Back into the Selling Swing of Things
Posted: February 6, 2013 Filed under: Ebay Watch | Tags: auction, Cambridge Audio, Ebay, Metronomy, retro, seagull, Steve Lamacq, vintage 1 Comment »You know, I made a promise to myself when I wrote my last post that I would really try to write a blog once a week. Once a week, I thought to myself, that’s more than do-able. It turns out that’s not really the case when you have a very active baby who rarely naps during the daytime…
However, I have managed (with the help of Aidan and his wonderful photography skills) to get some items listed on eBay. They were bought a few weeks ago: perusing chazzers is something that we can still do with a baby in tow.
Caithness Glass Vase
‘JAJ’ Pyrex Cups
Vintage Glasses
Baret Ware Vintage Biscuit Tin
Serpentine Dish Souvenir
The pictures of the Serpentine dish are my favourite. The seagull reminds me of this video by Metronomy:
Aidan and I celebrated our ten year anniversary last Saturday (ten years!!!) and he got me a digital radio to match our Cambridge Audio stack. Unfortunately, it was too late to listen to the BBC 6 Music Greatest 100 rundown on it, but it’s barely been turned off since. Most afternoons, Corliss and I have a dance around the living room to whatever either Radcliffe and Maconie or Steve Lamacq are playing. Great fun! If we’re not dancing, we’re playing, reading, cuddling or just laughing at each other:
Getting her started on the books already!
She manages about three minutes before she starts to whinge – it’s about the length of one of the stories!
Aidan has been continuing with the West German Pottery selling since early January. In fact, these are what he has ending this evening:
West German Pottery ending tonight!
If you click the pictures, it should take you to the eBay listings for the relevant items.
Tonight, we’re having Rachel round as it’s her birthday today. Happy birthday, Rachel! This is the lady in question:
It’s the lady to the left…
I’ve given up all hope of finishing one of her presents for this evening… and the other one hasn’t arrived yet! So, we’d better hope I can get some tea on the table at least!
Until next week*…
*By week, I mean month and most likely the month after that. Shall we say… May time?
Vintage Halloween Adverts
Posted: October 26, 2012 Filed under: Adverts | Tags: 1950s, advert, Costume, halloween, magazine, Parties, retro, vintage 2 Comments »It’s that time of year again… cold, dark nights; clocks are turned back (this coming Sunday!); blustery days… Halloween and Bonfire Night are just around the corner. This year we’re having a Halloween party and have asked people to dress up. Aidan and I have got some pretty snazzy costumes to wear – although, as I’m typing this, mine isn’t exactly finished… or started… To get some ideas for the food and drinks, I decided to look up vintage Halloween adverts. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I wasn’t disappointed. Here are some of my favourites, gathered together in one place. Thanks to anyone I’ve nabbed them off!
Brach’s Halloween Candies Advert
1950s Pepsi Halloween Advert
Reddiwip 1950s Halloween Advert
Vintage Halloween Sweets Advert
Vintage Griffin Boot Polish Halloween Pinup advert
Vintage Curtiss Sweets Halloween Advert
1950s Milky Way Bar Halloween Advert
Blatz Beer Halloween Advert
Cracker Jack Halloween advert
Vintage Wrigley’s Gum Halloween Advert
Vintage Halloween Chewing Gum advert
I’m not sure I’d want to answer the door to that last kid… My favourite advert out of these is the Pepsi one. Perhaps next year, I’ll be able to copy that costume rather than being restricted to ones of a rotund nature!
Selling Some Stuff
Posted: August 25, 2012 Filed under: Ebay Watch | Tags: Blanket, dress, Ebay, knitting, retro, selling, vintage Leave a comment »Before anyone asks: no, I’ve not lost my mind and yes, I’m feeling fine… I’ve actually listed some things on eBay. There are quite a few banana boxes of stuff lurking around the garage, attic and most likely my rather large built in cupboard; things that have been bought in the past to purposefully sell, or I’ve decided against keeping for myself for whatever reason. Currently, I’m feeling the pinch of a long summer holiday, paying out for baby clothes and bits and bobs for the house so it seemed like a good time to get some eBay listing done.
Who am I kidding?
There’s no way I would have done it if Aidan hadn’t persuaded me to!
You can have a look at my Ebay items here… About half are listed at the moment, the others will be going on this evening.
There’s a huge mixture of stuff. Some of the dresses have come from Germany, found during our West German pottery buying trips. Others are ones I’ve bought for myself and no longer fit me. I wish I could wear the Marks and Spencers tea dress! I don’t think I’d take that off if it fit me. Alas, I’ve got no hope of getting into a size 8; certainly not at the moment, and I don’t think ever!
Other than the eBay listing, this weekend has been spent cooking food for Aidan whilst he paints like a demon and then knitting like my own demon. I’m making a baby blanket using this pattern from the Purl Bee blog. I can’t really knit that well, so I’m using this as a practice project. So far, it’s taught me how to cast on, actually do the basic knit, change colours/threads, fix a ridiculous mistake (using frogging), that stitches have different orientation and how to be very, very patient when you make a mistake then put an entire row of 140 stitches back on the wrong way round. Once the blanket gets a bit further along, I’ll post some pictures up. It’s not really that impressive looking at the moment. Aidan will probably have decorated the house before the blanket is completed; the baby almost certainly will be here first! I just hope the baby isn’t so big that the blanket won’t fit round after all of that effort…
Mid Century Decorating Ideas
Posted: August 22, 2012 Filed under: Decorating, Mid Century | Tags: bedroom, decorating, fabrics, green, Homemaker, mid century, retro, Sanderson, vintage, Wallpaper 7 Comments »As regular lurkers will know, we’re trying to do up our house within a fairly rigid deadline (!). As it stands at the moment, all of the floors upstairs are sanded, varnished and look lovely; although they are covered up with the old carpets to keep them nice. The front two little bedrooms are in the process of being glossed and emulsioned: one room in white (for now), the other in teal to match Sanderson’s ‘Squirrel & Dove’ wallpaper. Aidan has the week off work next week, so we really need to get thinking about colours for other rooms and get wallpaper and paints ordered.
We had the bright idea of putting together a powerpoint of all our ideas for each room: House Ideas. You can have a nosy at it, if you want to. Any feedback or ideas are appreciated!
The 1960s Homemaker magazines that Steve found for us a few months ago have become extremely useful on the ideas front:
This morning I had a look round the ‘Vintage Finds’ shop in Glossop which has some gorgeous fabrics in. The one I really want to use is this:
1950s French Fabric
I’m thinking this would be very striking in the front guest bedroom with quite bright walls in a similar shade to what’s on the fabric. However, the material is currently two very long, quite thin curtains that I’m not sure would fit in our extremely large window. I’ve been looking up how to make different kinds of blinds, so that’s another option of what to do with it. Or turn it into some kind of bedspread.
I liked this as well:
But this one isn’t jumping out at me of what to do with it or where to put it. Other than to make a giant swishy skirt…
I’m hopeful that by the end of next week I should have some photos to share of finished rooms. Not everything will be done, but enough to make us feel that real progress has been made. We finally won a 1950s sofa and armchairs on eBay, so we should be going to pick up those next week. Getting those into the house is going to be a little more tricky given my current state. I’ll blame that and not the fact that I’m generally a weakling!
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The return of the Pecker Peckers…
Posted: July 9, 2012 Filed under: Random Retroness | Tags: Finland, moneybox, retro 1 Comment »
Just that really. I had one Pecker Pecker, now I’ve got two more thanks to the marvellous Mr. Aidan. They’re not really called Pecker Peckers, that’s just my daft name for them. They’re money boxes, and apart from my original one, they’re always branded with a bank’s logo. Underneath they say ‘made in Finland’. The ice hockey player also says ‘TRESMER OY’ while the female has ‘Fauni’ written before the Finland. If anybody can translate or tell me anything about them, I’d be grateful. Until then, it’s goodnight from me and the Pecker Peckers.
Bits and Bobs
Posted: June 12, 2012 Filed under: Random Retroness | Tags: Charity shop, Emmaus, Mossley, retro, vintage, West German Pottery 1 Comment »There are lots of little bits and bobs (hence the title) knocking around the house that I keep meaning to blog about about, but somehow have never got round to. The last month has been a busy one, to say the least, and although the next few months look to be equally as hectic, I want to make sure I don’t let the maintenance of my blog slide. We still manage to fit in accumulating lots of retro and vintage goods around the business though. Just wouldn’t be us if we didn’t!
So… where to start?
Torino Print
We’ve been to Germany twice this year: once in February and last week. On every trip, we manage to find a vintage lady print. Whilst on this trip we just found another version of J.H. Lynch’s ‘Tina’, last time we found the picture by Torina above. We’ve only ever seen ‘Carmen’ the gypsy woman before, so this is a new one. This time in Germany, we did see a radically different Torino print, featuring a 1950s style beauty in a bathing suit. However, there was something about the face that put us both off, despite the apparent boobage action that features in all of Torino’s babes! It was all a bit out of proportion. After debating whether to sell this particular Torina totty, I think we’ve decided to keep it. She suits the front reception room’s current decor, so she’ll at least sit in there until we decorate.
Presents in the past few months have also been fairly retro:
West German Pottery
Basic Conversational German LP
The pots came from Aidan’s brother, and the Conversational German LP from his dad. Aidan got me this as a random present:
Vintage Liberty Scarf
It’s a beautiful, vintage Liberty scarf and he said it was ‘just because’. You can’t really get much better than that as a reason. I’m not sure what era it’s from; at a guess I would say 1980s. So far, I’ve been too timid to wear as it is so, so delicate. I could also do with some suggestions of how to wear it other than just draped around my neck in what I hope is a slightly artful manner.
Wooden floors
The floors upstairs are nearly finished, thanks to a superhuman effort by Aidan and his dad. I think these will be done this week, maybe even this evening if I know Aidan like I think I do… Once these are done, then we’re going to put the old carpets back down to protect them while we remove and replace the wallpaper upstairs. Downstairs is another matter. I’m not sure what or when we’re going to get started on doing down here. Upstairs is a big enough task for now and we’ve got a nine month deadline in place… well, five months left now.
Mushroom Lamp
We bought this mushroom night light from the Emmaus charity shop in Mossley a while ago, but I forgot to photograph when I wrote about a few other things we’d had from there. It needs reconverting back into a light, as someone has removed the fittings from inside it. It was going to be sold, but now we think we’ll keep it for the baby’s room.
The latest car load from Germany is being slowly decanted from the van-car to the garage by Aidan, but straight into boxes as we’ve got space restrictions in place. There are a few things that have made it into the house already, including two rather large chairs we brought back, so I’ll get photographing those at some point this week.
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Potty Parents
Posted: May 9, 2012 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: ceramics, fat lava, retro, Roth, Ruscha, Scheurich, vintage, West German Pottery 2 Comments »The latest batch of Ebay sales came from my parents. Last year, my dad and sister did their own mini German road trip and came back with a few West German Pots of their own. I bought a couple from them, including a gorgeous Italian dish and an amazing Schaffenacker piece. This week, Aidan was selling some of their other pieces:
The sales have already ended now, but it’s always worth a look anyway. If you want to see what else Aidan has for sale – ending next week – just click here. If you happen to spot one of your new purchases in the pictures above, say hello! Always lovely to find out where the pots have gone to.
Apologies for the lack of blogging recently – far too much to do with the house and work. Hopefully, the end (as far as work is concerned) is in sight. I cannot wait for that final GCSE exam to be done! As much as I’ll miss my two year Eleven classes, I’ll definitely enjoy the extra free periods I get in return. More blogging will ensue at that point, I promise.
Belated Christmas Present Roundup
Posted: January 8, 2012 Filed under: Random Retroness | Tags: Barnsley, books, Emma Dolan, English, gonk, harris tweed, italian pottery, New Year, presents, retro, Ridgway, ridout, Stafford, vintage Leave a comment »It’s safe to say this has been on the busiest Christms and New Year holidays ever – or at least it seems like that! We spent much of our time trekking between various family members, located around the country in Stafford, Barnsley and Sedgfield. Much fun was had by all! The quota and quality of vintage presents was no less than usual:
Thank you to everyone in our family who gave us something for Christmas presents. I always love giving presents, and it’s just lovely to receive so many ones that are personal to us.
An Early Christmas
Posted: December 23, 2011 Filed under: Random Retroness | Tags: christmas, Christmas tree, Decorations and Props, Glossop, holiday, Manchester, owl, pottery, retro, vintage 2 Comments »Each year we have a (fairly) strict timetable of who, where and when to visit over the Christmas period. We go to my parents the weekend before Christmas, spend the day itself in Glossop by ourselves, some friends come over on Boxing Day; after that, it’s a slow, day-to-day movement over to Barnsley then up north to Sedgfield. Although it can be fairly tiring, it does mean that Christmas feels like it’s stretched out.
This year, I had to go to my parents on my own, as Aidan was in Australia with work. I would call him a lucky so-and-so but not after seeing the state he’s been in since he got back! Anyway, this meant that I couldn’t physically carry all of my presents from my parents back home. So I brought just one:
Retro Owl Ornament
Not only is this the cutest piece of owl paraphenalia that I’ve seen in a long time, it has another feature that just adds to the kitschy cuteness:
Detachable baby owl!
It’s a detachable, pottery, baby owl! So, not only is this a decorative item but, if you are that kind of person, you can take out the tiny baby owl and hold it for a bit. Or hide it in unexpected places. Not that I would do any of those things of course…
Our house is fairly Christmassed up this year. We do have a stack of stuff that we roll out each year. My mum has been watching Kirsty’s Homemade Britain and made us one of these to add to the decorations:
Hanging hearts decoration
My picture doesn’t really do it justice, but it does look lovely hanging in the window. Aidan has also made us a wreath for the door, I’ve made a strange Christmas tree shape from a magazine like this, and I’ve half made some bird baubles like this. However, I’ve forgotten to take pictures of those. I do have a picture of the tree though:
Christmas tree!
We did our usual trick of getting it cheap from the German market in Manchester and just hoping for the best. Last year, we had a double-trunker (or a Siamese Tree); this year it’s just a very, very odd, tall, sparse, thick-then-thin shape. We’ve still bunged on all of the baubles though. Hang on, when I say we, what I actually mean is Aidan. I was out on work Christmas do. Less said the better…
We’ve also put the West German pottery to good use:
West German Pottery decorations
The stars came from a window display when I worked at Monsoon in Manchester (boo, hiss!); they were being thrown away so I ‘rescued’ them. You can see a few of our cards here too. We’ve had so many this year! Mainly because I now have a Year Seven form so received lots of misspelled cards from them. The best one was from a little lad who had stuck one of his old primary school photos on the inside of it (“I had to cut D— and L—- out so it would fit just me!”).
More West German Pottery displays
Last but definitely not least on the handmade front… Aidan made me an advent calendar for the second year running. Once again it featured one of the fantastic Christmas images from the Galaxy magazines:
Handmade Advent Calendar
Today, I’ve got plans to: wrap Aidan’s presents, make his card, plan the veggie Christmas dinner, make a friendship bracelet as a present for someone, go to the gym, meet one friend for coffee, meet another for a hot toddy, meet Aidan for a pint once he’s finished work… It’s not all going to happen is it?
Little Owl Ski @ Obsessionistas
Posted: December 16, 2011 Filed under: Random Retroness, Vintage Magazines | Tags: 50s, collection, obsessionistas, retro, vintage, vintage magazines, Woman's Own 1 Comment »A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be asked by the lovely people at Obsessionistas if they could feature my collection of vintage women’s magazines on their site. The full interview and gallery can be seen at their website here.
Obsessionistas is a beautiful website run by Helen and Graham Powell. They feature quirky and interesting collections by people from all different walks of life. Some of my favourite collections they have featured in the past include air stewardess uniforms, harmonicas, West German pottery, brooches and post-modern design.
Once again, huge thanks from me to Helen and Graham for asking me to be a part of it; I feel very privileged. Here are some of the covers from my collection they featured:
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I Used To Know What I Wanted To Say…