Vintage and Handmade Heaven

There's a buzz of excitement in the air at the moment, thanks to the initiative and efforts of two lovely ladies, Jayne and Michele, who have organised the Bloggers Vintage and Handmade Fair.

This is a special event for bloggers to come and sell their wares, vintage and handmade, and to meet up at last and have a good old natter. In fact, I expect you know all about it by now as I'm probably the last one to post about it.

This event is open to the public and of course we are hoping many more bloggers will come along to meet us and to shop. Admission is FREE and refreshments and home made cakes will be available too - what better way to spend the day and do some Christmas shopping at the same time.

The VH Fair takes place on Saturday November 22nd at Rangeworthy Village Hall (near Bristol), click here to go to the Vintage and Handmade Webpage for more details and see who's taking part.

I am so excited to be part of this, there are some very talented bloggers taking part, plus Vintage and Handmade is the best possible combination. A chance to buy some very unique items for gifts and for yourself.

My own stall will be a combination of vintage and handmade goodies, I have started making a few things and will be making many more over the next few weeks. I know from past experience that it seems a long time away but that time will pass in the blink of an eye.

As you know, the Bloom household has been a hive of DIY activity in recent weeks, and still is, but we did manage a few relaxing days away in Sussex, which I'll post about next time. As the living room is currently under renovation I tackled a job I had been putting off for a long time - making new curtains. I bought this fabric - Laura Ashley's Malmaison which I absolutely love, last year in the sale. I don't like large jobs like curtain-making, but with much huffing and puffing over a couple of days, I got them done... almost.

They still have to be hemmed, but since I've hung them the sense of urgency about that has gone away. They will be finished one day... then I'll show some proper pics!

I must thank four lovely ladies for awards I received recently.

Jeanette at Sincerely Yours for the Artey Pico award

Fitty at Fitty's Pinky Rose Cottage for the Brilliante Weblog award

Jayne at Country Cottage Chic and Kristina at Shabbily Ever After for the I Love Your Blog award.

Thank you ladies - it's lovely to receive awards but I have mixed feelings about them (and tags) so I won't be passing them on - I hope you won't be offended - and for that reason it wouldn't feel right putting them in my sidebar, but thank you very much for thinking of me.

The last roses of summer picked from my garden - there were only two so I added a hibiscus flower - it almost passes for a rose. As every year, the end of the summer has sneaked up before I realised and today in a card shop I saw Christmas cards on display. I know we all have busy lives, but do we really need to start preparing for Christmas 4 months in advance? - well, unless you're a crafter of course! ;-)

On my way...

... a post is imminent...

... have a good weekend!

Hello, I must be going!

Just popped in to say hello, I'm still here, but Mr. Bloom and I are taking our annual leave so I'm extending my blogging break for another couple of weeks. The DIY is progressing but the house is still in chaos and we need to concentrate on that so we have some livable space. Though we are squeezing in another mini-break - Sussex this time, a part of the country I haven't seen a lot of, so I'm very much looking forward to it.

I haven't got any crafting to show but I hate to post without pics so here are a few things I've acquired recently.

Two pretty tin canisters:

A perfectly preserved rose in a paperweight.

This gorgeous cottage print called 'A glimpse of the lake'. I have just the place for it but I'm on the hunt for a frame first. Mr. Bloom isn't keen, says it's a bit too chocolate boxy - but that's exactly why I love it. Don't you agree?

This vintage coffee grinder - I was most amazed when Mr. Bloom didn't object and even agreed it could go up in the kitchen - which it has. It won't get used as we don't drink much coffee, but I'm sure I'll find something small I can store in the little glass container.

An adorably shabby Italian angel

So it hasn't been all work and no play - but mostly work!

This little gathering of vintage goodness is being put away for a very special event later this year. You've probably read about it on other blogs by now. I'm very excited to be taking part and it will involve lots of making too, but I'm saving it till next time to tell you all about it.

I would like to say a big thank you for all the comments on my last post - I will get back to everyone after my break, and the awards too, which I'll also show next time.

Must go now, missing you already!

Lucy x

Castle Coombe

Castle Coombe is a very pretty English village, according to their website it is "the prettiest village in England" . I can't verify if this is true since I haven't been to every village in England, but it is a delightful place to visit, though it does get very busy with tourists in the summer.

The pictures above aren't mine, I 'borrowed' them from the village website here (I hope they don't mind). I also discovered on looking at their website that it was used as one of the locations in the film Stardust. There are some pictures of the filming on the website.

It is also rather a good venue for a car boot sale which is located at Castle Coombe motor racing circuit nearby. They have a boot sale once a month during the summer so a couple of weeks ago I had a bit of a clear out and went selling. My dad went with me as he and my mum had a clear out too so we shared a pitch. Mr. Bloom couldn't go as there was no room for him in the car - we had 5 trestle tables full:

My dad likes going to car boot sales almost as much as I do and is always happy to go with me if he can. We pack some sandwiches, a primus stove to make tea, and a few bottles of beer. My dad loves having a banter with the buyers and is quite happy for me to go off wandering around the other stalls.

I like this boot sale as there is always a wide variety of sellers including a good few dealers so you can usually find some vintage loveliness. Another bonus is that there are proper indoor toilets! It is quite a large venue, though it's difficult to show that in the pictures as the pitches are spread out over the spectator area.

A good tip when you're selling at a car boot sale is not to leave the car radio running the whole morning. When it was time to leave we discovered that the car battery was completely flat. Fortunately the organisers had a set of jump leads and kindly loaned them to us at a charge of £1!

As I didn't want to come home with more stuff than I went with (and buying nothing wasn't an option) I decided I would only buy small things. I managed this quite well though a couple of larger items did sneak in.

Some sparkly jewels and buckles:

A tiny bottle, jar and pincushion doll:

My favourite find was this pincushion doll who still had her original clothes - she's now in my china cabinet which you'll have seen on last week's post. I was also pleased to find the chintz bowl which I can add to my small collection.

A lovely old Communion certificate dated 1919 and a cute Mabel Lucie Attwell postcard. The tiny wooden hanger is the same shade of green as the postcard so I think I'll be making some sort of hanging with them.

This old collar box was a present for Mr. Bloom but some of my things have already found their way inside, though he hasn't discovered this yet.

The communion certificate has already been given a makeover, I had just the right size frame for it, adding a lace border and a vintage flower for decoration.

We're planning to do another boot sale at Castle Coombe this weekend, though I have a horrible feeling it's going to be very wet on Sunday so we may be rained off. I really hope not as I now have several more boxes of stuff cluttering up the hallway.

To the ladies who won my PIF I just wanted to say that I haven't forgotten about it, I should have them ready to send out in the next couple of weeks...

and to friends across the pond I hope you're having a wonderful 4th of July.

It's going to be a bit quiet around here for a while as I'm taking a summer blog-break until the end of July, I'll still be around for shop orders and I might pop in to visit, I just won't be posting in this time. Here's hoping for some sunny days!

TTFN - Lucy x

Pink Saturday

This week I am pleased to participate in Pink Saturday hosted by Beverly at How Sweet the Sound. On Pink Saturday (which happens to be every Saturday) you can post about anything pink. I wasn't sure if I'd make it as my telephone line was down for a couple of days this week. Even though I don't spent a lot of time on the internet, I like knowing it's there when I want and it was quite disconcerting to be without.

Anyway, today I'm showing a shelf in my china cabinet which just happens to have quite a lot of pink. Mainly figurines and flowers, as you can see, a mixture of old and not so old, but mainly old.

Years ago when I was a professional working girl, this Coalport figurine was a gift from a client (in the days when such things were allowed). She's not a favourite and has nearly been sold on a number of occasions but she seems to get on well with the other figurines so she might as well stay now.

The new girl, this pretty Royal Doulton lady was a present from Mr. Bloom last Chritmas. I showed him all the ones I liked and he chose one from them, so that it would be a bit of a surprise. ( I think I might have mentioned to him that this was my favourite ;-))

A pink-tinged souvenir shoe with a pink rose...

More china roses...

This cute girl, a memento of my one and only visit to a Flea Market in the States. Also in my working girl days, I was lucky enough to travel to the US a few times and on one occassion had to stay over the weekend when there just happened to be a flea market nearby. My eyes were out on stalks and I could have bought loads but my suitcase was already bulging with all the craft supplies I'd bought during the week! I think I bought a few other small items, but I can't remember what they were now.

Pin dolls and doll heads though there seems to be an imposter who's not strictly pink - I'll have sort her out!

Very unusually for me I did some baking during the week, my sweet dad had brought round some raspberries from his allotment - too many to eat in one sitting - so I found a recipe for Raspberry Muffins on the internet. They were really easy to make and turned out rather tasty. I added some pink icing, which wasn't in the recipe, and I think you could make them with other fruit too, I'm going to try strawberry ones next.

Hope you enjoyed my pink participation, for more pinkness pop over to Beverly's blog to see who else went pink today.

I must say Thank You to dear, sweet Jennie at Falling Down the Rabbit Hole for my Blogging with a Purpose Award. I shall have a look round and see who hasn't got one yet so that I can pass it on.

This weekend my dad has come over to help Mr. Bloom re-locate our living room door.

Rubble, dust and chaos reign in the Bloom household again. I wanted it moved, I must be glutton for punishment. I'm staying well out of the way upstairs in my workroom!

Lucy x