Coventry Evening Telegraph Top 5 Weekend Events!

We've had a mention in Coventry Evening Telegraph's Top Five Weekend Events :-) Unfortunately they've got the location & time wrong, so if you're coming to see us at the fair, We're at HATTON PARK VILLAGE HALL, 11AM -4PM!!! 

Our Exciting New Venture & Upcoming Fair!

For those of you that follow our Facebook page you’ll know that it’s a very busy and exciting time for us at the moment! Following on from the success of Blighty Boutique’s Vintage & Handmade Fairs we are opening a new Bazaar in central Leamington Spa. It will be a veritable feast of vintage, handmade and retro, housing a number of sellers, along with workshops and a tea room all under one roof.

We can’t wait to get the keys and start showing people around and we already have a big list of those eager to be involved! We have over 4000 sq ft to fill, so if you think you might be interested in being part of our new venture then email us at blightyboutique@yahoo.co.uk

Our opening has been delayed & we're now looking to August!

We’re also busy getting ready for our next Vintage & Handmade Fair at Hatton Park Village Hall in Warwick. We have 24 sellers of vintage and handmade items, along with a vintage style tea room brimming with pretty vintage china…who’s for a slice of Victoria sponge?!

New Logo!

Thanks to the lovely, and very talented, Angie of Angie Mantell Handmade!

Not only is Angie an amazing graphic designer, but she also creates the cutest little animals from British wool. 

Angie's also created the flyer for the next Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fair on Sunday the 5th March. 

Amy x

Our Next Fair!

Our next fair is on Sunday 9th December at Hatton Park Village Hall, Warwick. There will be 24 stalls full to the brim with vintage and handmade loveliness, great for picking up some Christmas gifts!

Photo Courtesy of the Leamington Courier


Entry is £1 (free for under 16s) and we will be having our usual vintage inpired tea room, with a selection of delicious cakes being served on our vintage china. We'll again be donating a minimum of 10% of our tea room takings to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Military Patients Fund, having already donated £350 to the charity this year.

 

If you'd like to promote our fair via your blog by showing our flyer, then simply click on our flyer to the right and you will be taken to our Fair blog where you can copy and paste the html code :-)

Amy & Annie x

The New Blighty Boutique Vintage Fair Flyer!

Hi everyone, thought you might like to see the new flyer for our Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fair Jubilee Special! It gave me a chance to showcase some of my ever growing vintage Royal ware collection.

We can't wait to don our red, white and blue and will have Union Jack flags and Jubilee themed paper crafts for our young visitors to the fair.

My Stall at the Sutton Fair

I haven't had chance to blog since the Sutton Vintage & Arts Fair, but Mum and I had a fantastic day! I came home with hardly anything and have been busy buying more stock for up coming fairs that I'll be selling at. Thanks Sabina and Eva for holding another fantastically organised and thoroughly enjoyable fair!

Amy x

Jubilee Excitement!

I know the Jubilee weekend isn't until the 2nd June but I am already super excited! I love the Royals and all things Royal and have a growing collection of Royal Memorabilia; mostly cups, beakers and tins.

National Portrait Gallery

Like most collectors my collection has outgrown its cabinet after only a few months of having built the cabinet and I'm now considering having my spare room as a 'Royal' room so that I have even more space to keep collecting!

Part of my growing collection

Being a lover of the Royals, and of course of parties and dressing up, we've sheduled one of this year's Vintage & Handmade Fairs for the Jubilee weekend Come along to Hatton Park Village Hall on Sunday June 3rd betwwen 11am - 4pm and drink tea, eat cake, peruse our seller's lovely wears and check us out in our red, white and blue ensembles! There will also be children's jubilee crafts taking place outside...fancy sticking some sparkles on a golden crown or building a Queen's guard out of paper? I'll be the one sat colouring in a Union Jack....

Amy x

We've only had a hint of spring and....

.... I'm lusting after a convertible. My absolute favourite is the convertible Morris Minor.

Pic courtesy of Wikipedia

Shame I have no skills for tinkering with old cars and can only drive automatics eh! Oh well, I can still gaze at them in wonder.

Amy x

Almost Time!

The Blighty Boutique Fair will be taking place a week on Sunday and Mum and I have been working our socks off with the preparations. If you get chance please do come along, it's always nice to put faces to names!

Elsie Sparrow, one of our 24 stall holders

 Click on the flyer to be taken to the Fair blog, where you'll also find links to the Fair's Facebook event page and Blighty Boutique's Facebook page.

Amy xxx

27 Tomorrow!

I'm amazed to say that I'll be 27 tomorrow, I'm sure I was only 22 a year ago. I had a lovely family pre-birthday meal on Tuesday and my Nan & Grandad bought me these.

These are also brightening up the living room. A liitle burst of sunshine, a bargainous 50p a bunch from M&S.

Amy xxx

Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fairs latest flyer!

Hi everyone, the Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fair's new flyer for the March 4th Fair. I will of course be creating a button for you lovely people to share with others on your blog. Excuse the shameless plugs on the blog, but the fair's are such a big part of my life that it seemed only right that they were featured on both the Fair's own blog and my personal blog.

The button will be up just as soon as I've mastered the technology of it all! I struggle every time and think, 'aha, that was all I had to do. I'll remember that for next time...'. I swear by Serendipity Child's Grab My Button tutorial. I've just searched back in Helen's blog to find it and have tucked the post away in my 'favourites'. I use it every time I need to make a blogger button!

The back of the flyer

On the Fair's own blog page I will be setting up and event page too.I'll be setting this up in a week or so and you'll be able to find it using the Facebook Event icon in fair's blog sidebar, which will be active once the event page is set up. You can already follow Blighty Boutique using the Facebook icon in the fair's blog sidebar!

Thank you for the lovely comments on my last post and sorry that I haven't responded to them yet! I'm hoping to get back to blogging properly again soon...well I have bought myself a new camera (it's my birthday tomorrow) so it'd be rude not to use if for blogging purposes wouldn't it!

Amy xxx

We Love Dogs!



A selection of vintage dogs sat on my living room dresser



It'll soon be time to distribute our flyers for the March 4th fair, and the essential ingredient in our flyer picture? A dog! Those of you who know my Mum and I will know that we're massive dog lovers and have four between us.



Our first flyer 2011, featuring a little grey vintage dog

We pick something with a vintage doggy theme for each flyer, whether it be an image of a dog on a tin or postcard, or a figurine, there has to be a four legged friend within each flyer image!

Our second vintage fair flyer 2011, featuring a dog on a vintage tin

Amy x

The Second Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fair

It's not long until the second Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fair and we are of course super excited! The fair is on Sunday 6th November, 11am - 4 pm at Hatton Park Village Hall, Hatton Park, Warwick, CV35 7TR.

There will be twenty four vintage and handmade sellers exhibiting their wares and yummy tea and cake served on vintage china will be available from the vintage style tea room. It's a great opportunity to meet fellow bloggers as many of our sellers are bloggers and others will be visiting the fair! Sellers include;

Jo of Hesta & the Pugs

Wendy of Ticking Stripes

Vicki of Ticklepenny Vintage

Linda of TabbyRoo

Julia of Bodkin and Bead

Phillipa of Court and Spark

Annie of The Felt Fairy

Carol of Mrs Jolly's Bubble Car

Here are a few photos from our first fair;

We will be out and about enjoying the Olney Vintage Fair and Kenilworth Handmade Market this weekend and hopefully we'll see some of you whilst we're buying lots of beautiful vintage and handmade goodies!

Amy & Annie x

The Worcester Flea & Northampton Vintage Fair

Here's a few places I'll be heading to and exhibiting my vintage wares at in the coming weeks. I can't wait!

Having been totally absent from Blogland for quite a while now I've decided that for the forseeable future I'll only be posting on my blog for Blighty Boutique's Vintage & Handmade Fairs to keep people updated of fair's that I'll be attending/exhibiting at and when I'll be holding Blighty Boutique's own Fairs. I'll still be keeping this blog open in case I want to return to it in the future, but generally what I want to say is a big THANK YOU for all your supportive and inspiring bloggy comments! I consider you all friends and continue to talk about you as such. For those of you on Facebook, I'll see you on there xxx

The first Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fair surpassed all of our wildest expectations, with nearly 700 adults through the door and £800 raised for the NMC Appeal through our vintage style tea room and cake stall!

Thank you to all of our lovely volunteers, visitors and stall holders for making it such an enjoyable day and of course Daisy Cupcakes and The Cakeri, amongst others, for their yummy cake donations to the NMC cake table.

 

We’re hoping to hold another fair near Christmas and have already started talking about what Christmas music should be on the day’s playlist.

I’ll let the pics from the day do the talking as I’m off to vintage fairs in Olney and Winslow this weekend and best get the vintage goodies packed x

Hello Blogland

I haven’t been on blogger for ages and seem to have got out of the habit. Well I best get into it as I’m missing my bloggy friends. I hope everyone’s well and I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone’s latest goings on over the next few weeks (I think it’ll take me that long to get back into the swing of things).


I’m super excited for my very first Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fair this Sunday. I even attempted my very first cake last night as we’re running a cake stall for the NMC Appeal as well as the tea room and I am determined to be able to point a cake out as one I’ve made. In hindsight 10.45pm wasn’t the best time to start it, especially without all of the ingredients (I’d forgotten the cream and caster sugar, made do with granulated), but it turned out ok and fingers crossed the next one will be even better.

Obviously we had to taste test it. I have to credit a pot of Betty Crocker's for the icing

I’m on paper bunting duty today so I’m sat in my jim jams surrounded by vintage annuals and string. I can now at least find all of my crafty bits and bobs after buying three IKEA bookcases for the spare room/stock room. My other IKEA storage unit just wasn’t big enough to house my stock etc anymore and it has now gone off to a new home via eBay. I suppose I should probably mention that since my cousin and I are DIY novices not one of the three book cases we built turned out right. Oh well, they do the job and they are only for stock.

My cousin’s also painted my fence a lovely green colour and is moving onto the decking next week. He’sjust graduated from uni and is easily bribed with cash at the moment to fund travelling and festivals. He inconveniently went off to Glastonbury when I needed my lawn mowing...just can’t get the staff these days.

Right, I best get on with this bunting as I’m off to take that at 3pm. Woohoo. Have a good week and I hope to see some of you at the vintage fair xxx

Great Grandad's 85th Party

The whole family spent yesterday in Liverpool for my Great Grandad George's 85th Birthday Party. He moved into a residential home a few months ago and he's looking much healthier than he did when he was at home. The staff are all lovely and bring him his tea in his favourite Everton mug.

Yesterday he had a party at the residential home, complete with entertainer and lots and lots of buffet food. He enjoyed opening his cards and presents and enjoyed having everyone there, even if he wasn't too sure who everyone was (he's got mild dementia).  The other residents really enjoyed the part too and one lady didn't stop dancing from her wheelchair and doing a hand jive with my Nan.


My cousin, Katie, and I.

This week my mum contacted UK Handmade and they were really lovely, putting a good sized advert for our Blighty Boutique Vintage & Handmade Fair in their Events section. Our lovely volunteer waitresses have also taken it upon themselves to buy matching uniforms for the vintage style tea room and they'll be wearing black 40s style tea dresses with a white lace edged pinnie. It's great of them to have bought the dresses as I really wanted them all to have matching outfits but didn't mention it as I couldn't afford to buy them, with the tea room being for charity.

The dresses don't look that vintagey in this pic but they look very vintagey on. They're Biba's Barbara Hulanicki for Asda and the dress I have on in the above pic is the same dress but in a pink/grey pattern.

I took a little trip to the tip this week and came back with these two vintage biscuit barrels. The ceramic floral one is apparently from 1917 and is so pretty. It's missing its lid but is in great condition considering it's age and now sits on my bedroom windowsill. The wooden one is complete with it's heavy ceramic inner, and will be coming along with me to Saturday's Northampton Vintage Fair. I'm also having a stall at the Discover Vintage Fair at the Pump Rooms in Leamington Spa on Sunday....a busy weekend ahead. I've also got four little helpers to assist with choosing and packing my wares for the two fairs. Lily (my Scottie) and Alfie, Jack & Betty (Mum's Westie, Scottie & Chihuahua) are all at mine this week while my mum's away for a few days, so I'm off work most of the week to try and limit how much naughtiness they get up to!

Have a good week everyone xxx

A Lovely Gift & a Lazy Day

Beverley of Elizabeth's Attic sent me a beautiful gift a few weeks ago; a tile with this great text on. Beverley does these in lost of designs and they're fab. You can find them on her Etsy page.

As you probably know from my last blog I'm having this week of because of a bad patch with my chronic fatigue. I spent yesterday at my mums helping her sort her spare room and it took us from 10am to 8.30! Probably wasn't the best idea since I wasn't feeling great anyway but sometimes a good sort out, even in helping someone else, clears your head. I'd quite like to spend this evening lying on the sofa eating my body weight in chocolate or Ben & Jerry's but it's one of those where I could so with it delivering to me. Think it'd look a bit odd if I asked for an emergency Tesco delivery of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia & a large dairy milk bar, hmmm  xxx

Family Fun and Vintage Finds

It's a bit late for me to do a Royal Wedding post so instead I'll just post a few pics from the family party we had at my uncles'.


Grandad in his red, white & blue

 We all waved our flags and cheered as the guest arrived at the Church and of course cheered even louder when the Queen came into view. My family and I love the Royals and we all really enjoyed the day. My uncle had put on a great do with bunting, flags, banners, party bags and a ridicilous amount of food. Pork and stuffing baps, yum yum.

Nan waving her flags. My aunt's sat behind her

Mum in her red, white & blue

Here are a few vintage bits and bobs I've picked up over the last week.

Vintage travelling wardrobe. I think it's 50s



I love the print. 50p from the tip shop

I've got this week off as my Chronic Fatigues bad at the moment. Fingers crossed I'll be feeling better next week if I rest for most of this one. I hate resting but there's not a lot else I can do at the moment. I think I'll make some of my vintage envelopes while I rest so that I at least feel slightly productive.

Utility china & a Royal beaker

Have a good week everyone xxx