A beautiful WHITE brocante find

Oh, how this find made my heart beat faster! I spied it from afar, made a bee line for it, and started oohing and aaahing and drooling. It was beautiful, it was in incredibly good condition, it was everything one could wish for in a.........

ANTIQUE FRENCH WEDDING CROWN !!!

I handled it ever so gently, carefully bending a few buds back into place, turning it slowly to view it from all sides, draping the attached veil over my hand and breathing in the scent of romance and days gone by. I couldn't believe my luck, finding these wedding crowns/tiaras is difficult at best, finding them in such good condition is almost impossible. The wax flowers and buds were still a beautiful creamy white with the subtlest sheen, the silver leaves still bright and shiny. It must have been kept in a box for many decades.

I suppose you would like to see photos now, wouldn't you? Lol. I had trouble taking pics, because I don't have a head here in France to photograph it on, couldn't really use my DH as a model, and certainly wasn't going to model it myself, lol, I am just a tad too old to be a blushing bride in white. So a copper canister had to stand in for the head :-) -

Isn't this just the most delightful piece of French finery? Of course my imagination kicked in straight away and I couldn't help but imagine the bride and groom, the guest, the wedding itself, the celebrations afterwards.......

I let you drool over this gorgeous thing for a little bit, while I try and get to grips with the French postal system, arrgghh. Printed out all the stuff I need, understand only about half of it, sitting here with DH and dictionary trying to work it all out, dang, why does it have to be so complicated, and why can't they simply issue a (free) Proof of Posting like the Post Office in the UK does? It doesn't exist here. Ah well, we shall have to visit La Poste again and try and get the lady behind the counter to explain the things I am not sure about. I would really love to start putting things in my Etsy shop and sending them from here, rather than waiting another couple of months until we go back to the UK and then send them from there. Humph.

In the meantime, I am linking this post to the wonderful Blissful Whites Wednesday linky party over at the TIMEWASHED blog. Do hop over there and check out all the beautiful whites.

Toodlepip xxx

Aaahh, romance

It was a little bit of a tease yesterday, telling you I wouldn't show you my most favourite find from the weekend until today. Well, I loved it so much, I really thought it deserved its very own post. You'll probably think I am completely doolally ( and you could be right, of course ), but I can't help being a bit of a romantic fool. Or fool full stop, lol.

I am one of those people who can never pass a closed box on a stall without opening it to see what, if anything, is hiding inside. They draw me like a magnet. So there I was happily wombling about when I spotted this box on a stall in the distance ( madam eagle eyes, lol ) -


Ok, Lancome, good name, so there could possibly be something nice in there. Wombling turned into a rather fast walk, and honestly I didn't snatch the box up, I just grabbed it rather quickly. Do you get excited when you open a box on a stall? I do. This is what I found when I lifted the lid -


OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH, it was the prettiest wedding head dress with 2 matching hair combs. Gorgeous! Not at all your usual tiara, but a Flower Power ( dare I say Hippie ) girl style head dress worn on the forehead with the beautiful beads hanging down.

It was lying on bunched up tissue paper and when I lifted the pieces out to admire them, I found this under the tissue paper -

Yes, a beautiful short veil, embroidered all over with the prettiest little pink pearls. I know I must have had a really silly grin on my face at that point. It was so beautiful, so delicate, so very charming, the kind of thing I might have worn quite happily. I could picture the bride ( or me in my younger days ) so clearly, in a long, flowing white dress with a beautiful and gently swirling skirt and long sleeves, with these beautiful flowers in her long hair......... and then the stall holder starting talking to me, lol. Ok, so maybe I looked just a little bit silly with those flowers on my head, ahem.

Enough said, lol, of course I had to buy the set, I couldn't possibly leave it behind. It was the most romantic thing I had found in a long time. Of course I have no idea yet where I am going to display it, for the moment it has been carefully packed away again in the Lancome box. But one of these days I'll just know.



I'll go and dream a little more about romantic weddings now. Toodlepip xxx