Tag Archives: Thriftola

Now, Wasn’t THAT A Book Party?!

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Day 1 of my London adventure was pretty manic.  No sooner had I been reunited with Beardy at Euston Station, but we were hot footing it out east to Dalston Lane.  As Beardy veered left off the pavement and skipped up some stairs to the entrance of a beautiful old school building (complete with pretty blue paintwork and gorgeous polished tiling), I wondered if maybe he was playing some cruel trick.  He put the key in the lock of the big, heavy double door and guided me inside the foyer.  With shiny wooden floors in the echoey hallways and the original blackboards still hanging on the walls, the My Fair Lady syndrome from the train experience returned – this time rendering me speechless and wide eyed like one of those weird meercat toys you see in tat shops.  I hate that those things are both kinda cute and kinda shit all at the same time – but that is neither here nor there.  I suppose some of the very best things are – cute AND shit, I mean. Not neither here nor there. That would be crazy.

We made our way up through the building until we reached the door of the apartment.  Once inside, the My Fair Lady symptoms worsened as I explored our temporary home.  I shan’t go into too much detail at the minute since I’d like to share some of my favourite features in a separate post but – needless to say, much gasping ensued.

With no time to waste, we found a hidey hole home for my luggage so as not to disrupt the casual yet considered, artsy yet homey displays of beautiful things around the space – then headed straight back outside in search of Mexican food – and the other three quarters of Schnapps.

The previous night, Schnapps played a show in Islington to a reassuringly responsive (and well sized) London crowd and had been celebrating their success (and bass player, Glenn’s birthday) since.  We found the rest of the band out west, a few jugs of margherita and a tray of tequila down, in fairly swank but comfily unpretentious Mexican hangout, Wahaca. Still satisfied by my 3 course breakfast aboard the train, I plumped for some small dishes – delicious slow cooked pork nestled in soft taco rounds and a black bean quesadilla.

I loved these newspaper-style menu mags at Wahaca

We left the cantina with handfuls (eyefuls?) of chilli seeds

Look at these cute tin can lanterns!

Having stuffed our heads and insides full of tortilla chips and guacamole, we bid Schnapps guitarist Leo a fond farewell and headed east again in the direction of Bethnal Green.

Jazz Domino Holly, founder of the country’s hippest W.I branch, craft columnist for Company magazine and daughter of rock’n'roll legend Joe Strummer – has only gone and trumped her already super-cool self and published a new crafty guide to doing it yourself. She’ll now be addressed as Queen of Crafts – don’t you know? ;) That’s what her book’s called you see – she hasn’t just decided to make her friends call her that for a lark. Though she oughta insist they do! I was thrilled to learn that my trip coincided with Jazz’s book launch party and was even MORE thrilled when London pal Leona Thriftola announced she’d be hosting a One Stop Vintage Haberdashery Shoppe at the event!  Add to that a gripping live performance from all-girl choir Gaggle, delicious cake and sweet treats by Viva Cake AND live crafting from The Shoreditch Sisters and I do believe you’ve got yourself the recipe for the most rock’n'roll book party you ever did see.  And by lord, we saw it.  We saw it, we shopped it, we drank it, we ate it, we laughed it, we danced it and we lapped it right on up until the disgruntled door steward turned the music off and showed us the door  :)  However, we didn’t leave until Jazz signed copies of her book for us.  I stopped at that (I’d already made quite the fool of myself stomping around to Woolly Bully on the dancefloor) but Jazz, the poor lamb, proceeded to meet requests to sign the chests of Schnappers Ian & Glenn.  The perfect hostess!  (I tried to find a suitable link for y’all to get acquainted with Jazz but I can’t really find one.  You can ‘like’ Jazz’s Facebook page here.  Find out about the Shoreditch Sisters here and buy The Queen of Crafts here.)

Disco sewing?  Yes please!

The Thriftola Haberdashery Shoppe was CRAMMED full of flippin’ amazing things – but, alas, I had no pocket money!  :(

Lovely, then – that our bonefide crafty Cockney gal, Mira, gifted me the vintage weaving kit I’d  had my eye on all night!  Thank you Ms Boutiquette!

Gaggle.

Schnapps. Signed.

Now, wasn’t that a book party?!

The party’s cool cat contingent was high, but we soon lowered the tone with our group rendition of this 90s gem…  Sung with such passion, too.  It was an emotional sort of day!

Many new friends were made at Bethnal Green Social Club thanks to a shared appreciation of ‘perform the actions’ dancing.

One more tune!  And this was it.  Belter.

To top off a fabulous night at a fabulous party, turns out, Schnapper Glenn and Leona Thriftola only share the same birthday!  I trust they each had a whale of a time.  Happy birthday pals!  :)

Too much dancing – out of practice. Zzzzzz…

Knock-Knock-Who’s-There?-Leona-Thriftola-Oh-Do-Come-In!

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Carrie Not The Kind of Girl You’d Marry is a big, fat, lazy heap of  sleepyhead this evening. After a looooong day stomping around town in search of some bargainatious winter wardrobe staples  followed by a looooong evening Made in the Shade-ing, I am officially pooped.  So pooped infact that the filling I made this morning for my long awaited beetroot tart is still in the fridge.  I was very nearly a good housewife there -  just for a split second.  But I’ve gone and ruined it now.  The beetroot tart will need to wait until tomorrow. As will the post about my shopping trip I had planned. All you need to know for now are these salient facts:

1.  I now officially own a pair of leggings.

2.  I can think of at least hundred reasons why I no longer want to live in Glasgow – and, turns out?  Most of ‘em can be found hanging out in McDonald’s on Argyle Street.

3.  Today I became a charity shop champion. Made up ‘bargainatious’ simply is not the word.  Well, it’s not A word, but…  Whatever.

Talking of fabulous bargains  – a great big box arrived at my house this morning.  I wasn’t going to answer the buzzer at first (I very rarely do.  Heck – it might be debt collectors.  Or door to door charity muggers.  Or worse still, the Irish Catholic missionaries that seem to enjoy holding my hand or, OR the stupid electricty meter reader guy who refuses to understand that I need at least two days notice to be able to guarantee him access to  the  Giant Cupboard of Crap where said meter is installed). Anyway, I did answer the door.  And I’m glad I did. I am a big brave girl.  The postman brought me a tonne of ‘desperately-trying-to-cheer-myself-up’ gifts I’d purchased from Leona Thriftola’s surprise £1 sale  :)

Here’s just some of the treasure I bagged… (Let’s do pictures tonight, huh?  Too much talky talky tires a gal out!)

I spotted this on Leona Thriftola’s shelf the very first time I visited her studio.

The Japanese rainbow keyboard lives  in my house now – though it’s currently on display with it’s pretty red case closed. I’ve decided that it won’t flash it’s cute pastel keys until it’s sitting pride of place in our new flat in London.

I know what I’m doing with the rest of my evening!  You’ll find me crimpin’ it up, baby.  Crimpin’ it up – and not in a Mighty Boosh kind of way neither.  Pretty soon, my barnet will be as bumpy as the ride to town on the 38 bus.

Rather ironically, I bought this beautiful vintage kitty bank to inspire Beardy and I to save, save, save. Hmm.

This is my new Holiday Book.  I’ve decided that it will document next week’s Carrie Not The Kind of Girl You’d Marry solo trip to London Town.  It is blue.  And beautiful. And look!  It even has handy phrases in French and Spanish and German and Italian in it!

I’m not going to say too much about this just yet since I can feel a full blown post coming on.  What I will say though is, “Wow”.  I think we know each other well enough now for you to guess how flippin’ excited I am.

Yes.  I think you understand.

Tiny food!  Everybody loves tiny food.  When we finally get to move south to our new city life, Beardy and I will each use one of these to keep our new house keys safe.  And cute.

Visit Leona’s shoppe at:  www.thrift-ola.com – but I swear, if you buy the Elvis rug,  I will take you down.

Surprise Gift #1: Precious Jolene

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[Since I appear to be thoroughly uninteresting and indeed uninterested lately, I've decided to get the creative juices flowing again by looking to some clever people I like for inspiration.

Don't you just hate that phrase, "get the creative juices flowing"?  It gives me the bolk.  I think the word 'juices' is pretty disgusting generally.  I take no issue with orange juice or apple juice.  That's ok.  Juices, plural, gives me the heeby jeebies. You know when people talk about cooking Sunday dinner and they mention roasting things (animals) in their own juices?  That's the worst.  Second to the notion of 'creative juices', that is.

I'm so sorry Jolene.  This little preamble is turning into a most unfortunate introduction to my long overdue post about how great you are.]

I met Jolene almost two years ago.  She visited my shop not long after we opened.  Crazily supportive of what Clare and I  were (are) trying to do with Made in the Shade and with our little Maisonette, Jolene quickly became one of our favourite and most loyal customers (not least because her name was really Jolene!). Over what was a relatively short space of time, I guess, I began to consider Jolene a friend.  As is often the way in Glasgow,  we discovered we had several pals in common plus we had tonnes of shared interests – and some shared bugbears.  There’s nothing like a shared bugbear to bond a pair o’ gals together.  Let’s face it. In a nutshell, I quickly learned that Jolene is a talented so-and-so.  As is her husband.  As are her daughters.  She’s a feisty little creature and a  pretty inspiring specimen of a woman really. And by god, she makes a mean bowl of soup.

A little while ago, I returned home from a week away* to find a parcel waiting for me at The Maisonette.  I surveyed the box. I noted the ‘Thriftola’ sticker on the front.  I checked and double checked that the box was definitely addressed to me. It was. I was confused – but excited.  I knew I hadn’t bought any treats online.  Heck!  I wondered if there had been some mistake. Perplexed.

I opened the box.  Inside, wrapped carefully in puffed up bubble wrap, was a cuckoo clock.  A beautiful, red, vintage cuckoo clock.  I already knew it wasn’t operational but I didn’t care.  I knew because not weeks before, I’d posted up a link to said cuckoo clock on my Faceache profile, gushing about how pretty it was and about how much I loved it. I had a  little blub to myself – blubbed up by the notion some secretive little mite had been so thoughtful and kind.

It wasn’t too long before my anonymous gift giver revealed themselves.  Mid-blub, Jolene arrived at the shop and as I sobbed about what a nice thing some soul had done out of the very goodness of their wee heart, Jolene exclaimed, “IT WAS ME!” I blubbed even harder. Bless her multi-coloured hosiery.  I’m not sure the tears were the reaction she’d been hoping for.

So.  Jolene is a fellow bloggy blogger.  Her site, Precious East, is dedicated to unearthing and sharing all the fabulous creative stuff that happens in Glasgow’s eastside and Jolene regularly shares little diary entries, crafty chatter and beautiful, inspiring photography.  Her blogging schedule is much less erratic than mine.  I recommend you pay her a visit.

After spending a short time hanging on the wall of The Maisonette, my beautiful decorative clock is now displayed proudly on my living room wall.

*We really must get round to discussing my ‘week away’ sometime soon.  I was actually off filming a tv commercial.  With Clare.  For Nokia.  I know!  Bonkers!

A Googly Eyed Goon in London

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I mean, I don’t think I AM a googly eyed goon in real-life, but these photos would surely have you believe I was!

Here’s a little taster of what we got up to during our trip to London this time around…

On Tuesday night we cut loose and headed to the Southampton Arms on Highgate Road.  I love it there.  The staff are super friendly, the bar stocks tipples by exclusively independent brewers and boy do they make a mean sausage roll… Oh!  And that have a super-cool fella that plays rock’n'roll classics on the piano.  My choice on tap this particular evening was a fancy strawberry beer.  Two pints later and I was positively fleein’.  Thankfully, no pics of this. I don’t remember going to bed.

On Wednesday, Beardy got to work bright and early.  Feeling more than a little fuzzy round the edges, I stumbled out the door and headed to the bus stop.  I intended to get to Liverpool St. and have a wee nosey round.  In the end my nosey round amounted to a dazed and confused saunter through the station, eating two hamburgers in the street (classy) then getting back on the bus again.

Beardy is the photographer for a new craft book. Here he is, quite obviously angry to be interrupted.

I returned home and holed myself up in the bedroom at the top of the house with my trusty laptop.  The Made in the Shade online shop was about to launch so had tonnes of work to get through.  Despite the woolly brain, I managed to tick off the chores on my list and in the evening, Beardy and I stepped out to Camden Town in the search of food.  We took up our booth in The Diner and stuffed our piggy faces til our tummies popped.  Just about popped, I should say.  that would be gross.

Look at the bags under those eyes! They're filled with strawberry beer.

This is Beardy's burger. I enjoyed an open meatloaf sarnie. Delicious!

We probably spent more money on scrummy shakes and root beer than we did on our meal - but, the state I was in, it was justified. Goose Island makes everything better.

On Thursday I met our gal in London Town, Leona (of Thriftola fame) and headed on a tour of Spitalfields flea market.  Jeewhizz! What a flippin’ hoard of treasure you could gather in your arms there!  Amazing.  Had I had pocket money and had I lived nearby, I could easily have purchased 2 living room chairs with green velour upholstery, a taxidermy tawny owl, a giant taxidermy stag head, an antique xylophone, 3 tonnes of vintage fabric, some Calamity Jane undies and several printing blocks.  As it was though, I bought a fabulous 50s necklace.  A pink one.  Leona bought a yellow one.  Oh!  Oh! And I was introduced to the fella from add n to x.  That was pretty exciting – though I didn’t know it at the time.  Leona filled me in afterwards.  Beardy was green with envy.

I don't look overawed in this photo - but believe me I did LOVE Spitalfields!

Thursday evening was the big launch night of the Made in the Shade online shop so some last minute tidying up work had to be done before we could relax.  Inbetween G-chatting with Clare Nicolson and ironing out little glitches here and there, we enjoyed an obligatory shout at Question Time on tv.  The shop launched (pretty much hitch free) at midnight as planned.  We slept soundly.  You can see the new online shop here.

On Friday, after a few hours infront of the computer refreshing the online shop orders page over and over and over again like a goon, I ventured out east.  Of course, never one to make things easy on myself, I somehow managed to turn a 20 minute train journey into a 1 hour and 10 minutes public transport extravaganza. I had fun nonetheless.  I reached Hackney Wick at about 3pm and headed straight to The Hackney Pearl to catch up with Leona and another new thrifty pal, Mira. Can confirm I am a huge fan of The Hackney Pearl.  Beautiful surroundings, tasty loose leaf tea in pretty pots, scrumptious carrot cake and lovely smiley faced staff.  Perfecto.

Walking from Hackney Wick train station...

The first guy I met in Hackney Wick. Yikes!

Maybe I might become a boat person? The canal is pretty.

Ha! The Pathway to Fish Island :)

We enjoyed a visit to Leona's Fish Island studio and caught up with her furry officemate. Thrifting sure is thirsty work!

After enjoying a little whistlestop tour of Fish Island and having met some lovely locals, Beardy caught up with us and Leona led the way to Dalston – and to dinner.  We went to a Turkish restaurant on the main drag.  As Leona explained, there is plenty of tasty, affordable Turkish cuisine on offer, but we banked on this joint, The Stone Cave,  purely based on the fact it’s decked out LIKE a stone cave. Really.  There’s even a grotto.  We literally hoovered up our meal (so hungry!) and tried our best not to make eye contact with the rather creepy belly dancing lady that was jiggling her boobs and jingling her bells into our baclava.  Baclava, by the way, is my new favourite sweet treat.  Anyone in Glasgow know where to get any?

Saturday, our last day in London and our only proper full day off work, turned out to be super busy.  I really wanted to get along to Selfridges to check out the Guerilla Gardening window, the Oxfam Curiosity Pop-Up Shop and of course, Supermarket Sarah.  However, I also wanted to squish in a trip to The Selvedge Spring Fair and I wanted to get along to the North London Vintage Market.  Two out of three ain’t bad – or at least it wouldn’t have been bad had my body not packed in 2/3 of the way through our day out and even the inability to walk properly wouldn’t have been too problematic if I hadn’t had to get dressed up in my best Mad Men outfit and head out partying later that night.  Gommy body or no gommy body we managed!

Selfridges, I have to admit, was a little bit disappointing.  I was kind of excited to find the Pedlars concession but was otherwise disappointed with the Supermarket Sarah section.  I think maybe I’d built it’s fabulousness up too much in my head.   The Oxfam Curiosity Shop was quite fun but again, didn’t live up to my own self-imposed hype.  I did however have my picture taken beside Colin Firth’s jacket.

Colin Firth's jacket for sale in the Oxfam Curiosity Shop in Selfridges. Took all my might not to just slide into it and pretend I was giving Colin Firth a cuddle.

By this stage in the game, my hips were about to pop and my feet were none to happy with the pavement stomping.  Beardy’s poor knees were pretty gubbed too.  Honestly, a day out with us?  Like hanging out with a pair of geriatrics.  We hopped on the bus and headed to The Selvedge Spring Fair.  Aaaaah….  A wee soft seat.

This is me outside Dry Goods - the Selvedge shoppe. 'Twas beautiful.

Queen of the googly eye. This me, eyes a-poppin' at the wares I found at the Selvedge Spring Fair

I’ve always wanted to go to the Selvedge Fair.  It was just a shame Made in the Shade gals Clare and Suzanne weren’t there with me – they’d have LOVED it.  Was thrilled to meet the lovely ladies from Papa Stour and was super excited to see they’d chosen to showcase so many textile products by Scottish makers, fellow Made in the Shaders and crafty pals.

The poor North London Vintage Market got bumped from our list of ‘to dos’ on account of not being able to walk anymore.  After a quick nip round a lovely antique store on the main street, we headed home to The Wedge, ordered a mountain of Japanese food and took a nap.

Japanese banquet delivered to our door courtesy of Me Love Sushi in Camden.

After a much needed snooze and a long body fixin’ soak in the bath, Beardy and I got ready for our Mad Men party.  It was a friend of ours’ birthday and we’d been invited along to her retro styled bash.  Only thing was, neither of us has ever seen Mad Men and we hadn’t room in our choca-bloca case to pack anything but bare essentials (i.e. no room for fancy shoes and frocks and all the trimmings and trinkets and fella/gal needs to get properly dappered up).  We did the best with what we had and set off for Harringay – looking surprisingly hot to trot I might add.  We bid the birthday gal many happy returns and enjoyed a tipple or two before heading home to watch Dolly Parton in 9 to 5.  Ya.  Dancer.

We thought this sign at the train station was pretty funny.

So.  That was that.  Another little London janut successfully under our belts.  Some new friends made, some new things in our brains and many an idea and inspiration to mull over.  ‘Til next time…