Breakfast through the last century - the 1970s

Hello again and thank you for all you support re:wallpaper and your excellent ideas - I have managed to distract Dom by saying it was time our living room was redone (it has been 10 years) so swished 50s fabrics around yesterday and got the children on my side.    I am finding (as usual) that formatting is a problem so cannot reply - my revamped blog is a bit vampish!

Anyway here is my take on a 70s breakfast - I realise that I could also do early versus later part of any decade so this is becoming very tricky to do  so let's say 70s'ish

The egg cosies I have had a while (and don't worry they are proper 70s egg cups underneath!) - the large Winkle plate I like with the birds and then blow me down at the car boot yesterday I bought an armful of linen for 50p and the orange bird place mat was amongst it.  The plate in the bottom right was from under the bed - a whole set of that...cough, cough.... made by Woods and called Alpine

The cookery book is one that was written for children and has lovely illustrations

The tea towel at the back must have come from a car boot but cannot remember when!

My vintage wallpaper wall under threat!

Only last year Bronte and I created, what I thought, was a lovely wallpapered wall (well chimney breast) - it is in a spare bedroom so did not think to ask first.....at the time Dom did mutter that he thought he might use that room for 'men's type activities'....I think that means listening to very old rock records.  Anyway that issue has recently resurfaced and this room is again under threat - you may recall that this wallpaper dates from 1956 and  came from an original wallpaper sample book - cost £12 (a very good bargain I thought as I nearly gave in to Cath Kidston wallpaper and £350 a sheet - just joking, that would be against all my thrifty ways!).

The negotiations are currently at a tricky stage - Dom has upped the stakes by suggesting that I move my sewing room into this spare bedroom (he says he will also move all the shelves and he will set up a nice little table for afternoon tea...). By doing so he then converts my sewing room in a room for 'men's type activities' - this is a much smaller room so in theory a better deal.  BUT he then says that my wallpaper in the sewing room would have to go.....I am thinking of having a conservation order put on both...any ideas???

1950s hat for cheering up a not so cheery day!

Mmmm - see what I have done to this blog?  I cannot get it back to how it was and I have no idea how to add widgets/gadgets and do dahs.  This is all because I do not want to write another essay...
Anyway a strange day yesterday - Dom had to take the day off work as holiday (all trains were cancelled due the copper being stolen again!).  This threw me out completely - we took a stroll down the high street to get something for lunch and walked past a charity shop - just being put in the window were an array of straw hats. I put the brakes on all walking - perhaps I should state here that Dom does not 'do' charity shops/car boots/jumble sales - Dom thought that the hat below was some sort of plate????

I fearfully asked how much the hats were and was told that they would: '..have to be £2 I'm afraid as they are old and from the 1950s'. I have written before how women in charity shops often apologise to me about the outrageous cost of some things....I must look very hard done by.  I thought that this black one was just lovely - though sadly I have one of the biggest heads in the entire kingdom so no chance of ever fitting!

The mimosa is particularly pretty and I was going to embark in trying to find my mimosa plates that would also go very neatly with it - therein madness lies I thought!

A little bit of Frenchness today (some delicious vintage fabric from the 1950s with scenes of gay Paree) and also paired it with an old original drawing that I have - bought a  thousand years ago from a local junk shop - turned out that the artist designed all the clothes for The Avengers!

I possibly have also been a bit grumpy because a woman drove into the back of our 'new to us' car - we had saved 5 years to get a 'new to us' car and our previous one was held together with duct tape.  Because of my thrifty ways we have never had a loan/credit (mortgage aside - two months left to go, whoop, whoop) so we bought the car the old fashioned way - by saving up....only got it just before Christmas....grr
Anyway I did buy another hat - a little straw one, again from the 1950s, it is also lovely and will do something with it for Easter.  I did tiptoe back to the shop and the others had gone of course...

Vintage printed purse

I am currently a bit obsessed by making this type of purse.  I think that my sisters are truly a bit cheesed off with having purses for every single birthday/Christmas and all events in between!! I have to get a few more out of my system then normal service will be resumed!  For a long time now (several years!!) I have been wanting to make bags or purses out of images of my grandparents (strange but true).  I have tried all the techniques that you can find on the internet about printing fabric through your own printer (well all except the one where you have to buy special fabric paper stuff - I am thrifty remember).  I thought that I would have one last go before I throw in the towel and....it worked!  This method is just buying iron-on interfacing (not that expensive sort!) and cut out a piece of fabric - all done!


This has an image of the envelope that you see in the previous posting - grubby marks and all!  I wanted to do a little embroidery in the corner because this is just the sort of thing that my mother would have done.  For the reverse of this purse I used a little scrap of some lovely fabric that my sister Gail had given to me - I love the colours.

So the photo below is of my paternal grandparents at their wedding at the start of the First World War - a poignant image for me.  I have some lovely 1930s French linen that I used for the remainder of the purse and edged with some very old ric rac (from the 1930s I think). 

The 'Make do and Mend' booklet was from my sister Sue for Christmas. As I have written before we set ourselves a financial threshold for Christmas presents - it is usually £1.  Sue did herself proud as this was free - it was mixed up with some magazines that she got from the WI - she wins the 2011 prize for the best bargain. This is an original copy and full of helpful tips and hints (some of which I already employ)! The old Woman's Own magazine was bought from Mr Langford's wonderful shop a year or so ago - I have a few dating from the 40s.  Thank you for reading - I hope/intend to post more here and perhaps less on flickr, in an attempt to cut down on those copying my pictures to pinterest....

Update - two lucky (some may disagree) readers will be receiving one of these purses in the post any day now.  This follows my:  "give away something even though I have no idea how you do that sort of thing" give away!! I do hope that they like them - please let me know if possible.  If not please return to sender...address unknown. Got to go now - I have treacle sponge pudding cooking and toad-in-the-hole in the oven! 

 Bryony - if you manage to find this - and read it - show of some technical skill and leave a message...

Just for you...

Well I have decided just to post these few photos here and see who notices (I may succumb to Flickr later).  I have been enjoying printing things through my trusty printer and made a few purses for my sisters (who may be a little fed up with purses I fear but I do not know what else to do with them).  Anyway I was going through my old envelopes (oh I do wish you would stop pretending that you don't have any - especially you Mary!!) and found one that was written by my grandmother to my mother (that has now been printed and turned into a purse of course) and then another with Dig for Victory as a postmark.  This set me off on a whole tableau thingy and here are the results. I shall call this 'Breakfast in the last century'!

I was trying to go in decade order but that will go to pot now - here is the first decade....

Oh just to say (in case the style police are watching) that this is my stuff and not necessarily exactly the right era - just a flavour of it (shades of Eric Morcambe and Andre!).  All of the things in the art nouveau photo I have had for decades (no, not that long - I am not that old!)

Once again I find myself asking for help re:blogs.  Does anyone know how to turn a photo around? I turned them around on my computer but when they upload here they are all lop sided again!
We shall move on a few years and I shall call this 'Chintzy Breakfast':

I am sorry if you do not eat cake for breakfast...

To end today I shall add in what I shall call: 'Thrifty 40s' breakfast

This picture shows the envelope that started this all off today! There is an egg because we kept chickens!!!

When I got all of this china out of the cupboard I then found that I could not get it all back in - some spare plates have now gone back to the charity shop, whence it came from in the first place!  When I pluck up courage to venture into the china cupboard again we shall have the 50s, 60s and 70s!!