Confessions of a Broochaholic

Can you believe it's March already? Never mind that January and February felt neverending at times, in hindsight they seem to have passed in the blink of an eye. It's all a bit of a blur though, so I'm glad of my blog keeping track of time, enabling me to look back and see how I spent my days.

It's almost beyond belief that I've been regularly churning out blog posts for 8 years now. When Beate recently went on a trip down memory lane to October 2015, she was surprised when I commented that I wasn't a citizen of blogland yet at the time. But yes, it's definitely true that I only published my first post on the 5th of March 2016!

But I'm running ahead of myself again, as here I am, ready for February's edition of our favourite indoor flea market on Sunday the 18th. 

It was the perfect day for it, as it was wet and very windy, which made the alleged highs of 9°C feel quite a bit chillier. It might, in fact, have been a tad too chilly for this purple and white diamond patterned vintage dress I insisted on giving its first outing and therefore required a couple of layers.

I'm rather partial to a purple paired with chartreuse, so I opted for a pair of opaques, a purple-edged cardigan and a triple strand necklace in the latter. 

On my feet, my super comfy caramel suede lace-up ankle boots. They're from a label called No Stress  and were a charity shop find in December 2022. They really do live up to their name: even lacing them up is stressless as they've got handy side zippers!

Vintage dress from Think Twice

Soaked in Luxury cardigan: charity shopped

Necklace: flea market find

Peacock feather brooch: charity shopped in Llangollen in June 2019

Opaques: high street sales bargain

Now on to the flea market!

We'd hardly walked in when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted this rather spectacular wicker tote bag. As I made a beeline for it, I realized I recognized the stall, which turned out to belong to Wannes and Ilona. We first met this lovely couple on a flea market in Antwerp in the early days of my blog, and their well curated stall always draws us like a magnet.

The tote bag is lined in a fabulous floral fabric and came with a surprise wash bag which was hiding at the bottom.

As Wannes was kindly putting it aside for us to pick up later, I scanned the rest of the stall and was captivated by this cute little lidded wicker bag, which obviously had to come home with me as well. In my mind's eye - or should that be ear - I could hear the IKEA coat stand in our bedroom heaving a big sigh.

I also found the first of the day's brooches here, which you'll get to see later on.

I shilly-shallied over the T.G. Green Cornishware Raisins canister. Although its asking price was a mere € 5, I walked away because it was missing its lid. We'd hardly gone a couple of meters when the seller came running after us bearing the canister and declaring we could have it for € 3. Well, who were we to say no? When I posted it on Instagram later that day, someone in the know told me it was an absolute bargain!

It was an excellent market for brooches, as I added no less than 10 of them to my collection. 

Below, clockwise from top left: enamelled mushroom brooch, wooden deer brooch (from Wannes and Ilona), wood look flower brooch and Edelweiss hiking souvenir brooch, both made from some kind of early plastic.

Below, from left: glass beaded brooch, diamanté and gold-tone lobster brooch and green and translucent paste brooch. They were all picked up from the heaped costume jewellery stall of another flea market habitué: a very chatty older lady who lives in the next village to ours.

The middle of the next row of brooches also came from her, while the other two, which are among my favourites, are from separate random stalls. The funky enamelled one on the left was the most expensive at € 12, while the souvenir brooch from the tiny but picturesque city of Dinant in Wallonia - the French speaking part of Belgium - surprisingly was only € 6.

After I've been asked more than once if I've still got space for all the brooches I keep finding and how exactly I'm storing them, I thought it was time I enlightened those readers who aren't already in the know. 

It all started innocently enough when the handful of modern brooches I already owned were joined by the first of the vintage ones I found on flea markets and in charity shops. Slowly but surely my collection was growing until the boxes I was keeping them in were starting to overflow.

When Jos mentioned my predicament to a friend, he came up with a fantastic solution in the form of several dark wooden drawers which were originally used to store his collection of coins. Soon, the original three were no longer adequate, at which point I was given another three, as well as the big black hinged box (below) in which I'm keeping my most fragile and precious ones. Contrary to the others in my collection, these are rarely worn for fear of damaging them.

Still my collection kept growing until it got rather cramped inside those lovely wooden drawers. 

In December 2018 my dream of finding one of those antique wooden chests with glass-fronted drawers, formerly used to display sewing threads in haberdashery shops, finally came true. Until then, the ones we had come across had been eye-wateringly expensive, so we were overjoyed to find this one for an affordable price as its top was slightly cracked.

That was five years ago, but apart from a brief lull courtesy of Covid-19, I obviously didn't stop collecting as, let's face it, they're rather addictive. They're such a fun thing to collect and generally quite affordable too. I rarely spend more than € 15  on a brooch and the vast majority of my finds were less than € 10.

To cut a long story short: I am yet again at risk of running out of space. But fear not: help has already arrived, as I've recently acquired another two of those wooden drawers and an additional hinged box ...

It was back to the office on Monday, and with the grey and rainy week that followed, it was at times hard to stay positive, particularly since work was relentless. 

Still, I was determined to find some things to smile about each day. 

As I was running an errand at Hema - a well-known Dutch chain of department stores - the sight of the row of Miffy cushions lining the escalators to the second floor made me whip out my phone. At the same time, they're emphasizing the demise of the restaurant which used to be up there, and which was inexplicably closed at the end of last year.

Another smile came in the form of this Tiffany-style owl lamp which came to live at Dove Cottage on Wednesday, a gift from Jos's youngest daughter An. Isn't he fabulous?

I only worked half a day on Friday - we were the 23rd by now - which was nothing short of a blessing for more than one reason. Regular as clockwork, a neverending succession of concrete mixers are turning up at the Art Deco tower building each Friday, making one hell of a headache inducing racket.

Although I've got to admit that those candy-striped mixers do look quite the part from our 5th floor perch ...

The overnight storm called Louis, with lots of rain, had brought the temperature down to 8°C by Friday.

It was still drizzly and miserable, so I didn't wear my pink suede boots out. However, as they turned out to be a perfect match with my outfit, I insisted on wearing them for that day's outfit photos.

And no, my dress isn't grey but the kind of green my camera refuses to register. Its fabric is sprinkled with multicoloured hundreds and thousands.

I guess it won't be a surprise when I tell you the dress came from Think Twice? However, I did replace its rather nondescript buttons with vintage green ones with a bit of pink in it from my stash.  

Both my pink plastic ring and the pink belt edged in green plastic stitching were found on the high street, the latter a sales bargain from Mango in the Summer of 2022. The pale pink beads are from a long-gone vintage shop, and the pink and white metal peacock brooch was a charity shop find in May 2016. Without the aid of my blog, it would have been impossible to keep track of those things! 

Always take the weather with you

With the weather still playing foul, life has been happening mostly indoors the last couple of weeks and, to be honest, being cooped up inside has been doing my head in.

This time last year, we already had some gorgeous Springlike days behind us, which we made the most of by topping up our Vitamin D levels in our local parks during the weekends. Sadly, what with the never-ending rain and the succession of storms which always, like clockwork, seem to find us on a Sunday, we've hardly ventured outside at all this year.

On February's penultimate Friday, with the unexpected sight of the sun streaming through my office windows, I decided to outsmart the weather by cheekily taking the afternoon off.

Fully used to supplying my own portable sunshine by now, I was wearing sky blue accessorized with sunny yellow. 

The dress was a fairly recent Think Twice find, bought on the same day as the blue houndstooth frock I was wearing in one of my Bruges posts. Sprinkled all over with tiny dots, its botanical print in a twosome of blues gives the impression of a Pointillist painting.

Although I loved the dress's gentle A-line shape and oversized collar, I initially thought it looked a bit plain, but adding the ochre yellow belt and my favourite multicoloured necklace seemed to do the trick.

As did adding ochre opaques (just visible in the first photo) and a bright yellow cardigan, to which I pinned a brooch with a mottled orange and green stone.

As if to taunt me, the sun starting playing hide-and-seek as soon as I was on my way home, and by the time I'd reached my stop and was getting off the tram, she'd packed her bags and left. 

Jos was picking me up in the car, but instead of going straight home, we made a detour via the local charity shop, which we hadn't visited in a while.

I found this worse-for-wear Madonna and Child figurine hiding at the back of a shelf, and as I picked it up for closer inspection, I was intrigued to see that dear Mary seemed to be perched on top of a boat. This lead us to believe that she is Stella Maris, or Star of the Sea, protector of seafarers. The paint was peeling in various places but we as we thought her rather charming, we took pity on her, and after paying a pittance of € 1,20, we took her and her baby home. 

While I was browsing the clothing aisles, not finding anything that even remotely tickled my fancy, Jos found this wooden wall plaque, a souvenir from Holland, complete with little windmill.

As we already have a modest collection of these brightening the wall of our entrance hall, it would have been silly to deny it the pleasure of joining the gang!

Saturday turned out to be yet another one of those dull, damp and dismal days, when even a dash to the garage to pick up our car feels like too much effort.  

But needs must, and as we were sure a rummage would be beneficial for our moods, we dragged ourselves from the sofa, grabbed our coats and umbrellas, and went off.

I was wearing a button through black printed frock with a notched collar, which for some reason had been greatly neglected in previous years. It's printed with what looks like tiny scraps of patterned fabric in various shades of brown mixed with a bit of white.

Lovely though it is, it badly needed a further colour injection and turquoise was the one which immediately sprang to mind.

I used it for my cardigan and opaques, as well as all my accessories, consisting of a belt, necklace, ring and brooch. 

A second brooch, its centre doing its best to emulate a piece of wood, was pinned to my cardigan.

The charity shop of our choice is one we visit regularly, but can be a bit hit or miss. Lately, it has been the former, and this time was no exception, as I soon happened upon this gorgeous red hessian bag embroidered with raffia flowers.

Then there were a couple of skirts, both handmade and - I suspect - having had the same previous owner.

Here's Angelica doing the honours of showing them to you.

The first one, in a textured cotton fabric, is unlined and softly pleated and, with its fresh lilac, green and navy print on white, is the epitome of Spring. 

Angelica was happy to wear it with a green fine knit Crimplene top, a navy woven belt and a navy and white beaded necklace.

The second skirt is fully lined and made from a light viscose fabric, featuring purple and pink florals and the odd splash of orange.  A pale pink polyester blouse and purple accessories completed Angelica's outfit.

Happy with my finds, we made our way home, but not before stopping at the charity shop in our village. Here, I was seduced into buying a funky jacket by posh Belgian label Caroline Biss, which was launched in 1987, when a first dedicated shop was opened in Antwerp. Not one I've ever set food in, mind you, as I certainly wouldn't want to spend over € 200 on a jacket!

The jacket in question, in a boxy shape which normally doesn't suit me, but now miraculously does, looks virtually unworn. Still, I initially dithered as I absolutely hated the shiny gold buttons. But replacing buttons is an easy fix, especially with a stash of vintage buttons at my disposal, so the dithering didn't last all too long! Apart from its fabulous print, the jacket has pockets, so it would have been downright silly not to buy it.

Sunday's diary page was completely empty, and would have been the perfect opportunity to go for a walk, if the devilish weather deities hadn't played spoilsport once again. With torrential rains our lot for the day, it even took until late afternoon before it stopped for long enough to nip into the garden for outfit photos. 

Staying indoors does't mean not dressing up! 

My coral polka dot fit and flare frock is an old favourite from Think Twice, where I picked it up many years ago. Looking back at past blog posts, I always seem to be wearing it with blue, which I repeated by adding bright blue opaques and a beaded necklace in a similar colour.

The navy, white buckled belt used to belong to my Mum, the same colours appearing again in the brooch, one of February's flea market finds, which I pinned to the dress.

The jacket, from the Spanish Kling brand, was charity shopped back in January, and I thought I might as well wear it instead of a cardigan.

Before I sign off for now, I'm returning briefly to that other charity shopped jacket. As you can see, I soon found the perfect set of buttons to replace those shiny monstrosities. So much better, don't you think?

Linking my blue sky and yellow sunshine outfit to Nancy's Fancy Friday. Do go and check her out!

A stitch in time

The dust has settled and life at the office has gone back to normal. Nevertheless, my blog is still a week or two behind real life so that, while the calendar tells me it's January 23, I've still got to tell you about what I've been up to in the week and weekend before last.

Not that I've been up to very much at all, mind you. At this particularly uneventful time of year, the days and weeks seem to hurtle by even faster than usual, in hindsight making it almost impossible to distinguish one from the other.

But there have been a couple of bright sparks throughout, even if they were mainly provided by what I've been wearing.

A promise is a promise, so I'll start with that burnt orange velvety skirt last seen wearing by Angelica. Finally, that week, it was my turn!

There's something quintessentially 1970s about orange and brown, which people are forever associating with that decade. In later times, the colour combination was jokingly referred to in a what-were-they-thinking kind of way, but fashion designers back then definitely must have known what they were doing, as I for one think orange and brown is a great and timeless look!

So, in honour of the decade in which I did most of my growing up, I plucked this brown floral vintage blouse from my wardrobe and introduced it to the skirt which, rather than being vintage, is from a modern-day brand called American Outfitters. Never heard of them? I can't blame you, as in spite of its name, it's a Belgian label founded in the late 1990s.

I'm sure you must have recognized the teal King Louie cardigan, the woven belt and the beads, as they're all regulars on the blog, all of them charity shop or flea market finds. The brooch was a flea market find as well, bought from the famous Brooch Lady in February 2017. 

The week had been a particularly grey and wet one, the days dark and dreary, making my eyelids droop by mid-afternoon and filling my head with cotton wool.

On Fridays my office closes early, so that there was still a smidgen of daylight about when I was on my way home. The sun had finally managed to chase away the eternal rainclouds, only to start setting soon afterwards, back-lighting the clouds with the last of her orange glow.

The latest Think Twice sales had been in full swing that week but pickings had been rather slim until at the end of the week I stumbled upon this exquisite white raffia handbag. I keep telling myself I should stop buying more handbags, but there was no way I could resist taking this beauty home for only € 4.

I paid the same price for a green speckled polyester dress, which unfortunately had lost some of its buttons. No big deal, as I didn't like them much anyway, so I scoured my stash of vintage buttons, hitting upon these perfect, and far nicer, replacements.

I already wore the dress to work last week, but as things were a bit hectic no outfit photos were made, which I'll have to remedy by wearing it again soon.

While I had my sewing basket out on Saturday morning, I decided to strike the iron while it was hot and finally tackle the partially detached side zip of a dress I bought in the Think Twice sales several months ago. 

Upon closely examining the dress, I noticed several split seams had been repaired by its previous owner using what looked like black darning yarn. To make matters worse, some of these so-called repairs had been done on the outside of the dress, so that there was nothing for it but to remove them all and re-do them using the appropriate sewing thread.

I may be far from a natural at sewing but even with my limited skills I managed to do better. Some people!

Here is the dress in question, which admittedly I only wore for these photos. I'd planned to wear it for work in the week ahead but I totally forgot, so it is still patiently waiting its turn.

The starburst brooch and the snakeskin belt were both flea market finds, while the ring came from a market stall in Bruges. 

Now this is what I really wore that Saturday for another rummage at the charity shops.

I love pleated skirts and dresses, and have several of them inhabiting my wardrobe. Among them, this vintage frock with a print of tiny squares in blue, pink, red, lilac and turquoise and a row of squarish red buttons at the bodice.

I added a wide red woven belt and turquoise beads and pinned a red posy brooch to my turquoise cardigan. Again, most of my outfit is vintage or second hand, except for the tights and the ankle boots. The latter is an old but favourite pair, which has been to the cobbler's a couple of times during its lifetime.

Here, and in the above collage, you can see how wide the dress's skirt actually is. Perfect for twirling or doing a little jig, but not so perfect for that day's weather. There was a fierce and chilly wind blowing so that I had to keep clutching my skirt while on our way to our garage and in-between shops. And why, oh why, did I have to wear this gorgeous but inadequately thin fur collared jacket?

I could tell you all about the fluffy pink scarf I was wearing or the pink and white knitted beret, but I'm sure you wouldn't have been listening, having your eyes fixed firmly on my handbag!

Isn't it fabulous? OK, I have been very, very bad, as I bought it new in the sales at Mango. Also, two handbags in one week, in spite of my self-imposed handbag ban! 

Enough said, let's go charity shopping instead.

Back in the 1970s, brown and orange didn't just rule the catwalks. It was omnipresent and I'm sure that every self-respecting home had its fair share of these colours in its furnishings and homewares.

We snapped up this plastic bread basket from the German Emsa brand in our local charity shop for € 1,50 that day. Made to resemble wood and decorated with a rim of orange and yellow flowers, we already have several items from the same range, including a spice rack, a coffee filter holder and an egg-timer. 

Oh, and we've got egg cups and a jam pot as well! The big brown flower decorated melamine tray isn't Emsa, but vintage St. Michaels, found at a retro event back in October 2017.

We went to another shop a bit further afield that day as well. Rummaging their well-stocked clothing department, I initially thought I'd hit the jackpot upon spotting a whole colour range of apparently deadstock berets. Unfortunately they were all the same size and too big for me, although I am now regretting leaving them behind as they were only € 1 each.

As it is, I only bought this red knitted hat - also deadstock, with a still pristine C&A label - as well as a long and super soft multi coloured scarf.

My final find of the day was this rather gorgeous cardigan in a navy honeycomb pattern on pink by Belgian brand Lucy Has A Secret. As it would have originally retailed at a silly price (at a guess, I'd say upwards of € 80), surely € 4 was a bit of a bargain. 

So, that's it for now. I'll be continuing with my catch-up in my next post. 

In the meantime, have a fabulous weekend, my friends!

Linking to Nancy's Fancy Friday linkup this week. Do go and check out this lovely girl!

When the world stops for snow

They've got it wrong again! That was our first thought upon opening our curtains on Sunday before last. "They", of course, are the weather forecasters, who'd predicted snow during the night. And what did we see? Exactly, nothing! The world outside our window was looking its grey old self!

For once, we were glad they were wrong, as we had a flea market to go to!

But look: we'd hardly stepped outside before it did start snowing, very gently at first, but by the time we reached the garage where our car is parked, snow was drifting down in fat fluffy flakes.

Being a Sunday morning, the roads were all but deserted, with only a few other people like us foolhardy enough to be venturing outside, instead of watching the transformation of our streets and gardens into a white wonderland from the warmth and safety of our homes.

Nobody seemed to be in a hurry, though, so we made our way at a snail's pace to the flea market venue in Mechelen, taking much longer than the usual 20 minutes or so.

Having made it safely to our destination and having checked in with our membership id cards, a happy few hours of rummaging could finally begin. 

It didn't take me long to make my first purchase, at a delightful stall full of treasures, where I found this small lot of vintage buttons.

As usual, all manner of goodies, including quite a few oddities, were shouting for our attention.

Of course, I had to photograph the creepy dolls' heads, some of them eyeless, others staring into space as if wondering about their fate. The stall's owner even re-arranged them for me so that I could take a better picture!

As we'd arrived late, our stomachs started rumbling soon, but before we sat down to lunch, I bought my first two brooches. 

The little boat with its long pin, proudly displaying the Belgian colours, might be a Liberation brooch, made to celebrate the Liberation of Belgium after the Second World War.

From the same stall came the blue and sparkly green flying bird. Both were € 3.

Soon after lunch, two more brooches came my way. The black one, which might look like plastic but is surprisingly heavy, is a vintage mourning brooch, and I think the € 7 I paid for it is quite a good price.

The plastic dove, fittingly in dove grey, was only € 2, from the same stall.

More oddities! I loved the packaging of the "Sport-Trainer", depicting three "absolutely harmless" girls. That's my friends Ingrid and Inez and me then, although I'm not too sure we are absolutely harmless. 

Then we came across the two ladies with the jewellery heaped stall I keep promising you photographs of. Well, I did it this time!

After a good old rummage more purchases were made in the form of these six brooches, for which I paid a total of € 17.

I do believe the black one with the sparkly stones might be another mourning brooch.

We also found another plaster wall plaque for our wall of heads! Isn't she absolutely gorgeous?

The snow had been replaced by yet more rain by the time we left and thaw had set in, turning the snow piled up at the side of the roads into dishwater coloured sludge.

Daylight was fading rapidly when we finally made it back, so that flash photography was required for my outfit photos, making me look all shiny and bright.

The Tweed jacket I'd been wearing on Saturday was now accompanied by green accessories: a  knitted scarf and warm woolly hat! The tan handbag - a firm favourite! - complimented the jacket's furry bits, and I was wearing my burgundy boots, which are lined with a welcome layer of woolly insulation.

First wear of this Paisley print dress, with its pleated skirt and built-in tie, which I secured with a floral scarf clip. 

Further accessories were an olive green belt, which you can only catch a glimpse of, a burgundy plastic ring and a pink owl brooch, one of the few contemporary ones I own.

Same scenario on Monday morning. Almost all of Sunday's snow had melted and the streets were looking wet and forlorn. 

While I was on the bus into town, the first batch of fresh snow starting falling, which had turned into an onslaught of merrily swirling and dancing flakes by the time I got to the office.

The sky was dark and foreboding, promising no let up of the snow and, as I stood looking down from our windows on the struggling pedestrians and slow-moving traffic, I made the wise decision to take the afternoon off.

The merest amount of snow makes Belgium's traffic come to a standstill, creating chaos, so it would have been madness to make my way home during rush hour.

An added bonus was that I could enjoy the sight of our snow filled garden and watch Phoebe leaving delicate paw prints as she explored the strange white substance.

Again, the snow didn't last and was gone within a day, so that I could breathe a sigh of relief.

Picturesque it may be, but not much fun if you have to commute!