Magazines

I’ve already created one post about what to do with old books – here and here -  however this one is about what to do with old magazines.  We are very lucky to be where we live; we have an awesome junk market that operates three days a week where often you can find some wicked ephemera buys.

This weekend I happened upon 6 magazines from the 1920s for £3!

As you can see they’re falling apart quite badly so I’m thinking that I’m going to have to remove some pages for different things.  I don’t like cutting up old magazines but as these are disintegrating anyway it might have to be done.

I’m really loving the adverts in them and I’m considering framing some of these for our kitchen:

And I’m going to scan them in for Archive.org just to keep them complete for prosperity.

However I’m not sure what to do when I’ve finished all the hacking.  Any ideas?  Here are some that I’ve found in my stumblings:

 

National Geographic Shelf

Book/ Magazine Beads

Paper Flowers

Tutorial here

 

I could make a mini-album/ book like these [click on the photograph to take you to the original image]:

I could make rossettes, bows etc.:

I think I’d really like to try to make a little journal – but I’m not sure.  I’m not very good with all these choices and just a few magazines to play with – including magazines I’m not really sure I want to cut up!

Slides slides slides

No – not the ones you fly down and break your arm on at the bottom. Instead I’m talking about photographic slides.
Many months ago we bought a load of photographic slides from Deptford Market and Ebay to turn into either this:

[<a href="http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=338100.0">tutorial on Craftster here</A>]

or this:

[tutorial on Craftster here]

However life took over and we still haven’t got around to creating these wonderful things. At the moment we are brassic so I’m hoping that we can start putting one or both of these together while we’re trying not to leave the flat and have our usual adventures, which often involve trips to one or two pubs on the way.  And some eatery of some sort.
In preparation for this I’ve been scanning in the ones I find interesting/ unusual – if you click on the wind-swept doggy below you’ll find some that I’ve scanned in:

Thrifty Boy also found an awesome box of photographic slides in a junk shop in Greenwich. They weren’t cheap, however they ARE amazing – Novosti Press Agency slides of Russia in 1975. You can see some of the set here:

These ones we don’t really want to turn into anything so we’re hoping to make a light box to display them in. We saw this one in SuckUK:

SuckUK Slide Light

But it’s about £150 – £200!  As Thrifty Boy is very clever he’s currently designing a slide box for our slides.  Hopefully it means that we can have an ever-changing wall display of our collection

I’ve found a couple tutorials to share here for light boxes:

ehow

steampunk workshop – not a slide display but you can follow the same principles

Instructables – again not a slide display but a great tutorial – very expensive though – I’m sure it can be done a lot cheaper than this!

Deptford Junk Market strikes again

It’s ridiculous that I don’t blog here more because I’ve turned into the biggest magpie possible recently.  I will definitely blog more – I promise!  Anyway – while I’m here I thought I’d let you know about the wonderful find I had on Deptford Junk Market [or as I heard a middle-class lady tell her long-haired 3 year old called Oscar - the 'flea' market] today.

This, my dear friends, is a beautiful scrapbook created from a 1968 catalogue of Christmas cards. The colour instantly grabbed my attention. Imagine my joy when I opened its pages:

Look at this beautiful woman. She appears throughout the album and I just wonder if the scrapbook belonged to her.

Lots of notes and letters – some in Spanish – beautiful handwriting.

A couple of pages of stamps – some of which I’ll turn into Photoshop Brushes to give away here.

Some great matchbook covers and Christmas cards

Sketches [not very good unfortunately]

The dates on these range from 1968 to 1969 as far as I can see – so it’s 40 years old. Most of the items on the stall I bought this from come from house clearances so the sad thing is is that it feels as though perhaps this woman no longer is around. That this was just thrown into a pile along with other belongings.

I don’t know what to do with it now. Part of me wants to turn it into my own scrapbook because the book is so gorgeous. Perhaps remove all the items [most of which are held in by photo corners] and reuse the book. Or I could keep it how it is. Or create my own art around it. I just don’t know. At the moment I’m just enjoying flicking through it and marvelling at this woman’s collection and craving to do my own now!

sustainable living with a snob!

It’s increasingly difficult sometimes to have this ‘sustainable’ life when your other half can be such a snob.  On Saturday he bought our sister-in-law’s birthday present – now – obviously buying a ‘new’ gift went against ‘my’ principles – however he refused to purchase something used or handmade – then when he went to look for wrapping paper I said ‘We have newspaper at home – use that’ – he refused.

Does anyone else come up against problems when trying to live ‘second-hand’ with their partners?

I’m not going to force him into my way of thinking – afterall he should want to come to that place in his own way.  I once picked him up a shirt at a jumble sale for 20p – he’s never worn it however much he said that he ‘did’ like it! ha ha.  He has nothing against reading second-hand books, or buying second-hand dvds and cds, however when it comes to textiles (ie: clothes) for some reason he is completely turned off.  I will do it slowly – picking up awesome pieces that he loves then hopefully he will come around!

Deptford Junk Market

Today I start my internship – can’t wait.  I’m full of cold but who cares?  I’m also obviously looking forward to trawling the bargain charity shops while I’m there – naughty naughty! hee hee.  It’s also right next to the famous Deptford Junk Market which again will be my downfall.  This is a flea market with a difference, you literally are buying fleas! ha ha … of course I’m joking, however it’s a naughty place with naughty things that I end up buying because I think I can turn them into something.  Generally I can’t however it’s a fantastic place to rummage. I’ll try to be good!

Billy Bargains week 1

Well my first week has gone well – no new purchases and some right old billy bargains.

The thing is, I’m NOT a fashionable person, I never have been.  I’ve never been obsessed with fashion apart from fashion photography (I pour over magazines like Vogue etc. – I never buy them – just in the doctors surgery! ha ha)  I find fashion to be an art that I cannot be part of – I have an awkward body (small boobs, bloaty belly, big hips and thighs) and I’m not pretty in the slightest – however – I love looking at well thought out fashion.  I’m fascinated by people who rock an individual look and can carry off crazy styles – and as I get older – and less bothered about what people think of me – I’m more confident in wearing what I want to wear.  So I’ve started taking risks with my clothes and hopefully as time goes on I’ll get more confident.

So … here are my finds from mooching around Lewisham Charity Shops this week on my lunch breaks … firstly my books:

The first four were from the Red Cross shop – they sell 2 for 1 – and these books just jumped out at me.  I love horror – and I am fascinated about the history of horror – I even taught the history of horror at school to Post-16 – so the books on horror and vampires were perfect for me.  The other two were more political/ cultural books – I’m always up for reading books that critiscise the Right in the USA – and I really liked No Logo – so again – they jumped out at me.

The other two I’d looked at a couple of times in the Cancer Research shop – I’m interested in China – so that was an obvious one.  The Savage Garden just looked intriguing.

Enough of books – let’s look at clothes ha ha:

Birdies from French Connection

I fell in love with the design on this.  Not only is it red and black (my favourite combination) but the pattern went all the way round   So I picked this up for £3.50.  Not bad I thought especially as it’s French Connection:

Price

However I’m not going to keep it like this.  I really don’t like wearing the standard ‘t-shirt’ style.  Usually my band tees etc. get hacked up.  However I don’t want to ‘hack’ this one, so I’m going to try and turn it into a halter top somehow.  I’ll post photos when I’m done.

Frumpy Cardi from M&S

This cardi may look a tad frumpy, it IS afterall an M&S one   I LOVE this and have been wearing it to death.  It’s so toasty, soft and gorgeous.  Looks lovely with a short dress and is so cute.  I think it cost me £4.50 from British Red Cross.

Greenwich Market bags

I’ve been after some red handbags for a while and I found these last week on Greenwich Market – they were 2 for £5 – and both were used.  The one of the right is ridiculously large, with so many pockets for me to fill.  So it’s definitely a day wear bag for holding all my daily crap.  The one on the left is just so lovely, but a pain to get into when it’s held over your shoulder

So that was my weeks shopping – can you see a theme? As you can possibly tell, I AM obsessed with black and red.  Both colours suit me because I have such pale skin, black hair and dark brown eyes.

Today, I went to Deptford, a vibrant part of South-East London just a short bus ride from my home.  I spend a lot of time there as I photograph at The Albany and love the vibe (man).  However, I do really love to go there to shop.  They have a market with too many uber bargains on it, however under my new rules I have to avoid that market (except for food and flowers).  So I go to the two charity shops (Sense and Salvation Army) as well as the second hand clothes shop – whose name has escaped me for now.  There’s also the infamous Deptford Junk Market.  It really is a ‘get in and dig’ market which puts a lot of people off.  There is only so much I can dig around there – but dig I did today:

Polstar the Pest top

I found this on the market.  There is a clothing stall there that is literally a jumble sale (but not Jumble Sale prices!) – and I’ve found a couple of really lovely skirts there before.  This I HAD to have (of course) – it’s made by George (a clothing line from Asda – the UK’s Walmart) which isn’t too great but it’s second hand so I’m allowed it

As I walked into Sense, the first charity shop I come across, look what I found on the book stand as soon as I walked in:

MY SEARCH IS OVER!

YES! If you read my last post you’ll know that this was the book I’ve been after and there it was.  £1.20 – thank you very much   I really hope that it’s as good as her other one.  Anyway – my search is over, so now I need to set myself a new challenge! ha ha.

BOOTS!

I’m becoming obsessed with boots lately – mainly because I’ve never really been able to afford decent boots, and then I realised that I could get them second-hand!  These ones were … wait for it … £4!!!! FOUR POUNDS!  They’ve hardly been worn and they’re from Wallis, so they’re at least a decent make.

Side view

They’re pretty high for me – I don’t do stilettos really – however I thought I’d give these a go. The funny thing was that a girl was trying on another pair of boots in the shop and she kept looking over at me.  Later on, I saw her in the Salvation Army shop and she came up to me asking if I’d bought the boots and did they fit me!  I thought she was going to wrestle me to the ground for them – but she didn’t.  Thankfully.  I don’t like to get in fights – especially about boots   She then consoled herself with buying jeans made of about 6 different versions of denim – I wasn’t going to take them off her!

So that was Sense – I went on to the Salvation Army shop after that.  I’d never been in there before (although I’m a regular at the one in Catford) and it was definitely worth it.  Everything is SO godamned cheap it’s really quite worrying:

Jaeger Loveliness

So this was my ‘high risk’ item – a Jaeger jumper.  It’s not really the kind of style I wear however, I thought I’d give it a go this winter and see if I can pull it off.  If not, I’m sure I can give it back to a charity shop.  It cost me ALL of £2.49 – so really not an expensive risk!

I also bought myself a sweater for work – not very exciting but again – £2.49 -cheaper than Primark where I used to buy my work clothes! (although I do wonder if this is indeed a Primark top!)

And finally, my BEST bargain of the day, and it wasn’t for me, and I don’t have a photo of it because I forgot.  I managed to buy my (much thinner) friend what looked like an almost unworn Ted Baker skirt for £2.49.  Honestly, it was so gorgeous, with beautiful detail on the back and a lovely greeny/grey colour.  She loved it when I took it round – I must grab a photo of it when I next go round as it truly is a bargain and a half!