Vintage Furniture Flea

There's finally snow in London (yay!) and there's definitely a festive feeling in the air. As I am firmly in the Christmas-loving camp I've already done lots of Christmas shopping and I've had the Christmas tunes on for a good few weeks already. I've also been busy sewing lots of Christmas presents which is why I haven't posted on the blog for a while. I can't post photos yet as it will ruin the surprise but I'll put some up after Christmas.

In other exciting news I've made my first official sale and I've sold four of my bibs. Admittedly it was to my sister but you have to start somewhere! And after my beautiful goddaughter has been modelling the bib I made her, I've had some very positive feedback from interested London mums as well. So I've been thinking more seriously about pricing, packaging and finally getting some on Etsy for sale in the new year.

However, I thought I'd share some photos from the first ever Vintage Fashion Flea held at York Hall in Bethnal Green London. (Thanks to Amy from Robin & Mould for the tip off.) I always seem to fall in love with things way out of my price range so it was brilliant to see such a great range of vintage furniture at genuinely reasonable prices. I've been looking for a vintage mirror for a while and there were at least three that I loved. I opted for a great deco style one which still has the original clasps. A total bargain for £30 I think. Now I just need to sweet talk my boyfriend into hanging it up in the bedroom.

Then I spotted this lovely 1970s coffee table which was a very reasonable £40. It looks great in our front room and now I finally have somewhere to store the ever-growing piles of magazines.

If only I had more money (and space); there were a couple of amazing bars from the 1950s and loads of beautiful vintage glasses that I wanted. One day I'll get to indulge my love of cocktails and Mad Men with my own bar *sighs wistfully*. I hope they do another Vintage Furniture Flea next year and I think I'll drag the boyfriend along so he can buy me some Christmas presents!

If you're interested there is a Vintage Furniture Flea happening in York soon. You can visit the Affordable Vintage Fair blog for more details.

The first baby bibs

As one of my friend's has just had a baby and another one is due in a few weeks I wanted to make a unique present for the new arrivals. So I attempted to make some baby bibs with some vintage print fabric. I was pretty pleased and they are definitely more satisfying to make then fiddly curtains!


After drawing a half-bib template freehand, you simply cut out the fabric. Sew together leaving a side gap to turn out he fabric. I great tip I read online was to use a chopstick to help do this.


















Then after ironing it flat you sew around the edge again, this time joining the gap. Simple.
I'm looking forward to seeing some photos of the little ones dribbling down them. Will attempt some more styles once the first two have been road tested!

The Veil & The Wedding Day

My sister was convinced that she wanted to look a bit different on her special day and after we found her beautiful lace dress we started discussing vintage accessories.

I found lots of the American wedding blogs particularly inspiring as they feature lots of stylish retro weddings. If you're interested check out Wedding Chicks, Jesi Haack Weddings and Project Weddings. We decided that a birdcage style vintage veil would look amazing with the dress and would be a traditional touch without looking 'too traditional'. We saw lots of great veils on the always inspiring Etsy but none of them were quite right, and after making my own fascinator I assured my sister I could make her one. (Always over-confident!!)

After discussing some designs she found a wonderful vintage broach for the veil base while she was buying vintage jewellry to go with the wedding dress. We had a number of fittings at various stages and quickly realised that we must have very different shaped heads as the veil pinned at an angle on me looked completely different on her. This made it very difficult to finish the veil without her around. So I decided to leave cutting the veil section to the right length until the night before the wedding. This was also due to the fact that the weight of the brooch meant we were struggling to pin it into her hair and I was hoping the hairdresser would work some magic and come up with a solution! Fingers crossed!

However as is often the way we ended up catching up with friends and relations who had gathered for the wedding the night before and after drinking too much I confidently insisted we could just sort it out on the day!

So on the morning of the wedding not only had the crisp sunshine of the day before been replaced by a heavy fog, but I started to panic about the fact that with just hours to go I still hadn't finished the veil and cake. No pressure then!

So I went to the barn with my soon to be brother-in-law and the groomsmen as they were delivering the decorations and helping to set up. It was quite a relief to see at least one completed project arrive all finished. We had used purple and silver Christmas baubles as both name settings and wedding favours. They looked beautiful and festive on the day but had involved a good few hours of writing on the baubles and arranging them in gift boxes to look like mini Christmas pressies (photos to follow). After a nervous half hour stacking and then re-stacking the stars on the cake I headed to the house where my sister was getting ready. Luckily a few glasses of bubbles meant that she was showing no signs of nerves. And the fabulous hairdresser Sharon Wilkes-Burt managed to miraculously secure the veil with only a few expertly placed pins. Then the dreaded moment when I had to cut the veil to the desired shape. The nervous hairdresser and photographer looked on (being photographed while taking scissors to the veil wasn't helping!) and I hoped for the best, well aware that there wasn't a back up plan if I screwed it up. With a few pins and a few frayed nerves we finally got there.

My sister looked truly beautiful on her big day (she actually dropped over 2 dress sizes for the wedding!) and although making things for the wedding was hard work at times, it was a great privilege to be such an integral part of the celebration. And I learnt some important craft lessons along the way!

(Hopefully I'll have some better photos of the veil when the official photos arrive)