Sail away

On Saturday I went up to The Boogaloo for the three year anniversary of the Can't Buy Me Love vintage jumble. As I wasn't trading myself I rocked up in the late afternoon just in time to have a wee rummage and help Leslie pack up so that we could have a few beers afterwards.

Leslie's stall was looking brilliant as per usual... 

I decided to snap the traders so that I could share them with you :)

Worn Label had some amazing 80s and 90s pieces on her rail. I was eyeing up a rather fabulous studded denim jacket but after a recent slew of eBay purchases I am now under strict 'No Buy' orders.

The Hostess Hotties did a fab array of jewellery and I really liked their funky display...

Janneke De Jong of Small-scale Samaritan was selling things for a song and even gave stuff away at the end of the day. This kitschtastic Dutch clog-boat lamp caught my eye and after Janneke told me that it was still in good working order I just knew I had to give it a new home...

Here's Jet who organizes CBML and her friend who makes all those delicious looking cakes. Jet is also behind the fabulous Muswell Hill Market and she also runs a little vintage shop in Muswell Hill that is open every Saturday from 11am till 5pm.

Unfortunately I have no link to the two funky ladies below but I was in awe with their fabulous wares and display skills. Doesn't that suitcase just look amazing, I wish my stall looked more like this...

When this awesome looking lady came through the doors I simply had to beg a photo of her and her amazing skirt. She told me that she had bought it from a trader at Notting Hill Market a few years ago, I love it! I also love coming across super stylin' women like this...

After we'd packed up Leslie's stall and sandwiched it all into Aiden's car we sat in The Boogaloo beer garden for a bit. Their two gorgeous pub cats are called Starsky and Hutch.

After The Boogaloo we went to Salisbury Hotel for a few and then Leslie and I continued up the road to The Finsbury which is were I'll be bringing out my fabulous Frocktasia rails in two weeks time at The Sunday Mini Festival.

We left The Finsbury when they closed by which time Leslie was reading the walls and I was just off-the-wall at this point, having had nothing to eat all day, just a mother-load to drink.

I felt absolutely rancid all day yesterday and couldn't even face eating until ten o'clock at night. I'm still feeling a bit fragile and have decided to make July a tee-total month. My body is telling me 'Detoxify or DIE'!

I figure listening to my body is the right thing to do, eh?!

I couldn't face taking any outfit pics today so this is what I wore last Friday...

A jumpsuit that I made from fabric that I bought in Krabi, Thailand back in 2010. You may recognize the design from an earlier post. Whilst on the subject of stuff that I've made, I finished this headdress on Saturday morning...

It was inspired by a childhood favourite book of mine, The Flowers' Festival by Elsa Beskow. I'm hoping to make a few more of these to bring along to next Saturday's Dandy Lion Market. Now that I have almost recovered from possibly the worst hangover ever, I can crack on with some work :)

To sing us out here's David Grey...

Hope you've all had a tremendously good start to your week and that the sun is shining where you are.

Loads of love,

Jennie

xXx

Easy does it

Yesterday Frocktasia did yet another Can't Buy Me Love jumble at The Boogaloo. 

I brought a bargain rail  this time around and sold quite a few garments despite it being a little bit of a quiet one. Items priced at a fiver or less seems to be a successful formula at this particular venue, it is billed as a jumble after all. I also tried out a few random items that I haven't brought before, bundles of vintage & retro fabric, a few issues of 'Vanity Fair' from the early 90s and packets of vintage stockings. I was surprised that no one snapped up the two psychedelic print sundresses, maybe it was because there was a bit of a glut of funky clothing?!

I had a vision in my head of a funky chick rocking these teamed with a floppy hat and wellies at a festival this summer. I guess there's still time for them to be snapped up :)

I'm getting so much better at prepping for my markets now. It hardly takes any time at all for us to set up the pitch and at the end of the day we are usually packed up and ready to roll out of the venue in less than twenty minutes. I always do all the laborious stuff at home such as pricing and sticking stuff on hangers. So when we get to the venue it is just a case of quickly unpacking everything & hanging it straight onto the rail. I even prepare my display table at home so that I know exactly what I'm doing on the day and don't have to faff about & worry about presentation.

I had a couple of fabulous visitors yesterday :)

Lovely Jo from Joyatri's Adventures in Vintage popped in for a little browse and a chat. She lives in the US but intermittently comes over to stay here with her English boyfriend. When in the US she runs her Joyatri shop on etsy where she sells vintage items, clothing and crafting materials. If they were giving out prizes for best dressed CBML customer of the day then Jo would win hands down, just look at that fabulous feast-for-the-eyes maxi frock she was wearing...

My lovely Leslie and Aiden also popped by and stayed for the rest of the afternoon, we had beers and chatted about films. I said "don't ever ask me to be in your pub quiz team cause I know nothing about films" to which Aiden responded "great then you can be the bar runner"...every cloud has a silver lining, eh ;) 

Aiden then very kindly gave us a lift home and collected a barrow full of brownie points yet again, he's a gem of a man so he is. Leslie stayed for a spot of din-dins, vino and a two hour long Led Zeppelin concert on YouTube before heading back home.

Today the sun shone on our poor pasty white bodies and there was much rejoicing :)

 We went to the park, lazed about on a blanket and drank 2.8% Carling Zest.
I really love how there seems to be a lot more choice in the low-alcohol range now, gone are the days of "Kaliber or Cola?".

Tomorrow I'll be starting the preparations for next Saturday's Dandy :)

Right now I'm going for a late evening soak before jumping into bed after what has been an indulgently lazy day, blooming marvelous!

Hope you have all been taking it easy this weekend and feel ready to face the week ahead.

Loads of love,

Jennie

xXx

Not from the Dirty Thirties

This seventies frock echoes a much earlier fashion era, with its elegant floor-skimming length, adorable ruffle sleeves and shoulder button trim detailing, I'm thinking the thirties.

These pictures are from a Swedish dress making magazine dated 1934.

Here are two thirties dress pattern pics, found on pinterest.

I know that reproduction vintage fashion can sometimes be an apple of discord for real vintage aficionados but the only thing I have a problem with is when sellers (on-line in particular) are not straight up about how old a garment actually is and even remove labels in an attempt to disguise the fact that what they are selling is a dress from a High Street store bought last year, that sucks!

I've had this frock for years but I only recently rediscovered it hiding in a storage bag up in the loft. There aren't that many mystery bags left up there now, I'm slowly getting on top of  the hoard.

 Yay & there was much rejoicing! 

Vintage 70s does 30s maxi frock, Handmade Sami art necklace, 80s Pierre Cardin sandals, soapstone earrings & umbrella.

I did get a couple of bemused looks as I was feeding the birds by the boating lake earlier but personally I think this frock is just fine to wear for a stroll around the park, teamed with my cropped denim jacket it looks almost casual ;)

Yesterday Mark and I went to check out Muswell Hill Market as our lovely friends Sue and Mark were trading there.

Mark , Sue, Mark & loadsa gorgeous jewellery :)

Sue makes her own funky jewellery and Mark has a very  keen eye for beautiful vintage costume jewellery with a particular penchant for fabulous vintage brooches.

At the last Can't Buy Me Love market Jet mentioned that I may want to consider doing a stall at the Muswell Hill Market at some point and after seeing it yesterday I think Frocktasia will hopefully be there next month with a rail full of fabulous frocks and other gorgeous goodies, so watch this space peeps.

This venue scores high on one very important point,  it is virtually door to door on the W7 bus route, so even if Mark is working on the day I can very easily make it there on my tod.

Ideally I'd love to do at least one market a week.

I hope you've all had a fabulous & funderful weekend folks!

Loads of love,

Jennie

xXx

From Ballachulish to The Boogaloo

When we left London a week ago the sun was blazing and there was not a cloud in the sky as far as the eye could see.

I had hoped that the glorious weather would travel with us up to Scotland but alas that was not to be, pants!

The further north the bus took us the darker the skies turned and we quite literally drove into a whole heap of bad weather.

It would have been nice to have a week of sunshine and blue skies but I'm not one to let a bit of dreich weather spoil my fun.

We stopped off in Greenock with my brother-in-law for a night before continuing the journey up to Ballachulish in The Highlands.

When we visited last September, I brought all my shapeshifter ponchos and we staged a little photo session in the glen and I had hoped to do the same thing this time. My suitcase was full of frocks and photo session paraphernalia and every day I was up with the lark monitoring the weather forecast hoping that there would be a wee break in the thick blanket of cloud. We did get a few pictures done but the conditions were not ideal to say the least but I'll blog about that tomorrow.

As per usual I took loads of pics all week and I thought I'd share some of them with you...

It's grim up north! Not really but it was rather dreich it has to be said.

The River Laroch and the Loch Leven shore. 

Swan in Loch Leven & the St Munda burial island.

The River Laroch in Ballachulish, Scottish heather in mums garden and a cool as a cucumber sheep in Glen Nevis.

Glen Nevis and Scots pine tree.

There was still some snow on the hills. Despite it looking like it never stops raining in the Highlands it has in fact been "unseasonably dry" and at the beginning of this month there was even a wildfire outbreak. 

Little chirpy bird in Glen Nevis and big chirpy bird at the Lochan Trail in Glencoe.

I was delighted to catch a bunch of Kyloe cows having their breakfast in Glen Nevis. Later on that day we went to Glen Coe to attempt a photo session, we ended up having bemused tourists taking pictures of us taking pictures, och! In the evening we met up with my father-in-law at The Laroch Bar for a few bevvies :)

On Thursday it was my mother-in-laws 70th birthday :)

It did clear up for a few hours in the early evening so we zipped down to the lochside to take a few more pics. Then mums friends came around for a little 70th birthday get-together at the house. Loads of  cake, wine and laughter :)

The morning after mums birthday we left Ballachulish at eight, stopped in Glasgow for a quick pub brunch before hopping on the bus back down to London.

We arrived in London at half ten in the evening and I had my market the following day.

Thankfully I had prepared everything before we left so it was just a case of packing everything up in the morning. I was a wee bit zombified on Saturday but Mark helped me to The Boogaloo and stayed around until I was all set up. Who would have guessed that sitting on your arse for twelve hours could be so physically & mentally exhausting?! 

Despite being a bit of a hazy-daisy I did have a very good day, chatted to some lovely folk & made some people happy with my vintage threads and that's what it's all about after all ;)

Here are some pics from yesterday's Can't Buy Me Love market....

What I wore:

Indian frock, tulle tutu, shaggy cardi with flower brooch, tights, 80s boots, Frocktasia earrings, Tibetan prayer bangle and my trusty market peddlers bumbag ;)

So there you go that was my "dropping off the blog radar" week.

I'm totally behind in my blog reading but as I have already picked out most my stock for next Saturday's Dandy Lion Market I should have a few hours to spare tomorrow to indulge in a little bit of catching up, looking forward to it, I've missed you's!

I'll leave you with one of my favourite Scottish bands, enjoy :)

Loads of love,

Jennie

xXx

Atomic winter

I sometimes have the oddest thoughts! 

As I was hanging the washing out on the balcony the other day, freezing my fingers off, I started thinking...

"What if this is it, what if winter becomes permanent and this is as good as it will get temperature wise".

I know, the stuff of nightmares right?!

It is thought that the climate would be profoundly effected if for instance nuclear war was to rage across the planet or perhaps a supervolcano decided to erupt or a comet or an asteroid happened to slam into the globe.

The theory goes that if vast amounts of smoke and soot was to be ejected into the earth's stratosphere, the little spinning ball that we call home would be plunged into perpetual winter.

Horrible thought, eh?!

Of course the snow covered naked branches of the trees are pretty and create spectacular backdrop but I have to say that I am now officially fed up with winter and I want spring to march on in and sweep the bastard thing away once and for all!

I was very happy to see that the bird lovers had come out in force today,  there was seed scattered everywhere on top of the snow by the pond.

I'm not the only crazy bird lady around this neck of the woods, I'll have you know ;)

The other day this sweet little girl came up to me as I was hand feeding Lilo and asked if she could have a go. I lent her my "feeding glove" and she was absolutely ecstatic when the Lilo started eating seed from her hand, so sweet!

It's been snowing heaps here today and there's still some snow fall forecast for tonight.

When will this snowy madness end? 

Vintage coat by Spinney, 90s velvet catsuit, hooded cloak dress, Handmade African necklace  gift from my mum, DM boots, 99p stores snood, gloves, slouchy hat & Frocktasia earrings.

I'm playing catch-up with my 'daily ensemble' pics, this is what I wore to go and see Leslie yesterday...

My sister in Copenhagen sent me this awesome 70s bright red needle cord maxi skirt. I'm guessing that the flowers were hand-painted by Inger Leth.

The stunning necklace was a car boot sale bargain from last year, it's a really unusual piece. There's an inscription at the back which reads 'By Laurent Guinci'.

Vintage 70s cord maxi skirt, 70s suede lace-up waistcoat, 80s butterfly belt, 80s boots, 90s floral lace leotard, I also wore a great big faux-fur coat, a faux-fur hat, gloves and snood...it was freezing and damp outside yesterday.

Leslie sent me this pic from last months Can't Buy Me Love market...

There's me peddling my gear to a very dapper chappy. You can also spot  Mark looking on proudly as his wife gets into the swing of things & lovely Sara from Hello The Mushroom :) The pic was borrowed from the CBML blog.

I won't be there this month because my other sister is popping over from Sweden for Easter and we are heading up to Edinburgh for a few days which will be ever so splendid.

If you are in London on the 30th of March you can still go and see Jet-Marie, Leslie and all the other brilliant sellers that will be there at the Can't Buy Me Love Easter Special.

I'm hoping to return there next month, so watch this space ;)

Today's tune is Atomic by Blondie, enjoy :)

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Loads of love,

Jennie

xXx