A new life...

It's Spring here in Sydney, today is a gloriously sunny day, the flowers are blooming and all is good. The start of a new season has inspired me to do a good old Spring clean and clearout. Going through the cupboards really made me realise just how much stuff I have accumulated and made me re-evaluate my thrifting habits. I have always said I am not a "collector" (ignore the Pyrex) so how could I justify having 6 typewriters, a heap of copper cookware and bakeware and more maps than I can shake a stick at?

So I have purged, I sold a lot of stuff on eBay, gave a large box to Vinnie's and dumped a sackful of bits and pieces that were too sad to do anything with.

I made the difficult decision to sell 3 of my typewriters, I can really only have 3 on display without it starting to look like a shop and the others were just sitting unloved in cupboards which kind of defeated the purpose of me bringing them home in the first place.

I am delighted to say they all sold on eBay and each has been given a new lease of life (I couldn't help asking the buyers what they would use them for), so may I introduce to you 3 very different typewriters, each about to embark on very different new lives...

My Adler Gabriele 35 sold to a very a lovely lady who had one for years, it took pride of place on her desk until her husband donated it to an Op Shop without her knowledge when they moved house (grounds for divorce if you ask me). She was very happy to buy a replacement for her long lost typewriter and I am sure as I type it is sitting looking gorgeous on her desk (but steering well clear of her husband).

My lovely Olympia SM3 sold to a guy who will be using it as inspiration for an Art College assignment to take a vintage typewriter and redesign it for the 21st Century (I'm fervently hoping this does not involve disassembling it in any way).

And the most exciting new life goes to my Olivetti Lettera 32, it sold to a lady from the Sydney Theatre Company Props Department (I want her job!!!) and is going to be used in an upcoming play direct by Philip Seymour Hoffman, how exciting!!! I nearly wanted to jump into her car when she came to collect it and go back to the Props Department and raid it!!!

So goodbye my lovelies, I hope you enjoy your new lives, I will miss you and will try very hard not to fill the void by buying more typewriters ;-) At least I still have my Olivetti Studio 44, Litton Royal 201 and Imperial 200 to keep me company!

$20

Here's what I got at the Op Shop today...

A lovely set of retro cups and saucers, I love the citrus pattern, very Summery!

A wire egg basket, can I put eggs in it or would they be too tempting for my boys to use them as missiles?

5 gorgeous little bowls, perfect for dips or finger bowls.

A couple of pyrex divided dishes, the green one came without a lid, but that's OK because I already had a spare! This is very similar to another dish I have with the same lid but the other is lighter in colour.

And yet more pyrex! I already have this exact casserole, now I have a matching pair, yay!!

All these lovely things for a grand total of $20, not a bad day's shopping!

Poh's Kitchen

I just discovered Poh's Kitchen on ABC last week. It's a cookery show featuring the runner-up in last year's Masterchef Australia. Yes, the recipes are yummy, there are great guest chefs and Poh is funny and charming, but most importantly, check out her kitchen, sigh...

Radio Star

I casually commented recently to my husband that it would be nice to have a radio in the kitchen, a bit of background music and chat and something to muffle the noise of the kids a bit while I'm cooking too ;-)

I had in mind a simple little transistor radio and was thinking I might come across something a bit like this at a market or op shop...

Image via Roadsidepictures

But of course my gadget-freak husband had other ideas and now I'm the proud owner of one of these...

It has FM radio, digital radio, internet radio and an iPod dock and I LOVE it!!! I had great fun over the weekend tuning into radio stations all over the world, especially Ireland. I listened to all my old favourite Dublin stations and was cracking up at the accents and colloquialisms. It will be so nice to be able to keep in touch with the media over there and what's going on as reading about it on the internet doesn't really have the same effect.

Thanks to my lovely husband (although being the Francophile that he is, he has already filled most of the presets with French radio stations!!!)

The only thing this radio DOESN'T do is toast bread which doesn't matter as I went ahead and got the gorgeous DeLonghi Icona 4 slice toaster in WHITE last week and it's now sitting looking fab on my kitchen benchtop and it has a BAGEL function (which I have used every day since getting it)! Yaay!

Rose

On Sunday I paid my first visit to the Fifties Fair at Rose Seidler House in Wahroonga on Sydney's Upper North Shore. The house was designed by famed Architect Harry Seidler for his parents in 1948. I was interested in seeing the house itself having lived in a Seidler-designed apartment building when we first lived in Sydney back in 1999.

But the main draw for me this particular day was the fair itself...

People came in their droves (or fab vintage cars).

And dressed to the nines (this fab couple very kindly posed for me and gave me permission to post their photo on this blog).

There was fantastic fifties music beautifully performed.

And stall after stall of vintage homewares and collectables.

Then of course there was the house itself...

Stunning retro decor.

Check out the deck!

Funky kitchen.

Even washing machines were fab back then, sigh...

I really enjoyed the fair, it was my first time and definitely not my last :-)

Atomic!

Calling all you vintage and retro Sydney-siders!

The annual Fifties Fair at Rose Seidler house in Wahroonga on the Upper North Shore is being held this Sunday, click here for more details.

Giddyup

There seems to be a bit of theme to some of my recent finds...

This gorgeous pair of green ceramic horse ornaments were $2 at a car boot market.

A pair of onyx horse bookends for $5 at a flea market.

My boys collect Schleich dinosaurs and animals and they are expensive! This is the first and only one I've ever thrifted - $3. I'm always hopeful of coming across a bag full of Schleich animals at a market, I can always dream :-)

I love this little scene, the teepees, tree and totem pole were in a bag marked 40 cents at a market and the Native American figurines were $2 for the lot. I realised after taking the photo I'd left out the horsey that tied the whole theme together - doh!

On the subject of horses and cowboys, I couldn't resist popping into the Cath Kidston store when I was in Ireland and picking up some items from her retro cowboy range (photos courtesy of Cath Kidston website due to extreme laziness on my part)...

H loves his new cowboy mug, D stores his "things" in the tin...

S loves his little cushion (it's red polka dots on the other side, cute)...

I also picked up a roll of the cowboy wallpaper, I have a specific project in mind for this and the rest can be used on a feature wall someday when we're not renting anymore, sigh...