… this blog is moving over to here: http://oursecondhandlife.blogspot.com/
and it has a new name – This is OUR second-hand life to celebrate my magpie existence with the boy 🙂
… this blog is moving over to here: http://oursecondhandlife.blogspot.com/
and it has a new name – This is OUR second-hand life to celebrate my magpie existence with the boy 🙂
Filed under Uncategorized
I think it’s safe to say that I am a hoarder who comes from a long line of hoarders. For some reason my sister avoided the hoarding gene but I took it on full force.
So Mr SH and I have been discussing what to do about our obsessive collecting and hoarding whilst watching American Pickers and thought that we might give this wheelin’/ dealin’ a go. I don’t really want to make any sort of proper money out of it but I thought it would be good to sell some things on.
Today I started with my vintage knitting patterns that are now being listed on Etsy:
Honestly – I’m not just saying this because I’m selling them as PDFs and would like to make a little bit of dosh – but this patterns are gorgeous. So far I’ve not listed anything I wouldn’t wear myself and am taking the entire book down to my mum tomorrow to get some hints and tips so I can start creating my own ‘Mad Men’ style knitted outfits.
I’m going to put a load more up in a few minutes – I think it’s better to have a well-stocked shop – and the Vogue book is nearly all posted so I’ll start pulling out some of the other tasty outfits.
Filed under Vintage Knitting
I’ve been too sick to do any thrifting lately. Yesterday I started to feel better, got myself together and left the house. Only to return about 10 minutes later with just a pint of a milk. However this morning I have woken up and not coughed once. My chest is starting to feel clearer – there’s no bronchial wheeze on it – has this infection finally flown and left me alone?
So while I’ve been laid up in bed trying to sleep through the wheezing, I’ve been stumbling and looking for amazing upcycling/ reusing/ remaking ideas. Today I thought I’d collect together a few of my favourite furniture from upcycled items. In our flat we have some amazing bookshelves that are upcycled goodiness – however I’m not sharing photos with you yet until the flat is sorted and I’m happy with them enough to take photographs 😉 That’s to say – I’m stupidly happy with the shelves, I’m just not happy with how untidy I am and how messy they are. I’m embarrassed to show them to you!
So here are some of my favourite furniture upcycled projects:
Repurposed drawers:
These wonderful designs are from a German shop called schubLaden {meaning drawers in German}.
This image was found on Flickr – however I’m not sure who actually designed these:
I would happily make Mr Second-Hand spend his spring evenings sawing away at old cabinets so I could have something this splendid in the flat 🙂
I have a real love for Vespas – in fact I still think that one day I will own one. So these seats made out of old Vespas by Italian company Bel&Bel make me very happy indeed {although I’d rather have the bike than the chair!}:
Katie Thomspon from Recreate is an absolute genius. These beautifully created pieces of furniture made from repurposed cases are simply divine:
Not surprisingly all of the seats I’ve chosen to feature are now sold however her website states that she does do custom orders – if only she wasn’t in South Africa!
Finally I’m going to feature the wonderful work of Dallas welder, Joel Hester. His furniture made from repurposed car hoods are simply inspired. All of the projects are ‘handmade to order’ which means that you truly get one off pieces especially for you!
Firstly – the beds:
Aren’t these gorgeous? Unfortunately I can’t post larger pics but if you click on them they’ll take you right to the page. They are all designed around the shape of your mattress, the size you want etc. What more could you want? If I had the money and the space I would be purchasing one of these. However, Mr Second-Hand is creating our bed this Spring so I’ll be posting photographs of that 🙂
I’m just going to post the coffee table too that I love because of the unique pattern on it caused by the original paint and rust:
This is from their website about the standard coffee table specifications:
straight or modern oval leg design
30+ year old relcaimed sheetmetal top
MIG/TIG welded steel frame
gloss clear coat
stainless steel hardware
leveling feet
original VIN badge���
tables weigh 60+ pounds, the real deal …
Oh yes – they certainly do look the real deal 🙂 LOVE ‘EM!
I promise that very soon I will be posting photographs of our own repurposed furniture once the flat is sorted!
Filed under Furniture, House and Home, Life
I’ve been stuck in bed for nearly a week with norovirus – so this weekend – when I was on the mend I got my ass down to Deptford Market. As we’re on a budget at the moment I set myself a £5 limit. It’s quite fun setting yourself a limit because then you don’t come home with just anything – although you may feel that looking at what I did buy that’s what I did!
Things that got away:
However we managed to get some bits of cutlery. I don’t like having matching crockery and cutlery – it just reeks of my old life. So we got ourselves some bits of cutlery:
The flat based ones are actually Air France forks – Thrifty Boy has a real obsession with logos and branded items and these fit our collection perfectly. On the left is what I’ve always known as a ‘Saint Spoon’ – however apparently they’re called Apostle Spoons . When I was growing up my neighbour, Hilda (who was like a grandmother to us) always used these spoons and I’ve had a fascination with them ever since for some bizarre reason. So here is my first Apostle Spoon 🙂
Next to the Apostle Spoon is a knife. I really liked the handle of it and although it isn’t silver I thought it might make a nice piece for a charm necklace along the lines of:
I’m really not sure how to start – also I’m allergic to most metal so I’ll have to coat it in something – but it’s so pretty.
Next mugs:
I really love The Little Prince (in fact my next tattoo is going to be a Little Prince one) so finding this cute little plastic mug will add to my collection of bits and pieces well. I would like to turn it into one of these cute little pin-cushions:
but it has this cute little design in bottom of it:
and I don’t really want to lose that.
We also love Commemorative/ Royal Wedding/ Jubilee mugs and found this lovely one:
We’re very excited about the upcoming wedding in April between Kate and Wills – hopefully the junk markets and charity shops will be full of tat very soon!
Finally the obvious wander to the book stall – I really must get some photographs of Deptford Market to accompany my ‘hauls’ from there! It has to be seen to be believed :):
I bought this book as I love Britishness. I’m proud of being British – not something a lot of people say. I love our eccentricities, our small houses, our quirks, our crap weather etc. This book collects together some fantastic photographs that capture British life very simply – AND it opens with a postcard showing Ipswich my home town 🙂 The photography reminds me of Martin Parr – which is NEVER a bad thing 🙂
I actually said to Thrifty Boy the other day that I really wanted this book – and what happened? It turned up on the market so I had to pick it up. Why do I call it a Shit Book? Well, this is my really classy way of referring to the books we have in the bathroom for reading while we’re on the toilet! This book is perfect for that. As Thrifty Boy is a few years younger than me he lost out of being brought up with Smash Hits so it’s a whole new world being opened up to him.
And finally a book that I wanted as a teenager and never got round to buying because I was too busy buying music and tickets to gigs:
So my total spend?:
HURRAH!
Filed under books, Deptford Junk Market Finds, House and Home
I have a strange obsession with old knitting patterns (and sewing patterns, cook books etc. etc. – I’m just a hoarder after all) – and when I was out with my parents a while ago in Felixstowe I came across a whole selection of them for 5p each.
I have (sadly) no desire to actually knit any of the patterns – afterall I can only manage squares and scarves – however I do just LOVE the images on them.
This one is by far my favourite – just click on the photo to take you to the rest of them!
Filed under House and Home, vintage images
so I stumble around the internet.
It started with Ben and I looking for a vintage picnic set.  When we were last in Camden we saw a beautiful white and red (of course, our colour pallet is very much influenced by my love of black and red, and Ben’s obsession with the White Stripes!) picnic set.  After trawling around ebay and Google, we didn’t manage to find anything similar.  So later today we will trek to Camden to see if we can find it again.  I was convinced it was on sale for £20, Ben thought it was for £45 – fingers crossed I was right and that it’s still there.
Next week we’re going on a road trip.  Off to Wales to meet Ben’s folks (and extended family by the sounds of things) then onto Ipswich to meet my family – and now some of my extended family as my cousin’s decided to get married – typically at the last minute so that will be great.  So – this is why we’re interested in a picnic set as we want to take one with us 🙂
Here are some pics then of gorgeous vintage picnic sets … YUMMY 🙂
Filed under House and Home
I HATE not being able to post photos at the moment of my Freecycle wonderfulness – however – it is safe to say that this weekend was CHOCKABLOCKFULL of Freecycled wonderfulness.
On Saturday we picked up two clothes rails – I despise wardrobes and have done for a long time. Wardrobes have doors, doors can be shut and hide things – specifically mess. Therefore if I have a clothes rail my clothes will not get messy and indeed be on show. The downside is obvious of course – light from the windows can fade my clothing and dust can settle – however I do much prefer them to bulky and unsightly wardrobes. Unless one day I can find a beautiful art-deco wardrobe that will fulfill all my needs.
Yesterday we had two goodies to collect. First we took a stroll down into Brockley to collect a random box of kitchen stuff. A 4 slice toaster, 3 saucepans, some glasses of varying sizes and a random oval plate. All of which (apart from the toaster of course) are sitting in our magic cupboard (read dishwasher) ready to be cleaned and used. My asthma hit me after that and Ben collected our two clothes airers. Since we moved in we’ve been drying our clothes on the radiators which has meant that we’ve not been doing much washing. Now we have TWO airers ready to dry our clothes on which makes us very happy bunnies indeed. I can’t wait to empty our big bag of washing that needs doing and hang it all around the flat.
Freecycle is always hit and miss. Sometimes you’ll see something you really want (like a bag of vintage cameras) and miss out on it by milliseconds. I kind of think that this is where the fun lies. You send your email you see what happens. I’m sure some people have insider knowledge of what’s coming up before any one else and gets all the fine goodies first 😦 But that’s just me because I WANTED THAT BAG OF VINTAGE CAMERAS! (even though my dad has a box of cameras and equipment to unload onto me next time I see them).
Later this week I will be the proud custodian of a darkroom too – I can’t wait. I’m not sure when I’m going to have the time/ money to start developing my own photographs but I’m sure as hell going to make time/ money to do so. I’m very very excited to see what godawful results I come up with. It’s been a looooooooooooooooooooooooooong time since I set foot in a dark room so I’m quite nervous/ excited. Our bathroom will never smell the same again!