Cheap date: Walking in Peckham

I will admit I had a bit of a prejudice against this walk. First, P wanted to take to onto the set of a pre-teen drama and then we were going to walk through Peckham? It didn’t sound like a great way to spend a morning.  Luckily, I was proved completely wrong.

Firstly, it turns out that One Tree Hill ISN’T just a C4 television show, but is also part of Honor Oak Park. From the top of the hill you can see an absolutely amazing view of London, while feeling that you have completely left the city.

The walk from the top of the hill down towards Peckham Rye is gorgeous. Unfortunately you can occasionally hear the odd car or plane, so you don’t feel totally out of London, but it’s so beautiful it’s easy to imagine you are walking through an ancient woodland.

In my mind, Peckham Rye was going to be really dodgy. Perhaps it is in the surrounding streets, but I hugely recommend the park. We did see a man drinking a cider up a tree, but otherwise, this is a huge Victorian park that has been restored to its full glory by some very green-fingered volunteers. It is probably due to the endless rain we’ve been having, but everything looked in full bloom, lush and green and alive.

We wandered through the park, taking in the different gardens and the wildlife (we saw this heron flying to its perch, stalking a fish and then stabbing into the water with its beak to catch it. Also I am 99% sure the ‘rock’ next to it is a turtle). (UPDATE: I am now 100% certain it was a turtle – thanks to Jake for confirming).

After we came out of the park, we caught the bus back to Brixton. All in all the walk took around 2 hours, although there was a lot of stopping for photographs. If the day had been nicer, it would have been great to take a picnic with us, but despite the gloom it was a great way to spend the morning and all for the price of the bus fare there and back!

Shoestring Splendour Swap Party

Thanks to everyone who came along to yesterday’s Shoestring Splendour swap party. There were some amazing clothes on offer, each with it’s own story.

A few went along the lines of “I bought this dress/shirt/pair of jeans because I thought it looked good in the changing room, but it’s never suited me and I’ve only worn it once or twice”, some had literally never been worn (there were quite a few things with the tags still on!), and some were well loved, but just not getting worn as often any more (as Hannah said of one of the dresses she brought ‘I have too many photographs of me in this dress, I think it’s time to move on’).

This was one of my favourite pieces that came to the day. Everyone tried it on, but then Hannah tried it on and it was like it had found its home!

I managed to get a huge haul of stuff – three skirts, a dress, two cardigans, two t-shirts and more. Far more than I expected!

One of the skirts I picked up

It genuinely feels as though I have a whole new wardrobe.

Louise of the Cherry Blossom Cakery brought along some amazing cakes for us to have with our cups of tea, and Hannah and I had some cards for sale too.

Other than that, people who brought clothes were free to rummage, try things on, pick stuff up and take it home. What a great day!

A lot of people who came asked if we were planning on doing these regularly. The good news is that we are definitely going to be doing another swap, probably in January, so watch this space!

The Vintage Event at Balham Bowls Club

The Vintage Event run vintage fairs around London gathering together a handpicked selection of vintage traders selling vintage fashion, accessories and ‘objects of desire’. We visited them at the Balham Bowls Club yesterday, an amazing venue which is full of loads of amazing furniture, decor and ornaments even before the traders set up. During the day it was all about shopping but from 8pm it turned into a dance with music from the 40s – 80s

I was really impressed with the range and quality of items for sale. I’m not into vintage fashion myself because I’m the wrong proportions to wear it but these hats definitely caught my eye.

Katie always keeps an eye out for potential wedding dresses and found this amazing 70s one at Pippa and Me but it wasn’t quite her style.

But she did buy some of these fabulous original magazines from The Hostess Hotties which will no doubt become part of a project soon.

I was tempted to a couple of items to add to my collection for Millie Willkins Vintage China Hire. I already have one of these Sadler teapots so was really pleased to find one in a different pattern at Simply Vintage Designs. And I was really pleased with this sugar bowl with built in sugar tongs from Tea-licious.

After all the shopping and chatting to the stall holders we were in need of refreshment, thankfully Mother’s Ruin were on hand to proved cake and cream teas.

All in all it was a brilliant event and one I’m sure we’ll be visiting again. Hopefully next time we’ll be able to stay for the evening too.

West Norwood Feast

On Sunday my mum and I caught the bus down to West Norwood, to visit the West Norwood Feast. The Feast has only been running for around six months (it began in April this year), but is already proving hugely popular. The market is held on the first Sunday of every month.

The market is divided into four different sections – gardening, artisan, food and retro. Each section is about a 5 minute walk from the other, meaning that as well as seeing lots of great stalls, you also wander around West Norwood a little bit. I spoke to one of the organisers, and she said that was part of the design. As well as bringing lots of people down to that part of town, the market should also bring business to the local shops. A couple of the cafs in particular seemed to be doing a booming trade.

The market itself is lovely. There were so many things in each of the four sections that I wanted to buy. In the end I walked away with a LOVELY little Christmas present for my god-daughter, some green seasoning for my fiance’s best friend (we had just been talking about this essential Caribbean cooking ingredient the night before), and my mum picked up some amazing little cakes. This mini cake shop was absolutely amazing – I wish they had an online store so you could read their mission statement, but it looks like there’s just a holding page at the moment.

The retro section also lots of lovely bits – old Ladybird books (including these amazing books about the Di & Charles royal wedding, below), really nice vintage shoes, and a couple of pieces I didn’t really like the style of, but which had amazing fabric – I was very tempted to buy them just to rip them up!  There were also a couple of nice bric-a-brac and furniture stalls.

In addition to the market, there is also a gallery that is involved in the festival – the Portico Gallery had several beautiful paintings I would have loved to own had I had a few hundred pounds going spare! Tina Mammoser in particular had really evocative paintings of pure colour, but bringing to mind mist and fog and early morning light. Gorgeous.

The next market in on the first Sunday in November, so if you’re in South London, it’s definitely worth making a trip! Also, if you’re a creative sort and are interested in running a workshop, they are always looking for new people to get involved. Their e-mail address is hello (at) westnorwoodfeast (dot) com.

DIY wedding bouquet

Wedding bouquets can be incredibly pricey. The alternative bride’s bouquet of choice at the minute seems to be made of buttons. I can appreciate that this can be very personal and ‘quirky’, but I’m afraid I am absolutely not a fan. Flowers are the only way for me.

Prices I have been looking at range from £40 to several hundred pounds. The ones I have seen in wedding magazines which I have really liked have cost around £75. The flowers do look beautiful, but I would like to spend around £15 for my bouquet, which is going to mean attempting to do it myself.

According to the instructions in this video, it doesn’t look not too hard at all. But then the woman creating the bouquet in the video is clearly a professional and I, with my very limited flower arranging skills, am not.

Well, last weekend I went to the New Covent Garden Flower market to find out what was in season for our centrepieces, and to buy some cut flowers to attempt some bridal bouquet making.

And you know what? It wasn’t that hard.

Unlike Madonna, I love hydrangeas, and wanted to incorporate them. Each flower has a very large head, meaning you need to buy fewer of them.

Start by cutting off all the extra leaves, keeping only the ones you would like to include in the final arrangemnt. Hold them in your hand with their stems crossed and then add 5 stems spray flowers in where you want them.

Tie them with a string to make the ribbon tying easier. You definitely need someone to tie the string around the flowers – I don’t know how you would do that on your own. Then wrap around 3/4 of a metre of ribbon tightly around the stems, where you will be holding them.

Pin the ribbon closed and then cut off the bottom of the stems. Next time I would leave more green between the end of the ribbon and the end of the stems on my bouquet. I don’t seem to have a photo, but I don’t know why I cut them so short – there is no green after the ribbon, which will likely result in the ribbon coming off during the course of the day. NOT what you want to be thinking about!

In the end, I only used three heads, which cost around £7.50.

Next I created a test for the bridemaids, using stocks and the same spray. I used another 5 stems of spray. The stocks and spray together cost £9 but I had enough stocks for two bouquets, with 5 stems each.

I absolutely loved both of these! I like the colours and the combinations. To be sure, if I was a professional I’m sure these would be more neatly fastened, and lots of the bouquets seem to have 4-5 varieties within them, but I think they look beautiful. Plus they were really easy to do – they took around 10 minutes each.

With myself and four bridesmaids I would need:

• 3 heads of hydrangeas (£7.50)
• 3 bunches of spray (£12)
• 2 bunches of stocks (£10)

Bringing the entire cost of the flowers for the bride and bridesmaids to around £30.  The bridal bouquet on it’s own would be £10. Not too shabby! For the event itself, I might splash out and spend an extra £5 or so on some additional flowers to go in between the hydrangeas and add a bit more dimension to it.

My mother kindly bought my testing flowers today, which came to around £25 altogether as we bought slightly too many, so including this trial run and the ribbon (£3.95), the total cost will be £58.95.  However, I’m tempted not to count the flowers bought today in the total cost because they are now in vases on my mantlepiece and look so pretty!

What do you think? Do you know anyone who has made their own bouquet? How did it go?

The New Covent Garden Flower Market

This weekend, I went to the New Covent Garden Flower Market. It’s around a year to go until my wedding, so I wanted to see what kind of flowers were in season at this time of year in the UK to keep the costs down as much as possible.  The market has started a wonderful blog which has started highlighting what’s new in each month, so if you want to see what’s right for your wedding month and don’t have a whole year to go, have a look there.

The market is absolutely enormous and has plants, real flowers, fake flowers, small trees, pots, vases, giant letters made of that styrofoamy material that you stick cut flowers into, ribbon, ‘decorative crystals’ – and endless variety of things to look at. I got there at 8:30, which was definitely too late, as I think several of the stands had already closed. The market opens at 4am on Saturdays and runs until 10, so we were there at the tail end of the opening hours. Apparently not all wholesalers open on Saturdays so if there’s a particular stand you are interested, check before you go.

The best part about this visit was that it really crystalised for me what I wanted because I could see what was actually available and how much it cost. P & I were hoping to have plants on the tables, rather than cut flowers, and are looking for colourful but natural flora.  I love the wildflowers and colours we have seen on some of our walks around the UK, so was very much looking for something along those lines. We also want things of varying heights, as each table will have around 3 different vases on it.

I loved this heather and these colourful tiny flowers. I think they would make a really beautiful centrepiece if we got some nice jars or maybe tea cups to put them in.

I also loved these tiny white flowers and they are called ‘Flaming Katie’ so that pretty much sold it to me!

I bought quite a few flowers for my bouquet testing (both for myself & the bridesmaids – more of that next week), and the great thing about the flower market was the enormous choice. There were so many different colours and styles. From the very familiar to the extremely exotic. There were even some square flowers (which somehow I managed to take no photos of – sorry!)

In terms of price, it was worth getting up a little early on a Saturday. Most of the plants are available as wholesale only – meaning you have to buy an entire tray. So, not ideal if you just want one little rosemary plant. But if you want 12 heather plants (which I think I do), then they are £0.80 each.

The cut flowers are slightly more expensive, but significantly cheaper than your regular flower store – almost half the price in some instances! And they were sold in bunches, rather than having to buy huge quantities. Things like ribbon are also a little bit cheaper but the difference isn’t as striking as with the flowers. All in all, a lovely morning and some very good research for next year!