Crafts@The Malthouse: Road Trip Part 2

The second part of our road trip day was spent at a craft shop in Herstmonceux, called Crafts@The Malthouse. We stumbled across this shop on a recent google search for craft shops in the Sussex area and found that this shop might just be up our street! 

The owner of Crafts@The Malthouse is a lovely lady called Suzanne who was an absolute delight to talk to about all things craft and mixed media. And it was the range of mixed media products that caught our eye when we were looking up the types of crafts that Suzanne sold. There is a fantastic selection of Paper Artsy products, including their paints, stamps and stencils, including many of their latest releases.

There was a great selection of Ranger Ink products too, including Dina Wakley acrylic paints, Tim Holtz Distress inks, alcohol inks and more!! If you love trying out different mediums then this shop is definitely worth a visit as there are quite a few to choose from. Suzanne was also very welcoming in letting us try out any of the products if we were unsure about how they worked and wanted to experiment.

There were several racks that were full of stencils and stamps from great brands including Paper Artsy, Dina Wakley, Prima Marketing Inc, Tim Holtz, Aall & Create, The Crafter's Workshop and more! 

There was also a wonderfully colourful wall of izink paints as you enter the shop which entices you in to explore the shop further.

Suzanne also stocks many essential products as well such as adhesives and tools, which is great if you are in need of a top up.

We have to say, our shopping was quite conservative as we didn't intend on a big craft shopping spree today but rather just to explore and be in a shop full of crafting goodies again!

Mum bought a Crafter's Workshop stencil, a Tim Holtz splatter brush, a Distress Oxide ink pad in Antique Linen, some red double sided tape and a Crafts Too Magic Stamp. Suzanne kindly gifted mum the Distress Stickles Crackle Paint as she said it had been on the shelf for a few years and not sure if it had dried up. We are still yet to try it out but I'm sure there might be a bit of life left in it, especially with the seal not broken.

My spend included a set of Tim Holtz Mini Distress ink pads in some of his recent colour releases, including Speckled Egg, Crackling Campfire, Rustic Wilderness and Kitsch Flamingo - I can't wait to give these a try. I also picked up a sea themed stamp set (can't seem to resist anything sea/nautical/beach) by Tim Holtz called Nautical Blueprint (CMS194) - not sure what I'm going to use these for yet but I'm wondering if I can use them for something for the wedding! I also picked up some landscape elements stencils by Creative Expressions. These will definitely come in handy when we have another Card-io play session as they include some great hill landscapes.

This was a fantastic end to our road trip day and we definitely give Suzanne 5 stars for such brilliant service and making us feel so welcome! Please check out the Crafts@The Malthouse website for more information. Unfortunately Suzanne doesn't sell online but you can check out some of the workshops on offer there including workshops in fused glass and stained glass. 

Also one top tip - DO NOT visit when school finishes at 3pm as Crafts@The Malthouse is next door to a school and it was a little bit hectic to say the least. There is a free car park opposite the shop which is normally easy to park in when it's not such a busy time of day!

So that concludes our road trip day, we hope you've had fun reading along on our journey and we are looking forward to the next one already!

10th Birthday Road Trip: Part 1

To celebrate 10 years of Vintage Follie, we decided to go on an antiques/craft road trip! These type of road trips were long overdue and especially after the past year we just felt the need to get out and explore again. After reading through many of our previous posts over the past week we felt the motivation to get out and explore some antiques shop locally - well kind of locally - over the Sussex area.

One of our top shops for finding great antiques and vintage "junk" is a place called Stable Antiques in Storrington. We highly recommend giving this place a visit if you are looking for something unique and vintage for your home. They have several rooms that are crammed high with kitchenware, home decor, collectibles, garden accessories and more! Some are pure vintage, whilst others are what we call 'new vintage' - has the aesthetics of looking old but its not. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures as we were walking around the shop as we were too engrossed in looking at everything, but the next time we pop by I'll try and take a few to show you the extent of antiques they have.

Of course we managed to find a couple of bits to buy - nothing too extravagant - although I could have been tempted by some vintage parisian style garden chairs - maybe next time!

I picked up a small black bucket with a stag design embossed on it. I think this will look great at Christmas with a lovely poinsettia in it. 

I also picked up this metal watering can which I'm considering if I want to plant something inside it to make it a decorative piece or whether I actually want to use it as a small watering can?!

Mum picked up this gorgeous red lantern, which again is perfect for Christmas, with a stag and angel design on it.

Before we headed back to the car, we quickly popped into a store called Village Green Furniture and Accessories. This shop is gorgeous and has some beautiful unique pieces for the home and garden. We can't wait to come back and look around this store at Christmas, to see what beautiful decorations and home decor items they have then.

The next stop on our road trip was the beautiful town of Arundel. This is starting to become our favourite place to visit as it is so much fun just meandering around the streets and finding some beautiful unique shops and cafes. 

We had a look around several of the antique stores along the main high street. Unfortunately we didn't walk away with anything this time but we can't wait to go back again to see what new additions they will have. Some of the antique stores are situated down small alley ways off the main street which creates even more excitement!

We found a few of the antiques stores are a bit more upmarket so depending on what you are looking for, there are different budgets to suit. They are still worth having a look around though as they contain some fascinating items.

The best street in Arundel is Tarrant Street, this is definitely worth exploring if you like mooching around stores that sell home accessories, clothing, gifts and more! 

Pots & Posies sells a lovely selection of rustic/chic homeware, some of it nautical inspired - which I am obsessed with at the moment. I think the greenery outside the shop just looks so enticing as well - definitely worth a look around!

We also came across this beautiful florists, called Labour of Love Vintage Home & Garden. The bouquets outside this shop were absolutely stunning and some of them came in small glass jars, perfect for popping on your kitchen or garden table straight away. If we weren't spending the rest of the day in a hot car, we would have most certainly bought a few flowers ourselves!

Our favourite bakery along Tarrant Street has got to be LG Cafe which is currently takeaway only at the moment. They have a fantastic window display of all the homemade cakes they sell - and it is always difficult to decide what selection of cakes to purchase. We couldn't say no to a sweet treat today - after all it is the blog's birthday! The cakes are priced at £3 or you can get 4 for £10!

They come packaged in a beautiful box, with a sticker that says "Treat Yo' Self" - and we most definitely did!

In case you are wondering, our selection of cakes included:

Fudge Yum Yum

Oreo Donut

White Chocolate and Raspberry Muffin

Orange Overload Chocolate Brownie

They threw in a mini packet of Love Hearts too!

Don't worry - we didn't eat them all that afternoon - there is actually some still left over now!

After we picked up our cakes it was time to head back to the car for our picnic lunch before heading across to East Sussex for part 2 of our road trip day... stay tuned to our next blog post to read about our visit to Crafts@The Malthouse in Herstmonceux.

10 Years of Vintage Follie

Today we celebrate 10 years since we first started our Vintage Follie journey. We can remember it as if it was almost yesterday. We can picture the holiday apartment in Porth in Cornwall, as we conjured up an idea to write a blog and then the big decision..... what do we call it?? After some deliberating we chose Vintage Follie and it has stuck ever since! We are so proud of how we have kept up this blog for so long, sharing with you our creative makes, workshop days, holidays, retreats and vintage road trips. There have been a couple of years where the posts were very few and far between but I'm so glad we picked it back up again in 2018 to continue on this journey. 

Over the past week we have been looking back at our posts over the last 10 years, which have recorded lots of memorable moments, and have chosen 10 of our favourite posts to share with you today. Similar to our celebratory post last year, however the posts we have chosen don't necessarily cover each year that we have written the blog. These posts include some of our favourite workshops and project ideas, whilst others look back on our vintage hunting journey and have a more personal attachment to them.

So grab yourself a drink and get comfy, as we share with you our favourite moments from the past 10 years....

Configuration Craft Day

July 2011

A month into our Vintage Follie blog, we shared with you the success of our first workshop that we taught. Inspired by our class with Tim holtz in February 2011, we decided to host our own configuration box workshop with our friends and family. This went down a treat and was the beginning of our love of teaching craft workshops.

Vintage Dress Up Workshop

April 2012

This workshop was a fantastic success with such amazing results. In this workshop our guests could transform their paper mâché mannequin exactly how they wanted using an arrangement of decoupage, paints, embellishments and fabric. Check out this post to see the amazing creations everyone made.

Our Cornwall Retreat

June 2012

This post is a lovely throwback to one of our Cornwall holidays. The post itself is a summary of our trip, however we encourage you to read some of the posts leading up to this as we blog about each day of our Cornwall getaway! We share with you our first visit to St Michael's Mount in Marazion and introduce you to Margaret at Scrapbook Magic in Mullion. We also share with you some of the vintage treasures we found whilst travelling around Cornwall!

Birthday Celebrations: For the princess within us all

October 2012

Apart from crafting for workshops, we also love creating for parties and celebrations. In this post we share with you Sarah's Cinderella princess themed party, including all the creative makes! 

Tea Cup Bunting

April 2013

Continuing with the party theme, this blog post shares a great idea for making tea cup bunting! This idea stemmed from a Brenda Walton Sizzix Bigz die back in 2013. Once I had made a couple of the tea cups from some beautifully designed paper, I then decided to link them using some ribbon to make some bunting. It must have been a good idea, because to date it is one of our most viewed blog posts!

Compact Memories Workshop Day

September 2013

This blog post is a fantastic combination of a brilliant craft workshop mixed with our love of vintage items and ephemera. Before this workshop we were busy finding some beautiful vintage make up compacts so that we could convert them into miniature photo albums. Check out this post to see what amazing creations our friends made at this workshop back in 2013.

Vintage Bazzaar at Frome

May 2015

This post is one of our favourite vintage road trip and bargain hunting adventures. Take a read to find out how our spontaneous trip to Frame, resulted in a huge stash of vintage treasures and loveliness!

Make Art with Wendy Vecchi

August 2015

This post definitely had to make our Top 10 blog posts as it was such a memorable day. Back in 2015 we not only had the chance to meet Wendy Vecchi but take part in one of her classes! We made a fantastic mixed media project and got to experiment with many of Wendy's latest releases with Ranger Ink. Each of these experiences adds to our own skills and expertise in different crafting techniques and provides us with inspiration for our own workshops.

St. Ives Craft Retreat

September 2015

This post was definitely a landmark moment for us as we hosted our first ever Craft Retreat and with the perfect back drop of St Ives. This crafting getaway hosted 4 guests with an abundance of sea themed workshop projects. Check out the first day of our craft retreat in this post and then read on to find out what else we got up to the rest of the week.

The Fairy Tale Fair - Craft & Design Fair Patcham

November 2019

For the past few years (excluding 2020) we have been lucky enough to have a stall at The Fairy Tale fair in either Worthing or Patcham. These craft fairs really do capture the magic of Christmas and each time we have sold at this event we have not been disappointed. Check out our time spent at the Christmas fair at Patcham in 2019 and see what creative makes we had to offer.

Wow, I can't believe we managed to whittle our favourite posts down to just 10! This post has taken me almost 3 days to write as its been so difficult to decide which posts to feature in our favourites list! It has been a wonderful journey so far and we have met some absolutely fantastic people along the way who have become our friends forever! Looking back on our road trips throughout the year has been so inspirational and has motivated us to get back out there and explore - to find more vintage treasures and get creatively inspired. 

Stay tuned for our next post where we share with you our 10th Birthday day and how we celebrated the occasion!