Flea Market Finds, it's in the bag.....

My thrifting trips have been somewhat scaled back in the last month, with illness, Easter and other commitments keeping me away from some of my fav haunts. But you can't keep this mumma down long, because I get an itch and I just need a fix.

Earlier this week I had plans with some other bloggers that live locally and at the last minute they fell through. The Little Vowers and I were all hyped up and ready for our plans, so I had to do a quick rethink.....so in was decided a little thrifting trip it was to be then. So I called my mum, told her I was picking her up on the way and then we would have morning tea back at mum and dads place afterwards.

Amongst a few other things I'm rather pleased with this little find this week.

I'm not all that certain that this has any considerable vintage years behind it, a few signs point yes, as well as the smell but a few points leave me doubting. Nonetheless I'm not concerned as I'm particularly fond of the bag, it's style and colours. Sometimes you just can't pass something up that you know is really "you", if you what I mean? So the bag spoke to me, and home it came.

It was a nice little trip out with mum this week and as always there were laughs with my Little Vowers in tow. Mum was laughing hysterically at Little V trying to straddle tiny little doll pottys (at least half the size of a normal potty) in the toy section......she is only 14 months, but she's not silly she knows what's going on.

I hope everyone else had a little thrifting pleasure this week? Tell me about it, I'd love to hear. Meanwhile if you're keen to check out others finds from the week, I will be linking up with Sophie at Her Library Adventures, so pop on over and have a look around.

I'm guest posting, catch me if you can.....

Some of you may know I write another blog and some of you may only know of me here! However I guest posted yesterday over at Farmers Wifey, where Michelle has launched a guest post series about:
If you want a little snippet into some of my other life experiences, other than what you've read here and to hear about what has inspired me as a mum but also in life and creatively, please pop on over and say hi.

Happy Saturday, happy thrifting if you're sneaking out.

Guest Post: Jos - A Vintage Affair

I am so excited to be lunching my first ever guest post series here. If you didn't catch the explanation, A Vintage Affair is all about getting to know more about others love affairs with all things vintage, how it started, what they collect and so much more.
 

It thrills me to be introducing you to one of my fellow Queensland blogging buddies Jos from

Sew, Cook, Laugh, Live. I am in constant awe of Jos and her talents and her enthusiasm in all that she does. Her blog name really says it all, and you will especially find a lot of sewing, crafting and cooking inspiration. So if you have some vintage fabrics stashed away looking for a project, I'm sure Jos will be able to inspire you, so be sure to pop on over and say hi.

So without further ado I hand you over to Jos!

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What is it about vintage/thrifted pieces that sends your heart a flutter?

Vintage pieces make my heart flutter because of the time, effort and brilliant workmanship that is in each and every piece. Vintage items are from an era that things were made to last. The one thing that gets my heart fluttering more than anything is the stiching and detail in a vintage garment. Oh, be still my beating heart! To find something that has had love and care put into every stitch.........oh, now that is attention to detail at it's best!

What's your vintage love affair for, clothing, homewares, art etc? Why?

I love all things vintage but my love affair is for clothing, especially jackets/coats. I have a collection that belonged to my Grandmother that I will pass on to my own children. The feeling of wearing a vintage jacket/coat is one that makes me walk taller and feel more confidant. To know that someone else has worn a jacket/coat in an era when ladies were proper ladies and men were gentlemen.....that is a gift. To know that a man has put that coat around a womans shoulders after a romantic dinner or a night at the movies.........oh I should have been born in the 1920's-1950's! I love to use vintage jugs as vases.

Is it all about vintage for you or do you like to mash it up with current trends? How?

I love to wear vintage with modern. I love the look of a vintage top or jacket with a pair of skinny jeans and knee high boots. A modern handbag with a vintage dress. It gives me my own sense of style.

 Favourite era? Why?

The Madmen era, the 1960's. When dresses where made to show of a womans body. When hourglass bodies were celebrated and emphasized. When women dressed like women and  men wore suits.......ooooh, swoon! The clothes were simply stunning, the jackets and coats were spectacular. Ladies wore heels, gloves and hats....these are a few of my faveourite things!

What's on your vintage/thrifted wish list?

I am on the hunt for beautiful floral teacups and  teapots. They are hard to come by (the beautiful ones) as it seems as though it is the biggest vintage trend right now. I also have been buying vintage doiles and crochet blankets. I love to dye them bright colours and use as tablecloths and embellish my daughters tops. They also look fantastic in a frame as a simple artwork.

If you were going to be buried with one treasured vintage possession what would it be?

I would be buried with a leather jacket that I inherited. It is a beautiful brown with wooden toggle buttons. It was a knee length jacket but because of the climate in QLD, I shortned it so I can wear it as much as possible. It is handmade, does not even have a tag and is from the 1960's or 70's. It fits me like a glove and I simple adore it.

A Vintage Affair: A Guest Post Series....

I'm very excited to be announcing that I am about to kick off my first guest post series this week.

What's it called you ask?

What's it about?
Well it's pretty simple and rather cool if I say so myself.
I will be introducing you to other bloggers (and maybe the odd non-blogging, but vintage loving Vower) and they will be answering a series of questions about their love affair with vintage. Where it started, what they collect, what they want to be buried with and much more, you get the picture?

I will be kicking the series off with some awesome and fellow Queensland Bloggers, several of which I've been ever so fortunate to meet and call my blogging buddies. I hope to bring you the series as a regular feature, so if you're interested in a guest posting opportunity please email me at myvintagevow(at)bigpond(dot)com(dot)au

So stay tuned for later in the week, for the first cab off the rank.

Cruel not to share hot chocolate.....

I've been taking a bit of a bloggy break over the Easter break, an unplanned one, not a big one, just a bit of one. I've been enjoying family time with my most precious Vowers. I posted the other day about whipping up my "special hot chocolate" over the break for Master V and us to enjoy.

Well I kind of thought it would be cruel of me not share my special hot chocolate with you all, wouldn't it?

Hmmm, yummm hot chocolate, homemade hot cross buns and a bit of Johnson love.

Mumma's Special Hot Chocolate

Makes 2 cups

2 x cups of milk (full fat of course)

1/3 of a block of plain Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate

Cinnamon to taste

Thickened cream

In a saucepan melt chocolate and milk together over a medium heat, keeping and eye on it and stirring gently. When chocolate appears to have fully melted add cinnamon to taste (I love cinnamon so I used about 1/2 teaspoon), then to finish off add two good dollops of thicken cream. Stir cream through until everything looks yummy and glossy.

You're done.

Poor into your fav mugs or cups, maybe a special vintage one and enjoy, and of course some marshmallows would go down well if you have them in hand.

Washing Vintage Cardigans and Woolies.....

I'm pretty familiar with washing woollen items, however there use to be a time many years ago I knew nothing about looking after woollen or knitted garments and wondered why things wouldn't last, be destroyed, shrink or felt because I just assumed you could wash everything in the machine and stupidly the dry them in the dryer as well *shudder*.

I mean it can be confusing especially when you look at your machine and it has a woollen setting for washing garments. But now that I have been so much better informed for many a year now, I can confidently give you the run down on one of the best ways of taking care of your vintage and woollen wintery lovelies. So get ready to get your hands wet, because the best way to go about things is hand washing.
Two products I have on hand and are always in this house are:

Using the laundry tub, I fill the tub with enough warm (not hot) water to cover the garment I'm going to wash. In the warm water I dilute 20-30ml of wool wash liquid. I then place my woollen garment into the water careful. Basically you want to let it soak, be careful not to agitate the garment in the water too much, as it will ware away at the fibres. I let it have a good ole soak, overnight if necessary.

After a good soak, I drain the water out of the tub. I lift the garment in a bundle so the woollen fibres aren't stretched and place the item into a colander or strainer of some description. I then run warm water through the garment in the colander. You can press down gently on the garment to help this process and repeat if necessary.

Again let garment drip and drain off in colander, once again you can press down lightly to help expel the excess. Once it has had a good drip dry, lift the garment in a bundle on to a clean dry towel that you have laid out (I double mine up).

Spread your garment out gently and then proceed to roll your garment up in the towel as seen in pic applying gently but even pressure to help the initial drying process. Repeat process if necessary. Then with another clean towel lay garment flat in the sun to dry.

Stubborn stains often improve with a good sunning. If afterwards you're still struggling with stains or spots try some Eucalyptus Oil on a clean cloth, dabbing gently.

Final note about storing your woollies, never put them on a hanger always fold them and have them on a shelf or in a drawer this will give your garment longevity by not stretching the fibres from the weight of the garment.

ETA: full disclosure the above products are just products I use and love there has been no payment or product received for this post.

Don't you love it when.....

You purchase something, particularly if it's a thrifted find and tuck it away for a special occasion and then you forget about it. But then you have one of those out of nowhere light bulb moments nearly a year later and you remember you bought a little something special?

Well this morning, I remembered I bought these old "Thumper" cups about a year ago and tucked them away thinking they would be a nice touch for the Little Vowers over Easter. I'm going to give the Little Vowers (well maybe not so much Little V) a big treat over Easter and whip up my uber special "proper" hot chocolate. I'm sure it's going to be made even more special and yummy drinking it out of one of these.

Hmmm....yummy, I can't wait. I love Easter and this time of year.

Knock, knock housekeeping....

I've been a little quieter on the posting front than I normally would be in the last week, particularly the last few days. I've not been well, in fact I'm off to the docs shortly. As I type this Little V is crashed out on the floor on a pillow, after dropping Master V at family day care. She wouldn't normally sleep now but at least when I take her with to the docs she won't be tired and grizzly for this sick mumma.

Anyways I'm rambling and no one wants to listen to a sick person rambling for too long do they? So I thought I would let you know about a few things, so this is a bit of a house keeping post of sorts. First up, have you noticed I've changed my comments? I've now got threaded comments, I decided not to play all old school and decided to get with the times on this one and implement it here. I rather like threaded comments on other blogs I follow and the sense of community and conversation it develops amongst other readers too. So if you leave a comment and you're keen to see if I have anything further to add pop back won't you? Mind you please forgive me if you commented in the last few days or so, as I'm bit behind with things not feeling so well.

Secondly I just wanted to remind those who are interested that I'm happy to look at a Sponsor Swap on my sidebar, check out the tab above the header for more info. I have so many things I'd like to do around here including an extensive sponsorship program but in the mean time.......I just wanna share the mutual love.

Thirdly, well this tid bit isn't necessarily house keeping, it's more like fun exciting news for me and maybe for you if you're on the Gold Coast or fancy a drive here. I found out just a few days ago that the Suitcase Rummage is coming to the Gold Coast on 21st of April, it's a Saturday. I'm particularly excited because if I book to sell (I missed February one it was cancelled due to weather) I don't have all the extra travel to Brisbane and extra parking fees. So it's really left to me to book and wait for the date, as my cases are still packed and ready.

Flea Market Finds, wooly goodness....

I had good excuse for missing last weeks Flea Market Finds, but as I sit here now thinking about last weekend I can't think what I did. Whoops hold on yes that's right we were out on a family fun day and celebrating a friends little boys fourth birthday at a wildlife park. Anyway sorry if you missed me.

I've been dying to show you all this wool vest for a few weeks......Sarah or Kristie crocheted it's, isn't it? I picked it up a few weeks ago and I'm super keen to give it some action this winter.

I also picked up a few of the sheets you see behind recently to add to the growing collection that I keep telling the Big V are for Little V, and her room (she is still yet to move out of our room).

Oh and if you didn't catch it during the week, here is me sporting a bow with a scarf I picked up on a recent outing as well. My drawers are slowly getting over-run by scarves.

I hope your recent thrifting trips have been successful? Like any other week I join in, I will be linking up with Sophie at Her Library Adventures, so be sure to pop over and check everyone's finds this week.

My Sweet Vowers, thank you....

It's such a wonderful gig this blogging thing isn't it? You start out blogging for you, but of course it's only natural you ask yourself if anyone would ever be interested in reading and following your ramblings. Then once people start to follow you and your words and you follow theirs, you start to build some lovely friendships. If you're lucky like me, you might even have a community of bloggers nearby to connect with in real life and put faces to names and blogs. Hmm those few words "in real life", they're kind of funny aren't they? What I mean is this blogging thing it's real life, this is me, you are you, aren't you? My words, my comments are from me, my heart, yours are too, aren't they? Either way the journey here to this point 100 followers has been fun and the fact that I have been fortunate enough to meet some of you face to face has truly been icing on the cake to this adventure.

I want to say the biggest of thanks to you all, my Vowers. Thank you for all your lovely comments yesterday (and every other day), especially about the blog. I'm still trying to tweak things, but significant thanks must go to an amazing blogging buddy of mine Melissa from Suger Coat It for helping me play around with things here. Not only has she helped here but over at my other blog Journey to Bliss where she undertook the whole redesign job. So if you're in market for a new look to your blog, you know where I'm going to suggest you go? So pop on over and shoot her an email! As well as Melissa there has been Gillian from Tessie Girl who designed those fab looking retro feel social media buttons for me, as well as the ones on my other blog.

I'm excited about the future here, I hope you are too? I have a little something I'm working on behind the scenes at present and am looking forward to bringing you a regular guest post series real soon. Thank you all once again, may your days be full of magic.

Bows are always fun....

It is the perfect weather with the change of season to be picking up pretty scarves on your thrifting adventures. I have a huge collection of scarves, vintage ones, silk ones, cotton ones, chiffon one, woollen wintery ones.....I have all sorts.

Lucky for me I was super pleased to pick up this floral scarf recently, it is a vey long rectangle which is just what I have been looking for to bust out some bows.

If you haven't tried wearing your nice lightweight scarves in a bow before, it's easy as tying it as you would if you were tying up shoe laces. Then puff your bow out to your fancy, and then you can dress it up with a brooch if the mood takes you too.

Brooch: Vintage Sarah Coventry brooch that was my late grandmothers.

Sprucing up the cardie.....

Although it is now officially autumn, the weather here in Queensland is throwing curve balls all overt the place. One day it's hot, the next day or even the same day it's raining, some days you can get away wearing jeans others you're cursing yourself about why you didn't wear something lighter. One thing I know though, is that having said all that it is slowly starting to cool down. I love the cooler months and since I'm so eager for it to cool down more, I've started pulling out my vintage cardies and pullovers for an airing and some of my non-vintage ones are in need of some revamping.

Like this here cardie!

Plain long grey......kind of blah, huh? One of the buttons is snapped in half.

But with a few vintage buttons in navy and retro yellows she's looking a bit better don't you think?

I'm now loving this cardie and to think she was destined to be donated.

Storybook Gift Bag DIY/Tutorial

The inspiration for this DIY struck the night before heading to the Hello Blogger workshop the next morning, when I realised I had nothing appropriate to package up my contribution towards the lucky door prizes for the day.

This DIY/Tutorial makes use of an old Enid Blyton storybook, but you can use any other large storybook of your choice. Other materials you will require:
* 4 vintage buttons
* ribbon, or fabric for your carry handles
* 4 small plain white sticky dots or similar, tape would even do
* sewing machine
* needle and thread

First up you will need to look through your storybook and find at what points in the book the page opens up to double printed pages. You should be able to tell by whether or not you can see thread done the middle of the page.

You can removed the pages either by turning the page over and tugging gently out the book or alternatively snipping the threads down the centre gently and removing the double page. You will need two double pages for this DIY.

Then take the pages and individually sew a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine down the centre fold of each double page, to help reinforce it. Making sure you double back at start and finish a tiny bit to secure the stitch.

 Now it's as easy as sewing three straight lines. Line your pages up perfectly and sew down both sides and along the bottom, again making sure you double back at start and finish a little bit to reinforce the stitch. You should be left with an envelop.

Note: I just used the foot as a guide for the "seam allowance".

Now it's on to the handles. Looking at the centre seam, determine the centre point of the left and right hand side, take that measurement and double it. This measurement will give you the length you will need for your carry handles.

Now with needle and thread attach your handle and buttons, once you have done this you will want to reinforce the these points on the internal side of the bag by placing your sticky dots over the thread for the button attachments.

Your done!

Channelling my inner Snow White....

Hope all my sweet Vowers are enjoying a nice start to the week. Being Monday and all, Master V goes to family day care and along with running errands I normally pop into my fav little oppy after dropping him off.

This is what I was wearing this morning.

The shop boss, who mind you is the sweetest person ever politely told me I reminded her of Snow White in this outfit today. What do you think?

Skirt - 80's button crinkle skirt with pockets $2
Top - Kmart basic racer back tee $5
Belt - Leather $2
Shoes - gifted from a friend

Apart from being told I was Snow White this morning, I was surprised to see that my favourite volunteer was back. It was a surprise because she should be settling back into life with her husband in Denmark. But after being there a week and a half the government informed her because she has had cancer and had radium treatment here they will not allow her to stay and she has to wait four years when she will be 65 years old to move back and stay. All politics to do with the welfare system. Her husband is in his late 70's and unwell and can't cop without her and has had to return with her. The poor things have come back and don't have anything accept what they took with them. They are broke, but not broken.......even still I'm going to try and get a few things together for them this week, as I can only image it would be just horrible having to start all over again from scratch.

Flea Market Finds, a couple of frocks....

Late last week I popped into a secret little spot of mine where you're generally assured of finding a vintage dress or two. Often in the fancy dress section, along with some great vintage handmade pieces as well from time to time.

First up is this awesome Ivan Hamilton Dress, I love the details on this dress. Check out the pockets and front panel where it zips up. The hem needs redoing but that is a minor detail to this awesome dress.

I also picked up this little number as well which appears to be a possible revamp of a vintage fine pleat skirt into a cute little dress. I really liked the colour and floral, so this beauty took a trip home too.

Both of these dresses are larger/plus sizes, and I wanted to show them off as I have been getting a lot of questions from people I know about vintage dresses in larger sizes.

In signing off, you know the drill, I'm linking up with Sophie at Her Library Adventures, be sure to pop on over and check out everyone's awesome finds from this week.