Boot Fair tat and a new project to tackle

On what felt like the first weekend of the summer my Matey and I decided that nothing could beat a potter around a boot fair on the hunt for things that we have never needed but inexplicably want when we see them. Add a bit of a haggle into the mix and that is one very enjoyable few hours.

Leaping out of bed (sort of) at the crack of dawn (plus a few hours) and headed towards Battersea. Now the Battersea boot fair doesn't open till 11:30 but it is worth getting there early if driving as there are some handy free parking spots just opposite. With a few hours to kill it was time for breakfast (Eggs Benedict for moi and cheese and ham croissant for my Matey. Needless to say he had the food envy as mine was clearly the better choice.) and Sunday paper reading at a handy cafe. A little amble around the park to burn it all off and to prepare for the bargain hunting.

Battersea boot fair isn't the cheapest. They have a sliding scale of £5 to get in early, £3 to get in a little later the 50p to get in much later. Trust me, it is worth every penny to get in early. When it gets to the 50p stage it is madness and almost impossible to get to a stand. Oh and the good stuff will have gone.

So what were my best buys of the day?

A muffin warmer:

What do you mean 'That's a useless piece of tat.'? It's incredibly useful when one wants to warm a muffin. It would clearly work well with a crumpet as well. After all who wants a cold crumpet?

A cutlery chest of drawers:

Now this really will be handy when converted to a straight mini chest of drawers. I plan to keep the scrappy pieces of paper and other rubbish that are currently looking messy in magazine files. The only snag is that it needs a lot of TLC to get it looking fabulous again. With an almost finished quilt, a spare room to be redecorated and the kitchen to polish off I do not have time for this. Sigh. I started last night.

The insides of the drawers came out beautifully easily but left a layer of gluey paper. I then discovered that the fronts of the drawers had been covered with a truly revolting plastic wood veneer. I suspect that it was put on to cover the sun damage on the drawers. It came off quite easily but has left a lovely sticky layer to be scraped off.

As it was getting a bit late to tackle light sanding properly and I do want to stay friendly with the neighbours I contented myself testing a few small areas to give me hope that there is something lovely underneath the layer of grime.

Ressurecting vintage stoneware jars

I have a bit of a thing about old stoneware jars. There is something pleasingly homely and weighty about them. Added to which they turn up at boot fairs for about 50p.

Having amassed a number of them for no purpose I came up with idea of using them in the kitchen. I bought corks from Just Cork so that I could use the jars for tea and sugar and labeled them with blackboard paint and have been fairly happy with the result:

A year later and having accumulated a few more jars I had another look and decided that the idea was great but I needed the paint to be a little more uniform. Still clearly hand done and a bit uneven but roughly the same size labels. That was what this post was going to be about. Masking tape, paint and a few top tips about what did and didn't work for me.

BUT! The blackboard paint I used was a different brand and behaved in a totally different way. It would do a beautiful light first coat but when it came to second and third coats the paint would disintegrate the first coat leaving a blotchy mess. Rustic is one thing rubbish is another. I cleaned the pots and attempted to do it again......eight times. I was not going to be beaten. I was doing something wrong. After the eighth time I decided that either I had to buy the original brand of paint or come up with another idea. Well I was not going to buy an entire tin of paint to use a few paintbrushfuls.....

I had some De-cal paper left over from another project so decided that this would be the answer. (Truth be told I was starting to get fed up of this.) If you have never come across this paper you really need to give it ago. Using a normal home printer and a bit of patience you can stick an image onto just about anything and it will look as though you bought it like that. It isn't that expensive. I get it from Crafty Computer Paper.

I am not going to go though exactly how to use the paper as I would only be duplicating the instructions that come with it. However I do have three top tips:

Top Tip 1: Read the instructions properly. Yes I know, I know! I printed it on the wrong side twice and had a mini meltdown when the whole lot didn't seem to be working. I was just peeling the wrong bit off.

Top Tip 2: When you get to sticking the adhesive film onto the printed image peel an inch of the paper off and fold it down.

Top Tip 3: Everything will be a mirror image so turn the image round before printing.

My original plan was to make black labels to stick on but as I had to use at least an A5 sheet to put it through the printer I did a few words to see how they would look, I used a typewriter font so they would look a bit smudgy. The black labels looked good but boring but the words looked ACE! 

Ahem. I forgot to turn the words round so we had mirror writing. I kinda liked it though so showed it to my Matey. We agreed that we liked the topsy turvy look and did the rest like that:

If I say so myself I think they look fantastic and the mirror writing gives a bonkers edge which stops them looking too twee. I'm on the hunt for some larger jars now that will take a whole bag of flour. It rather defeats the purpose if only half a bag fits in.

Me and my vintage Singer sewing machine.

Everybody assumes I have a fancy sewing machine. I don't. I have the oldest most basic sewing machine possible. It's the kind of sewing machine that gets used for props in vintage inspired events. Given to me by my Grandma for my 18th birthday I think it was it was her Mothers. I can't work out exactly how old it is. Instinct says it is 30s though so let's stick with that.

I had a dreadful accident with it the other day. I was taking the machine out from its cupboard when I missed the handle and it slipped. Being so heavy it crashed and broke it's box. I felt so bad. It's been around for at least 80+ years and I destroy it.

I decided to leave it for a bit before trying to fix. I felt so bad I was getting all emotional and I needed to be rational to fix it. Finally I sat down to sort out the mess. It really wasn't that bad in the end and a few carefully placed pins solved the problem.

Guilt mainly assuaged. I did discover that the hook on the faceplate had been bent in the accident and, although usable, is rather fragile so I need to keep an eye out for a replacement.

Excitingly I discovered that the box had a hidden compartment with a load of  attachments and the original manual. I am now on a mission to learn how to use the new bits and maybe reading the manual will help.....I will admit right now that I am rubbish with manuals and have a bad habit of jumping right in and using the manual to sort it out when I get into a total mess. I also blame the manual for my getting into a mess in the first place.

In praise of stuff...

I love STUFF! Minimalism is just not my thing. Way too much work to keep tidy! Stuff makes a house cosy, adds personality and can often bring back a memory. Sometimes rather nice, a forgotten theatre ticket used as a bookmark. Sometimes not so nice but that's life isn't it?

Of course tastes change. My little house has changed a lot since my Matey moved in. If anything it's quirkier. I rather like the fact that pictures I used to love as singleton feel out of place now and are slowly being replaced.

Equally some stuff grows old and gets replaced. I'm currently loving my shiny new ipad mini but I am also under no illusion that it will last forever or that I will love it forever.

Some STUFF though I know will be with me forever. Here are three.

My Great Grandma's carving knife. Almost certainly a wedding present it was made in Sheffield, no accident as apparently there was a family connection with the Sheffield cutlery industry. When my Matey and I got married we used it to cut the cake with. In the lead up to the wedding I looked up how best to clean it and found out that it is made of the same steel as swords were made of. I inherited it when Great Grandma had to move to a home in the final few years of her, very, long life. I also have her equally old cheese grater and a set of baking tins, all of which get used regularly and all of which give me a little moment whenever I use them.

Another Grandma! Grandma Dover, so called because she lived in Dover,  always had this chicken egg holder in her kitchen. Again I inherited this with a few other bits and bobs in the final few years of her life. To me it is a thing of beauty and holds eggs very nicely!

I went to an amazing prep school when I was a puppy. Back then it positivly encouraged danger. There was an assault course which had truly dangerous swings, overhead bridges and zip wires. Not a safety net in sight. Funnily enough there no accidents until H&S insisted on safety nets. Children are not stupid and won't mess around if it's not safe. I remember climbing up to the High Ropes, which really were high, and deciding that it would better to climb back down.

Best of all was the summer term. We spent wednesday afternoons in teams building camps in the school woods. Towards the end of term there was the promise of spending the whole day playing games in the woods in hope of being the victorious team. In the 6th form this was called Q day and it started off at 10pm and involved spending the night in the woods as well. Cue Banger Operation in the camp fires, lots of dirt and knackered 12-13 year old by 6pm the next day.

Apparently Q day still exists, though banger operation no longer involves the mini fireworks. Sadly the assault course is a feeble shadow of it's former glory. When the inventor moved on it could never be sustained.

All this nostagic rambling leads to my Librarian prize mug. No it is not cool to have a Librarian prize! In teams we had to ensure that the library was immaculate on our allotted day.  When I saw that this mug made by a local potter was the prize. I wanted it. I knew that I keep it forever. I worked for two terms keeping that library tidy. I should add that I was a bookish child and was in there quite a bit anyway.

I don't care how uncool it is, every time I see it a little bit of a very happy and muddy childhood comes back.



Vintage celery vases.

Ebay is probably my number one website for just about anything. Whether I'm selling or hunting it is rare for a day to go by without a quick glance.It really is the most peculiar of places. If you are hunting for something specific it will certainly be there. Having spent months hunting props down for plays in the past ebay made the oddest of props a doddle to find.

BUT! I have rules. Number one. No looking at things you aren't looking for. Suddenly a previously unwanted item becomes a must have, especially if it's only 99p. Occasionally however things just pop up so I've just bought a Victorian celery vase!

Apparently in the the 19th Century celery was a delicacy as it took a lot of care and attention to grow. Having splashed out on the status symbol the only way to display was in a celery vase filled with water on the dining table.

I don't like celery!

But I thought that this rather pretty pressed glass celery vase would look splendid with a candle inside it.

And it does!

Cost: £12

Time taken: None worth mentioning!

Verdict:
Pretty darn good! It's quite a sturdy vase so could also be used for sweets or indeed as a flower vase.

Re-stringing a vintage necklace the easy way.

Some time ago I was seduced by a fabulous vintage pearl bead necklace in my local charity shop. I'm not a massive bling wearer but I loved the size of the fake pearls which had faded to to a gentle cream. It also passed my quality test as it was very heavy and had been knotted between each pearl. A few quid later and it was mine.

A few months later it broke. The silk thread just gave up. Probably having been in a drawer for so long it just couldn't take being worn every other day.

"I'll mend it" I thought.

 
Initially I planned to just string the beads onto a string and leave it at that. It just wasn't right. Half the quality lay in those knots. I tried to get a knot to sit in the right place between each bead. It looked rubbish!

I resorted to google. An hour later my fingers were tied together and it still looked rubbish. The proper way was beyond me trying to work it out from some pictures. I went do some painting instead. Whilst sploshing blackboard paint around I had a brainwave of how to make the whole process a LOT easier.

SO! All I needed was re-stringing silk, available at most haberdashers/craft shops and some fine wire. Note you will need three times as much silk as the length of the necklace. I  bought silk with wire attached, opened it up and cut it in half.

Take the wire and bend it half. Thread the end of the silk through the wire as though it is a needle and twist the wire until it has created a fairly sturdy needle-like point. Then do the same on the other end of the silk.

Hold the two 'needles' together so the silk length is halved. Take the clasp of the necklace and thread the loop at the end of the silk through the clasp. Then thread the needles through the loop to create a hitch which will hold the clasp in place.

Tie a reef knot (left over right and under, right over left and under) to hold it all in place.

Take your first bead and thread it onto the silk. It is easier to do this one side at a time.

Tie a reef knot. Keep on going until all the beads are threaded. Getting the tension right is the fiddly part with this. I found that clamping it between my knees and using the weight of the beads helped me. Not the most elegant of positions!

Once all the beads are threaded tie the other side of the clasp to the end. A small drop of glue on the knot will keep this final knot in place and stop it from unraveling.

Cost: £3:50 for the silk.

Time taken: About an hour, once I knew what I was doing!

Verdict
Good as new!
This works well for costume jewellery. Anything of real value really should be done by a professional who would probably sneer at my mish mash of a technique.