Trash or Treasure?

When you have a look at the first photo, you probably won't be very impressed. What on earth is that tatty ratty looking old thing, I hear you ask? Well, it is a book cover, the front bit of it, the back was probably lost ages ago. Now, if you don't like ephemera, you won't be too impressed with whats under the cover either, lol, but ephemera lovers will realise why I am so excited about this. At least I hope so, I sure fell in love with it.


On the inside cover, I found this beautiful old seal -


And this page will give away the reason why I love this so much -



All you need to do is translate the Roman numerals ................

Done it yet? Lol, if you don't know Roman numerals, let me tell you that they translate to.......
1713!!! Yep, this is a wonderful old Italian book, just about 300 years old. The typescript is absolutely gorgeous, the printers graphics delightful, and the paper just feels amazing. The author is one Carlo Gregorio Rosignoli, who lived from 1631 to 1707. How I wish I spoke Italian! I would love to be able to read this.



The book is a wreck, no back, no spine, coming apart in sections, and a little bit of water damage to the pages, but heck, it is 300 years old! And just look at the wonderful printing! I am smitten.
The good thing about buying a wreck is that I don't feel too guilty about taking pages and using them. I think of it as giving a new and interesting life to something which would have probably ended up being thrown away one of these days.




I wish you could see the paper properly in the pics, but I couldn't get a good close up of it. The colour of the pages is gorgeous and you can see so many little bits of fibre in the paper. You just can't describe the feel of it.

There you go, doesn't take much to make me happy, lol, just a few tattered pages, and I am blissfully happy. I might take some pages and put them in an ephemera bundle for my Etsy shop if anybody else is interested in these. Maybe.

Tomorrow is Pink Saturday, and I have something perfectly pink and totally gorgeous to show you. Until then, toodlepip xxx

How time flies

I seems that since Nick and I took up geocaching, the days just fly by. We have been enjoying some much needed sunshine for the odd hour or two over the last few days and we have been out and about enjoying the blue sky, Spring greens appearing everywhere and flowers poking their heads through the grass by the roadsides. Geocaching is even better when the birds are singing and the sunshine puts a spring in your step!

But it also appears that I haven't posted for ages, lol, I have been so busy enjoying the outdoor life. I hadn't realised how many days I had missed. So, not only do I have to catch up on last week's Tag Tuesday challenge ( which thankfully is a 2-week one, phew, so I have a few days more to think about it ), but I also need to get cracking on this week's Every Inchie Monday, AND I want to show you a few bits and pieces I have brought home from a couple of jumble sales and a little antiques and collectors fair JJ and I went to on Sunday.

It was sunny earlier today, so I took some quick photos of my finds. Not very much in the way of lovely antiques, but useful stuff nonetheless. Doilies, of course, and a large crocheted table runner -


A piece of fairly modern lace fabric, but great for cutting out lots of different motifs like flowers, leaves, etc -


Beautiful beaded fringeing -


which very neatly brings me to lots of beady jewellery bits. They are mostly modern, apart from the earrings, but perfect for taking apart and using in different projects. Lots of mother of pearl pieces, crystals, which will be fab for embellishing fabric collages -






A cross, useful for a mixed media collage -


A couple of brooches, this gorgeous seahorse one -


and this sweet little horse -


Staying with the animal theme, I found this cute little teddy keyring, which I'll give to my granddaughter once it has been cleaned properly -


Three Limoges gilded swans -


This absolutely gorgeous 1940s/50s Bambi -


I adore these vintage trays, which come in all shapes and sizes, and I can never pass them up when come across them -


A retractable brush, I think it is a hearth brush -


Silver plated dressing table set, which is in dire need of a clean, but so sweet -


A little silver plated dish -


A delicate little porcelain dish decorated with sweet little flowers -


And two little round china boxes, which are a perfect size to put into a couple of geocaches for swaps! -



All the above bits were from a couple of jumble sales. As I said earlier, JJ and I went to an antiques and collectors fair on Sunday and unfortunately my worst fears were confirmed - everything was sooooooooooooo expensive! But, and there is always a but, lol, isn't there, I did find some books. I love books, always have done, and when I saw these gorgeous books, dated 1871, I really couldn't resist, they had such lovely engravings in them -






Apart from the books, I only bought a few postcards, but I totally forgot to photograph them, arrggh. I'll scan them in tomorrow and share them with you instead.

We left the antiques and collectors fair at lunchtime and went to Brighton Marina to visit a bookshop, when we saw a bootfair! Well, the very tail end of one, lol, we had about 10 mins to have a quick walk round the few stalls which were left. Oh, if only we had known about it earlier, lol, we would have given the expensive antiques fair a miss altogether and gone to the boot sale instead! I did manage to find a few things in those few mins, this fabulous tome was first-


It was missing its cover and didn't look much, but the pages, oh those pages are crammed full of lovely old stuff and will make great backgrounds for collages -


On the same stall I found these old Estate papers, lovely crackly old parchment and the most beautiful handwriting -



I couldn't get the darned thing to stay flat, as it had been folded and tied up, probably for the last 90 years or so, so I only photographed a couple of little snippets.

I bought a handful of teeny bits and pieces from another stall as well, but of course, I forgot to photograph those as well, sigh. Tomorrow, lol, along with the postcards!

Hopefully tomorrow morning I will have time to get cracking on the tag and inchie. I'll try. I will.
Until tomorrow then, toodlepip xxx

Tesco to the Rescue!

Sunday didn't start too well. We set off for what we think was supposed to be the last regular boot fair for the year, but alas, it was cancelled. It was a gloriously sunny morning, but it had rained the day before and the field was too wet. Wimps, lol. As if a little bit of mud mattered. So we turned round, went home, and had a cup of tea and another look at the paper. And there it was, a little ad saying that there was going to be an afternoon boot sale in the Tesco's car park. Hurrah, maybe the day wouldn't be a complete loss ( boot fair wise that is ). I had only been once to a boot fair there, they are not on regularly, and I wasn't all that impressed with it. Still, anything is better than nothing to a confirmed car boot enthusiast, lol.

My goodness, it was heaving! It had started somewhat earlier than advertised, and because all other boot fairs in the county seemed to have been cancelled due to the weather, it was packed! Great news, of course. It was mostly what I had expected to see, lots of modern stuff like toys, clothes, general modern family stuff, but at least there were a few stalls with older bits and pieces, and I managed to find a couple of sweet things. Nothing that I was really coveting, like lace or buttons unfortunately. But here we go, I'll just show you.

This was the first thing I bought, a really lovely old Maling ware soap dish. I haven't seen this combination before, with the two bowls, I can only think that the smaller bowl was for the soap and the larger one for a flannel perhaps. If anybody knows, please do tell me -


Next was a stall with lots of bling bling. I spent ages there, because the lovely old coot who's stall it was, was sooooooooooo slow taking things out of his little boxes to put them on the table, and he wouldn't let anybody near the box in his hands, lol. I picked up a few bits and pieces, some of them missing a couple of stones, but that doesn't matter too much. I have badly broken bits which I use to repair other pieces with. I picked up three beautiful old medals as well -


I probably spent even more time at another stall, because the stallholder had THREE shoe boxes full of postcards! Most of them were very recent ones, but I did find a couple of cabinet cards and a bunch of lovely old postcards, mostly from 1910/1920s -


The next one really surprised me because it is a French piece, and the last time I was in France I picked up a very similar pen rest and inkwell set, but with the Louvre in the middle. This one has the Sacre Coeur as the centrepiece -


My next find made me smile. It was the perfect colour for the kitchen in France ( light green ), and metal! I hate the plastic ones. What am I talking about? Dustpan and brush set, of course.
This one has a smiley face, isn't it just so cute -


I went back to the first row again, to have another look at the bling bling stall, but there wasn't anything which took my fancy. However, next to that stall was the stall I bought the Maling set from, and I noticed that the soup tureen which I had admired earlier was still on the table. That was it, it was obviously meant for me after all. It had sweet little rose decorations, how could I resist that? It even has a little rose decoration in the bottom of the bowl. Condition was really good as well, and when I turned it over, I saw that it was Wedgewood! Needless to say, I snapped it up and brought it home. Another lovely piece for France.


Bit of an eclectic collection of boot fair goodies, lol, I know.

I also went to a jumble sale on Saturday. There is a good reason why I don't go very often. These sales are the hunting grounds of young mothers with pushchairs, and old ladies with shopping trolleys, in VERY confined spaces. And they develop killer instincts when they are at a jumble sale. They push and shove and elbow you as if their lives depended on it, and getting to a table is nigh on impossible, lol. I only picked up a couple of bits and then beat a very hasty retreat to safer ground outside.

A silver plated tankard, very heavily tarnished, but it had the sweetest engravings, not sure you can see them properly -

Silver plated and monogrammed soup spoons -

A sweet little dressing table ring tray with rose decoration -

This is a bit kitschy, but it appealed to me somehow -

A very old dictionary with beautifully aged pages -

And an autograph album. No autographs in it, but the pages are beautiful, gilt edged and the prettiest pastel colours, pink, blue, yellow and beige. They'll be lovely to use in collages etc -


That's all, folks. And now I am going back to crafting for a little bit. Toodlepip, xxx