The Brocante Home Chronicles.

Antiques Week.

Now maybe it's the really rather warped way that  I see things, but it seems to me that in the U.K  all that  is old , antique or , tsk, that nonsensical word- vintage,  is a very serious  matter  indeed, populated by people  in tweedy coats, frowns, those funny little eyeglasses and the occasional silly moustache.

Think The (dreadful) Antiques Road show and what you come up with is Middle Class England at it's most suffocating, family heirlooms, dust and hacking jackets abound (Though Cabbage and Roses did do those so very, very well...), fuzzy little ladies polish their crystal to a mirror like sparkle and keel over in a dead faint should you dare to touch it and men who look like they've been dug up preside over albums full of very dull stamps.

And that my dears is what the average Antiques Fair in Great Britain is like. To be taken with a dose of some very serious, preferably inherited salt, and a home counties accent.

Not so America. Just look at those lovely Gypsies. And Magnolia Pearl. And very probably the lovly Chris from Urban Prairie.  All gearing up for a party of a week  in Texas in celebration of all that is junky, and scrumptious and glittering and bashed to smithereens but lovely all the same...   

Bringing the same spirit and  glorious good taste to the serious business of  buying and selling- and when it's over throwing a junkily delicious prom to end all proms and celebrating in style...

Just one more reason why I should have been American.

Y'all have a good time now...

Feather your Nest.

Isn't it just so true that the grass is always greener on the other side of the Atlantic?

While last week you were all wishing you could come drink coffee with me at the scrumptious Cedar farm,  this week I find myself aching to discover little treasures like  "Feather Your Nest" in my neighbourhood...

If only because I am in love with this...

So please may I have a one way ticket to Pine Mountain Village, Arkansas?

A Plie With Aplomb.

When I was about twelve years old, I got it into  my head that I wanted to be a  dancer, so I jumped around the house in  a  shiny turqouise   catsuit and legwarmers, imagining I was the last word in all that is dramatic and graceful.

Well dramatic I may have been, but graceful I certainly wasn't. Clunky in tap shoes and disastrous in jazz.
But bless my little ballet slippers, I perservered . Until one day aged fifteen   and three quarters it finally struck me that my thighs were a severe disadvantage when it came performing a plie with aplomb.

So along with my dreams of being an air hostess I gave up dancing as a bad job.

But the dancer in me won't keep still.  You'll find me spinning about with the hoover. Stretching a chubby leg onto the dining room table and bending over in a Swan Lake sorrow  way when nobody is looking. Standing on my tippy toes, while I cradle my hands over my head and try not to keel over. Dreaming about wearing a tutu....

Margot Fontyn reincarnated in a pinny.

It's sad these dreams we let slip away. Alas I did not have the  discipline, but if only I had the wall to put them, I could have a  scrumptiously dreamy reminder of the girl I used to be, in the form of these  gorgeous vintage  pictures...

Alas, alas, alas...

Serves Me Right.

This, Dear Housekeepers, is what you get when you abandon a  casserole eating child, to go upstairs to check the computer you are  supposed  to be having a day off  from.

Consider it a warning and just be glad you didn't have to clean it up.

Re-Found.

One of my favoritist  (yes  I made that word up) stores on the web is the wonderful Re-Found , not least because of the  inspirational way that they are taking old things and re-inventing them in their own, pared down aesthetic vision.

There are no frills here: instead they bring to those of us who love vintage, a way of seeing the quality, in both material and line, of the  objects of yesteryear and as is  the case in the cushions above, take care to harness the skills  that made those things we obsessively treasure hunt, so compelling...

After admiring the embroidery on the old linens we all hoard, Re-Found set out to find those in the older generation who still possessed the skill to recreate it in the millenium, and what they offer as a result of such scrumptious collaboration is a set of pretty pillows, with the handmade element we all covet alongside a familiar and comforting nod to nostalgia. 

Go visit and admire.

Builder's Biscuits.

Well I've got to tell you that  at first I wasn't happy. Biscuits shaped like little hammers? I don't think so. Obviously made for chubby bricklayers with dirty white vests and a penchant for the orangest, strongest brew they can make with six teabags and ten sugars. Biscuits in a shape they understand.

But readers I was wrong. This is biscuit engineering at it's cleverest.  Dunk the left hand side of the hammer and eat. Dunk the right  side and so  on and so forth.  This like the the tea it is made to accompany, is a testimony to the sheer sense of the good Yorkshire people.
A biscuit that doesn't fall apart! In a shape you can dunk! With the slightest hint of spicy something and a gentle hint of Yorkshire tea...

I'm quite delirious with excitement. I do so like a good biscuit. As I think my hips will testify.

My morning elevenses are an orange coloured dream. And should word get out every builder in the district will be beating a path to my door.  Which is wonderful because I do so like a nice builder.

As the trollop in me will testify. 

The Prettiest Fridge In the World.

Today while you are waiting for that casserole to 
bubble, you could  if you were so inclined take
 the time to  make somewhere  mundane, 
kind of pretty.

How's about the fridge?

* Take out everything in the fridge and put it on the
 counter. Throw out  anything past its sell by date or 
more than a month old
 (including mustards,  marmalades etc...)

* Wipe down the insides of the fridge with a mix of 
vinegar and tea-tree oil.

 * Measure the bases of your salad drawers and using a
 pair of pinking shears, cut out flowery/spotty oilcloth 
liners, so you can clean the base  of your drawers 
quickly and easily, and they will always look pretty...

 * Choose a tiny, pretty little dish, fill it with baking 
powder and put  it at the back of your fridge to 
absorb bad smells.

* Choose a scrumptious tray (I'm saving a gorgeous 
vintage glass one with a lace insert),  or  depending on 
the size of your fridge, a couple of trays and use it in the 
fridge to easily pull jam, marmalades, chutneys
 and other condiments, in and out...

 * Transfer blocks of butter on to butter dishes. 
(pretty, not remotely  precious pressed glass for me!).

 * Pour cordials into glass bottles, display eggs (if you 
prefer  to keep them in the  fridge), grapes, strawberries
 and tomatoes etc in bowls, and put cheeses and 
cold meat  etc into their own lidded clear 
containers: all the better to check stocks of...

 * Remove as much store bought packaging as possible:
 choose waxed paper  over clingfilm wherever possible
 and tie up with kitchen string.

 * Store brocolli in a wide glass filled with water, like
 a pretty green  bouquet- as it will last longer this way..

* Store carrots standing up in a similar glass.

* Store like with like according to food safety rules.

* Remove all fish and meat from store wrappings, 
wipe and   wrap in greaseproof paper and store in 
ziplock bags or sealed containers.

* Choose a container or tin you adore, fill it with 
chocolately treats and hide it at the back, for
 cold comfort...

* Add a glass bowl for your cosmetics

 * Then pop the odd crocheted doillie atop a jar 
or two, pop a single flower bud in a tiny 
jam jar, and  close the door...

 * Glue magnets onto the back of vintage paste 
brooches  and  use to hold your 
"HouseKeepers Creed" 
in place...

 * Then get thee to a food emporium and buy a few
 extra special treats in pretty packaging: divine
 fresh coffee  in brown paper bags, olives, sun dried
 tomatoes  in oil, retro style tinned fish, or 
tiny little petit fours...

 Then cook something delicious for dinner, go
 to bed, then sneak downstairs in the middle of 
the night to eat  the leftovers straight out of 
the fridge, Nigella Lawson style... 

Brocante Bookmarks.

• The Year of Spending Stingily.
• Send in the Housewives Clones.
  Suburban Shoot Out!!

You Can See Yesterday From Here.

Oh if ever there was a lady having fun with vintage, then Jennifer Paganelli is she. The creator of the deliciously exuberant Sis Boom, Jennifer describes her company as  a "baublelicious collection of home and personal accessories" and  quite frankly doesn't come close to describing the sheer   scrumptiousness of her wares...

For me part of SisBooms charm is the care note above the collection that reads:-

"Parts of these products are made from old vintage findings passed down through many hands. Enjoy them and be kind to them. Be part of their heritage.Worn from use, the imperfections are signs of their inherent legacy."       

Mostly because  I do so like an object to have soul, to have a little story, real or imagined in it's make up. And Jennifer seems like the kind of lady who could weave a mighty fine tale into every thing she touches...

Gorgeous, frivoulous fun. Even a swoosh around the website makes me feel happy.

The Fearful Land of Forgets.

"Peggy was a good little girl on the whole,

Quite good in a number of ways.

But to tell of the lot that Peggy forgot

Would take me several days."

These gorgeous little illustrations are from a book I picked up at a market last week for not a lot and turn out to be done by one of Irelands most famous childrens illustrators,  S.R.Praeger- author of another book in the same vein, from 1913, described as "arguably one of the rarest childrens books around" ...

Scrumptious treasure!