Brimfield Day 1

Despite our early preview yesterday, the Brimfield fair officially kicked off today.

The day actually feels like it has been 2 days long and that may have something to do with the nap we had at lunchtime (hey it was a long morning)

Kicking off at 5am, it still wasnt early enough to beat the Tommy Hilfiger V.M's to some of the best large pieces. Every pigeon hole, and industrial style unit seemed to have their tag hanging off, and many industrial lamps also had been snapped up by them.

They do say a picture tells a thousand words, so I will show you the pics I took today....they will tell it better than I could.

We thought this was quite funny......

Now I am certainly not complaining about being here....we have waited a long time for this, but I have to say, seeing things in such huge quantities, endless lines of everything was a little overwhelming, and all seemed a little too easy. I found myself walking past all this to seek out the hidden treasures buried deeper in the stall, behind the counters, under the tables etc and the thing that made my heart sing more than anything else today were these spools of rope. Of course they are instantly appealing to the eye, but their origins sold me on them....circa late 1800's, these were from the Boston flower market and were used to tie bunches of flowers. They have stood the test of time and are truly beautiful, how could I not take them home with me?
Don't be fooled by the picture either- these stand about 25cm tall and are 16cm wide. They are big!

My second favourite purchase below....need I say more?

Tomorrow will not be as hectic. We got all our big pieces today, and so, tomorrow we will relax and buy lots of smalls, I will shop all day, Simone and "baby to be"  will shop in the morning and pack and blog in the afternoon so stay tuned for more fab pics and updates later today....(your time)

Signing off
Vintage Girl (Bec) xx

WE HAVE ARRIVED!

Hello all,

Well, after 24 hours in transit, we arrived in Boston at 8.20pm at night. Despite plans to get on U.S time as soon as we boarded the plane in Sydney and with good intentions of being asleep within 2 hours of taking flight , it just did not happen. Many movies were viewed, much food was consumed (planes have self serve snack bars up the back now- I was in heavan....
All up across the 3 flights, we both slept about an hour.

After arriving at our hotel in Boston and taking much needed showers, we did the only thing you can do when arriving in the United States for the first time.......we ordered a cheese pizza - (it was divine) and with full little bellies, we hit the hay.

Offical day 1:-

Big task today. Getting to U-haul to collect our van and getting onto the Mass Turnpike without killing ourselves. This didn't exactly get off to a good start. The google map instructions I printed turned out to be for the wrong U-haul location and no gps's to be rented either. We had to get from the the equivalent of, say richmond, onto the Tullamarine freeway by ourselves, and in a strange city, steering on the wrong side, cars on the wrong side...EVERYTHING ON THE WRONG SIDE....oh yes...we felt a tad flustered.

Big breaths, no tears, way to soon for that....I offered to drive first (Simone looked happy about that). She acted as a second pair of eyes, constantly reminding me to stay on the right side of the road. As long as we didnt crash, we would get there eventually....even if it took all day.

As it turned out, it took us just 90 minutes to get the 80 miles down the turnpike. 2 wrong turns and 1 wrong lane on the tollbooth (fine in the  mail no doubt) we got there in one piece.

The little towns are beautiful and tomorrow I will take lots of pictures to show you. Lovely green trees everywhere, classic American 2 storey weatherboard cottages with the flags proudly displayed out the front, - picturesque scenes everywhere you look.

Check in, lunch, Walmart, Supermarket......starting to fade.....but oooohhhh Antique stores everywhere. Despite our fatigue we go in just to look around, get an idea of prices and the adrenalin starts to pump. Simone says she overheard some people talking about Brimfield. "Yes- it starts tomorrow but there are always people down there that will sell the day before" and with that Simone says "lets go".

We arrive back at the hotel at 8.30pm and we have managed to squeeze 5 hours of shopping into a day that was not supposed to have any- we are happy and loaded up with goodies.

I wont show you everything, but here is a small handful of that we bought today...

We were also so busy shopping we forgot to take photos of the fair, but it was really only about 1/10th set up, so tomorrow and the following days, we will take plenty of pics for you. Simone took these though, so many Eames chairs, wish we could bring these back.

Simone has been fast asleep for about 3 hours now and it is going to be an early start, so I will hit the sack and try and be fresh for a huge day tomorrow.

Until then
Vintage Girl - Bec xx

Bon voyage

Well finally we are waiting at melbourne airport - ready to wing our way to vintage heaven via Sydney and Dallas Texas ! Thanks for all the lovely people who stopped by the blog and wished us well.. Bye for now xxx

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS

Happy Monday blog friends,

I am finding I have an extra spring in my step this morning. I have already been and walked 10 laps around the local football oval, dropped a dozen parcels at the post office and visited my local doctor for some prescription refills.....even being told I have tonsilitis didn't put a dampner on the day (antibiotics will fix that easily enough).....

I have not wanted to count down to our trip, but today, being less than a week away now, I find myself doing just that. I am laying out bits and pieces on the bed, mixing and matching scarves, hats, shoes etc with very carefully selected clothes, and I am buzzing all the while.

Simone and I made a bit of a goal to pack extremely light so that we can cram purchases in our luggage to bring straight home, even taking an extra duffle bag each to fill also.....so I have been very careful to pick the clothes that will come, and have even (don't laugh) taken photos of all the different ways I can mix and match these 10 items to make 15 different outfits.

I also decided that it had been way too long between bag purchases and headed to Melbourne on Friday in search of a new bag, big enough to be carry on and pop all my flight essentials in....

Here are all my little bits and pieces....new bag, notebooks and pencils (love my notebooks), i-pad, coin purse (thanks Sal) and make up bag fresh out of the washing machine, oh and gorgeous chevron style luggage tags (thanks Mum)

It will be an exciting and busy week, a little anxious about leaving my 3 gorgeous boys behind, but my big boy (husband) is extremely capable and will have things running ship shape not doubt. I will spend the next few days doing all those little last minute things and will have a few sleepless nights (damm should have asked Doctor Steve for some sleeping pills)....in the end it will all be O.K.

So, now we hope you will all follow our adventure as we blog our way across the globe. We will be sharing our journey, our days at the fair, our purchases and our mishaps (hey there are bound to be more than a few) so do check in next Sunday 6th May for the beginning and keep checking daily for updates.

One more piece of news to share......stumbled across this ad in the Age on Saturday for The Vintage Shed which was great to see, and even better that the photo on the left was our Vintage Girl stall! Yay!!

Have a lovely week bloggers...

Vintage Girl- Bec xx

COME VISIT OUR ONLINE STORE

Hi blog friends,

Just a quick line to invite you to come and visit our Ebay store this week, which is jam packed with Vintage Goodies (yes we need cash for our big trip!!)  Come and grab a bargain. We will be listing a few more things over the next couple of days so be sure to check back.....everything must go!

http://stores.ebay.com.au/melbournevintagegirl?_rdc=1

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE .....

A bit of a cheesy title , but I used to love that song when lived in Ireland!! Anyway I have been bursting to tell our readers that we Vintage girls are packing our bags, leaving the men ( big and little ) in our life behind for 10 days and are heading for Brimfield Massachusetts to one of the biggest antique fairs in The States !!!

During our time away we will be searching for some of the most amazing, unique, weird and wonderful things to bring back with us. And the fun doesn't stop there. After we have shopped (and walked) our little hearts out in Brimfield, we are headed to New York for 48 hours of sightseeing and some retail therapy, staying at one of the coolest places - the 'W' times square!

We have spent many months planning our little adventure and we can't believe it is nearly here! I in particular have Bec to thank for most of the planning. She literally has taken care of every little detail while I have been a little under the weather. ( I am taking a little excess baggage with me, my husband and I are expecting our third child later on this year)

So there you have it- a trip of a life time, of course our little stall is and will be still packed to the brim with Vintage goodness, so stop by to see us at the Vintage Shed or are any of our blog followers/ readers also planning a trip to Brimfield?  We would love to hear from you if you are..

That's about all for now, back soon with some more details about our little adventure..  Have a great weekend Xx

OUR CROSS CUSHION MAKES THE PAPER....

Hello Blog friends,

Just a quick note today to share some exciting news....some of our wares made the Home Magazine in the Herald Sun newspaper  this week-

 Our wool and felt cross cushion (seen below on chair) and Simones gorgeous handmade paper bunting (sold in jars) hanging on the wall. We are so thrilled about this and just wanted to share the news with all our followers-Yay!

Apologies for the blurry pics- we have literally had to take a photo of the photo here. Perhaps we had better start making the cushions again-mmmmm

Have a lovely week-
Bec xx