Rain, names and stars

I bought this dress from a vintage fair at Fringe Bar in Paddington, Sydney. There seemed to be some sort of vintage/second hand/handmade fair there every Saturday and there were always great things to be found. My husband and I spent 7 months living in Australia in 2008/09 during a year out from our jobs. We had planned to travel round the world, but after taking in Japan and arriving in springtime Sydney we kind of didn't end up getting much further. No regrets though - one of the main reasons for us not moving on was that I was pregnant with my little girl and South America got a lot less appealing and was pretty much vetoed by my Doctor. We're saving that particular adventure for another day now.

Paddington is one of my favourite Sydney suburbs and we spent a lot of time mooching about the shops, cafes and markets there. I can't remember how much this dress cost, but I imagine it can't have been more than a few dollars. It's orange silk with little short sleeves, a kind of macrame neckline and a white star print all over it. For some reason it caught my eye when I opened my wardrobe this morning. I'm totally in my uniform today: dress, jeans, ballet shoes and a blazer. We spent the afternoon at my sister and her boyfriend's house with the rest of the family to celebrate lots of birthdays. The plan was to have a barbecue but the rain scuppered our plans.

I've just had a big rummage in my box of jewellery which lives under the bed and came across this long-forgotten Tatty Devine necklace with my name on. I tend to wear either my Alex Monroe Bumblebee or my Karen Walker necklace which has a little girl with a napsack on it every day so I often forget about my other jewellery. This necklace possibly falls into the 'am I too old to get away with this?' category as perhaps responsible grown ups don't go round with their names round their neck (apart from SATC's Carrie Bradshaw of course). Like I said yesterday, I'm not worried.

I tried to get a better photo but my camera battery ran out. I look a bit shocked as we had a lie-in until 9AM this morning as the little girl decided to sleep late. This is such a rare treat but I now feel tireder than ever. So weird how this is often the case. Any sleep experts care to explain this phenomenon?

silk dress: Fringe Bar vintage fair $10ish

black jeans: Urban Outfitters

cream cardigan: H&M

black ballet shoes: New Look

name necklace: Tatty Devine

rainy day: UK's finest

Sunshine, new galleries and surprises

We're big fans of art galleries in this family and my little girl and I often go to the central one in Leeds for some 'culture'. I've used inverted commas because our visits normally take the following form: coffee and cake in the cafe followed by running round the permanent exhibition shouting 'tiger!', 'horseys!', 'cat!' and 'deer!' at the paintings and 'mummy', 'daddy' and 'grandma' at the scantily clad statues, emaciated Anthony Gormley sculptures and the statue of Queen Anne respectively. We then spend a long time drawing and moving round the pencils and pens in the activity room. I don't generally get to look at the art for very long. We went to see the recent Henry Moore exhibition a few times but the sculptures were just too inviting for little climbers and we were never able to linger. Despite this, going to galleries with my daughter is one of my favourite things to do: the amount of space available for running round and the visual stimulation everywhere plus the sheer number of people to look at make them ideal destinations for us. Plus they are generally free of charge, which is always nice! We're still at the stage where old ladies look and smile at us as we charge around - hopefully that won't change for a while yet! I guess she will hopefully not be doing the whole 'tiger' thing age 14...

The Hepworth has just opened in Wakefield and I've been wanting to go along and check it out. I mentioned to my little girl that we were going to go to an art gallery and she got very excited shouting 'art gallery - see a tiger!' which made me kind of nervous as to what her reaction would be with the absence of large stripey cats (a friend had already alerted me to this beforehand!). Luckily she wasn't too disappointed at the tiger no-show (we still saw some cows and horses, thankfully) and we had a great afternoon there. It's really geared up for little kids: we went to a story and singing session, smeared hummus all over the cafe, ran round the exhibition like penguins and played hard in the playground. Totally randomly we bumped into my Great Aunt (she lives round the corner so perhaps not so unexpected) and my Uncle (who lives in Newcastle so a real coincidence!). Lovely surprise, not least because I'd been trying to get hold of my Great Aunt to see if she wanted to meet us there.

I found this dress in my favourite local charity shop for £7. It's by Kimchi and Blue which is a brand I see in Urban Outfitters and it's very cute with puffed sleeves, a pleated front and a Peter Pan collar (is 31 too old to wear Peter Pan collars? They do seem kind of, well, 'young'. Oh well, I'm not going to get hung up on the whole 'dressing your age' thing just yet!). I really like little floral dresses: they're so simple to put on with leggings/tights and little pumps and comfortable for charging round art galleries too. I love the print on this one: you probably can't see too well in the photos but it's kind of a dusky pink and cream flower on a black background. I really don't love leggings at all, but I seem to wear them all the time with my dresses as it seems wrong to wear opaque tights in June (isn't there a rule about only wearing tights in months that have an 'r' in them? Or have I made this up!) and yet it's hardly ever warm enough here to wear a short dress with bare legs. Oh and to make the day even better, I have been smelling beautifully of roses thanks to my lovely friend sending me Paul Smith Rose perfume for my birthday. Love, love, love.

Kimchi and Blue dress: £7, the Wellfair shop, Moortown

denim shirt: Gap

leggings: I simply don't have the foggiest

ballet shoes: New Look

belt: ancient

locket: Urban Outfitters

watch: Triwa, present from my husband for my birthday!

bag: Marrakech souk (la-di-da!)

Royal weddings, not so royal weddings and 40s dresses

So apparently I've done 7 posts in 9 months, which is pretty lazy by anyone's standards! Not that I'm going to make any plans to blog more often, in fact, the next few months are going to be all about taking it easy and just enjoying life. I have a whole pile of vintage and second hand clothes to write about but as a busy working mum of a very active toddler it's hard to find the time. I'm making no promises...in most cases the problem is that by the time I get round to taking a photo I'm covered in baked beans, yoghurt or avocado.

My husband bought me this 1940s dress for my birthday this year. We got it from a vintage fair at Harewood House which was part of their Royal Wedding celebrations. After spending all morning watching Kate, William, Harry, Pippa et al, we nipped off during the service to spend a few hours making the most of the day off. The vintage fair was an added bonus! There were some amazing vintage wedding dresses, if you were in the market for that sort of thing (I wasn't especially, but supposing one day the husband and I renew our vows??!?)

I always love 1940s dresses, but they are usually among the most expensive items at vintage fairs. I'm not sure why that is: perhaps they are more difficult to come by than dresses from other periods, such as the 1970s? I spotted this one on the rack and just HAD to try it on. Oh, and obviously, it fitted perfectly so I just HAD to have it! The lovely husband really liked it too, and suggested he buy it for me as a birthday present. I'm not sure what the fabric is, but it's amazing to wear and the skirt is pleated and swings beautifully. I love the fact it's so demure and ladylike. It seems like it's a pretty timeless dress that I'll be able to wear for years to come.

I wore it for the first time on Saturday (despite it not yet being my birthday - shhhhhh) for the wedding of some friends of ours. It was a fantastic wedding, possibly the most original I've ever been to. It's hard to make a wedding truly personal but these friends really achieved it - even having a wedding band made up of the bride and groom's dads, uncle and sisters PLUS a unicorn cake buffet presided over by a shop mannequin called Ken.

I felt like the dress needed red lipstick which as someone who only ever uses Lucas' Papaw Ointment on her lips is a huge thing. How do people wear red lipstick? It takes such dedication and I spend the whole time being afraid that it's on my teeth or round my mouth as soon as I've had a drink. I would love to the kind of polished girl who always has immaculate make up but I guess I'm just never going to be like that (see above re: baked beans, yoghurt and avocado on my clothes) even at the grand old age of 31. Oh well, life's too short to have neat make up, right?

(Oh, and if anyone was wondering, I managed to go the whole night without getting food or drink of any kind on my dress - something to do with my little girl staying overnight at my brother in law's house and me being the designated driver?)

1940s dress: vintage fair

white sandals: Kurt Geiger about four years' ago (barely worn: I'm not really a white sandals kind of girl either!)

corsage round wrist: Sportsgirl, Sydney

Oh, and I used my vintage black handbag, bought in Newtown, Sydney but I forgot to take a photo of it

Tequila cocktails and shoes

This weekend, to celebrate our 14th year of being together (in just over two years we will have been together half my life!) we sent the little girl for a sleepover at my parents' house and had a rare night out. We got dressed up, headed out for some food and, like all parents of non-sleeping toddlers, were tucked up in bed by 11pm.

We made like we were on holiday, allbeit in North Leeds, drinking tequila cocktails and eating Mexican food.

I wore my new Topshop sundress and was delighted to rediscover my vintage yellow Bally sandals with turquoise heels which I bought from a charity shop in Harrogate years ago. Colourblocking: how very 2011! (NB I have no idea why my floor looks this yellow - it isn't actually that colour!). Shoe verdict: very pretty but incredibly hard to walk in.

Dress: Topshop

Jacket: Gap

Bag: Paddington Market, Sydney (gift)

Earrings: Kirribilli Market, Sydney

Shoes: Charity shop in Harrogate c. 2008 (I can't remember how much I paid, but it will have been under £5)

When the going gets tough...

We're in the middle of a very bad week. It's a bad week that is likely to continue for another fortnight but then can only get better, so really it's more of a bad month. Right now I'm tempted to go to sleep and wake up in three weeks' time when everything is over, however that doesn't seem to be an option that's open to me.

Instead, I've been doing what every sensible girl knows is the only thing to do in these circumstances: bargain hunting. I'm pretty pleased with my haul, which is all for my 18-month year old.

Charity shops are such fantastic places to buy books and toys, particularly as you can often find brand new things that have been donated either because they were duplicate presents or because the child has grown bored of them. I buy the majority of my daughter's toys from charity shops, nearly new sales and Ebay. The main things to check for are that they are still in good condition, no bite marks (!), no missing pages in books, no faulty bits or missing pieces (jigsaws). My daughter devours books and loves to hold them herself and practise 'reading' them to her teddies and dolls. Obviously this is to be encouraged but it does mean that often the books don't last for as long as we would have hoped, so it makes sense to buy them second hand. If they are favourites (erm, hello EVERYTHING by Julia Donaldson who must be RICH beyond her wildest dreams!) we buy a couple and keep a 'good' copy.

My daughter loves Dick Bruna's Miffy, the iconic little white rabbit. I remember being a big fan when I was young too. There must be something about the simple black and white drawings with primary colours plus the story lines to which every toddler can relate that makes the books big hits with little girls (and little boys too). We've had six of the books on rotation at bedtime for the last six months or so, and all three of us know them off by heart. We found another six to add to our library in the British Heart Foundation shop in Headingley for only 95p each. They are in pristine condition too - unwanted gift? Surely not, how could Miffy be unwanted? They must have been duplicates...

We then found this brand new Miffy backpack for £5 in the Martin House shop in Headingley. They have the cutest Easter display with little chicks, ducks, rabbits and birds. The backpack came filled with Easter eggs and a little Easter card. Apparently they get lots of brand new toys donated due to the fact that the charity is a children's hospice so it's always worth a look, as well as being a wonderful cause. We're putting it away until Easter Sunday.

Finally, we found this wooden alphabet and numbers toy in the Wellfair Shop on Moortown corner. It was only £3 and is in pristine condition. My little girl is now calling it 'new toy' and as she's such a big fan of letters she's really enjoying playing with it.

Not bad for a couple of mornings spent mooching and having coffee in the suburbs of Leeds.

Bunting! (nothing to do with the 29th April)

So it's been quite a while since I last posted something. I can't actually believe it's been six months - where has the time gone? It's now Spring, thank goodness, and we've been having a few days of beautiful, un-British, sunshine.

I have some good excuses though for not blogging, one of them being that we dropped our camera in the park at the beginning of February and so I wasn't able to take any photos for a couple of months until we finally bought a new one a couple of weekends ago.

This is not strictly a wow-what-a-charity-shop-bargain post, but it does have an element of vintage in that two of the fabrics I used were second hand: the royal blue spotty fabric came from a vintage fair in Saltaire absolutely years ago and the navy floral print cotton is from an old dress I cut up.

I've been meaning to make bunting for my little girl's room for about eighteen months, ever since she was born in fact, but just never got round to it. I'm really pleased that I finally stopped procrastinating and finished it as it looks great in her room. I'm trying not to think about the fact that I could have actually bought it cheaper...not even including the hours I spent on it. However, it's bespoke! And that's a good thing, right? It's also a bit wonky (as with all my sewing) but that only adds to its charm. Just don't look too closely (surely no-one looks at bunting too closely anyway?)

I used the following fabrics:

Harlequin Distant Shores in cream (also used for the Roman blind - I bought metres of this when I was heavily pregnant. I also have plans to make a bean bag and a quilt - maybe in three years' time I'll have finished these?)

Blue spotty vintage cotton

Blue floral cotton from an old dress

Red stars cotton (Leeds market bargain)

White with strawberries cotton (ditto)

Red and cream stripey ribbon bought from the Hen House in Southwell

Bunting is so easy to make, I wish I'd made it a few months ago as my little girl is going to be moving into her big girl's room in the summer and I'll have to make a load more.

Flowers of London

I've been a bit quiet as we were hit by a bug here at Opshop towers. However I'm relieved to confirm that normal service (whatever that is) has now been resumed. Last week was half term and I spent a few days down in London with Mr Opshop and the little one. We stayed with our lovely friends who live in a pretty little house in Teddington with a very patient cat. Actually it's a different cat every time as they foster kittens (ahhhhh) and fortunately the current lodger was not frightened off by a very intrigued 13 month old toddler. They seemed to get on very nicely in fact.

Today's dress was another bargain from the rather wonderful Wellfair Shop in Moortown. It's a flowery tea dress and it cost £4. I wore it to go gallivanting round the South Bank, lunching at the Tate Modern and gawping at some art. We even spotted Bruce Springsteen outside the BFI at the film premiere of 'The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town', which I think made Mr Opshop's weekend. I'm able to report that, like all celebrities, he's shorter in real life.

teadress - £4, the Wellfair Shop, Moortown

grey top - Petit Bateau

black biker boots - Dune

necklace - Karen Walker