A box of pink and cream

A recent trip to the local tip shop resulted in finding a box  J and G Meakin  and Johnson saucers.  For $12 I am now the proud owner of 20 pastel pink and 5 cream saucers.  It gives me great pleasure to mix and match my tea cup finds with my saucer finds and creates an ecclectic mix on the top of my coffee machine (although admittedly I may not NEED to use 20 pink saucers at once ...).

Quite a quilt

This week I have been pleased to recycle the old wooden wardrobes that came with our house. We have used them for 7 years, but are now splashing out on brand new wardrobes, so out to the nature strip they went, and they were both gone in 24 hours.  It feels good to know that someone else will use them!

Speaking of nature strip recycling, I have a wonderful hand made quilt that someone obviously took a significant amount of time to make, and that I found on the side of the road during a hard rubbish collection. 

With a wash and air, it now takes pride of place on a bed in our house. So all the handcrafted love lives on ...

And today a knitted handbag

This well, perhaps not stylish, but definitely fun  handbag was hidden away in a tub marked 50 cents at a Rosebud op shop....What a find.  I like the colours and appreciate all the hard work that has gone into its knitting and sewing.  It has been fully lined, and I will proudly use it.

Hats off to you - and on display at our house

I don't know exactly how it happened, but in recent years we seem to have collected some very cool hats at our house.   The three felt hats were all market finds - I picked the first one up at Port Fairy, another at Daylesford and one at Coburg.  The Truffaux straw hat came from a pop up hat shop at Sorrento.

I kept the hats stacked in a cupboard until recently when I inherited a beautiful old hat block.  I then acquired a taller hat stand (which I meant to give to my brother-in-law for his barrister's wig but didn't).  And now this week, while scouring secondhand shops on the Mornington Peninsula, I came across a very elegant old brass shop fitting ($28).  It sits even higher than the others and will hold a hat on each side.  I think they look great together.

An Australian cookie cutter

............G’day.  And what better way to celebrate Australia Day than with delicious Australia shaped biscuits.  Next year (when I have more time) I will put this fantastic cutter to better use.  But for now, the kids are using it with their play dough. 

I found the cutter in a box of very cute old kitchen things at the Hamilton Lions Club Trash n’ Treasure Market ($2).

If you would like to make your own play dough, I use a quick and easy recipe that requires no cooking.

No cook play dough recipe

Ingredients

  

An industrial touch in the kitchen

Storage is a big issue in our small inner city house.  When I came across this compact industrial trolley with four shelves for around $100 in a secondhand store on the Mornington Peninsula I thought it would be perfect in our kitchen. We are just about to upgrade the kitchen cabinets and I was thinking neutral and modern. But I would like to find a way to add a bit of individual character. The trolley looks great and it is soooooo practical - makes unpacking the dishwasher a breeze.

I can't wait to wheel it out for our next barbeque.

Little green jug

Do you share a fetish for jugs?  This lovely jug is most likely unnecessary, but, being such a wonderful colour was hard to ignore ... and so it will be duly added to the 'jug collection'.  Found treasure hunting in a vintage shop in Rosebud.