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Monday, 8 September 2014

Summer chazzing and freebies...

Sorry for another long absence. I dropped and killed the camera and I can't function without it. My dear husband bought a new one which I'm forbidden from dropping. I'll do my best.

I promised you some of my secondhand finds from the summer so here we go.

Whilst we were in York at the beginning of the summer hols we passed a shop that was being stripped out. The builders had put a pile of junk on the footpath with a sign saying, 'Please take.'  It was a used and grubby washing up bowl and some mismatched mugs. Nothing worth having at all.

But then I spotted these...


They were the letters for the shop sign. I took C for Connie and E for Emma. I wish I'd taken the lot. Wouldn't it be just lovely having 'Cheque Cashers' on your wall? Haha. Perhaps I could have made an anagram out of that.
Anyway they're made from aluminium and have deadly sharp edges so we'll have to decoupage them or something. Anyone got any better ideas? They're hollow on the back.

The best chazzing destination all summer was Topsham in Devon. They have two Devon Air Ambulance shops and one is devoted to vintage. I found the prices very reasonable. Want to see what I found?

First of all this gold lurex 'English Lady' dress. It's a perfect fit and the third English Lady item of clothing I own. I'm a size 14 in this brand in vintage sizes but a modern day size 12.


I'm going to make it above knee length...


I'm not normally a gold lurex kinda gal but I tried it on and it was sooo flattering.

Here's my other English Lady dress. I've had it about 10 years and it's my favourite dress. Again,  it fits perfectly and is really flattering.


This perfect fit is why my heart skips a beat when I find this label in a 14...


I also picked up this frantic 60's maxi dress in the same shop...


The label in this one is 'Leygil' of London. It has a wildly voluminous skirt and I plan to chop it off above the knee and take it in so it's a lot more slinky. 


It gives me an actual bust! 

 So my almost empty sewing basket overfloweth once more...

 One more from Devon...


It has a button up belt at the back I need to adjust. 


I love this print!

And one more handmade vintage dress I found at the local car boot sale...

Again, it's too wide so needs some tweakage.

I also found china...


a little french gravy separator.

Would you believe I found the missing numbers for my Church hymn board? And they fit! 


 Yay! I plan on using this in the kitchen to hang things on.

               Over a hundred pounds worth of new pure cotton bedding for £20 at the boot sale?


                  Yes please, thank you very much. It's been years since I got new bedding!


                                               An R Whites crate for a fiver? That'll do nicely.

                                                         And last of all, my new love...

This was my birthday pressie. He's called bespectacled bloke and hangs on the living room wall. A boot sale buy found by me to give to my husband so he could give it to me. He's got it pretty easy hasn't he?

So, didn't she do well? 

Next time I'll be getting down and dirty, attempting to sort out our ugly kitchen window by fitting a proper sill and framing it out. Or perhaps not. I've never done it before. But I did watch someone do it once so I'm sure I'll be fine.


The timber comes tomorrow and I'm very excited. It's been a long wait to get stuck into some DIY again.

Wish me luck!

Oh one last thing before I go, if you have £50,000 to £500,000 to spend on an extension and want to be on telly, take a look at this...



Not for me sadly. I'll just plod on with my brand new kitchen for £300.



11 comments:

  1. I love your dresses - Dawn O'Porter would be proud!! Good luck with your kitchen x

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  2. Wow, the girl did good, your dresses are fab. I never do that well with dresses as I'm not in proportion and very rarely fill the bust adequately. Love your Hymn Board, saw one at an antiques fair this week but he wanted £20 and it looked like someone had knocked it up from a piece of old decking...yours is a beauty.

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  3. Your new vintage wardrobe is fabulous and the fact that you can alter the dresses yourself will save you a lot of cash! I made our oldest daughter a hymn board, but yours is the real thing, so that makes it really special. Best of luck on your kitchen window project!

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  4. Your dresses are all gorgeous and I'm dying to see you in them. Love the bespectacled bloke and the R Whites crate, too.
    A renovation budget of £50,000 to £500,000? Different world, innit? xxx

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  5. I bloody wish I had £50,000-£500,000 to renovate my horrid house! If only...
    But on to your finds - as you might expect I love love love the colourful frockage. I've got a couple of English Lady dresses too (but I'm a vintage 16!) and they are very well made. The Leygil print is fab. Isn't it great to find some cool vintage stuff at reasonable prices? Well done to the Devon Air Ambulance shops for getting it right!
    How cool to find the hymnal numbers, the R Whites crate is fab, and I like the painting of the dapper man very much.
    Now - on with both some sewing, and some DIY! xxx

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  6. Gorgeous crate, dresses, and letters! How lucky to find the perfect numbers for your hymn board too :) Can you hang the letters up high on a wall somewhere, so you can still admire them but there's no chance of them being grabbed by little hands? xxx

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  7. Really like the dresses, particularly the 60s maxi dress! and "bespectacled bloke" cuts a fine figure in his bow-tie, I love me a good old-fashioned painting. £50,000 - £500,000, eh? I'm about £49,999 short but will pull the sofa cushions off and see what I can rummage up :)

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  8. Topsham is one of my all time favourite places for lots of reasons including the vintage shop, I spend HOURS in there but so far I haven't come away with anything as gorgeous as your dresses!

    Bespectacled bloke is just sublime, I'd hang him on my wall any time!

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  9. Em....I don't know where to start...your haul is GORGE....I have chaz envy...bedding,crates,painting,60's dresses....I'm writing this in bed with a cup of coffee but I'm going to get my butt into gear and go over to the chazzer shop xxxxx

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  10. Amazing buys! WTH is that program all about. You pay for extension and then you can film it!

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