Fine day for a fair

Today mum and I headed off to the biannual vintage fashion fair held at the Burnside Ballroom. This was about the fourth time we'd attended, so I think that officially makes us regulars ;) We definitely have our plan of attack down pat, which basically involves spending the first hour and a half browsing through all the stalls, heading back to the car for a pre-packed esky lunch, then going back in for round two.

I bought this beautiful full skirt made of a shiny crepe material with black velvet roses. The colour is a bit hard to describe but it's like a lovely mix of purple and brown, almost a dark taupe. The stall owner runs a consignment store and she was telling me that the lady who brought this into the shop wore it in the 1950s. There were some other clothes which came from the same lady including a mustard coloured linen dress with buttons all the way down the front and a tie at the waist that fastened with a buckle. I think clothes like this are made even more special by the fact that they were worn and loved by someone so many decades ago and are given a second life all these years later. That they have survived in such good condition is amazing.

I thought this penguin brooch was too cute. It's as if they're all holding hands and about to go for a penguin family waddle.

I found this little squirrel sitting amongst a table of bags, purses and other bits and pieces. After bringing him home I realised his ear had been re-glued at one stage. He's now sitting happily amongst my other woodland critters despite his wounded state :) My last purchase was a pair of sterling silver marcasite earrings. I love marcasite jewellery and these are a perfectly dainty shape.

The fair is heading to Brisbane next in a couple of weeks, so make sure to get your skates on :) Did you have any thrifty adventures over the weekend? Check out lots of other flea market finds and share your own over at Her Library Adventures.

Day two vintage fashion fair

Hi everyone :) Thought it was about time I shared what I found during round two at the vintage fashion fair. As well as the dress in my previous post, I got these floral clip-on earrings from the same stall that the little umbrella brooch came from. I haven't worn them yet but they look really cute and colourful sitting on my shelf with my other jewellery.

The next couple items are a bit sentimental because I bought them with some money my Grandad gave me before he passed away and that I'd been saving for something special. My Grandad was a smoker his whole life and while I know this is a terrible habit, it's something I'll always remember about him so I bought this Glomesh cigarette lighter as a little keepsake.

He used to play footy when he was younger so I bought a tiny football boot charm that I'm going to polish up and attach to my Mum's old charm bracelet that she gave to me. I think it will be nice to carry around something that reminds me of Grandad and I'm going to try and wear it more often. The last thing I bought was a pair of beautiful old marcasite and pearl clam shell earrings. I thought they looked like something that would have been around during Grandad's era and that they would just be something special to keep and remind me of him.

So that concludes my purchases at the vintage fair. I had so much fun rummaging around at all the stalls and couldn't think of a better place to spend my birthday money or to pick up a few special treasures.

Hope you all have a lovely week :) I'm going to spend a couple days relaxing since I submitted the literature review for my thesis on Monday and had a presentation today.

Day one vintage fashion fair

Hello everyone, this is a bit of a belated post but nevertheless I hope you all had a nice Easter :) If you're anything like me you're still revelling in the joys of leftover hot cross buns with real butter, yum! Over the Easter loooong weekend I travelled with a lovely friend to The Way We Wear vintage fashion fair held at the Burnside Ballroom to spend my Birthday money. The fairs are held in states across Australia and I believe the Gold Coast is up next so check the dates on the website. I highly recommend going if you can make it to one! This was the first vintage fair I'd been too and it was so much fun; Glomesh heaven I tell you!! There were two delightful levels full of vintage clothing, jewellery, homewares and other bits and bobs. Here's a picture I took from the upstairs level...

There was just so much great stuff to look at - I think I was having heart palpitations. You have to do at least a couple rounds to really have a good look at everything. All the stallholders were so friendly. One lady had a stall full of old and quirky buttons and was telling me how she sources them mostly from overseas. She had some really cute ones shaped like Jatz biscuits - I didn't buy them but wish I had taken a picture!

Now I know you're probably thinking that I must've gone slightly nuts with buying up Glomesh but I'm proud to say that I only bought a couple things that I'd be unlikely to come across in an op shop and didn't buy any handbags. I did, however, see a white Glomesh satchel that I'd bought in an op shop for $4 being sold for $75 so was a bit chuffed about that (although no one had bought it so perhaps is was priced a bit high). Anywho enough chat and on to the purchases!

My first purchase was a cute little umbrella brooch made of tin or something similar. The lady at that stall had lots of lovely brooches and jewellery set out as well as some small vintage handbags and sewing supplies. At the next stall I got a bit of a shock opening a trinket box with a cameo on top to find a lock of plaited hair inside (!) but quickly got over it in my excitement at finding this Glomesh sunglasses case. I didn't even know such a thing existed and snapped that up without hesitation. The cigarette case (to keep my imaginary cigarettes in), on the other hand, I went back to about three times before buying but am glad I did because I've been looking for one to add to my collection and this was in really good nick with the Glomesh sticker still attached inside.

My final purchase for the day was this beautiful lilac beaded chiffon dress. It was made by an old Sydney label called En-Ka Fashions and must be quite old because the sizing is labelled as XSSW and is marked as No. 15. The stallholder offered for me to try it on in the bathroom, which I found a lot of stallholders were happy for fair-goers to do. The dress was $90 and he must have seen me hesitating when I came back because he offered to knock $20 off the price to which I replied "yesplzilltakeit!". The colour and beading is just so lovely and I can't wait to wear it :)

So that concludes day one of the vintage fair. I didn't realise it when I bought the ticket, but a couple of the stallholders let us know that they could be used for multiple entries to the fair over the weekend. I cheekily asked my friend if I could have her ticket so I could come back with my Mum on Monday, which we did, so stay tuned for round two :)