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