New Item Friday

Added to the shop today is this gorgeous set of glasses. Their soft, vintage colours are just lovely. Head over to the shop to check them out.

We have another busy weekend ahead of us. The mother and sister (soon to be) in-law are coming on Saturday, and we intend on taking them dress shopping for our wedding (my other half groans and rolls his eyes at this point with the thought of taking 3 women clothes shopping). We are very lucky that Frome is packed with vintage clothes shops so fingers crossed we may find a gem for the mother of the groom. Then on Sunday I am back at work but will also be appearing at the Frome Flea. This Sunday is the last Super-market event for this year. St. Catherine's hill and the main high street will be closed off to cars, and packed full with stall holders. As the weather forecast is looking good for the weekend I would definitely get down to Frome.
What ever you are doing I hope you have a lovely time. Take every opportunity to enjoy the sunshine!
xx

Pantry Swooning

I was flicking through one of my favourite blogs Oh, Hello Friend and couldn't help gasping at the absolutely gorgeous pantry in one of their posts.

Image courtesy of Oh, Hello Friend

I love the yellow and white, I love the anal organisation, I love that everything matches. I also spy a Kitchenaid, which I want. Oh, why do I not have a larger kitchen....
xx

Before and After: New Back Garden

So there are still some changes to be made to the back garden but I thought I should show you how it looks at the moment before summer is completely lost. The fact that it is currently tipping it down with rain outside may mean that I have lost summer already, but I am ever the optimist.

Obviously this space is very small but it is a nice little blank canvas and devoid of any plants. As I mentioned previously, I was hoping to fit in a small bench or seat in here, so I could enjoy the sunshine whilst reading and drinking coffee.

This is how it currently looks. We have filled the corner with herbs (keeping the mint in its own separate pot otherwise it will take over everything!), whilst the other container is filled with beautiful things that my Mum has given me. This is a combination of plants that will die off come the winter but hopefully some will grow back next year. Using some bricks and a paving slap that we found in the out-house I have made a little temporary seat - I've got to enjoy the colours whilst I can!

The future plan is to re-paint the walls when we have some rain free days. Plant some Sweet Pea seeds into the flower planter, which hopefully should grow up the climber and add some more colour. I plan on having some more herbs in pots around the seat, and hopefully create a different seat (or maybe just add some cushions to that one??). And also add a climbing plant opposite the seat, to climb up the wall of the out-house. But as the garden currently stands I feel very happy with it, after all you can't beat being able to pick your own herbs for dinner.
xx

Ruche Home

I had to share with you some of the gorgeous home ware that I am lusting after over at Ruche. I get their newsletters via email and they have to go and tempt me with pretty things.

All Images Courtesy of Ruche

Clockwise from Top Left: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6

I hope you enjoy.

xx

New Gazebo

So my weekend was a bit hit and miss. The weather held off on Sunday, which was great. The market was not a great sucess, but my gazebo looked fab!

It was easy to put up and the weights around the legs looked great and worked really well. It is rather large but I think it is going to be super useful in the future. I'm very pleased with my new purchase and can't wait to play with it myself.
I hope you have a lovely weekend and enjoy your bank holiday Monday you are fortunate enough to get one.
xx

New Item Friday

I am spoiling you with 3 new items this week. I have 3 books which are from the 50s and 60s. They are cooking and home related and show such an insight into the past trends, plus are really useful! One of them even has slips of paper inside with handwritten recipes and magazine cuttings - I always leave things inside the books I read, so love it when I find others have as well.

The shop will be at Shepton Mallet showground this weekend manned by my lovely parents. I wish I could be there to help but the day job has a hold of me. I am keeping my fingers crossed for nice weather, but I have actually just bought a new, and much larger, gazebo! Due to our out door space at the new house being so small I haven't had a chance to try it out. It is one of the new pull out and pop up versions which should only require a maximum of 2 people to assemble, and should go up very quickly. I also have some new fancy gazebo weights which should wrap around the legs holding the gazebo down in windy weather or when you are positioned on concrete. I will have to get my parents to take photos and give a review, but it is always exciting to have new toys.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.
xx

Before and After: New Bathroom

I thought it was about time I filled you in on our new home, and I thought I should start with the littlest room in the house (well actually our littlest room is the kitchen but you get what I mean).

The bathroom has not changed by a huge mount since we moved in. We are unfortunately stuck with the pink bathroom suite and grey, white and pink tiles. We had hoped to move the chest of draws as they were a bit of a strong feature in the space, also the damp environment has left them in a sorry state, but they were just too big and heavy. Instead I cleaned them up, repaired a few mouldings and ran with the white, grey and pink theme.

I wanted to play down the pink, as I'm not really a pink kind of girl, so I brought in white and grey towels and tried to stick to white accessories. The table mirror is a beautiful one I bought in an auction (which was meant to be for the shop!!) but I think it helps tie in the chest of draws into the room. I also couldn't resist some sweety jars filled with white toiletries. On a slight side note, in the picture did you notice our toothbrush holder? It is a glass tankard from the Queens Silver Jubilee back in 1977. After the Diamond Jubilee this year I felt I just needed to have something that was jubilee related, but being the vintage girl I am I opted for the 30 year old version instead.

This is by no means my dream bathroom, but it is big and gorgeous soft light floods through the window. And in all honesty, as long as I can soak in a big bath tube with a good book, I am content.
xx

Tutorial: Mug Decorating

I realised the other day that I have not done a tutorial in a while. With everything that has been going on I haven't really had time to plan and carry out a 'how to'. So I have decided to lead you to another fantastic blog to satisfy your DIY urges. . . . but please come back.

Image coutesy of Oh, Hello Friend

Over at Oh, Hello Friend they have a lovely little how to decorate a found mug - check out the post HERE. I think this is a brilliant way to jazz up some cheap mugs. Or if you are looking for an extra special present for someone, why not buy a pretty vintage cup and saucer and personalise it with the recipients name.

Image coutesy of Oh, Hello Friend

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and I promise to try and bring you some Springy Beard tutorials soon.
xx

Good Company and Lots of Food

I have had a lovely weekend. Our friends came all the way from London to visit us in Frome, and I can't help but feel touched that they like us enough to spend so much time and money coming to see us.

Homemade Smoked Salmon and Dill tart

However, I suspect it may be cupboard love as they devoured all the food I had made (mind you it was me that ended up having the second cinnamon bun). Coincidentally, I think I may be a feeder, as I honestly can not say I am happier than when I see people enjoying the food I have made. Probably should warn the other half that he is going to end up fat, and that we will probably have very fat children.
xx

New Item Friday

I am almost back to normal and have returned with a lovely little item for you this Friday.

These Salt and Pepper pots are made by Wyncraft and match other condiment related items that I already have in the shop (I have an apple sauce pot, celery pot, horse radish sauce pot and a mint sauce pot - just in case you wandered). I would recommend heading over to the shop to check them all out.

I will catch up with you all again on Monday with lots of photos of my fun weekend of entertaining. I might have to show off the creme brulees I have made especially, as I think they are going to be gorgeous! Would it be considered rude to eat all of the deserts yourself before your dinner guests even arrive??
Have a lovely weekend everyone.
xx

Small Spaces Style

Image sourced from Etsy

I saw this post on Etsy (the site where I sell all of my goods on-line). I thought it had some really good ideas for small spaces and I had to share it with you. It has 5 main tips, with lots of goodies to tempt you, on how to style your small space to give it the most impact: Furniture with legs, mirrors, collections, colour and verticals. Check out the post HERE.

I had a crazy day yesterday cooking in preparation for my friends coming at the weekend. The kitchen is now piled high with dirty dishes and I managed to break one of my favourite ceramic dishes (the dish literally exploded when I accidentally put it on a hot ring on the hob - I'm not used to electric hobs and I keep forgetting to turn the rings off!). It's been so long since I did any entertaining I forgot how much work is involved but I'm so excited to have them here. I better get to work tidying up the house otherwise they will have to enjoy their food in a pigsty!
xx

Studio Inspiration

My new workshop in the attic is slowly coming together. I am a bit restricted with space as a lot of my items are furniture and take up so much room, but it doesn't stop me dreaming of a well organised stylish space. I can't help wandering around the internet at what other people have achieved and giving a little sigh of longing. I came across this sewing room below and fell in love with the colours.

All images sourced from HERE

I don't think I will be able to achieve this for my current studio but I will keep it saved in the inspiration bank for the future.
xx

Painting and Dreaming of Colour

I am exhausted. I have spent my day painting the house. We are only renting our new little home, so a lot of you out there may wander why I would bother spending time and money painting something that doesn't belong to me. My attitude is that I am going to be living in the house for at least the next 12 months and I want to be comfortable. I am naturally a bit of a nester (Ok! I am a complete nester - just call me a door mouse). I remember when I moved into my first place at university, it was the first time I had moved away from home, and it wasn't until the bed was made and some pictures were on the wall that I really felt I could stay there. I have spent a lot of time moving around ever since (so many that we joked the table numbers at our wedding should be our old addresses instead!). Every new place I go to I like to give it a good clean, decorate, sort out my belongings, and then I feel I can relax. The only problem with painting a rented place is that you have to ask permission, and you are often restricted to a certain colour palette. For our new home it is magnolia and white. I am happy to work with a neutral back drop and use my furniture and accessories to brighten up the room, but I can't help dreaming of colour. If I had my way I would spread the walls with vibrancy.

Sourced from HERE

Sourced from HERE

Sourced from HERE

Sourced from HERE

This is the dream but it will have to wait. Instead I will just have to buy bright and colourful things. Thankfully the kitchen is almost complete so I will hopefully give you a nice before and after next week.
xx

Ikea, Paint and Sunday Lunch

I have had such a lovely full weekend. On Saturday we had a trip to Ikea in Bristol. I must confess I love going to Ikea. I find the room set ups very inspirational and I somehow always manage to buy far more than I intended, or really should! This time round we were very good and just brought what we needed, that came to £50 as it was, and of course we had to have a Swedish meatball lunch. We then spent the afternoon working our socks off painting the hallway, so the ikea trip and meatballs was earned.

I had work on Sunday morning and further sorting out of the workshop, but I did find time to cook up a nice dinner for me and the other half. We started with tacos filled with fried courgette, bacon and chorizo with salad, cheese and home-made hummus. The grand finale was home-made fruit cobbler. I have never made cobbler before so I decided to loosely follow Nigel Slaters recipe in the Kitchen Diaries. I used a combination of doughnut peaches, raspberries and blueberries, and it was delicious.

Thank you to Nigel, and I hope you all had a lovely weekend like me? I will try to get everything back to normal this week. It feels like we have been moving for ages! But we have friends coming to stay next weekend so that should motivate me to get things done.....or it is more likely to distract me from being productive!
xx

New Item Friday Postponed

Disney Childrens Book

I'm afraid I have run out of time. I spent the day moving about half of the old workshop into the new workshop, so I haven't had time to photograph anything, and all the items are currently in plastic boxes and inaccessible. I would love it if you headed over to the shop to check out what I currently have for sale, but I promise to have things back to normal soon. In the meantime have a lovely weekend.
xx

Additional Small Garden Idea

I realise I did a post about small gardens the other week to give myself, and all of you out there, some inspiration. My tiny outdoor space is still a complete mess as the inside of the house is taking priority (and it keeps chucking it down with rain so I don't get a chance to sort it out). But as I was checking out my favourite blogs, the lovely ladies over at A Beautiful Mess reminded me that something needs to be sorted before summer is completely gone.

Image coutesy of A Beautiful Mess

I came across one of their posts about a brilliant do it yourself project for a hanging garden which looks so easy to do. I feel I need to hit the charity shops for some wicker baskets and give this idea a go.
xx

Vintage Office

In the new workshop I have set myself up a desk to do all of my computer and paper-work on. In the past I have done most of this where ever I could find a free space in the house; on the kitchen table, in front of the TV, on the bed. Now that I have an actual designated space I couldn't help looking for the best vintage office stationery to decorate it with.

Wedge Organiser

Scotch Industrial Retro Tape Dispenser

Vintage Metal Cabinet

Vintage Pens

Vintage Yellow Stapler

Wire Office Basket

Vintage Numbered Pins

Paper Pad Cube Calender

xx

Boxes, Cleaning and Lamp Shades

I have had an exhausting few days. We managed to move in to our new house on Saturday, the living room and bedroom ended up being a box and bin-bag playground! Today was the first chance I've had to really sort out the stuff we brought with us, Sunday and Monday having been taken up with work and markets. Today has been spent moving things round, emptying boxes, hanging things on walls, erecting shelves, cleaning. The living room is currently the most complete room, all that is left is to frame and hang a picture above the sofa (a really gorgeous woodblock print we bought out in Japan!), and get a lampshade for our floor lamp. This has put me on the hunt for a gorgeous vintage/retro shade, which led me to a website I wanted to share with you.

Sandersons 'Mobiles' Fabric

Sanderson's 'Dandelion Clock' Fabric

Sanderson's 'Portobello' Fabric

Shady Lady Lampshades does the most gorgeous shades in fab retro and shabby chic fabrics. I love the three Sanderson ones above, which also come in other colours, and I can't decide which one to choose!
Decisions, decisions....
xx

New Item Friday

So I have barely had time to write and sort out items for you this week as we are finally properly moving in to our new place tomorrow! I am so excited but completely exhausted as, along with the part-time job, the business, packing, decorating the new place, etc. etc. I have 2 markets around the corner which need prepping! On Sunday the shop will be at the Frome Flea and then on Monday I will be at Vintage Monday (an evening event) in Bath. If you get a chance to join me then please come along.

Once I have the new place at a standard which I can feel proud, I will post some photos. At the moment there are boxes everywhere, tins of paint and dust sheets. That reminds me I probably should buy some food as the cupboards are bare!
xx