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!

Wedding Series 2: Starfish Buttonholes

To co-ordinate with my beach theme bouquet, we needed to create some buttonholes that reflected the same theme. From ideas I had seen on Pinterest, I knew I wanted the main feature to be a starfish with some decoration included behind.

We used the same starfish from the bouquet which were sourced from Amazon. We also got the buttonhole backs from Amazon - these were actually leftover from my sister's wedding, back in 2015.

We used some ribbon to wrap around the buttonhole back and this was dyed with Tim Holtz Alcohol ink in Tranquil so that it matched the same blue in my bouquet.

We used the same beading that was used in my bouquet, which had also been dyed with the same alcohol ink. We then finished off the buttonhole by including a shell at the top, which was from our own stash.

I think these buttonholes matched in brilliantly with my bouquet and made the perfect groomsmen accessory for the wedding. Of course we made enough for the men in the family, so everyone co-ordinated with the theme (apart from Eddy the dog)!

Wedding Series 2: Beach Bouquets

Next up in our wedding series are the beautiful bouquets. Since our wedding is themed around the beach/seaside, I wanted to incorporate a beach theme into my bouquet. Also as a crafter I knew that I wanted my bouquet to be made from artificial flowers/fabric, rather than having real flowers. This way I get to keep my bouquet forever and it allows me to get very creative!

Mum took the lead in making these for me as she also made the bouquets for my sister's wedding back in 2015 (click here to read that post). We decided to incorporate some of the same style of fabric flower in my bouquet as well, but aside from that, we needed to find different types of flowers that would work well with the theme. I also wanted to include some shells and starfish in the bouquet to elaborate on the beach theme.

We sourced nearly everything from online retailers (mainly due to UK lockdown) and played around with quite a few options before things started to click into place.

We got the bouquet holders from eBay - but you can get the same ones from Floracraft, which is a US retailer. Unfortunately the ones we got from eBay still needed to be shipped from the US but they arrived quite quickly. These bouquet holders were the prettiest ones we could find and they feature a beautiful clear plastic handle that looks like fine crystal - much nicer than a white plastic handle. Also the size of these were larger than others we found in the UK.

The large blue flowers on the bouquet came from a flower arrangement we found on Amazon. Unfortunately we couldn't use some of the other flowers that were included in this arrangement as they were too large.

The blue beading we included was sourced from eBay. This came as cream coloured pearls but we managed to colour them using some Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink Pearls in the colour Tranquil.

You may also be ale to see in the picture above that we included pieces of artificial reef. This helped to expand on the beach theme and once again we coloured this in the same blue alcohol ink so it matched in with the colour scheme in the bouquet. We sourced these from Amazon and they are normally used for fish tank decorations - however they make the perfect decoration to use in beach bouquets.

The small starfish that we used came from Amazon as well and the shells we used were from a collection of shells that we already had at home.

For the base of the bouquet we wrapped around some seam binding ribbon in a cream colour. We also included a shell locket that had two pictures of my dad in. This is such a beautiful way to incorporate loved ones that are no longer with us and kept him close to me on my wedding day. 

The shell locket came in a gold brass colour which we turned shabby chic by dabbing on some cream coloured paint.

For my sister's bouquet, we included most of the same elements, however since she had some pink in her dress, we decided to add some pink flowers to her bouquet.

I think the bouquet complimented my sister's dress perfectly!

These bouquets turned out exactly how I imagined they would and they make great floral decorations that I can display around the house! 

Stay tuned for our next blog post in this Wedding Series which will feature our handmade Starfish Buttonholes.

Wedding Series 2: Invitations

Next up in our Wedding Series we are featuring the main Wedding invitations and these definitely are the star of the show!

Once I had created my Save The Dates, I had set the scene for a seaside/beach wedding theme and I started brainstorming ideas. As a crafter, creating my own wedding invitations was a must and it has been something that I have been looking forward to my whole crafting life. However with the challenge set out in front of me, it became quite a daunting task and I knew I wanted to impress - therefore adding extra pressure.

I had thought up quite a few ideas, but nothing seemed to be ticking all the boxes. Until one day I was searching on eBay and the perfect die cut appeared and I knew there and then that this was exactly what I was looking for. Now I never ever buy my metal dies from China (through eBay sellers) - however I had searched all other die cutting brands and companies and nobody had what I was looking for. As you may be able to see from the design below, the edging die I used to create the fold over flaps was the perfect design to incorporate the shells and the starfish that I needed for my seaside/beach theme. 

Once I had the edging die cut, I was able to create the main insert for the invitations. I designed this on the computer using a combination of fonts to create the desired look that I wanted.

I also created a band for the main part of the invitation to keep it altogether. For this, I used a piece of gold card (the same card I used to die cut the edges) and then I added a die cut shell. This is from the Tim Holtz  Seashells Bigz Die with Texture Fades. I edged the shell using a dauber sponge and a gold metallic watercolour paint.

If you have previously read my post about designing invitations during a pandemic, you will know the dilemmas I faced when it came to including all the necessary information for our guests. We decided to include a introductory letter to our guests that addressed the issue of Coronavirus and how we would stay in contact with them as the situation changed. We also included a brief outline of what the menu would entail, as well as accommodation information and a little poem about what we would like as a wedding gift. All that was left was to include an RSVP that our guests could fill out and return in the post.

To decorate these pieces of wedding stationery, I used the same starfish and sand dollar stamps that I used for the Save the Dates and also the same technique of embossing the designs with gold embossing powder.

I am so chuffed with the end result, which perfectly captures the design I wanted to create - a beach themed invitation with a touch of elegance! I am hoping to include this design in my Etsy store in the future, so watch this space...

Wedding Series 2: Save The Dates

Welcome to the start of a new Wedding Series on the blog, where we will be sharing some inspiration on lots of different wedding makes, including invitations, buttonholes, bouquets, table decorations, favours and more! This series will be split into two parts, with some posts in May and then the rest will be in November (after our wedding party - don't want to give away too many sneak peeks!) If you haven't already read our first Wedding Series on the blog, then make sure you check it out here. In the first series, I recapped a lot of wedding makes we created for my sister's wedding back in 2015.

So let's kick start this series with the Save The Dates...

So before I even got to the designing phase, I needed to come up with a theme for our wedding. The Save the Dates are an introduction to your wedding for your guests and are also a sneak peek into what the theme will be. We decided for our wedding that we wanted a beach/seaside theme which gave me plenty of scope to play with!

I often start researching ideas by looking on Pinterest and Etsy to see what kind of things I could come up with. We liked the idea of giving our guests something like a magnet or a badge that they could put up somewhere to remind them to "save the date".

In the end we decided to go for a magnet that our guests could put on their fridge (or anything magnetic). I played around with a few different ways of creating the magnet but in the end I ordered some clear plastic badges from Amazon and then simply took off the pin at the back and stuck a disc magnet on the back. The clear badges allow you to put your own design inside, so I therefore designed the text of the badge on the computer and cut them out using my Silhouette die cutting machine. I left enough room between "Tying the Knot" and the date at the bottom so that I could add a stamped image of a rope. I stamped this using a clear embossing ink and then used some gold embossing powder.

I designed the backing card in a similar way, by designing the text on the computer and then once printed out I added some stamped starfish and sand dollar designs to the top of the card and embossed them. Once they were all complete, I just used a small sticky dot on the back of the magnet to adhere to the card.

 Stay tuned this month for more wedding inspiration in this series, including invitations, bouquets and buttonholes...