Dottie Angel

Perfect, perfect life .......

Dottie Angel's Once Upon a Time from Etsy on Vimeo.

What can you buy for £1

It seems a lot of the sellers at the boot sale today thought  £1 would be a good amount when I asked the price of their items.  Take a look at some of the fantastic bargains I picked up.

Simply stunning heavy turquoise blue glass goblets.  No idea of age, but totally too die for £1 each.  My jaw hit the floor and bounced back with the beautiful bone china tureen/serving dish its immaculate and looks as if its never been used.  No makers mark and just £1 !  I got it along with the two plates in front and a pretty Royal Albert milk jug (forgot to photograph)  all three items for the grand total of £1.70p!  As I walked away I heard the chap who sold me the items remark to his Friend "its amazing the crap some people will buy " !!! 

I've said before one of the things I miss most about our lifestyle cutbacks has been the lack of flowers.  I used to spend about £50 a month on them in our previous life and miss them so much.  The last few weeks I have been really lucky to have been given some beautiful ones from a friend's garden and then to have also picked some up from Sainsbury's on offer.  Imagine my delight when I saw huge bunches of beautiful roses being sold at the boot sale today for the princely sum of £2.50 !  I had to have some and don't they look gorgeous.  Sitting pretty below them are another of my all time favourites, I am always on the lookout for vintage glass Christmas decorations.  How pretty are the colours, several have marks and stains but I think it just adds to their beauty.   The tray full just £1 and another box full of white glass tree toppers and dangly ones for £2.

How about this pic and me reflected 50 times in all my glory!

I couldn't believe my luck when I asked the price of this white wicker basket.  These days all wicker seems to have silly price tags.  This beauty with a cotton liner too for £1 !  Woop!  I think the girl realised her mistake as soon as she said it.  Too Late, here's your £1, thank you very much ....

I also found some amazing Table linen, 2 bone china tea sets, an unworn silk blouse, a set of vintage coloured liqueur glasses, a vintage wooden folding measuring tape, a vintage wooden thomas the tank engine puzzle and 2 complete sets of 1950's serving and dessert spoons.  What a bumper morning and total spend was £25 ! 

Take a moment to pop over and see what the other members of MagpieMonday found this week, also linking up to Apron Thrifted Girl

Glass - Magpie Monday

When I go looking for my thrifting bargains, I don't normally look at glass. I may occasionally buy a piece but because I find it difficult to find out information about age, make etc due to lack of markings I tend to not to buy much of it.

That all changed this week when most of the items I found screamed "buy me" "buy me".  Sadly, I can give you no information on them except to say some of them appear to be Vintage.  But one thing they all have in common is I love every single piece.

This beautiful bowl is really heavy glass, pretty pale pink and clear flowers adorn it.  I imagine it is meant to be a fruit bowl.  So gorgeous, very Lalique in style.  I paid £2 for it .

Another bowl and again most probably a fruit bowl and this one I think maybe approx 1930's very deco in style and extremely heavy.  I love the Square cut design to the top, its immaculate condition and cost me 50p !  I don't know why, but my favourite charity shop has lots of lovely glass bowls they always sell for 50p !  Very odd, but I am not complaining.

I love the etched design on this bottle and the fact that it has its original glass stopper.  It was filthy dirty and in a box with lots of rubbish ontop of it, but it washed up a treat.  I paid £1 for it.  Make a beautiful luxury bath salts container (not that I would dare to have glass in my bathroom )  .

How hard is it to take photo's of glass!  Especially when you bring a mirror into the mix .

This lovely candle stick did have a mark conveniently placed on a label on the front - Etain Veritable which I understand is French and always has these lovely Pewter flower designs on the front.  Gorgeous, heavy glass.  I can never have enough candlesticks and this one for £1.

Yesterday at the boot sale blue glass seemed to jump out at me.  The two bottles on the Left are "bitters" bottles.  One a fish.  I adore the gorgeous turquoise colour.  The smaller one was 10p and the larger one 50p.  The pretty pale blue glass vase is extremely heavy and another steal for £1, I love its little feet.

Finally, it always pays to look in any boxes you might find.  I saw this pretty blue box sitting on a table amongst lots of bits and bobs and although it was really grimy I was drawn to it. 

When I opened it up, this was inside ....

Now I am certain its not gold and precious stones, but oh! soooo pretty and gorgeous pastel shabby chic colours.  I love it !

That's my lot for this week.  Please make sure you pop over to MagpieMonday  and take a look at all the other wonderful Thrifted treasure found this week.

Chair Obsession ?

Ever since the success of the chair makeover Here  My hubby and I seem to keep finding "must have" chairs to renovate.  The four dark wood ones above we found last weekend at the boot sale and are really excited about their gorgeous shape and potential. 

We have already started rubbing down the three on the right and have some gorgeous paint and ideas for transforming them.  This time we are going for some colour and distressing similar to these below from the beautiful blog that is Miss Mustard Seed

Earlier this week Hubby won two cane chairs on Ebay from a local seller.  We went to their rather imposing and beautiful Georgian home last night to collect them.  The house was a vintage lovers dream.  I would dearly have loved to look over the whole house ! Here are our latest acquisitions.

So what do you think, can you ever have too many lovely chairs or do we need to sell some on ? 

A new venture

This weekend if you have been on twitter you may have noticed that yet again I had a rant about Ebay and posted about it HERE  I think it could quiet possibly be the straw that broke the camel's back.  Anyway, not someone to stay down for long, I have always been a fighter and have dragged myself  and my family back from the much more serious stuff in the past.  I was galvanised by this latest attack to put into action a dream that I have had for sometime.  I have set up my facebook page HERE  and intend to turn my love of vintage and thrifting into a money making concern if I can.  I have already booked a Vintage Fair for July and together with a friend I am embarking on another venture renting out Vintage Tea Service's for Shabby Chic/Vintage weddings or Tea Parties.

This means that I can now shop at boot sales and charity shops to my hearts content, safe in the knowledge that my items will at some point move onto another beloved home.   I have always loved the philosophy of Rachel Ashwell,  the creator of shabby chic when she said that most of the items that she found at yard sales etc she loved for a while and then passed them on. 

Here are some of this weeks finds as part of Liz's MagpieMonday post  as those who read my blog regularly will know I always manage for the most part to find great value bargains and today was no exception but because of my new ventures unfortunately I will no longer be able to tell you just how great a bargain they were.  Hope this won't prevent you from enjoying them with me and the excitement that goes along with securing a fantastic piece.

Various pieces of vintage Linen tea towels, napkins and runners, some cotton and some linen every piece a total work of hand embroidered art and a total bargain.  Along with the basket that was full of photo frames. Don't be afraid to ask if these are for sale, the lady was only too happy to tip out the frames and sell me the basket for 20p !  Woop!

Gorgeous Milk Jug cover, used a lot "in the pre-convenience days" to keep the flies of milk or food . This pretty crocheted one has lovely glass weighted balls on the ends and a tie top.  I love it and bought it along with some of the linen above and the lamp shades below from a lady who had THE most gorgeous stall, with many, many pieces I could have bought, including some French Monogrammed linen sheets that I have been coveting forever ! but can't find at the right price, unfortunately hers were out of my price range too.  Big sigh, I will just have to keep searching but what about this for an amazing coincidence, I gave her one of my cards so that we could keep in touch and she said her name was ........ KAREN JONES !! How spooky is that ! 

Totally perfect and too die for pale blue and cream Laura Ashley (silk?)  lamp shades for £3 each, exactly what I was looking for for my bedside lamps.  I can't tell you how thrilled I was to spot these. LOVE ! LOVE! LOVE! and no, these will most certainly not be moving on anytime soon.

Really pretty Glass Luminarc plates. These are quite modern but absolutely lovely, very fine and delicate you can almost see through them. Not plates I will be serving the boys with. 

Here is my tale of woe, doesn't happen often, but I spotted two of these gorgeous glass paraffin lamps and dashed over to the stall, the lady was besieged by buyers all haggling.  I asked the price of the two lamps again silly money for the quality and the style, so snapped them up.  I paid and was putting them into my bag when some great oaf pushed me from behind reaching across me to get at something and I heard a horrible cracking sound ! Booo! one of the top sections of one of the lamps had smashed !  Hubby assures me we will be able to find a replacement but I was gutted.  Still here is the surviving one. 

I had a few more lovely finds but will catch up with these later in the week.  Please pop over and see what everybody else found this week at .Magpie Monday