Antiques Fair!

I had a really enjoyable day on Saturday at the Builth Wells Antiques & Collectors Fair, my first full day out since having Baby Boy.

I was lucky enough to have a purse full of Birthday spending money, presents from my lovely husband and children, parent's-in-law and my mum & dad, so I was determined to treat myself!

I was spoilt for choice!! I'm afraid I didn't take any photos while I was there, I was too busy having such a good time! Bargain Hunt, as usual, was being filmed there and twice I found myself walking behind the blue team and Tim Wonacott just as they were being interviewed..I do hope I don't end up on the TV! I would positively cringe!

Anyway, so these are what I bought!!

A 1950's bespoke Tea Dress for £30.00! I absolutely LOVE this!! I could have bought everything on the stall and the prices were very reasonable for vintage clothing. Lucky for me, the dress fitted like a glove, despite being handmade and showed no measurements - it HAD to come home with me!!

As you can see, I've been playing around with PicMonkey to edit these photos. Mia and I had a little photoshoot this afternoon! She's very good at taking pictures. We still couldn't manage to capture the dress at it's best, but here is a close-up of the beautiful pattern;

This fab 50's/60's handbag, £10.00;

Some beautiful old Victorian/Edwardian books; at just £2.00 each, they are a lovely addition to my collection;

I love the illustrations;

And a handwritten inscription to a Mr Brown from his Sister, 1880, I like them all the more if they have something written inside!

4 Country Life magazines from 1960 - 50p each.

I really enjoy to read through old magazines, I love the adverts, and have enjoyed looking at how much (or rather, how little!) the Country Estates were worth 52 years ago! Look what you could get for £15,000.00:

Some lovely adverts!;

And finally, this is for Mia, but I just could NOT resist!! From the same stall as my dress, this absolutely STUNNING vintage Rowes of Bond Street coat!! Again, it had no size, but looked around Mia's age, and I was right - in fact it is on the big side, I have had to fold the sleeves back, so she should get plenty of wear out of it! I ummd and aaahd about it all day, but could just imagine Mia in it, and it had to come home with me!

As you can see, we had a lot of fun taking these pictures - goodness knows what the neighbours thought!

I did buy one more little thing, but I can't share that with you just yet, as it's for Mia's birthday!

I hope you have liked seeing what I bought, It has been a lovely Bank Holiday weekend, I hope you have enjoyed yours too!

Marina xx

Sunday Afternoon Walk

I'm hoping that this will be the first of two posts today! I'm bursting to show you my Antiques Fair finds, but I need to model one of them, the most beautiful 1950's tea-dress, so will hopefully have time to do that later!

For now, I thought I'd share some photographs from my Sunday afternoon walk with Baby Boy. I really felt like getting out of the house, and wrapped up in my favourite Cath Kidston coat; a treat to myself this year in the sale;

I love the little teapot!;

We headed out towards the river and made some friends along the way;

They were very inquisitive, and followed me along the path the other side of the fence. This one was a little more timid, but was my favourite! He looks just like one my parents had before I was born, named Patch;

We carried on along the path, spotting litle clumps of primroses and celandines;

I love celandines, my Mum used to tell me that they were a sign that Spring had finally arrived and every Easter time we would try and spot them on our walk to school. When I was Mia's age I was the only child in our class, or probably even the whole school who knew the names of all of the wild flowers and trees. My mum taught me these when I was very small, when she would take me long rides on my little pony along the country lanes. I don't suppose I really appreciated this knowledge at the time, but I certainly do now. I try and pass this on to Mia, who was very pleased to be able to name many of the leaves she had collected to bring in to class for a school project.

We settled down on a bench and admired the view; trying to pick out our house in the distance;

A sneek-peek at a sleeping Baby Boy!;

I decided to stay a while on that bench and settled down with a book on Victorian Houses which I'd picked up in the week for 50p;

And then home, to a wonderful roast dinner with leeks (my favourite!) cooked by my lovely husband!

What a lovely Sunday afternoon!!

My Maiden Titanic Cake-Making Voyage!

Hello all, and once again thank you so much for the lovely comments I have received on my last post, they are as usual very much appreciated!

Well, you may think I'm mad, I'm sure my lovely husband thinks I am, and perhaps he is right! But I have pledged to make a Titanic Cake for Mia's birthday next weekend! Great, you might say, if I were a professional, or in fact had ever made anything more than a jam sponge..but, truth be told, I haven't!! Now of course I have explained to Mia that it might be a complete flop, so not to get her hopes up, but that I will certainly "have a go"!

I've decided to share the process with you on my blog, so, by next weekend I will either be proudly uploading a finished "Titanic" cake, a spectacular replica of the model we have at home in the glass case..or, perhaps, just Titanic as it is now...a broken mess under the sea! Only time will tell!

Now, I will say that I haven't gone in to this lightly, I have actually done a lot of research and planned exactly how my cake will look, and what I will use. So, off to Tescos I went this morning, and filled my basket with lots of lovely cake-making goodies.

I started off with great enthusiasm this afternoon, using my late Nan's TG Green mixing bowl - the starting point of many family birthday cakes in the last 60 odd years!;

And my 1960's flour & sugar shakers,a recent charity shop find;

And the result was; two halfs to form the base of my Titanic cake! They did need a lot longer in the oven than the receipe stated, and one of them sunk in the middle (no pun intended!) but overall I am pleased so far! Ok, at the moment they are simply two loaf cakes, but they will evolve tomorrow!

For now, they are wrapped up and ready for the marzipan and icing tomorrow - again, something which I have NEVER done in my life...wish me luck! :)

I hope you're all having a lovely Bank Holiday weekend, I REALLY enjoyed the Antiques Fair yesterday, and came home with some lovely goodies. I will post on this tomorrow.

Marina xx

The Fantasy Birthday Cake

This weekend we celebrated my 31st birthday!!

My lovely husband and Mia had planned a “fantasy tea party” on Saturday to celebrate. This was an idea they had come up with between them, the “fantasy” part referring to the cake. They were up bright and early and off to Tesco by 9.am and returned with a bag full of the most sweet, sugary but unbelievably delicious toppings and decorations, with strict instructions to myself not to peek!

They baked all morning, and produced a lovely jam and cream sponge, decorated with all of Mia’s “fantasy” toppings; white chocolate, milk chocolate, hundreds and thousands, strawberry buttons, cream, and the most lovely little chocolate rabbit and toadstool toppers;

We had a lovely tea-party with sandwiches and sausage rolls, and shared another of Mia’s creations; a hot melted chocolate, cream and curly wurly drink!;

I could only manage a few sips but it was very nice!! We sat in our cosy dining room, watching the rain beating on the windows, and were glad to be warm indoors!

I had a lovely day, and some beautiful cards and gifts;

Mia had bought me this beautiful little owl bookmark, this will come in very handy as I always have a book on the go;

I also had money from Hubby and the rest of the family to treat myself this Saturday as I’m off to the Builth Wells Antiques Fair…I’m very excited! I’m not after anything in particular, but it’s nice to think I’ve got a bit of extra money in my purse in case I see anything I fancy.

Finally, I want to say thank you to you all for such lovely comments on my last post, especially regarding my return to work. I have now been back for 2 days. We have found it hard, but Baby Boy appears to be having a lovely time!! (which is the main thing!) – he has a little playmate at the childminders, being her own 13 month old little girl, and was absolutely exhausted when he came home yesterday – which resulted in a good nights sleep! Just one more day of work tomorrow and then the rest of the week off, which I’m looking forward to.

I hope you are all having a good week, I'm just off to have another slice of that cake!

Marina xx