's Church Hall so I go there as well.  Chipping Sodbury is a quaint place with some really great old buildings.  It has a very wide High Street so you can spend a nice few hours looking around. 

Anyway - the fair is always interesting to look at with some nice old things as well as lots of lovely shabby/vintage styled handcrafted items.  The prices vary alot but you can pick up some nice lace and other bits and bobs for quite a cheap price.  There are other things that are lovely but alot more expensive!!  It of course depends on the age and condition and whether it is a rarer item!  i don't think I have every come away empty handed!!!

There is a refreshments area that have the most fantastic array of homemade cakes and tea or coffee in vintage china cups with saucers!  I always manage to force down a piece of cake!!

Anyway - here is my little haul from last Saturday

This was a back copy of a Vintage Magazine that is so lovely, I thought I would show it to you!!

I picked up these 2 cute jam jars with pretty little fabric covers full of buttons for just £1 a jar. 

 

There were some interesting buttons in them including some of these - on the back it said 'Made in Deccan'.  I've spent alot of time living in India so I knew these were Indian just from the word Deccan and there was a factory name and registation number so I thought they were pretty old.  I did abit of research and found out that the Deccan area was well known for enamel buttons usually either solid silver or just silver coloured.  Gold coloured ones are rarer and these are a brassy gold colour!!  The wording on the back dates them as pre 1947!!  I was really thrilled to have these buttons in my collection!

I also picked up this in a bag for 50p

Well worth 50p!!

 Not quite sure what this it though - if you know please comment and tell me!!  One solid part and the other bit is a long springy piece of metal!

There was a box of lovely wooden cotton reels as well for 50p each, I think the reels were worth that alone!!  I picked up these 3 colours

Again - the fabric and the roll of brocade fabric were in a bargain box and were 50p and £1 respectively!!  I think I might use the brocade for making some flowers!

The lace in the pic was gorgeous and was 50p a metre - here's a close up pic of it!!

So I had a nice bagful of goodies and actually didn't spend that much to get them!!

Check out the link above for details of the next Vintage and Handmade Fair and if you are in the area, pop along!!

Vintage Hearts

I recently bought some Sizzix Framelit Heart dies and have been making good use of them!!  I love hanging hearts and have several different types hung in my room.  I recently purchased a nice large slate one which I can use to jot down things that I need to remember.  At the moment it has details of the Vintage Chic Wedding Cupcake decorating course I am going along to on 16 March with Custom Cake Classes - I was due to do this course in December but the class got cancelled, hope this one gets enough people booked onto it!

I've been making some vintage inspired felt hanging hearts in a lovely vibrant red felt. 

I bought another doily die last week from ebay - I have quite a few doily dies and love them.  Some of them like the Cheery Lyn ones look fab but do not cut very easily and you have to keep moving the die around and run it back and forth in your die cutting machine.  The one I bought last week was a newish one from Xcut and it cuts like a dream.  Some of the bits get stuck in the die but that's fine, I can live with that so long as it cuts the card properly without too much effort!  It's part of the Vintage Notes range.  I also bought a couple of the stamps from that range and the paper pack.  The die is retailing for around £9.99 but I got it on ebay for £7.99 - there is a lovely heart die in this range as well which I will be getting next!!



Here is the lovely heart one that I want!!!

Thanks for popping by!!

Vintage Style Tealight Holder

Good morning - it's very cold this morning.  I'm finding it very hard to get out of my warm bed each day now the cold weather is upon us.  I hate the cold and I used to spend the entire winter in India to avod it as it was lovely and sunny there.  I think my blood has thinned though over the years of doing that and I am no longer able to cope well in cold conditions.

Anyway - I've had my eye on an empty jar for a few weeks now and forgot to claim it so it went in the bin so yesterday I had to retrieve it before the bin men came and took it.  I wanted to make a tealight holder with it.  Initially I was going to use wire around the top and make a handle but that didn't work out as the wire was not flexible enough!!

Last night, whilst sat watching the Walking Dead, I came up with this vintage style holder. 

 

I think it's pretty and it looks lovely when it's lit up with a tealight inside of it.

 

 



Very simple to do, just get an empty jar and tightly pull some wide width lace around the jar.  I overstitched where the lace meets to hold it onto the jar. 

 

Next I made some simple ribbon flowers by just doing a running stitch along the edge of the ribbon and then pulled the thread to gather it and stitched the edges together. 

 

I then stitched the flowers onto the lace on the jar to cover the stitches I had made earlier.  I popped a ribbon around the neck of the jar and made a bow.  Voila, one pretty vintage style tealight holder!!

 



 

 

 

 

Scarves, Holidays and More!!!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.  We actually had some sun today in Bristol although it was very windy.  I started clearing out some of the huge amount of rubbish that we have in our garage. If we do it abit at a time it won't seem so tedious!!!  We had an old style electric sewing machine which I managed to re-home on Freecycle so that was good.  It's always nice to try and find something that still has some life left in it a new home rather than taking it to the tip!!

I wanted to share with you a couple of new scarves that I have bought recently.  I love scarves and have a large collection of them in all different colours, textures and sizes!  The first one I want to show you was purchased from Tesco, they just had the one and I spotted it by chance!!  It's a lovely turquoise colour with a vintage style rose tapestry print on it.  It goes with lots of outfits as there are many colours it besides the turquoise - red, pink, green and yellow.

The other scarf I bought from Sainsbury, it was £8 and I didn't really want to spend that on a scarf that day!!  Anyway, the next day I saw an advert on tv saying that there was 25% off at Sainsbury so off I trotted to get the scarf for £6!!!  It's a huge scarf, big enough to wear as a sarong if I wanted to!!  It is a lovely maroon/red and has the most adorable swallows/bluebirds on it.

The photos don't show the colours to their best as I've taken the photos at night!!  I'm sure they give you a general idea though!!  For any followers not in the UK these were both bought in supermarkets in the clothing department!

I'm off on holiday in 2 weeks to Malaysia.  We fly to Kuala Lumpur and spend a night there and then fly to Penang the next day for 8 nights and then back to Kuala Lumpur for 4 nights.  I've been to KL 3 times before, it's a great city with lots to do and see and fantastic shopping malls!!  I'm hoping to find some craft/haberdashery shops there, I believe there are alot in Chinatown so I will be having a good look!!

I've been making lots of fabric flowers and have some lovely cotton prints to use.

 I am making them into brooches and hair clips at the moment!!

You can find them over on my Facebook page - Bumble Bees Craft Den.

Well that's it for now, enjoy your Sunday whatever you are doing!!

Cheap and Cheerful Vintage Style Buys!!!!

I popped to Tesco's yesterday as I wanted to get the vintage rose pattern pumps I'd seen there a week or so back.  Last time they didn't have my size but this time they did so I snapped them up along with a lovely scarf that is almost the same pattern so will go well with them.

The pumps are £6 and the scarf is £5

I also got some lovely socks with a vintage rose pattern on them - I've not seen them instore before so guess they must be new.  I bought 4 pairs as they are buy one get one half price so work out at 75p per pair when you buy 2.  I'm going to make a sock kitty with one pair!!!!

I also went to Ikea and picked up these little storage jars for £2.03 for 4 - they are great for storing little gems and other small things in.  I've already used one to put my googly eyes in!!!