A basketful of bargains

I have to confess that I'm always feeling a tiny bit bereft whenever I finish a series of travelogues. Not only do I love writing these posts, they are the perfect way to relive those short-lived, carefree days and smell those roses one more time.

The best thing to do to combat post-travelogue blues is to book another another trip, methinks!

But for now, I'm reverting to my usual workaday schedule of outfit posts mixed with a dose of charity shopping, walks in the park and the occasional day trip.

And flea markets!

In spite of the fact that Indian Summer still firmly ruled two weeks ago on Sunday, we were more than happy to go to our first indoor flea market of the season. The last one had been in May and, as this Summer's outdoor markets had been rather disappointing, we were starting to get serious withdrawal symptoms.

Unusually for me, there was no forward planning involved in assembling my outfit, which was pulled from my wardrobe at the last moment on Sunday morning.

Funnily enough, this floral maxi skirt, which consists of a gauzy layer with a solid yellow underskirt, hadn't been worn at all during the Summer months, and it had been even longer since the green short-sleeved vintage jumper embroidered with pink and white flowers had seen the light of day.

I only wore my blue and orange charity shopped blazer to walk down to our garage, but henceforth it was left behind in the car.

As expected, the gorgeous weather meant that the venue wasn't booked to its full capacity, with quite a few empty spaces.

If initially it was rather disappointing to have our suspicions confirmed, it soon transpired that quality ruled over quantity as we ended up with quite a decent haul.

Here are all our buys displayed on our garden table and as you can see there is a little bit of everything. Intrigued? Then let's have a closer look!

First up are these two tins. I keep telling myself I should stop buying tins as we've long run out of space for them, but well, it seems that once again I stubbornly refused to listen to my inner voice.

I couldn't resist the gorgeously decorated tin (top and bottom left) which, judging from its colours and motifs, I suspect to date from the 1930s. The famous Belgian chocolate brand Côte d'Or is marked on its bottom, so no prices for guessing its original contents! The small yellow Maggi tin, which used to contain stock cubes, has already found a home among our kitchenalia. 

At one of our favourite stalls, belonging to our friend Tania, I spotted this tiny wooden souvenir windmill from Middelburg in Holland. As we'd spent a couple of days there last November, it obviously needed to join our growing collection. Yes, we actually have a small collection of these kitschy wooden souvenirs in our hallway, quite a few of them featuring tiny windmills. They must have been all the rage at one point, as I clearly remember one adorning the wall of my grandparents' sitting room! Lovely Tania let me have the windmill for free! 

Tania's stall is a treasure trove, and we usually end up buying one or two things. This time, my eye was caught by a colourful basket, which Tania said came from France. There's always room for another basket at Dove Cottage, especially as I'm using the majority of them for storage of some kind.

I found the yellow beads on another stall but I thought they contrasted strikingly with the basket.

This vintage lacquered bamboo basket was a steal at € 2. It opens on top, which makes it ideal for use as a small picnic basket. But then again, it'll make a nice handbag too! Either way, it will need an inner make-over as the lining is beyond redemption.

My heart skipped a beat when I spotted this vintage vinyl lunch box, delightfully decorated with two tiny children hitching a ride on a snail. The style and handle reminded me of vintage vinyl Barbie doll cases. Here in Europe, these cases were often made in France, as was this one. I'd say it dates from the early 1960s.

It was quite filthy but nothing I couldn't handle, so it came home with me.

Any additions to my burgeoning vintage fashion library are always welcome. This one on the 1940s look is an interesting read with plenty of illustrations.

Another collection of ours (I was born with the collecting gene, after all) is Tala ware, which started quite unintentionally when we picked up a Tala icing set in a tin box in an antiques shop in Rye, specializing in kitchenalia, many years ago.  

Tala is a well known British baking and kitchenware brand, and one of its oldest, founded in 1899 in Stourbridge in England's Black Country. 

This set of cookie cutters is complete and still in its box, which unfortunately isn't in the best of conditions. We would have paid more than € 3 if it had been, though, as I found a similar set in my Miller's kitchenware guide, which mentions an average price of  € 40-45 for one in mint condition.

Ah, brooches! 

I don't think I've ever left this flea market without any new treasures in that department. They were all found at different stalls at prices varying between € 2 and € 15.

Can you guess which was the most expensive? (*)

Here's a closer look at two of them. Aren't they exquisite? I particularly love the tiny birds perching on a tree branch in the one on the right, which is celluloid mounted on a metal background and decorated with filigree.

The brooch on the left is painted ceramic in a pearly frame.

The final week of September was a blur of rainy days and a busy work schedule, so I only managed outfit photos on two occasions. 

One of my outfits was based around the Springlike hues of this vintage dress, in a pale blue plaid pattern dotted with pink roses.

My accessories consisted of a pink beaded necklace, a tan leather and cream lace belt, and a vintage early plastic butterfly brooch. I wore a bright pink cardi on top, and look: I'm wearing boots for the first time this season!

This Diolen delight with its busy orange, yellow and green floral pattern on a deep aubergine background, made it the perfect choice for a dull Autumn day.

I stirred things up a bit by accessorizing it with sunshine yellow and fiery orange. I'm not sure the lady on my brooch approves, as she seems to favour blue!

One of the bright spots of my week were the final sales days at my favourite chain of vintage shops, Think Twice, where I snapped up these beauties for € 4 each.

Featuring my beloved flower prints, both the black, three-quarter sleeved one on the left and the high-necked and long-sleeved chocolate brown one on the right, are welcome additions to my Winter wardrobe.

And then there was this blue dress with flowers tumbling towards the hem. As the weather has definitely taken a turn for the worse, I'm not sure I'll be able to wear it before next Spring, but it's definitely one to look forward to.

(*) The most expensive of the brooches, for which I paid € 15, was the celluloid butterfly! Did you guess it right?

Linking my maxi skirt to Mica's Weekday Wear linkup!

There beneath the blue suburban skies

This post was going to be all about last weekend's adventures and finds but alas! it wasn't to be.
With only a couple of things found at Blender Vintage Shop to show you, and Jos having caught a kind of summer flu and thus scuppering the weekend's charity shopping and flea market plans, I was a bit at a loss for this post's theme.

As I was having the blues, I stood in front of my open wardrobe just to look at my dresses, which usually is the best therapy in the world!

Although I profess not to have a favourite colour, I was nevertheless struck by the amount of blue my wardrobe contains. In fact, a whole section of it is dedicated to nothing but blue, ranging from delicate powder blue to navy.











I am often told that blue suits me and compliments the colour of my eyes and when I see photos of myself wearing blue, I must admit that there is some truth in this.

Blue was my favourite colour as a child and I remember having a blue swimsuit and winter coat. I actually have pictures of me wearing both, but as they are in black and white, they are quite useless for the purpose of this post!

When I was three, my dad, who was a carpenter, made me a doll's wardrobe and bed, which he painted light blue. After I was done with them, they were inherited by my sister, who is ten years younger, and eventually the little wardrobe ended up in her own daughter's room.
When my niece outgrew it, I was able to rescue it from the dump just in the nick of time. It is now living in our kitchen and it is just the right size for all those small kitchen odds and ends.










The blue paint has rubbed off in places, but I just love having this chunk of childhood memory in my everyday life!

When I was six and in first grade, I had a blue dress with flower trim at the collar. This dress was made by my grandmother, Angelica the dressmaker's daughter, as indeed were most of my clothes at the time.

Hurray for school photographers, as here's a class photograph in full colour, taken in first grade, in which I am wearing the dress in question. As I'm the only girl in blue, I'm sure you will be able to pick me out immediately!

In honour of the blue theme there seemed to be going on by now, I wore blue dresses on both Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday's dress was a turquoise short-sleeved one, with a tie at the neck.

Now, turquoise is a colour I am often drawn to. However, being slightly colour blind, manifesting itself in a problem differentiating between certain shades of green and blue, turquoise is a particularly tricky one for me.

In colloquial Flemish, the colour is sometimes called apppelblauw-zeegroen, which translates as "apple blue, sea green", which in fact sums up the whole problem for me!

Sunday's dress was a sleeveless midi navy one with light blue and white spots and a pleated skirt.

I shied away from navy for many years, as it reminded me of school uniforms, which in Belgium are quite often navy blue. And I didn't even have to wear uniform at my school!

When we had new windows fitted in our kitchen two years ago, after long deliberation and many paint test pots, we chose a turquoise-y blue (see, I'm being very careful here) as the new colour for our kitchen walls.

After it was finished, I posted this photo on Facebook with the caption "Kitchen Blues".
One of my friends commented it looked more like kitchen greens. But it is blue, isn't it?

I guess he meant the dress ...

Oh, the confusion!









Apart from the walls, there are quite a few blue items on display in our kitchen, collected from flea markets and charity shops over the years.

There's a shelf containing white and blue ceramics, including a Cornishware bowl and salt shaker as well as a Blue Domino breakfast set.

The top shelf of the same unit contains a set of blue and white canisters identifying their contents in French.  On the bottom left is a Boch sugar bowl, made in Belgium, and on the right a set of vintage Pyroflam dishes, made in the Netherlands.

Dotted around the kitchen are an English-made BEL cream maker, and some vintage Tala items like this cook's measure and icing set.

This gorgeously decorated tin was used for storing Brinta, a Dutch brand of breakfast porridge.

Further tins include one from Dutch brand Verkade, which used to contain ice cream wafers and a rare Smith's Potato Crisps one.















This tin tray advertising Wright's Biscuits and picturing their famous mascot, Mischief, is a favourite, in spite of it being a little worse for wear.

I love vintage packaging and these packets of soaps and starch are part of another little collection.
Typically for Belgium, their contents are mentioned in both Flemish and French.

Finally, another blue favourite which lives in a display cabinet in our dining room.

This Heatmaster tea set, probably dating from the late 1940s or early 1950s, was bought in a charity shop in Aberaeron last year. We'd spotted it on a Saturday but didn't buy it, which we regretted by Sunday. We were lucky that it was still there when we went back for it on Monday!

Now I'm ready for a more action packed weekend, starting with a round of the charity shops tomorrow ...