NZ vintage finds

i thought i would share my vintage finds so far, altho there arnt really many places around queenstown to find many treasures, i have managed to get to a few garage sales. i found this amazing old paint by numbers ship painting in a charity shop in coromandel town ages ago and was going to ship it home, but now im glad i didnt as my room needs some brightening up. and i got the small case at a garage sale, its doing a great job of holding all my bits and bobs

kia ora - hello from new zealand

ok, so its been quite a while since my last update, lots of stuff was all going on at once and my poor wee blog got a bit left behind, but now im back! all the way from New Zealand, im here for a year, going to be snowboarding, road tripping and checking out all things NZ, so as a starter i thought i would post some pics from the cool shops i have encountered so far, lots of vintage retro shops

this is a shop called caravan in napier, napier is the art deco capital of the world apparently, its very cute. read all about caravan

this place was very cool, its called house of aroha they had some very cool artwork and design and print all there own t-shirts in the shop

i found this awesome place on my drive between cheviot and christchurch, when i seen a sign for junk and funk it just had to be checked out, a shed just off the highway full of junk, good times :)

i cant remember the name of this place but it was in Timaru and was crammed with tons of cool vintage goodies, sooo much stuff so little money

well thats a selection of what iv found in NZ so far, im hoping to find some good indie craft places at some point, fingers crossed

made in the shade purchase

i've been meaning to post a pic of my purchase from the last made in the shade craft fair, i got this adorable ice cream van print by Laura Donald. As you may know i love ice cream vans as my dad had one when i was little. It looks great in my gold frame. you can pick up these prints at her etsy shop. i also bought one of her retro recipe cards, so cool

more marche marche pics

as promised here are some more marche marche pics

GIFTED at the national museum of scotland

i was so excited to be asked to participated in the gifted exhibition, after a LOT of brooch and magnet making the time is almost here to go view all my lovely products in place, really looking forward to seeing mine and everyone else's stuff. It runs from nov 13th - jan 10th so plenty time to go check it out. check out the website: gifted

marche marche

after a surprise last minute email asking me to take part i headed along to the marche marche five and dime mart at the bowery, what an amazing day, the atmosphere was amazing, so chilled, sat listening to live music, sipping on a beer and selling my wares, i have to say it was the most fun craft fair i have ever attended, i could do one of them every week given half a chance!

i have a few pics that i am going to upload but for now here are some pics taken by dylan matthews at blue back hot rod, check out his site for more pics of the event







check out the marche marche blog

made in the shade feature

well made in the shade was all fun and games, was great browsing, shopping, chatting to fellow crafters and of course doing some selling. check out lady luck rules ok's blog on the event

made in the shade september craft fair

now that i am back, its back into crafting full speed ahead, next event is made in the shade at the Lighthouse in Glasgow, please come along

summer isn't the same without ice cream

i was one of the luckiest kids of the seventies, my dad owned an ice cream van, it was amazing! we had a whole room dedicated to the storage of sweets in our house, and once a week when my dad headed off to go round the local neighbourhood i would set of after him with 10p in hand, i could of course just have bought my panda pop before he left but apparently i would rather run after the ice cream van and be like all the other kids. it was an exciting time in my life as you can imagine. so in honour of pinkie our ice cream van i have gathered together some stuff that reminds me of those happy happy days


"pinkie" our beloved ice cream van, i really wish my dad still had him, he's so retro!



1. ceramic ice cream cones >>> passionately curious
2. Plastic Ice Cream Bowls >>> hearts and stars
3. Waxed Ice Cream Cups >>> silver crow
4. ice cream coaster >>> robot candy
5. Vintage Ice Cream Scoopers >>> story book charms
6. Ice Cream Lollies tea towel >>> Mr.PS

and as i said..............summer isnt the same without ice cream

5 years of awsomeness

it was me and debbies 5 year anniversary on tuesday, we had an amazing day, starting with debbie making pancakes with syrup, fakon (fake bacon) and whipped cream, yum! she bought me some adorable balloons and i made her some bunting. in the afternoon we headed to the park and had a picnic, it was sooo nice, finished the day of with a movie and some ciders, good times

our breakfast table decoration


our amazing picnic

cheery pie

so with debbie working most nights and our new thrifty, do not throw any food away attitude, i decided to make some cherry pies with all the cherries we bought earlier in the week. iv never made any pies before so it was a bit of a challenge, they turned out pretty good, looked super cute and went really well with ice cream. i've become quite the housewife these days, lol

1st canadian products

so i have been here for about a month and i have finally got round to making some new products and getting them up on my etsy shop, i'v been making some badges from vintage game pieces/tokens and some cards from some cute vintage childrens book images. here's a look at the badges

wake up call

i forgot to post this picture of a vintage alarm clock i picked up at the car boot sale before i left edinburgh, i have been looking for one of these for a while and i got it for £2! bargain. Im missing car boot sales here but have been feeding my bargain hunting addiction with yard sales in vancouver (why cant they all just go to opne spot and have a sale instead of me having to hunt round all the streets for lamp post signs!) i also went to a flea market and picked up a few things that i'm going to make into badges (pics to follow)

vancouver at last

i finally packed all my stuff into my cupboard and made it to vancouver to spend the summer with debbie. My friend steph made me this extremely cute mini bunting to mark my leaving, so cute.

new business cards

remember those cool wooden nickels i posted about, well here is my new business card design, heavily influenced by those cool images. i think they have turned out well and everyone seems to really like them :)

more car booting loot

i found this great old school map of new zealand on sunday, it was priced at £12 which was a tiny bit beyond my budget, even though that was a fair price, so i decided i would have a look round and if i still had money at the end i would see if he would take £10, so end of the car boot comes round, i head back to the stall only to find that he had packed up, so i asked is he still had the map and he did, and it had been reduced to £10 yipee, i snapped it up. so now i can stare at it and plan my year long trip to new zealand, perfect :)

i feel some inspiration coming over me

i love these wooden nickels, they are so cool. I am feeling very inspired by them, stay posted to see what comes of it

and the winner is

ERIN! congrats Erin, i have emailed you :)

winner was chosen at random by my own fair hand

thanks for all your great comments, i wish i could give everyone a prize!

VINTAGE WOODEN JIGSAW BROOCH GIVEAWAY

i am having a giveaway, please leave a comment telling me what vintage wooden jigsaw brooch you would choose from my shop, and why and you could win it. The winner will be chosen on monday 9th march. good luck. the giveaway is open to everyone, i'm not internationalist, yipeeeee

more car boot finds!

so as per usual i headed to the car boot on sunday and found this great typewriter for just £1!! its in great condition, and even had its original instructions in perfect condition! i really love the style and graphics of these, very cool