Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween has got to be my favourite holiday - yes probably even more so than christmas (but only just!) I guess it must be the dressing up and I've always be partial to Poe!
Every year I say I'll deck the house out, but I never get around to it. I have the perfect idea in my head and somehow I guess reality might not live up to it!! Its an antique skulls, cobweb candelabras and perched ravens kinda look, without an orange pumpkin in sight!!!


image - brooklyn limestone


Oh well, maybe next year....

My second dilemma was what to wear to the Shoscombe Spook, refusing to buy an off the peg costume I planned to wear my new autumn dress, burnt orange and polka dots (halloweeny yes?) but I found out we were supposed to wear costumes for the kids party aswell so I wore that friday!
If in doubt go with something familiar, so I pulled out my wedding dress from the wardrobe, my trusty beaded chocker and bought a new long black wig (£2.50 at Sainsbury - bargain!) some facepaint and makeup later....ta da...

Corpse Bride!!!!

What did you all wear?

Autumn Dress & Pretty Petticoats!!

I LOVE the look of big frilly 50s petticoats but being a 40s girl I've stayed away until now!
Solanah of Vixen Vintage did a very tempting post on petticoats recently and they've been bobbing about in my mind since!

Of course I convinced myself I could sew one!! Little miss requested one too, for her halloween party. I found some tutorials and sat down with my sewing machine. An hour and a half of cutting and sewing later she had a passable petticoat but it had driven me mad and there was no way I wanted to attempt one for myself!!
Having bought one on ebay before I wasn't keen to go down that route (cheap but scratchy and mis shapen) and alot of the online shops only do them for slim hips, I put the petticoat idea away for now!

The universe has a strange way of working though and after the vintage bazaar on Saturday I wandered into Poot and they had one hanging from the rafters!!!! I fit like a dream, and although not my first choice of colour , I LOVED it!!!! What do you think?

Sorry for the blurryness, little miss took the pics!

Swindon & Cricklade Wartime Weekend

Mentioning George and Gracies Pilot in the last post, I searched through the blog to link it in, and realise - I hadn't blogged about the event we saw it at!!! So here is a very belated post about the Swindon and Cricklade War Weekend... a brilliant blend of railways, ww2 re enactments and vintage shopping!!

The weather wasn't looking promising so I ditched the dresses are tried to rock a landgirl style outfit! Not a bad decisions as there were loads of landgirl displays there.

Not sure whose those were but the amazing homefront displays in the gazebos were put on by the marvellous Blitz Buddies. They were a great bunch of people, very frindly and eager to answer any questions I had!




Their display also include period cars, we instantly fell inlove with the v8 pilot!!



One of their members was the fab Mrs She, who was offering Vintage Hairdos for £5 so, as I am had been struggling all week to recreate anything vaugely vintage, I treated myself to some victory rolls!!



Hard to photgraph dark hair but here's a closeup....





We also treated ourselves to a 1940s lunch in one of the carriages!

Potato & Leek Soup or Spam fritters to start with Rabbit Pie or Corned Beef Hash mains, Apple Tart Dessert and of course to finish a nice cuppa!

I really loved these cups!!





Shopping was fab too, I snagged a lovely brown hat and hubby bought this stunning coat

I really liked this tank top...... but as the price had fallen of, the chap wouldnt sell it *grr*



So all in all, a great little event, very relaxed and lots of fun!!!

Very Vintage Weekend Part 2 - Wiltshire Tea Party

Yesterday, we travelled to Malmesbury and spent the afternoon sipping earl grey and enjoying a delightful afternoon of vintage entertainment and shopping!!!!

As predicted the weather had turned chilly, so it was a great excuse to wear my fabulous winter coat!
I also um'd and ah'd over wearing my snood today, but finally decided on my hat with a nice little hair roll at the front!



The Tea Party organised by Lavinia was great, we had early grey and lemon drizzle cake all served on vintage china.




The crowd that turned up was amazing, lots of lovely fashion to gaze at and many interesting characters. We had a most enjoyable game of dominos with Pike (one of the Blitz Brothers ) and chatted with facebook friends!




Entertainment was top notch with a retro DJ , a rockabilly singer, burlesque performance and dancing displays!



I didn't find too much today to buy, a vintage game of lotto and a book on retro hairstyling. I did spot these outside in a charity shop window, but it was closed!


I also found this in the carpark.... and after George and Gracie's V8 Pilot, this is my very next favourite vintage vehicle fantasy buy!




Hubby on the other hand splashed his cash very nicely....

A genuine WW2 USAAF uniform!! :)
(be still my heart!)

Livinia was talking about more tea parties in the near future, so keep your ears open, and come along for some vintage fun!!

A Very Vintage Weekend Part 1 - Rook Lane Retro

Today we went to Rook Lane Retro, a twice yearly retro fair held in Frome. With free entry to anyone in retro / vintage outfits how could we resist! We've never been before so it was a nice little morning out. The actual fair was alot smaller than I expected only about 16 stalls max and covered several decades of retro-ness so I wasn't sure how many treasures I might find there?



Fear not though hubby and I scoured all the stalls, including one woman who wasn't a business but had just 'had a clearout of her childhood memories still at home' and found the following treasures.....

Lace Hankies...
I love the scotie Dogs!

40s Books....
A couple for the children to read at events, a great magazine for me to flick through on a steam train journey (Hubby has some vintage reading material, waiting in his Christmas Pile...shhh!)

Pink Gloves....
Now stricktly these weren't bought today but in the week from a local charity shop and they had their first outing today! Just look at the ruching on them, isn't it great!!!

Once again its been another vintage day in Frome, so we wandered around to Catherine Hill again and checked out the vintage shops. I tried on a couple of hats in Make and Mend but couldnt decide on which one so we went for a stroll and ended up in Nova where hubby found a perfect fitting brown trilby, which apparently he's wanted for a while, so we bought that instead and wandered home via this lovely little street......Frome really does have some of the prettiest buildings!

Tomorrow we have been invited to the Wiltshire Vintage TeaParty in Malmesbury, so I will hopefully find my perfect hat there instead!!

Stepping Out.... at Avon Valley Railway

Well I've busy busy of late caught up in day to day things I'm sure I'll work into the blog in good time. But what a fantastic weekend we had last weekend at Avon Valley Railway! But wait I hear you cry, you said they went having any 1940s events now? Well they wernt but we had a family pass we had won at a silent auction last autumn. With the valid until date looming and a forecast of a great sunny weekend we decided to step out all by ourselves but in a glorious 40s fashion!!



We've never been to any events where no one else has dressed up yet, even feeling a little self concious at ones where everyone is in costume, on some occassions! But I shouldn't have worried one bit, when we arrived there were murmors from people in the cafe enjoying their tea and cakes that 'there must be an event on' I smiled and walk on. On the platform a lady walking passed me and blurted out ' you look fabulous' She must have thought I was a bit odd cause all I probably went bright red and spluttered out 'um, Thanks!' My confidence went sky high after that though :)

On the train we played vintage games, cards and picniced!

Being my normal photo crazed self It was during me taking several picks of the family that the gentleman opposite asked if anyone had taken a photo of all 4 of us together yet? Well when he offered I snapped his arm off, we never get one of us as a family!!!

So really our first time going out in period dress by ourselves was a complete success and something we'd like to do again soon!