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April 27, 2023

Kitting yourself out for the Boot Fair Season

pretty sholley trolley

Yes gals and guys the boot sale season is nearly upon us so i thought i would check out the latest must have kit, so that we are prepared for the coming season.  The first tool of trade that everyone should own is some kind of portable transport to carry all of your purchases back to the car in.

I am always on the look out for a nice design, but they are always so boring! At the moment I have a red and white Ikea one and that will do for now, but when that dies a death I am going to upcycle my mums old sholley trolley like the one above!

I did recycle a trolley years ago...have a look at it here

Bags

You will also need a hands free bag and this one above from Accessorize is a really good idea, as it will stop theives from going down your bag - another alternative is a good old cross body bag featured below...

One thing to remember is...don't go too posh with your bag, you are going to the bootfair, not to see the Queen! so by all means wear a nice bag, but a plain one, not a designer all singing all dancing one!...if you do, you will get targeted by the pick pockets (and there are alot of them at the bootfairs these days!) and also the price of the item that you wish to purchase cheaply will be hiked up too! (the stall holder will think you can afford it!)

A nice bootfair outfit for colder mornings

Clothing

Remember that loose clothing is best...your comfiest jeans or joggers, a vest and a jumper for those cold dewy mornings and always be prepared for rain, so a waterproof lightweight jacket is also a good idea...You don't have to over dress or wear full make-up, you are going out into the fresh air at some silly o'clock time in the morning so just put some nivea and spend the little bit of time that you have making a flask of coffee to take with you.

Also a good idea is to not wear very bold colours that makes you stand out from the crowd,  because if people can see where you are and they like what you buy they will follow you around. So dressing in bright colours at the Boofair is the one exception where I would advise you not too!

Footwear

I have ruined so many shoes in the past so my advice here is to wear wellington boots! Now I know this is not possible in the summer months, but when it is, wear them.  For the warmer weather, wear an old pair of comfy sandles, remember you will be walking a long way and there is nothing worse that having sore feet and still wanting to check out those bargains.

Other Stuff to Remember

These are the other things that I like to keep in the car when I go back to unload...

Snacks & a Flask of Coffee or Cold Drinks

Burger bars can be so expensive (I would rather spend my pennies on the bargains to be had)

Tissues, Wet Wipes and Lip Balm

These might be best kept in your bag too!...Especially if a trip to the disgusting toilet is called for!

Bubble Wrap and Newspaper

Perfect to wrap your delicates up in so that they don't get broken

And that's about it! I hope I have covered everything here for you and given you some good advice along the way!

Have you got any good ideas that you would like to share here...If so I would love to hear from you.

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April 27, 2023

My Happy Fashion Style

One of the best eclectic chicks of all time Tif from Dottie Angel

My Happy Fashion Style

I have learnt over the years what suits me and what doesn't...for a long time I was covering myself up in oversized lagenlook linen and although I love that look, I also like to have my own individual style too and dress in a vintage way but with a modern twist...vintage dresses, overalls and aprons with turned up jeans and Dr Martens is the look I like and have been known to go out of my way, trawling websites and the country to find my individual look.

Love this look...trousers, long tunic dress and this has a long jacket, but this is where I would add a shorter one!

The Vintage side of Things

Being plus size hasn't helped much with the vintage side of things, as vintage clothes were a lot smaller back in the day than they are now, but over the years I have managed to carve a style for myself that I like and feel comfortable with... I also love the 1940's and 1950's and bright colours...so combining the layering technique, mixing together a bit of vintage with a bit of modern is totally me!

I think as you get older and accept yourself for who you are, finding the right clothes and styles becomes a lot easier...I never kid myself about my size, I am a size 24 and have been for about 10 years now, However I hide it well...and lots of people have told me that I don't look that size...might be because of my height, I am 5ft 9in...but in any case, I know now at my ripe old age, finally!, what I am doing!

Shift dresses are my favourite because my problem area is my stomach...I don't like wearing tops that are too short either, (unless they are layered over a long shift dress) I like them to at least cover my hips and if I am honest...I actually prefer them to be longer than that! I always buy bigger clothes than what I am, especially if it is a top or a dress...I like it to have plenty of room rather than be all clingy and uncomfortable.

Click Here to find one of my favourite places on the internet for plus size fashion.

I love linen and cotton and try to buy clothes in those materials especially for the spring and summer months, the rest of the year I don't mind a bit of man made fabric, especially Lyocell... that is lovely and silky soft, a very comfortable material to wear indeedy!

Layering yor Clothes

I have also learnt the art of layering, I love to wear leggings or wide trousers (can also be done with a skirt, but I am not a skirt person!) teamed together with a dress or long tunic and a short top over the top! I often see really short tops in the shops and see young ladies wearing them with a skirt or trousers and they look really cute, but if you are on the bigger side or a bit older, the best way to wear them is with this layering technique...

Model no. 1

I feel this model is missing her skirt/trousers. This is the perfect layering style, wearing a shorter jumper like this is perfect if only she had remembered her wide linen trousers!

Model No. 2

Well she is missing her middle layer! as well as Model No 3 and 4

Model No 5

For me she needs her trousers and another shorter jacket or jumper...yes you can also layer in 4 levels depending on how cold it is! and you can strip of during the day as it warms up!

The look above is really cute, ok so she is wearing an apron, but it looks good! see what I mean! Someone get her some shoes!

 

This is where your Doc Martens can come in handy.

So just remember whatever age you are or however large , tall or small you are, this style always looks cool and will take you through from day into evening. You can mix it up with vintage pieces and modern shift dresses, jeans and cardigans! try and steer clear of any black...go bold with colour that will make you feel like an electic chick all day long.

I also love Beyond Retro which is a Vintage Shop in the East End of London, but now they have a website! and a Plus Size section, How Cool! Click on the Beyond Retro Logo if you 'fancy a Butchers' lol! (cockney Rhyming slang for 'Have a Look')

Beyond Retro

All these pictures are from my Happy To Wear Board on Pinterest If you want to check them out and get more of an idea of the types of styles I like CLICK HERE and also HERE

Bye for Now,

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April 27, 2023

French Happy Shabby Chic is Back

Yes you heard it here first - French Happy Shabby Chic is back. I tried adding modern pieces to my home from modern shops, to find that I was throwing out trends that I no longer liked quite quickly! which wasn't very ozone friendly...I even tried living with the pared back look and although I liked it for a while...I felt something was missing. 

I have been feeling very unhappy lately and even had a mini breakdown a few weeks ago...Yep I hit ground zero! luckily my nearest and dearest gathered around me and picked me up, I know they all love me, but I felt that I was spinning too many plates in my life and I just needed some time for myself...that's something that I never seem to get, being a carer to 3 people is very wearing...sometimes you just want to scream! and my way of coping has been to stay up to silly o'clock so that I can do everything that I want to do for myself as well...

That idea though has thoroughly worn me out, trying to burn the candle at both ends is not a good idea if you want to stay healthly and the fact that I am in denial about having type 2 diabetes and constantly eating lots of sweet treats has just added to my poor state of mind...I do this you see! It's like a recurring circle, I feel depressed, eat something sweet to make myself feel good...immediately feel bad! Then I stay up too late and have to get up early and all this added together just made me hit rock bottom! I know I should go to bed at a reasonable time, but the only time that I don't get disturbed is when everyone is asleep and that time for me is bliss!

So! after thinking for a while and looking around the house, I asked Freddy if he would mind me adding some more of my happy shabby pieces into the mix...I felt I needed to add some more colour into my life, to try to make me feel happy again! I thought I needed a change when we moved to this house, but we have been here 3 years now and I still feel that I haven't got it right! When we first moved in, I tried to do the happy shabby look, but it just didn't work...then we took it all out, and went for a more pared back look and for a while that felt good, well for a while anyway!

Then we added a bit of vintage in with the modern accessories, ferns, gold and quirky modern pieces...and yep I liked it! I really really liked it! The thought of adding anything red! oh no! not me...I am not going back there! I thought to myself! but really! is that really me? and after my mini breakdown, I started thinking what do I really want! when was I at my happiest...and the more I think about it, it was when we were living on the Island and we decorated in a french happy shabby chic style...with rather of a lot of Cath Kidston thrown in (back then Cath's homewares were to die for!) I started to look at old blog posts from that era and my heart skipped a beat!

So out came all our vintage French enameland other old favourites, there was mess everywhere, but it was a beautiful mess! I was supposed to of sold a lot of this stuff, but I couldn't bare to part with my favourites and stored it away, just in case one day I would have this eureka moment and want it all back! Fred stayed out of my way while I played house! I asked him if he minded me changing the look again, as he really liked the modern look, but he said he just wanted me to be happy!

The pictures I have shown you in this post is the progress...ha and the mess!

French Happy Shabby Chic


This time I have incorporated old mixed with quirky, modern and chic...items that make my heart sing. Everything, I look at sparks joy! I keep asking Freddy if he likes it...but he just say's sarcastically 'it's nice'.

But to me...it's my 'happy' and I can't wait to get all the house under it's spell again!...and hopefully if I can get to bed earlier, it might make me feel better in myself so that I can have more time to do the things that I enjoy!

My pictures aren't the finished room design...but I will be posting the final pictures soon!

Love to you all x

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March 10, 2023

Upcycling My Old Vintage Spice Drawers

revamping vintage spice drawers


revamping vintage spice drawers

Upcycling My Old Vintage Spice Drawers has been a project that I have been meaning to do for ages and I have finally got around to doing it. There are many projects in my craft room that I want to achieve but all I seem to do is write lists, Look at Faire, to see how I’m going to spend my ‘refer a brand’ discount and procrastinate lol! but then that’s me all over…wasting precious time thinking about doing things and never getting around to doing them!

revamping vintage spice drawers

So on this particular day, from somewhere…I got my sh*t together and got creative! I ventured down to my summer house in the garden and got the paint out that I used for the vintage kitchen unit. The paint was still a bit too blue for my liking…I wanted it paler, so I added a bottle of acrylic paint to it and gave it a good old shake and stir and viola…the perfect colour for my spice drawers.

revamping vintage spice drawers

First I must mention that I am a terrible painter! I splosh it on, not really paying much attention to it dripping all over the place…I just want to get the job done quick, so I prepared the table by adding lots of paper to catch the drips. I started by painting the frame first and surprisingly the paint dried rather quickly…it was a thick consistancy but covered the area really well…Had I made a new type of paint!? lol!

revamping vintage spice drawers


I didn’t use the best paintbrush in the world, but it had a painterly effect that I like and looked perfect enough for me! I then painted the drawers…I must say that I found it quite therapeutic, taking time out to do this little job that I had been meaning to do for ages…a few hours to change something and make it look so much better, was so rewarding!

revamping vintage spice drawers


I then had to make labels for all my bits and bobs that I wanted to store in the drawers. I wanted to use my new Cricut Joy Machine, but I can’t seem to get my head around how to use the blooming thing! So I started by cutting out pieces of material and fraying the edges…I finally choosed to use the same pattern, rather can a mix match of all different kinds and decided on an old Cath Kidston print from about 25 years ago…

revamping vintage spice drawers


I tried different fonts on the Cricut machine and realised that the way I was using it, I could of just printed out the words on my printer lol! Anyways you live and you learn I suppose lol! At least I got the hang of how to use the font section in cricut! I then decided to cut out the words in ‘fussy cut style’ so that they would look good against the material.

revamping vintage spice drawers

…And look how they turned out…I am really pleased with them and now everything is tucked away in the right drawer with big fat labels on each one, to remind me of what is inside them.

revamping vintage spice drawers


This may have started me off on a roll now, as I did ask for some green chalk paint for Christmas and I still haven’t used it yet! I might have to do another little Upcycling project soon! Keep your eyes peeled!

Have you Upcycled anything lately? Do Share…

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on March 10, 2023 0
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February 21, 2023

Our Cruise to Norway on the Aurora Part 2


Our Cruise to Norway on the Aurora Part 2 continues

…with arriving in Alta, our next stop!  There wasn’t much to do there really for us as no trips had been booked, again too expensive and no wheelchair access available.  If we had booked the trip a year in advance we would of probably sorted something out for this area as its the most northern destination in the whole of the world! with lots of wonderful scenery and the best place to see the Northern Lights apparently…we had already seen them and taken photo’s but a better picture would have been nice, with a wheelchair trip to see the wonderful scenery but alas not this time.  So with all that in mind! what is a couple supposed to do???


Hit the shops!? and boy did we hit the shops! (we always have an excuse to go shopping lol!)  It became a bit of a laugh with our friends; how much stuff we used to find to buy, but the Nordic people are so stylish and we just couldn’t help ourselves lol!  As it was November all their Christmas Decorations had been put out, so it really got us in the mood!


Norway is very expensive so we bought wisely…there was a few discounted goods here and there and because everything was to our taste we were spoilt for choice and some items just seemed very reasonable,  so a few more items were purchased, by this time we had found a trolley to wheel our purchases around the shopping center lol! (How common! lol!) and it was really hot in there and of course we were kitted out for minus 20 something!  so all of our coats and jumpers were thrown into the trolley as well…lol! we did look a sight! But we were shopping and having fun…so it was a win win!


When we did venture outside, we saw this amazing spectacle…The Northern Lights Cathedral…isn’t it breathtaking! It was quite icy here and I had to be careful where I was walking.  Usually it would have been much colder and covered in thick snow, but global warming and all that has hit everywhere, including the most northern part of the world! which makes you think doesn’t it!

Inside the cathedral – By Andreas Haldorsen

The average day in Alta during November has 6.1 hours of daylight, with sunrise at 9:01 AM and sunset at 3:07 PM.

Back on the Ship again, going through security with all of our shopping bags was quite a saga! I don’t think the ships crew had met anyone like us before…most people got on with one bag of shopping or none at all!…we had quite a few bags of shopping plus snacks plus a few hundred litres of water lol!…they charge for water to take back to your room on the ship! what a cheek!  apparently you can drink the tap water from the bathroom, but with my constitution I didn’t want to try it!

We were now on board for a few days sailing…we were going all the way back through the Fjords and past Tromso and to arrive at Stavanger which is a city in southwestern Norway and used to be the capital City many moons ago.

We had a lovely time again, eating, drinking, being entertained, playing quizzes, going to shows etc…Freddy and I wore our masks as much as we could, obviously we couldn’t when we were eating in the restaurants but we were careful and always used hand sanitizer, most people were not being careful this time…they were when we went to Amsterdam, but not on this trip…I think a lot of people now think that COVID19 is over, but we have to be careful because we are vulnerable.

We sailed into Stavanger early evening to a vision of white houses, it was such a cool place and made you feel like you wanted to live in one of them.  The place looked magical and we were excited to see what this town was going to be like the next day!

The morning arrived and it was pouring with rain but when has the rain ever stopped us…we’re British remember!  We were docked in port (picture below) so it was just a stroll into town.  We dived in and out of shops to get dry and the cheapest thing I could find (coz i forgot our brolly!) was a couple of plastic poncho’s…for about £3.00 each! cheap for Norway! I quickly put one on Freddy and the other around his wheelchair, we didn’t want it ‘shortening out’ by getting wet…if his wheels don’t work then we are stuck!


‘Broken Column’ (2003) by Antony Gormley (b. 1950) is Stavanger Art Museum’s largest work of art. It consists of 23 identical rusty steel sculptures mounted outdoors and indoors in public and private places in the city. The 1,95-metre-tall sculptures are based on a cast of the artist’s own body. 

As soon as we walked around to this part of the dock, we instantly wanted our pictures taken with this Antony Gormley Statue.  It was nice that we could be so close to this wonderful piece of art, unlike back at home in the Turner Gallery, Margate!  When we visited there, It’s built in such a way that you can only view the Gormley Statue in the Sea if you are standing! which is pretty Pants! if you are in a wheelchair! still that’s a whole other story!

This town…well I could definitely live here…Its so clean, with lovely helpful people and lots of lovely shops!


There was lots of things to tempt us, but everything was soooo expensive…it was nice to look and I took lots of pictures of all the delights…Then we got a bit lost and started to walk back to where we started only to bump into our friends Chris and Mark…Chris informed us that she had found a charity shop in a department store..I don’t know how they found it!  they were trying to get out of the rain apparently! Personally I think they had Top Secret Intelligence! lol!…anyways they told us where to go, and to make sure we got there and find it, they walked with us and pointed across the street to the doorway!

We walked in and travelled up 3 floors in the lift, at this point I thought…were they joking!? only to arrive on the 3rd floor to find this…It was like all our birthdays had come at once lol!

There was such an array of beautiful homewares and all so stylish, apparently it had only been open a few days so all the best things were still there!  I could of bought so much more, the furniture was beautiful and everything was so cheap.  There was also a separate shop which just sold Christmas decor and decorations…we bought quite a few of those as you probably read about over HERE


The Childrens section (above)

The blue and white china section (above)


And in true Happy House Tradition we bought the whole shop! lol! Well nearly!…You can imagine what the ships crew said about us can’t you!  getting on board with twice as many bags as last time didn’t go down too well!  we were the talk of the town once again…Our friend Chris and Mark was very good and only bought a couple of bits…but us on the other hand! well need I say more!

 

I loved it in Stavanger…this is some of the Graffitti we saw…


Then it was back on board again ready to sail home…

This trip to Norway was amazing and I want to thank my Mum for treating us to it.  I also want to thank the lovely people we met on board, they really helped to make our holiday special…will we go back to Norway?  I don’t know because we always like to go somewhere different, each time we go away.  I would definitely like to go back to Stavanger though…so perhaps one-day, if we win the Lottery! x

Bye for now x

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on February 21, 2023 0
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Happy Harris was born in London during the 1960’s…A love of vintage and all things bright and whimsy morphed from a casual eclectic habit into an outright obsession…She is an eccentric, loving life kinda girl that loves to decorate in an eclectic style. Influences of her childhood is paramount in her decor, artwork and designs!

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