The Charity Shops of Portsmouth & Winchester Yield Very Little ……….

Lu and I managed to get a two night stay in Portsmouth at the last minute the other week.

I don’t think we have ever felt so desperate for a change of air ……….

……. let alone see the sea in real life …………. it was wonderful.  We just sat for hours on end with a flask watching the world and countless wild water swimmers go by and just chilled! 

We hoped to get in a little charity shop shopping but sadly Portsmouth yielded very little, and no considered purchases unfortunately were made.  Lu quite fancied the kidney shaped dressing table (above), it had “potential”, but me thinks it would need someone quite adept at cutting and sewing to replace the flounced cover!

We both loved this desk - £65, for goodness sake ?????? Look at all the drawers and nooks and crannies, it also had the potential to be something quite magical ……..

It had seen better days and I wouldn’t say it was top quality …… but I could see it painted navy blue with gold stars and moons here and there, but wonder if that would be possible with the roll top?  A job for a professional no doubt and not for the likes of Mrs FiddleFart Bodge-It me!!!

We also spotted these “vintage” Kath Kidston dresses on the clothes rail in the same shop for £8.99, if I was size 8 or 10 I would have had them in a heartbeat, how cute are they?

I was quite excited by the prospect of a visit to The Cadbury Shop at Gunwharf Quays, especially at the thought of finding a few boxes of Cadbury Dairy Milk Miniatures as in days of yore to embellish for special occasions. They didn’t have any! After a little research I don’t think they even make them any more ……. which is really sad, but then again it must be nine odd years since I last bought any!

On the way back home we stopped off in Winchester, which is very, very, very posh and where the clothes in the charity shops are on a whole new level, again if you are a size 8 to 12! I wish I had taken a few photos just to show you some of the beauties I had to leave behind.

Lu was very chuffed to find this Beatles jigsaw as she’d fancied it in meltdown but couldn’t justify the price …… she paid £3 for hers and if all the pieces are there when she’s done it she’ll probably get me to put it on eBay to help towards a few more jaunts in the coming months.

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I also spent £3 in the same shop (????)  It’s so bad it’s almost good?  I thought it might be something special, but I could be wrong. I’ve put it on eBay but I think it might be a slow burner.  More common in the USA, made by Lego in Japan in the 1950’s.  If it doesn’t sell it doesn’t matter, it’s my sort of quirky taste, she already looks quite at home on one of my shelves in the lounge so whatever happens it’s win win.

I’m not sure what the lifting of Covid restrictions will bring on July 19th, we’ve booked a stayover in Southport for Lu’s birthday at the end of the month ……………. I think we need to make hay while we can!

Bright, Random Letter Birthday Card

This card measures 5ins x 5ins and uses a smooth, white, pre-scored blank from a bulk Hobbycraft pack.

Oh my goodness, am I struggling with my card making ………..

……. above is my first effort at a card for my Brother-in-Law’s birthday, which was so absolutely horrendous that it ended up in the bin, what possessed me?  It took another 24 hours before I was in a fit state to try again!

In the end I simply took a page from an Origami paper pad (The Works) and used it to cover the whole front of the card blank, then I added cardboard letters from a self adhesive alphabet set (from B M Bargains, I think) backed on scraps from the same pad, mat and layered on silver mirror card.

Various confetti stars and clusters of three black dots here and there, using a fine liner pen sort of bring the design together.

It is not my finest work (!!!!), don’t think it’s really quite there. Perhaps I should have cut the front off the card completely, trimmed it down a little and then used it to mat onto an darker card blank ?????? But at least it’s a card, it does the job ……. but I really do need to get my act, card wise, together!

30th Easel Birthday Card

Oh my goodness, I am struggling with all my birthday cards for this month, I am soooooooo out of practice,  it’s unbelievable. 

And, this is a huge cheat anyway, because I used a 12cms x 16cms canvas and easel set from The Works, I just couldn’t face making a card ……. perhaps this is the way to go for the time being?

The set, which stands approximately 15cms tall,  was a bargain a while back as it was reduced from £2 to £1, which was a no brainer, I think I bought quite a few at the time.

I simply stuck random letters from various alphabet sets onto the canvas with a few additional confetti stars and clusters of the black dots here and there. I decided to glue the canvas onto the easel, because left resting on the bar the canvas looked a little out of kilter. 

I might go through my other easel sets to get them used up, perhaps a few for Halloween and the rest for Christmas? We shall see.

Time To Be Out And About …… Me Thinks ………

As often happens during the year I'm really struggling at the moment to get any crafting done and in turn, get posts written to go with whatever I do, so for the next little while I think I will only post on a Monday, be it crafts, charity shop finds, objects of desire etc. I'm not ready to hang my Fiddle-Fart boots up yet, but the opportunity to have long weekends away at the moment, after soooooooo long in lockdown, is just a far greater pull.  I'm sure that once summer grows into autumn I'll start to panic about Halloween and Christmas and I'll be champing at the bit again!

So, last weekend the whole family stayed at  the Drayton Manor Park Hotel (Thomasland) and Park for Iris's seventh birthday, where Lu was way more excited than the little ones to have her picture taken, at breakfast, with the Fat Controller, such a lovely face! We also managed to fit in a day exploring the pleasures of Tamworth's finest charity shops, but sadly they yielded absolutely nothing, our money, for once, was safe!

However last Monday Evesham yielded sooooooooooo much, including this little fella found abandoned on the children’s shelf for 50p.  Now my gut feeling is, after some research, that this was probably the real 1960’s Danish deal, backed up by the number of watchers it had and how quickly it sold. If it is, I perhaps should have gone with my instinct and added a little more to the buy now price, however I am more than happy with what I got, considering what I paid.

Four retro kitsch, lustreware elephants - £1.25 the set

I also found a Super Badge-It Maker for £1.50 (no pictures sorry, too boring)  – complete with the badges (often missing), perfect for Iris and Bertie to make little fairing gifts for the end of the school year for their teachers. This badge maker has the facility to make three different badge shapes (I’ve had one before) and once the badges are used up, I will return it from whence it came, but £1.50 was well worth it as the refill badges, if you can find them, cost a fortune!

And my best buy of the week? Only this crocheted blanket for £4!  It’s mahooooooosive. It’s had a good wash with a ton of fabric softener and only one square needs a repair.  The ribbon binding is a little ragged in places, so I think its definitely got some age to it, however, I will leave it exactly as it is as it’s all part of it’s story.  I think this will be my sofa snuggling blanket as the nights draw in, so much more comforting and characterful than my boring old B M Bargains throw.

1988 Precious Moments “Wishing You Roads Of Happiness” - £1

And, as you read this I will be travelling back from a weekend in Portsmouth with Lu, where we will have taken in some much needed sea air, eaten a little candy floss, if we can find some, squandered a bucket full of 2p’s in the arcades and taken in the charity shops of Winchester and Chichester along the way!  Happy days!

My Re-Vamped Pine Shelves – A Sneak Preview, Not Quite Finished.

No, my £30 pine shelf unit is not done yet, the painting bit yes, but I now need to finish it all off with three coats of satin varnish.

It’s been undercoated ………..

……. followed by three coats of a deep turquoise paint, left over from my spare room/craft room a little while ago.

I was able to remove three of the shelves, which made things a lot easier having received the same treatment as above.

The lighter coloured paint for the back panel came from my lovely neighbour Kata, this left over from her main bedroom!  It was a touch too pale, so I mixed in some of my paint with it and it looks pretty OK.

This is how it looks now, the light isn’t the best. The back panel edges have been masked off and it’s just had one coat of the darker paint on the inner sides, with two more coats to go.  Is it going to work?  I’m still not sure, but I think if I can’t get used to it being in the lounge, hiding the side of the fridge freezer, after a few weeks, I think it could possibly fit/go in the hall, which is a bit on the bland side at the moment.

The colours give it a sort of Greek holiday feeling.  I came back from holiday three years ago with this bracelet, saying that I wanted my bedroom colour to reflect our annual Greek odysseys and my favourite colour.

https://www.facebook.com/GreenshopsPlaka

Thank to Covid our Greek holiday has been put back twice now, hopefully we’ll finally make it next year, 2022, when we have booked a return stay in Elounda in Crete. Lu and I have already planned an long evening in Plaka, just up the road, to visit the Green Shop again, which only sells, as you can see, what I would call turquoise.

……… and goodness ………. am I going to spend with very unfettered, gay abandon!

Leopard Print Birthday Card.

This card is A5 in size, using an A4 sheet of black card, scored and folded in half.

It’s Lu’s birthday coming up and she does love a little Bet Lynch leopard skin, so that’s the idea behind this card.

There’s no great shakes to it, just random gold and white letters from the various alphabet sets I have, mat and layered very roughly on black then orange card and arranged on a piece of leopard print card (from an animal print pack from Wilko).

Originally I was simply going to fold the A4 leopard print in half for the card base (as above) but it seemed to be lacking something, so I cut down the print a little and then backed it on orange, before sticking it to the black card blank.  To be honest, it works either way, it’s just me being anal with my mat and layering!

Framed Robot – I Love You To The Moon And Back

Rather than make Iris and Bertie birthday cards, I always try to make something in a frame for them to keep keep rather than a card that is usually thrown away after a while. This is the idea I came up with for Iris’s 7th Birthday ……. I know, where has the time gone?

The robot is made using a very small, wooden block  (The Works – from a mini Jenga type game £3 for about 53 blocks).  The mini reels came from Marc, I believe they originally came from LaBlanche.  I’ve had the mini thermometer for years, bought from a craft company in the U.S.

The moon was from some old jewellery pieces I had, the gold stars from a Poindland nail art set, as is the robots nose.  The robots mouth is a tiny piece of Halloween confetti!

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And finally, I hand wrote the sentiment using a white gel pen on black card which was then layered and matted on gold mirror card.

The sentiment is under the glass, while the other bits are pieces are glued directly onto the front of it.

It all came together without too much fiddle-farting, seeing as I didn’t have a clue what I was going to make that morning.  It’s something a little bit different as Iris is much more into space rather than princesses and flowery stuff, although she loves a bit of glitter!