To Market, To Market to buy a Fat Pig....

...home again, home again jiggidy jig! You know the story, but no fat pig this time, just made a nice contribution to the saving account...(and took home a few little treasures)!

This weekend was jam-packed! Saturday was filled with errands, and "have-to's"

We had a list and mentally ticked them off...

Mr in Wonderland's blood test to see why he's in La La Land instead of Wonderland :), Drop off our borrowings from Australia Day, Fill clients orders and drop off, wash car, take bike for service to be sold, clean house...the last one we forfeited to go out to lunch instead, well one must reward a job well done!! In the evening we had such a yummy dinner at Mr in Wonderland's Godparents' house, which is always a bit special! The night began with an unexpected swim when one of the (very large) potplants lining the pool decided to go for a dip itself after a strong breeze!

  

  

  

Sunday was the Retro Market held at Sugar Blue Burlesque  

This is my "sad face" saying goodbye to my treasures...if your a collector you'll feel my pain and not think I'm a nutter :) All these things have stories and were wonderful finds, were the "perfect" find for a particular spot in the house, or something I'd wanted for AGES! But tastes change and our living area got smaller...plus we're saving for our Vintage Garden Party Wedding so all these lovely assets are to be sold off to other admirers...

  

  

1950's and 60's bits and bobs off to market

  

Charlie helping by getting underfoot...

 l

The little stall full of goodies

 

Eating a stash of yummies that Mr in Wonderland brought in for us...

  

Sugar Blue Burlesque Retro Market

The Burlesque Lounge
267 William St, Northbridge 

Shoppers: $3

Stalls: from $30

held once a month see website:

http://www.sugarblueburlesque.com/retromarket.htm

• 1920s to 1980s vintage and recycled clothing, shoes and accessories
• Antiques
• Retro & novelty costumes
• Pinup lingerie
• Frocks and gowns
• Pasties, fascinators and burlesque merchandise
• Sewing and crafting supplies, fabric and feathers
• Swing and rock 'n roll dance gear for men and women
• Dance shoes
• Refreshments, retro cupcakes and more!

  

  

 

Australia Day

Australia Day was a hoot!

This was our little set up, a big umbrella to shade us from the sun, then later from the wind, we marked out our spot with little Aussie flags.

Very Patriotic...Red, white and Blue!!

 

All dressed so summery, in fact all quite vintage-esque...the gals in frocks, AND the guys donned Chesty Bonds and Gingham! We'll forget that back then Bonds T's were probably only undies because they are as casual vintage-esque as the Mr will go :)

We fanned, relaxed, chatted, listened to swing, pity the batteries began to die in our radio because we had planned to have a dance or two when the sun went down.

 Ate SUCH yummy food, on fun 50's plates!

Marinated Mount Barker Free Range chicken drumsticks, pasta salad with plentiful garlic, basil (off my bush at home) and truffle oil from Manjimup WA, and a Mediterranean salad with feta from Margaret River WA. Very patriotic home grown food!

 

Miss Sarj made the most amazing Raspberry Pie with cream, fabulous Red Velvet Lamingtons (you MUST see inside these babies) and Anzac bikkies, OMG Soooooo Yummy!

Look at that vivid red lamington!

 

 

All of our fabulous sewing, making Kanzashi flowers, we lay out pieces of fabric all over the grass at Heathcote to starch them, people must have thought we were mad!

Just like I said it would be, sewing and a glass of red!

 

Folding Funky Fabics

 

• Ferals (the rat bags behind us) :)
• Flags
• Flip flops (for the sake of alliteration, "thongs" otherwise)
• and Flowers
  

Laughing

 

Candy necklaces, sunburn and silliness!

 

Was such a lovely day, great food, great wine, great music, great friends!

 

all ending in FIREWORKS!! Oh and more PIE!

 

Check out more at Sar's Blog, Her Travel Romance!

Tsumami Kanzashi Flowers

                                   
Now whilst on the very complex search for the right scanning, photocopying, printing, SD plugging-iny downloading things (of which I later found was called a "multi-function printer") I stumbled apon the greatest gadget of them all...

This fabulous little thing is a memory card reader. The wonderful part about it is, the SD card goes straight out of your camera, into the little slot and then plugs right into the USB port completely ruling out the need for me to buy a $200 multi-thingy-me-bob. Apon my smug return to the store I shall be choosing the $50 scanner/printer as this $10 gadget is working a TREAT!

So NOW I can show you the kanzashi flower class...

You start off with little squares of fabric which are starched to stiffen them...then you fold them all up...there is different folds for different flowers. I'll do a tutorial if you'd like! Then pin them all up.

You can have as many petals as you like. You then cut them across where you have pinned them.

Then thread a needle and thread through the bottom middle of each petal, then pull them all together, tie it up and.....

DONE!

Then you just decorate them with buttons or what-not! I've got mixtures of vintage and modern buttons. You can put them on gifts, hair accessories, brooches, they are very quick to make once you get into the swing of things.

Now these are made out of old scrap material so the folds aren't as precise and are a bit "chunky".

Kanzashi Elsewhere...

Smitten Kitten makes amazing looking flowers out of vintage silk scarves...

So come Australia day, we shall be sitting in girly frocks with big sun hats, bare feet in the grass, fabrics sprawled across the 50's wool blanket (which will double as warmth for watching fireworks!) sipping wine and making pretty blooms for summer hats to winter coats. Lovely!

Current LOVES: fresh pumpkin bread, flicking admiringly through old Cath Kidston catalogues, self taught guitar lessons via Google searching!

Current reading: The 4-hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

Sleeps and da Hunts for da Pretties

WHAT I DID TODAY

Mostly...Slept ALOT
I was feeling very sick yesterday afternoon and thinking that a good sleep fixes all, I went to bed with the notion that I would awake feeling on top of the world. Only I opened my eyes to feel like the aftermath of a frontal labotamy! So I have spent the day forcefully sleeping, meaning...body giving me no choice in the matter, I could have slept standing up! :)

Updated my photo downloading, well then got in a bit of a pickle...
Seeing as Mr in Wonderland's computer is doing strange nerdy fixing thingys that I don't what to do with, I am unable to upload the photos from my kanzashi flower class. Now because of this I have now promised myself that this weekend I am to go and buy one of those scanning, photocopying, printing, SD plugging-iny downloading things, you know the ones :)

By the way, the class was a hoot, three hours learning the folding of fabric, how to cut them and sew them together into fabulous little flowers. I made many new friends, all 10/12 years old, we discussed Gossip Girl and fashion, we talked about school, ate chips and made flowers...I had heaps of fun.

Did some research for our latest adventure...
Now our current activity in the works is our Australia Day Picnic of which I have our 50's style picnic set, Sarah is to make Aussie sweets and I, savouries! We will be lapping up the sunshine with board games, sewing, crafting, reading books, dozing and of course wining and dining....ahh doesn't it sound lovely!
So of course my head is spinning with ideas...

Some catching up in the Blogosphere...

Now another thing that has me all inspired is Sarj's Garden Party over at Her Travel Romance  so whilst searching for how to make paper flowers, I've found these...

Now these I've seen all over the place, especially on the wedding websites, but I just think they'd look darling gently blowing in the breeze around a big white gazebo or from a lush over-hanging tree...plus look how easy these are to make.

Oh yeah, you must see this, I love little tricks...this rose you make with the sticker and the wrapper of a Farrerro Rocher, cute!

I found a new little blog called kootut murut with the cutest 50's house renovation and stories of her dogs destroying bits as they go... here's a sneek peek...

Some of it isn't in English, but the pictures are beautiful and speak for themselves.

It has me all inspired to get back into getting this place all organised and pretty, it kind of stayed in a state of disarray after "the great flood of 2009" :)

I hate being sick, it is SO inconvenient, I want to do so many lovely things...sleeping all day I do not prize as one of them. Although is kind of lovely to sleep on the sofa with the breeze off the lake coming through the balcony window, with a big ginger kitty snoozing at your feet...

Crafts shall Commence

I intend on being very crafty again now that our house is all clean and some-what spacious...firstly tomorrow I am learning to make kanzashi flowers in a class at Red Feathers and a Hula Skirt...which is going to be soooo much fun!
 I've also been on the lookout for some groovy t-shirt options and found this...

from a gorgeous blog called Thornberry she makes the cutest things for her little ones, very inspirational for grown ups (big kids) too! Today I saw a shirt in Ever Forever, with "yo-yo's" down the front in a cream colour with three little pearl beads in the centre, this is soo much cuter, I love the lace, what a cute little touch! Shall get onto doing this...as I have my sister's fabulous "yo-yo maker" and am yet to use it!

On that note, whilst I was shopping on my lunch break, that shirt formentioned was the ONLY thing that I even contemplated buying! Now excuse my rant but WHAT IS UP WITH THE 80'S STUFF!!
I went into shop after shop thinking, wow they're really doing the 80's pitch to all these 90's babies...but it was across the board....even CUE had a wet-look brocade blazer with massive shoulder pads and a corset in shiny gold. THAT'S IT... I threw up in my mouth a little bit as I was surrounded by studded vinyl jackets, stonewash...wait for it...leggings, ruching and mannequins with low side ponytails!

AAAAAHHHHHHH! I even b%$#^ slapped myself to see if I was in a terrible, terrible nightmare! I don't know if it is because I grew up this stirrup pants, leg warmers, bodysuit wearing era, but oh the horror! So as you can guess....NOT A FAN!
So if you LOVE the 80's...just do me a favour, go to the op-shop and adopt a historical piece of the 80's (believe me there are HEAPS of skirts, dresses, jackets that I come across) do not buy a knock off cotton dress for $99.95. Stay true to your era and get a whole wardrobe for $99.95!

On an entirely different note...I have totally been loving this gal for ages. She shares my love of "food clothing" (I especially LOVE jewellery shaped like cakes!)


Her interest in "faux food" stemmed from saving up pocket money to buy "plastic food"...you know the sort with the plastic egg, steak, bread rolls. Now this may also be where my obsession began...all that time standing in the tea-set eisle at World for Kids, staring admiringly at the 100 piece set of plastic food, counting my $20 out in 50c peices and spending half an hour deciding which set to get..."well this one has the floppy lettuce...which would be great for my burger set and for sandwiches....ooh but this one has a cone with detachable ice-cream" aaah the delemas!

 

 

Firstly...isn't she just TOTALLY cute!

Secondly, Must....own...candy....hearts...scarf!!

She has her own shop on eBay and you can check out her website here. Which is also the coolest thing since smiley sliced bread!

Hopefully I can get photos of my kanzashi flower makig tomorrow, stay tuned! x