Making Good Use

Parallel Universe

I'm beginning to wonder if I live in a parallel universe to many other people - especially with regards to how much things cost - as I've had a few 'sticker shock' moments lately. 

The first was when I went to buy some padded envelopes.  I get through a lot of padded envelopes of various sizes due to my eBay and Amazon sales, and always buy them from the 99p shop in the high street.  Naturally, all packs cost 99p!!  but the number in each pack varies depending on how large the envelope is.  The smallest size (sort of half an A4 sheet size) has seven for 99p, the next size up has five, and the largest size has three.  Annoyingly, the 99p shop had totally run out of any sized padded envelope and I didn't have any at home either.  Passing WH Smith's I saw they had a 'stationery event' so popped in to have a gander.  Snakes alive, they were charging £3.59 for a pack of five small envelopes exactly the same size as I can get in the 99p shop next door - for a pack of seven!!  And it's not like the Smith's ones are superior quality or anything, the 99p shop ones are fabulous and are even made in the UK (although I suspect they are possibly the only non-food item in the 99p shop that is!!)  Needless to say, I left Smith's without buying any.  Two days later the 99p shop had restocked and I loaded up with eight packs.

Second 'sticker shock' moment came whilst perusing the Boots No.7 counter - not something I do very often but I had a £5.00 off voucher that I thought I might use.  £12.50 for a mascara - what!!!, £25.00 for a weeny pot of fancy pants moisturiser - I know it is nice stuff as I've bought some sample tubes at boot sales before now - but seriously, £25.00!!  I was slightly tempted by a single eyeshadow at £8.00 (would've only cost me £3.00 with my voucher) but then thought about all the lovely boot sale Bourjois eyeshadows I've got at home and changed my mind.  Eventually, I came away with a pack of No.7 cleansing wipes which were £7.00 full price but only cost me £2.00.  At least I know I'll use these.

Add that to some of the charity shop prices that I find totally outrageous (£7.99 for a man's shirt, £5.00 for a plain black long-sleeved T-shirt in a brand I've never heard of etc, etc) and I've come to the conclusion that I've somehow been beamed up into a parallel universe without me even realising!!  Luckily for me, I'm quite happy wandering around in my own little world where spending £25.00 on a moisturiser or £12.50 on a mascara really wouldn't float my boat .

Lunch - Neuf Point, Charity Shops - Nul Point

Check out that blue sky - woohoo!!

I had the most delicious birthday lunch in Leigh on Sea at The Boatyard.  As the weather was totally gorgeous (am sporting slightly sunburnt forearms today as a result,) we sat out on the Deck

And - like Otis Reading - watched the tide come in. 

This boat was sailing along an impossibly small channel of water within feet of where we were sitting.  Quite a surreal experience.

Passing the same two boats as in the second photo .

The food was delish - I had a warm flatbread with shredded duck on salad leaves with a plum compote, P also had a warm flatbread but with a crayfish salad.  And we both shared a platter of Greek meze - very yummy and just the thing for a sunny summer's day.

Leigh on Sea itself was lovely with some excellent independent shops in the town ( though it was sad to find that Roses and Rue had, indeed, closed down.)  Sadly, the charity shops were absolute pants!!  I trawled all nine that I could find and only came home with a Monsoon sleeveless shirt for myself - and that cost me £5.99!!!!  It is very nice though and fits like a dream and I know it would have cost a heck of a lot more when it was new. 

P, as always in a charity shop, was perusing the mens' shirts and was somewhat taken aback that the average price they were asking was £7.99.  Luckily, we found two very nice pure cotton shirts for him this morning on the £1.00 rail in one of our local high street chazzas.

Thank you so much for all your kind birthday wishes yesterday, too.  They certainly contributed to me having a really lovely day. 

 

Zweiundfunfzig

Today's my birthday - zweiundfunfzigjahrige!!  (possibly sounds even more scary when said in German.)  I'm celebrating by heading to Leigh-on-Sea for the day.  I've not been there before and according to the Find a Charity Shop website, they've got TEN charity shops, plus there's a wool and fabric shop (Roses and Rue) which looks rather nice, it's by the sea (well, the Thames estuary!) and - huge triple bonus this summer -  it's not raining.

 

Fabric Finds

I know a lot of us thrifters are finding the charity shop offerings rather thin on the ground at the moment, and I can certainly vouch for that.  However, I was rather pleased to come across three large pieces of unused fabric in one of the high street chazzas the other day, especially as they were priced at only 50p each. 

They are all good size chunks - approx. 3 and a half yards x 36 inches wide for the floral, the same for the striped, but that's 44 inches wide, and just under two yards x 44 inches wide for the denim.  The denim is my favourite as it is quite a light fabric which would be ideal for a quilt backing or perhaps as a skirt or tunic top for me - I'm still weighing up my options on that!!  In the meantime I shall be adding them all to my stash

Today, in the same shop, I found two pairs of pretty vintage pillowcases.  These mauve floral beauties are in excellent condition and will be gracing the bed just as soon as they've been washed.

Sadly, one of the other pair - these lovely 60's cotton rose-print ones - has got some marks on it.  I'll give it a good soak in some biological washing powder and Ace bleach and see if I can shift them.  Otherwise there may be another pillowcase tote being made shortly.

I sewed up this tote the other day and much as I was not overly keen on the vintage M&S print as a pillowcase, it works very nicely as a bag. 

 

Now, That's What I Call Customer Service

I'm very partial to a good quality marmalade on my toast in the morning - especially since I've been unable to have any more than a scraping of butter.  I've tried all the cheap and cheerful brands but somehow the taste and consistency never quite match up to Tiptree marmalade.  Also, it's a local Essex-based company and I like to buy British whenever I can.

A pot of their marmalade is scandalously expensive in our local Co-op supermarket (20p more expensive even than Waitrose!!) but as I'm now unable to eat most of my favourite foods - cheese, chocolate, cream etc. (due to ye olde gall bladder problem,) I reckon it's OK to splash out a bit on something really nice for my breakfast each day.  However, I was not best impressed when a jar I bought recently turned out to have the consistency of marmalade sauce.  Keeping that on my toast first thing in the morning was akin to herding cats and each time I ended up with stickier paws than Paddington Bear.

Encouraged by my Mum, I sent an e-mail to Tiptree expressing my disappointment in this particular jar and letting them know that there was a problem with the set of this batch.  Cue an extremely apologetic e-mail explaining why they may have had a problem getting this batch to set (varying acidity levels in Seville oranges, apparently) and could they have my postal address to send me something by way of compensation.

A couple of days ago a box arrived and I was really delighted to find this little lot inside - another jar of Orange and Tangerine Marmalade (to replace the one that was 'sauce,') a jar of their beautifully yummy Strawberry Jam (usually waaaaay too expensive for me to buy,) a pot of Organic Onion Chutney - never tried this but it sounds lovely, and - the piece de resistance - a jar of Lemon Curd.  Oooh, I do dearly love lemon curd!!  I know I'll have to limit myself severely with how much I consume in one go (due to the butter content) but I am looking forward to having some of this on my toast tomorrow morning.

Going Fourth

Finally, a dry and reasonably sunny Sunday morning - which can only mean one thing, the fourth boot sale trip of the season.  Like Caroline, I also found that there were nowhere near the mahoosive number of sellers I'd been hoping for - I think I'd fondly been imagining that they'd be out in force as soon as there was a Sunday with decent weather.  Anyway, slight lack of sellers aside, I did manage to find a few bits and bobs.

Three vintage sewing patterns - 30p each.  I remember having the same pattern as the one in the centre in the late 1970's.  I made myself several night shirts from it just before I went to college in the autumn of 1979.  I can't imagine taking the effort to sew nightwear now - I mainly go to bed wearing mis-matching tatty old T-shirts and trackie bottoms.  Clearly my sense of nocturnal style has gone dramtically down hill as I've got older!! 

A large Radley dust bag which I'm hoping is totally kosher - though I've never come across any of their dust bags that have not been either plain cream, pink or blue before.  I only paid 50p for it so if it turns out to be a dud I'll just use it as a storage bag instead as the cotton is lovely and thick.

Another wooden-handled vintage bag.  This one is made from some very Eames-era type barkcloth.  I paid £1.00 for it.

Two empty Tiffany & Co. gift boxes and drawstring pouches.  I've noticed these sell pretty well on eBay and have been keeping my eye open for them.  They cost £1.00 for the lot.

A very 1960's style little plate featuring what I think is an emu.  Not really sure what I'm going to do with this but it caught my eye and was only 30p.

Finally, not really a total bargain, but I got two Body Shop Earth Lovers biodegradable shower gels for myself.  They cost £5.00 each in Body Shop and I paid £3.50 for the two.  I wouldn't normally splash out quite so much on shower gels but I did like the fact that they are totally biodegradable, plus I am getting rather low on shower gel stocks at the moment due to the dearth of boot sales this summer.  Good job I had quite a stash otherwise I'd've had to forked out and bought some retail - and that would never do!!!! 

30 Minute Bag

I don't really need another cloth bag but I've had this rather groovy vintage canvas fabric knocking around for a-g-e-s in the stash.  It was a charity shop find many moons ago and I had always intended to make it into a bag.  This afternoon I had a spare 30 minutes and thought why not get the sewing machine out and get on with it.

It's my usual very simple boxed-corner style bag  - though the sturdy canvas-type fabric does make it look a lot more 'shaped' than my normal 'floppy fabric' bags.

Lined with some abstract blue spot material (which has also been knocking around in the stash for years.)

With the handles made from some charity shop webbing (again, been meaning to make bag handles from this for a l-o-n-g time.)  All in all, it took me probably less than 30 minutes to put it all together.  Naturally, having been made by me, it's not perfect and it would have improved the stitching immensely if I'd not been too lazy to change the rather blunt needle in the sewing machine.  I guess it's even blunter now after having to cope with canvas and thickish webbing!

I'm hoping if the rain holds off this weekend I can use my new bag to 1) go to a local village fete tomorrow afternoon and 2) actually get to a car boot sale!  It's the middle of June and this will only be my fourth boot sale since March - tsk, that's truly shocking!!!!

Accessories

Today's foray around the high street charity shops resulted in a couple of rather nice accessories.  As I get older I find myself becoming more and more like my Mum - especially with regards to a nice handbag.  Mum dearly loves a nice bag and has quite a collection of them these days.  Me, I don't have so many, but I'm gradually amassing a few via boot sales and charity shops.

This little beauty really caught my eye this morning, it's wonderfully soft leather and muted green colour shone out from amongst the usual jumble of cheap, plastic tat on the handbag rail.  It just seemed to ooze quality right down to the heavy brass bobble that it closes with.

When I got it home I discovered that Bottega Veneta is quite a covetable brand (personally, I'd never heard of them, but some of their bags sell for humungous amounts on eBay.)  Mine has got a couple of marks on the front but I'm going to give it a good rub with some leather polish and see if I can get them to fade a bit.

In the same charity shop I found a lovely cotton summer scarf from Lands' End - and if ever a summer warrented wearing a scarf, this one does!  I've certainly heard of that company but, again, had no idea their scarves could be so expensive.  So that was another nice bargain find.

Finally, the Coffee and Jumble yielded three vintage chiffon headscarves for the princely sum of 5p each.  I haven't come across a chiffon scarf in many a long year - I remember my Mum wearing them in the late 1960's.  These ones are destined for eBay.

Hanham Court

If you ever find yourself in the Bristol / Bath area, I can highly recommend a visit to Hanham Court Gardens.

It's a 13th century manor house (with attached Hanham Abbots church)

With the most beautiful formal

and informal gardens.

A kitchen garden - with plenty of very covetable terracotta rhubarb forcers.

 

A beautiful swimming pool

Plants galore.

 
I loved this little gypsy caravan / shepherds hut.  Mum even managed to see a deer galloping down this slope - though I was sitting down and missed it!!

And they offer a lovely afternoon tea in the 'undercroft' -  with delicious home-made cake.

Recent Charity Shop Finds

Rain stopped play YET AGAIN!! for the boot sales this bank holiday weekend.  It's now June and I've only managed to get to three boot sales so far this seasons - Gordon Bennett, will it ever stop raining????  Luckily for me, I've recently had some very nice charity shop finds in compensation.

When I was staying with my Mum in Kingswood I found

Two rather lovely 1940's-style handmade vintage blouses - £1.00 each on the half-price rail in the Sally Army shop.  Silly me left another half dozen or so behind that day and when I went back two days later the whole bloomin' lot had sold - buggah!! 

However on the second visit, I did find this locally made (Brays of Glastonbury) forest-green vintage suede jerkin also loitering on the half-price rail for £2.50.  In the same Sally Army shop I also picked up a pure wool Daks gents suit for £6.50 but I haven't got round to photographing that as yet.

In the Age Concern shop in Kingswood (a wonderful 'traditional' style charity shop which has yet to be given the 'Mary Portas treatment') I found these three fabbo vintage aprons.  The two half aprons have never been used and the wrap-around style one is in lovely nick.  These were not cheap at £2.49 each but they are rather nice finds nonetheless.  In the same shop I also found Mum a very stylish Clarks handbag which had the added bonus of having been 'Made in England' - always a winner for me.  No photo of that as, naturally, it's back in Bristol with Mum.

This morning I came across a fabbo 1970s melamine tray - £1.95 - which I think  I'll be keeping.

A handmade vintage bag with wooden handles - 50p.

A vintage child's / doll's size wooden clothes airer - £2.00.  I did buy with this with the intention of putting it on eBay but I'm having second thoughts now as it would be tres useful for drying socks etc on during wet weather (um, like now, for instance!)

Et pour moi, a brand-new-with-tags-still-attached-and-in-my-size swimming costume.  I've not yet tried this on but am liking it rather a lot so I'm keeping all paws crossed that it'll suit me.  I paid £3.00 for this but having recently checked out the prices of swimming cossies on the Evans website I know this is a stonking good bargain.  I've not bought a swimming cossie new in years and years (the last one was from a charity shop and the one before that from a jumble sale) and can't ever imagine coughing up the £35.00 or so that they seem to cost nowadays!!

So, there we have it, my charity shop finds of the past fortnight - I'm very pleased with them I must say -  but let's hope it stops raining sometime soon and I can get to a few boot sales too.