Making Good Use

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.

Busy

I've just come home from a very busy - and hot - week with my family in Bristol.  Activities included my nephew's exuberant 'Pizza Hut followed by a visit to a children's gym to run off all that excess energy' 9th birthday party - where a good time was had by all, including us adults 

Birthday boy with Grandma and Daddy

Surprisingly low-flying hot air balloons - I do so miss seeing balloons filling the evening sky in summer.  It's a sight I've never come across in Essex but it's almost a daily occurence in the Bristol / Bath area.

A very tasty lunch in a country pub - all decked out in it's patriotic finery for the Diamond Jubilee - after a leisurely stroll around one of the prettiest villages I know.

A visit to a hidden gem of a garden at a local manor house. 

I'll write some more about the lovely time I had in Bristol next week.  Plus there were some stonking good charity shop finds but I'll give them a post of their own soon too,

Happy Birthday To My Best Boy

My lovely nephew is nine years old today.  Good grief, where does the time go.  Seems like no time at all since he was a babe in arms.  He got a homemade card from me with added addition of a star button badge (also homemade) because he is my little star!!

The whole family have clubbed together to get him some electronic games thingamajig (not sure what precisely) that he really wanted so there were only a couple of little bits and bobs from me to go with that. 

But I did customise a freebie Cath Kidston weeny cloth tote as a 'goodie bag' to put them in.  I used some iron-on motifs and, as always, I managed to louse it up a bit - me and hot irons and having to get things 'just so' don't really mix that well.  Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my best boy.

Another Jumble Sale Skirt Makeover

I found this skirt at the Shenfield scouts jumble sale last October.  I'd picked it out of the pile of clothes because I really liked the print with its combination of milk chocolate and chartreuse green colours.  When I got it home I found that it was two sizes too small but thought I'd pop it away in the drawer under the bed just in case I thought I could do something with it when the warmer weather arrived again. 

Well, the warmer weather has certainly arrived now so I dug this skirt out again.  Originally it had a yoked waist band and was a rather unflattering mid-calf length on me.  I took out the side zip, cut off the yoke portion (which gave me some much needed spare inches around the waist - ahem!!) and then attached the whole lot to some white binding I found in ye olde stash.  This now gives me a skirt with a tie-fastened waistband and a small opening to one side where the zip used to go (am hoping this will be covered with a T-shirt when I wear it.)

I was very pleased with how it all turned out until I noticed the little burn hole right in the front of the skirt!!  B*gger, why didn't I spot that before I spent the whole afternoon re-jigging the blessed thing.  I'll probably wear it anyway as, very luckily, the skirt is lined in a plain chocolate brown  fabric which stops the hole being too obvious - I hope!!  Anyway, as it only cost me 30p I don't mind if I only wear it round the house to be honest.

A Bit Battered Round the Edges - But Aren't We All

I haven't bought anything in the weekly 'Coffee and Jumble' for absolutely ages and ages, and I don't know what prompted me to have a look at the pile of cuddly toys and teddys today but I'm very glad I did. 

Sitting at the front of the pile, and looking most forlorn, was this well-loved Scottie dog.  He's undoubtedly seen better days (haven't we all) and he's most definitely a bit battered round the edges (aren't we all) but he's got the sweetest face which really seems to capture a Scottie dog perfectly.

I've no idea exactly how 'vintage' he is but he has a 'Made in England' label (though no maker's name) so he must be getting on a bit (again, aren't we all these days!!) 

I was really delighted to find him - and even more delighted that he only cost me 50p.  He's a very very welcome addition to my ever growing collection of Scottie dog items.

15 Minute Tea Cosy

P has become very enamoured of having his tea from a tea pot - with cosy - these past few months.  He's not keen on the usual English cup of 'Rosie Lee' - a nice dark brown brew with milk, and possibly sugar, drunk piping hot - even in a heatwave.  He's much more into Rooibos or fruit teas, left in the pot for hours on end while he drinks his way through it.  Personally, I can think of nothing worse than luke-warm tea but P - being from the Continent - is quite happy to drink tea from fairly warm right through to horribly tepid - yuk!!  He even extols the virtue of 'iced tea' which, to my English tastes, sounds like it could well be the work of the devil!!!!

Anyway, he's been thinking about taking a tea pot and cosy to work with him - providing we can find a suitable tea pot somewhere second-hand.  I fortuitously found this tutorial over at Wise Craft to make a reversible padded tea cosy.

Using my 25-year-old Kaffe Fassett tea cosy as a template.  (What a marvellous item, it may be a little tea-stained in places but still keeps the tea pot lovely and warm even aftef all these years.)

I came up with this prototype from bits and bobs of fabric I had knocking about.  The outside is made from the remnants of a 1970s tablecloth

The inside from some bright and breezy Ikea fabric I found at a boot sale.  Perversely enough, I prefer the Ikea fabric side much more than the 70s fabric, though that is supposed to be the lining fabric.  I used two layers of quilt batting as the padding in the middle. The whole lot must have taken me 15 minutes or less to cut out and sew. 

It's only a prototype and for P's cosy I'm thinking of using some of this fabric that Mum gave me for Christmas lined with the same Ikea fabric as the tea cosy above.  Other alterations would be to put hanging tags on both sides (as was given in the original instructions) and to make the cosy less tall.  Otherwise, all in all, I'm pretty pleased with my 15 minute effort.

Decluttering Mania

I don't know if I've been hit with a belated Spring cleaning urge or if it's the result of watching several programmes about compulsive hoarders lately, but I've been on a mahoosive decluttering drive.  I was delighted to find a British Heart Foundation charity bag through the letterbox on Monday with a note saying they'd be collecting donations this morning.  Cue a huge turn out of my wardrobe with several items being consigned to the charity bag without hesitation and a whole over the years on the wardrobe floor over the years, and the bagging up of yet more items to go to the BHF when they finally saw the light of day (embarassingly, I had to dust two pairs of shoes before I could even think of adding them to the charity sack!!)

Next day I moved on to sorting through the books I've got listed for sale on Amazon and Greenmetropolis - I was pretty ruthless here too and everything that was not listed for a decent price was purged.  Worryingly, I also found quite a lot of rather heavy hardbacks listed on Greenmetropolis which would be useless for me to sell since the Royal Mail raised it's prices so staggeringly high.  Such heavy tomes would have cost more to post than I could ever have made on the sale - they also ended up in the charity sack.  I kid you not when I say I feel I should be taking out a mortgage to pay my weekly postage costs - seriously, the total these days is tres scary!

This morning I was delighted to be able to put three large sacks out the front for collection plus a large mirror.  The house feels a whole lot lighter without so much 'stuff' cluttering up the place, plus I have a lot more room, and spare hangers, in my wardrobe now - always useful should I find some new-to-me clothes at any upcoming boot sales.  And, as an added bonus, I unearthed some great items I'd forgotten I had which can be listed on eBay - win, win all round.

50p

Finally, I got to go to a car boot sale yesterday.  Both buyers and sellers were out in force - making the best of a break in this incessant rainy weather.  I bought a few bits and bobs, but there wasn't an awful lot that took my fancy.  Oddly enough, every item I bought cost me 50p.

A hippy-tastic Jacobs Cream Cracker tin - still sporting it's original 'Daisy Pattern' label.

Another tin that caught my eye - marked on the bottom Frears Biscuits, Christmas 1958.

A fabbo pair of vintage sunglasses.

A reel of linen bias binding.  Always useful as I seem to use quite a lot of this stuff one way or another.

And my favourite find of the day, an Andy Pandy saucer with a picture of Andy and Teddy making a wool ball.  I was very fond of Andy Pandy when I was little - but used to get terribly upset when the music at the end started up, I couldn't bear it that 'Andy was saying goodbye' for another day.  Mind you, 'Nellie the Elephant' and 'Puff the Magic Dragon' could also reduce me to tears too - I was a sensitive little soul in those days.

I Seem to be a Little Out of Touch Where Prices are Concerned

As I rarely buy anything, apart from food, in an actual bricks and mortar retail shop, I seem to have become a little out of touch with the prices of things new.  Who knew that the two Brita water filter cartridges I bought the other day - 50p for the two - actually cost £10 for two new.  I think the last time we bought water filter cartridges was when they were being sold by Aldi (they weren't yer actual Brita ones) and they must have been very competitively priced as we bought A LOT of them in one go.  So many in fact that they've lasted us for years.

Also, I've been on the lookout for a plain black T-shirt to wear with summer skirts.  I wanted to buy one last year but never found exactly what I was looking for in either a charity shop or at the boot sale.  I've been seeing quite a lot of M&S cotton T-shirts in the local chazzas lately, and at £2.50 a pop I thought they were quite good value (indeed, I bought one for my Mum not long ago) but I never came across black in my size.   It was a bit of a surprise to me when I decided I'd have to bite the bullet and buy one new from the M&S website.  Good grief, they had a special promotion on at the moment where you could buy two T-shirts for £8.00 (they're normally £6.00 each) which means I could buy brand new exactly what I was looking for, in the right colour and the correct size for only £1.50 per T-shirt more than they're charging in the charity shops.   It makes you think, it really does!!

Never mind, there's a jumble sale I'm off to tomorrow morning.  It won't be wonderful - those particular jumbles never are - but at least the clothing will probably only cost 25p each, maybe less.

This was a skirt I found at a jumble sale last autumn.  I knew it was a most unflattering mid-calf length when I tried it on back then but decided to put it away and deal with it when the spring rolled round again.  I lopped six inches off the length and hemmed it up again.  I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  It'll certainly be lovely to wear if we ever do get some hot weather (can't imagine THAT at the moment) and as it only cost me 30p I was happy enough to take a punt and attack it with the scissors.