Recent Flea and Thrift finds!

Car boot season has *Finally* stated in the UK, although I have been a little disappointed so far at the lack of treasures that have been rather few and far between, that I have saved up my last months purchases for one post!
I suppose it is quality, and not quantity that counts though, right?! Although seeing what some bloggers and Instagram folks are snagging at their local boot sales is making me rather envious! Far too many baby clothes, last months's George at Asda and mobile phone covers at the North West 'boots for my liking! Ah well, I still have all summer to go, and I'm sure more treasures will be found! :)
Here is what I got in the last month....

50s door handles, £2

Bone China Tea Cup & Saucers, £1.50.

Because Tea ALWAYS tastes better out of white Bone China, FACT!

About a metre/yard of 60s French Fabric, 50p

Gypsy top with Mexican style embroidery, 50p

60s French drinking glasses - 20p each

50s Atomic drinking glasses - £1 the set

Vintage (70s?) wicker & embroiderd bag, £1

50s playing card glass, 20p

Here's hoping that May is a more fruitful thrifting month! :)

A Trip to Helsinki!

Hello All....long time no blog, I know! I have been very busy with work, and renovating our house (our lounge is now finished, hooray! - so I will be doing a post on that soon....) in the meantime, I'm going to tell you about my recent trip to Helsinki.
Last month was my birthday, and so with it falling on a weekend, Michael and I thought we would go away for a few days. After watching the Tove Jansson documentary (creator of The Moomins) over Christmas last year we were both really keen to visit Helsinki, and after some internet research and a good deal to be found on Expedia, we booked our weekend away!
By the way...this is a long and picture heavy post! :)

 DAY ONE - My Birthday!

It was blimmin' cold in Helsinki!! Day temps were around 0/-2 degrees C, night temps around -13!!

Here I am stood near the harbour. Most of this part of the sea was frozen!

As you can see here! 

We had a walk into the centre, passing the rather impressive railway station building, which dates from 1909.

There are a lot of really grand buildings in Helsinki, and interestingly, and although this one isn't , a lot of them are Russian built or inspired (they rebuilt much of it after the war).

This outdoor ice skating rink was in the town square, just across from the railway station building. I was tempted....but I'm wary to skate as my sister broke her arm doing so a few years ago, and with my job being a self employed designer...I just cant risk that!!

We then headed down to visit the flea market - Kaivarin Kanuuna, in the South of the city and this took us past a park which was frozen solid, and had people cross country ski-ing on it!

The flea market is in a cellar of sorts with lots of booths in the underground caverns....here is Michael looking at some of the treasures/junk!

Finland, as with most of Scandinavia is expensive.....even in the flea markets and vintage stores! I still managed to snag a few good deals however!

Vintage red wool skirt with navy piping, €3 (about £2.50)

Vintage cotton dress, €4 (about £3.50). 

I added the white and red Rik Rak myself when we got home as it just needed a little something extra :)

70s pin badges from the USSR - €9 (about £8.50) for 48 of them. 

The artwork on these is so cool! Think we are going to frame some, I will keep some to wear, and we will sell some too.

We then headed to some more 2nd hand/thrift stores - this chain is called FIDA and there are quite a few of them around the city.

Inside one of the shops 

Although we had a good rummage, we didn't find anything we wanted. We also travelled light with hand luggage only, so bulky items were out!

We then headed back to our hotel. We stayed at Hotel Katajanokka which is a converted former prison, which was amazing!

All the original features are still there - but its now a 4* hotel, so thankfully the accommodation standards in the 'cells' is much nicer than it used to be!!

After a bit of a rest, and a cup of hot chocolate to warm us up, it was back out in the sub zero temperatures to go out for my Birthday to the Kokomo Tiki bar!

I had a Portobello mushroom and Halloumi 'burger' with a side of sweet potato fries. Yum.

Inside the Tiki Bar

Cheers! Yes I did go out for my birthday in my flamingo jumper and long johns under my jeans...well, you have too when its -13 outside! 

 DAY TWO
We got up and had a hearty breakfast to set us up for the day. It was then off an out as were meeting up with my blog friend Ina. Ina and I 'met' online a few years ago when we both started following each others blogs. You know when you just 'click' with someone? I always found her posts about vintage and Finland really interesting, (and hopefully she felt the same way about my posts too!), and so although Ina stopped blogging a year or so ago, we still keep in touch via Facebook. I asked Ina for some advice on where to go and what to see prior to our trip (I have her to thank for the 'FIDA' thrift shop locations, amongst other things!). Some of you may have followed Ina yourself, and will most definitely have heard of, or follow one of her close friends Ulrika, from The Freelancers Fashion Blog.

Me and Ina

We went for coffee and had a good few hours chatting about all sorts of things! It was lovely to meet Ina and  I would like to say a special thank you to her for meeting up, and giving us lots of tips and advise for our trip :). 

Ina now runs a fantastic vintage shop on Etsy called Years since Yesterday, which has a great collection of Finnish and Texan vintage. Click the link above to check out Ina's store!

After our meet up, Michael and I then headed off to Kiasma  - Helsinki's museum of modern art.

It was ok, but a whole floor of exhibition space was closed (out of only 3 floors!), so a bit disappointing.

And then, off to get my Moomin shopping fix at the Moomin Shop!

Heaven!

Big smile, and shopping bag of goodies!

We then got the tram up the the North of the city and went to the Arabia outlet and design centre.

Arabia make fantastic ceramic products, and of course this includes a Moomin range, of which I have quite a  few pieces. Michael bought me a bowl, glass and some Christmas decorations for my birthday present.

Then we headed back to the centre and had a look round all the cool shops in the design district

And saw these cool lights outside the Craft and Design Centre

We then headed back to our hotel for the day....all this walking about and sight seeing was tiring!

DAY THREE

We were flying home later on in the afternoon, so after our last hearty breakfast at the prison hotel and checkout, we went to see the Sibelius monument, a dedication to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

Don't I look tiny next to it?!

And here is one of Michael and I - Michael grew a beard especially for our trip to keep his face warm!

Then we got a tram back to the city and waited for the bus back to the airport, not before having my picture taken with the two gargoyles that we had been admiring all weekend!!

Attractive! ha ha!

Going home is usually a chore, right? But not if they have another Moomin shop at the airport it isn't!

Yippee!

And this is pretty much my overall Moomin haul from the weekend! Bearing in mind that this is what I spent my birthday money on :)

Towels, bag, prints and postcards, crockery, figurines, socks and stationery!

And....last but not least.....this arrived in the post about a week after we got home;

I fell in love with these Moomin scissors, but couldn't bring them back on the plane, so I posted them to myself! Where there's a will there's a way! 

I hope you enjoyed my Helsinki post. We had an amazing time, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend anyone to visit, just wrap up warm if you go in winter!

Recent buys, finds and acquisitions!

Hello from another snowy day in the UK!
I thought I would share with you some of my recent buys, finds and acquisitions. I have been getting/finding bits and pieces over the past few weeks, but only usually one at a time, so not really worthy of a blog post, so I thought I would save them up and do them as one post!
Firstly, are these lovely 60s bone china side plates, "Black Velvet" by Hostess. They were a gift from last year off my sister Jan, but as we were moving and trying to de-clutter, they were packed away safely for the new house, and were re-discovered when I unpacked them recently, yippee! I love it when you forgot you had things :)

Love the pattern on these, and will be looking out for some more!!

Next is this almost full canteen of cutlery. Probably 70s Sheffield Stainless steel - some still had plastic wrapping on. All useful stuff too, regular knives, forks, dessert and tea spoons rather than cake servers and fish knives! We got it for £5 from a local antique/junk shop.

Kittys! More for the collection. Michael says I'm turning into a crazy cat lady as we now have 4 :)
These were £3 for both from our favourite local Saturday Flea market. I like the one with the big eyes...sinister!

Also from the same flea were these 60s pyrex cooking dishes, and butter dish. We already have a larger dish with the vegetable print on, and plates with the snowflake style print. 50p each

You know I can't resist a lonely vintage glass for the orphanage! This rather snazzy 50s number was just 20p from the hospice shop

And finally, a gift from my other sister, Elaine. A 70s side plate "Roulette" by Broadstone. 50p from her local  flea market.

I'm itching for April now for the car boot season to start.....bring it on! 

This week: A new Tattoo and lots of snow!

This week I got a new tattoo! Yippee :)
Its just a little space filler on my upper arm, and is my homage to my home city of Manchester aka: The Rainy City!
Designed by me, and inked by my lovely tattooist, Beany.

Beany said that one of her customers calls our constant rain "Liquid Sunshine"!

On Friday, I went to London for the day to visit a trade show, and meet with a client. The weather was cold, but dry and bright all day.....until I was on my way home and things took a random turn for the worst with 8 inches of snow falling back at home in just a few hours! Eek!

This is the lake at the end of my street. It looks like Lapland! 

It was all very pretty, but unfortunately stopped friends from coming to visit us this weekend, boo :(

And the next day when it had thawed out a bit! Note I'm wearing my very rockabilly hiking boots! ;)

Maybe I need a snowman on my sleeve next?! 

Hope you all had a nice weekend x

House renovation - Part 1 - The Dolly Cool Studio

When we moved into our new house (a 60's bungalow) at the end of November, out first priority was to get my studio decorated and up and running as soon as possible!
We were quite lucky that although our house is dated/old fashioned - it is in the main, purely cosmetic, and can be fairly easily fixed with some paint, new carpets and curtains. This is exactly what we did in my studio.
Here is a "delightful" BEFORE shot of the room...I took this when we first went to view the house.

Decades old carpet, curtains, bed and 70s (not in a good way!) fully fitted wardrobes down one side. And all in brown! Lovely. I could tell the room was a good size, but it felt cramped with all this stuff in it!

Luckily, the guy selling the house was very personable, and removed all the furniture and the fitted wardrobes for us before we moved in.

And how it is now...

Jewellery making area, and storage! The fab spotty boxes are from Ikea.The wooden shelving was re-purposed from old storage in my last house.

 A Papel Picado banner hangs along the wall (gift from a friend bought at Mexican Market in San Diego). Regular readers will recognise the 60's pop flower table that used to be our dining table....its now my jewellery making table! (This is all on the side where the wardrobes were)

Close up of the making area with my tools and components etc.

I love pattern and colour! Can you tell?!

The wall in front of my making area. I covered an old pin board in pink atomic fabric, and stuck some awesome retro Pennychoo cards on my wall to brighten it up!

On the other side of the room is my sewing area! This is pretty much as it was set up in the old box room, but I now have much more space! 

50's Formica table (£15, junk shop), 60s chair (£3 boot sale), 80's sewing machine (under spotty cloth) - free from my mum! :)

Tiki mugs act as pen pots and sewing supplies storage. 50's sewing box was about £1 from a boot sale a few years ago. Cupcake pin cushion was a gift from my sister, Jan.

Ipod dock - essential for playing music while working!

Side view

And again, more wall decoration! From left to right:

Catalina Mexican Foil Picado - from the Day of the Dead exhibition I went to in Lancaster.

'Ahoy' Tattooed Mirror - Gift from my Friend Kate (who makes awesome tattooed wood things under the name Clumsy)

Various retro postcards, and art cards by Tattoo artists Dawnii, and Amy Williams (who did my teacup tattoo). 

AMAZING Sugar Skull cross stitch (in frame), Christmas gift from my friend Jo :)

And next to the sewing area, is my embroidery and packing area!

We bought this fantastic 50s dresser unit off Ebay last summer for £50. It had to go into storage for a little while until we moved,  but I'm so glad that we bought it as it is so perfect for the studio!

Lots of storage, and a pull out table for me to cut fabric on and pack up parcels.

And with this lovely geometric patterned formica top, and sides!

And last, but not least - my Tomado shelves! Bought off Ebay for £20 from Holland. A bargain considering what they usually go for!

Filled with my nik naks, including Patty (my trusty hair tie model head!), a silver glitter flamingo, tiki shot glasses, vintage poodle/cat print in frame, vintage tin and apple ice bucket, and sugar skulls and Moomins on the bottom shelf!

I hope you like my work studio. It is just so nice to have somewhere to work, where everything is in the same room at last, instead of dotted all over the house :)

Next room for renovation is the lounge....currently in progress!