Faith, Hope and Charity Swopping-Look what I got!

Handmade Helga, this doily decorated beautiful bag with the dimensions of a Mary Poppins number is fab-u-lo-so!

Not only is it brilliantly big enough to get in all Clauds gear, and my stuff, there is still room left over for a crafty op-shop find or two to be stuffed. NICE. VERY NICE.

Oh, hang on, more handmade stuff, naughty Helga....

Ahh, pretty floral bunting for our Clauds wall; like the bag, absolutely beautifully made and in gorgeous colours.

Hello hello, here's the jewllery part.

 Tricky as I'm not really a jewllery wearer (Little did Helga know!).

 In fact the only jewllery I wear with any regularity is a pair of driftwood earrings, so I chuckled when I drew this out of the pretty bag:-

a seashell necklace!

Perfect!

I love art and love the 1920's, so I'm not sure how come I'd never read a Tamara De Lempicka biog? No excuse now, thanks to Helgs, well once the hubby's finished reading it and gives it back anyway!

Hello, hello what this then?

I'm forever toying with the idea of having a go at quilting, knitting and some other crafts, so this massive book with a beginners guide to everything, will be a great reference. And, given it's vintage, there are some rather more rad than is currently fashionable ideas-knitted bikini anyone?

I know thats five, but hang on, there's more...

Ahhhh. Nice bit of delicate, pretty, greenery. Now my ring-holder-while-I-do-the-dishes-dish.

Absolutely lovely x

Instant fridge glamour came with this golden duck head bottle stopper. In fact it was so shiny and posh looking I had to give my fridge a bit of a clean to make it feel more at home.

And finally...

I am ALWAYS bemoaning the lack of properly vintage magazines in the oppy's (the 80's is not vintage its just awful)

A 1961 NZ Woman Weekly!!!!!

Even more perfectly it's the Christmas edition (I'm a bit nuts about Chrimbo).

Full of retro goodness, Christmas crafts, vintage ads, helmety haircut inspirations, I love it!

To conclusion, Helga you are a queen of op-shopping, I'm so glad I was your swopee.

And thanks to Lakota for her fantastic organisational efforts

xxx

Mantlepiece Monday

Mantlepiece Monday has come around again, yay! This week I'll show you my kitchen mantle. Ta da!

As per last weeks mantle, this one is rarely mucked with, if you disregard the spot at the end where a vase of flowers usual perches, as, as far as we are concerned, this is kitchen mantle perfection. It features the husbands collection of kettles and much as our clutter-hoarding overtakes us it is never allowed to sully this lovely corner. Of course being metal they are also safe from the not infrequent cooking fires I have!
Lovely, loved, but not used, just gazed at lovingly, they are from left to right:-
WMF Art Nouveau; Silver American Art Deco; French Art Nouveau; my favourite one which might be Japanese, approx 1900 (usually found to be containing chocolate he is hiding from me, but sadly empty today); Dutch, Jan Eisenloffel, 1900. Dust bunnies and cobwebs-vintage!

See you next week x

op-shop finds of the week

Here is my mixed (carrier) bag of op-shop goodies from this week!

Clauds is really into beads at the mo. Trying to find ones she won't kill herself with if she swallows them turned up these beauties, made from dyed hazelnuts! Now thats a craft I haven't seen blogged about yet!

Sadly they have already been binned as she did decided to eat them and crunched them up into little bits!

I also forgot her nut allergy (bad mummy award contender?). Slight exaggeration as it's more of an intolerance and fortuntatly the chewing incident didn't result in any problems. Phew!

A cute little book with gold edged pages, perfect for book paper folding projects.

I was chuffed when the checkout chick said it was free, hubby pointed out that was because it's a bible. Hmm. Maybe I'll save this one for a Christmas decoration paper book folding exercise.

Hurrah! More mismatched Crown Lynn cups and saucers to add to my fledgling collection.

Orrible picture with a capital O, but box frame with potential for a painty make-over followed by map paper butterfly holding. A bit pricey but crikey they cost a fortune new so in fact a good deal!

We op-shopped in pastures new this week, at the Lincoln Road, Christchurch, Salvo's. Wonderful stuff. The fun staff insisted on throwing Claud in the cuddly toy bin when she began to whinge and then bribed her for silence with biccies-she loved it! To boot it was sooooo cheap-$4 for a big bag of goodies including some amazing vintage Christmas decorations.

And that all folks!

Join in the op-shop show off fun at Sophie Isobels

Liebester blog award

Thank you very much Opshop Mama for nominating me for the Liebster blog award, congratulations on your own and thanks for the blog watching tips. This award is the one which is specifically for blogs with a hundred followers or less, and is given with the request that the recipient nominate some other 'small' blogs to bring them to notice.

So, I went through my blog list and looked for the very smallest in terms of followerdom, that hadn't already been given the nod by O-SM. And without further a-do, here they are:-

1. Digital Natural Parenting- 3 followers. A new blog by a wonderful mum. Essentially opinionated parenting stuff from an attachment parenting angle.

2. An Illustrators Inspiration-5 followers-Don't know much about this blog except I really do like a lot of the art featured.

3. Zaranne Handmade. 13 followers. Very new and very nice. Craft, gardening, opshopping...

4. Thisel and Bean. 14 followers. A beautiful blog full of girly craft and op-shopping with GREAT photos.

5. Bright Lights, Big Cities-14 followers. I'm a francophile and follow several Paris/French blogs. This is a particularly lovely one, in English.

                                                                              Enjoy x

Mantlepiece Mania

Estelle at Forture Favours has started up a mantlepiece Monday's linky...I'm keen as mustard as I have 3 mantlepieces, and though I rarely pimp them, and never dust them, I'm love-em, mine and others, so count me in!

Here is my fave at our place, in the lounge. I like to think it looks rather dramatic, with the spooky Bill Hammond lithograph above (NZ artist, from Lyttelton). I like the red brick as it reminds me of my old red brick primary school back in England!

These are 'sea secrets', rather coral-like ceramic creations by Len Castle, an outstanding NZ potter. Safely out of reach of Claud-hands, and stuck fast with large gobs of quake wax; none of them moved in any of the earthquakes (so far...).

And these antique welsh dragons, or are the griffins...hmm, whichever they are they look terribly grand lit-up at night.

The paper fans are from the 50's, I have millions of them, you can get them from Acorn and Will if you really like them, cheaps as chips and twice as cheery!

We were equally frightened and relieved by a recent inspection by the Earthquake commision, who noticed that this whole mantlepiece/brick edifice had in fact come loose from the wall/chimney during the quakes and could have fallen at any time. Feck!

So we've bolted it to the wall as best we can and the builder thinks it can be saved-hurrah!!!

See you next week with more mantles x

Op-shop finds this week...

We braved the cold and had a waltz round Riccarton Market this morning

Found this...

Not retro, but right up my alley reading wise.

Stocked up on retro maps

The paper and colour quality of these is just fantastic compared with modern versions so perfect for replemishing my map stock after making lots of these, to be box-framed up for a gift

                                             And a chunky royal purple hand-knit for Claud

       and this little number too...

Looking at that grumpy mug I think we better call her matron Claud!

However she wasn't grumpy for long. We're clearing out the front bedroom to turn it into a craft room at the mo so we had what I think the kiwi's call a "dung out". We sold an old fashioned trunk on Trademe, and hilariously a female magician calling herself Melanie Poppins turned up to pick it up. She knew I had a wee one as I'd asked her to pick up before bedtime, and she had brought the Claud an array of balloon creations!

                                                                Get your motor running!!!


Linking up with all the other Wombles at Sophie Isobel's

Une collection Eiffel

Relegated to the guest room because they're just a bit too twee.

This charmer, which houses both a spirit bottle and plays a twinky-twonky "The last time I saw Paris" was my first. Found at a fire-brigade jumble sale in a muddy barn, I felt temporarily transported to a more glamorous world as I squelched back to the car clutching it. It's from the 1960's I think.

You can see how it might inspire a collection aye?

This stoppered glass number may be a decanter, or perhaps it came ready filled with some intoxicating liquid? I'd love to know.

This one, whilst less spectacular, was purchased in the Eiffel Tower by the hubb-ster, for me on our honeymoon. It was made in France which I like, given that most tourist-tat the world over is actually made in China. What I like most about it though was that it was given to me by the husband WHO IS MORTALLY AFRAID OF HEIGHTS, who walked up the steps to the second floor with his eyes closed just to keep me company. Bless!

This spinning top, which works brilliantly, came from a cool little shop in some backstreet of Paris. It too was Made in France and has been claimed and lost by Claud a number of times. The cat is also partial to it's spinning madness so it may not be long for this world!

And a teeny-tiny dangly brooch. Fifties maybe?

I hadn't got a new one in ages until the hubby produced this one adorning my anniversary gift last month

Bon Nuit x