Lost & Found in East Brunswick!

Fabulous furniture and found items at the new Lost & Found market in East Brunswick

My friends daughter was captivated by this very funky purple bike! 

Various kitsch accessories  

I loved the little red dress above - very cute indeed! 

This retro enamel cooking pot came home with me!

I headed along to the new Lost & Found market in East Brunswick over the weekend.  It was the opening weekend for the market, which is a an addition to the other Lost & Found market in Collingwood (which I've  purchased from many times before!)

The new market is on Lygon Street, East Brunswick - and I'm very scared that it's so close to home.  This could be very dangerous for my little wallet!  As with the other market, Lost & Found is full of retro and vintage furniture, second-hand clothing, random found items and fabulous kitsch accessories.  Perfect. 

Of course I couldn't resist a little purchase on my maiden visit, and found a very cute and fun enamel cooking pot.  Maybe I'll see you there on my next visit....

Lost & Found Market

After my recent trip to the Lost & Found Market I thought it deserved a post all of its own.  Lost & Found Market is based in Smith Street (near Gertrude Street) and is jam packed with funky vintage, retro, second-hand and gloriously kitsch items!

Its quite overwhelming at first as there is so much to see spread over four levels, so you need to allow plenty of time to rummage!  There's furniture, bric-a-brac, fashion, kitchen goodies, books, records etc etc....

I can happily lose myself for quite sometime whenever I pop by for a looksy, and it takes some serious will power not to go mad!  The only downside is it's cash only - although this can help to curb the spending!  Happy shopping - I might see you in there! :)

Fryerstown Antique Fair

I went to the Fryerstown Antique Fair on the weekend, it's a bit of an annual pilgrimage for me and I love having a good rummage in all the stalls!  

Fryerstown is a small village near Castlemaine in the Goldfields region, and the fair is a mix of antiques, collectables, second hand furniture, books, kitchen items and random bits and pieces.  There are heaps of stalls and its pretty impossible to leave without buying something!!

The fair is set up outside amongst the trees and shrubs - which thankfully provide a little shade as it is always very hot, dry and dusty!

I couldn't resist this little old orange enamel coffee pot, or the two vintage linen tea towels featuring a map of the London Underground and a great selection of cocktails!

Daylesford day-trip

I had a day-trip to lovely Daylesford on Sunday and finally visited the fabulous Mill Markets which has been on my must-visit list for a while!  The Mill Market is full of vintage and retro second-hand treasures covering everything from furniture, crockery, clothing and books.  It's a great place to spend a few hours rummaging and I can highly recommend a visit! 

 

I also discovered another great second-hand and antiques place called 'Daylesford Temple Antiques'.  I picked up a few bits and pieces from here - including a $10 box of china plates!  I was pretty pleased with myself as there was a great selection of plates inside....

I loved the old backstamps on the plates too.  The backstamps really form part of the appeal of the old plates for me - I love how they were so decorative and represent the year of manufacture.  You sadly don't get this level of detail or decoration on new plates which is a real shame I think.   

 

Lastly I visited the gorgeous shop Lark.  Such a cute little shop and full of beautiful patterned vintage-esque inspired products.  I couldn't resist the vintage plates wrapping paper (see above) but sadly they'd sold the last roll of the vintage coffee pot wrapping paper.  Ho-hum - I'll just have to go back another time to buy it!  Lark has a very cute blog here. 

If you're planning a trip to Daylesford there is a list of second-hand and antiques shops here.  Daylesford also has a regular makers market on Saturdays.

Framed plate artwork (and last market stall for 2009)

I am doing my last market stall this Sunday at the Shirt & Skirt market at Abbotsford Convent! I have finally had time to make these framed pictures using cut out sections from my growing collection of found second-hand plates. As usual the theme for the shapes is tableware related (teapots, cups and cuttlery etc). Some of the shapes feature the patterns from the front of the plate, whilst some I have reversed to show the plate backstamp.

Sorry for the very crappy photo's - it's hard to photograph them without getting a reflection of me in them! I will be selling these at the market and it will be a good venue to test the response.

Anyway I'd love to hear what you think of these new additions to the Me Old China range of products!

Sundays market at the 'Meat Market'

Inside Melbournes iconic Meat Market

Gorgeous ceramic functional vessels by Sophie Milne

Yesterday I took part in a Christmas market at north Melbourne's Meat market - it was a good venue and I had great stall neighbours including the lovely Sophie Milne who creates beautiful functional vessles and Small Space Jewellery who specialise in contemporary hand-crafted jewellery (they also have a very cute shop and on-site workshop).

The market went well and it is always a really nice experience meeting fellow talented and creative people. Everyone selling hand-made work share the same goals and there is a common understanding of the difficulties, frustrations, highs, lows and overall the passion involved in wanting to earn a living being creative in a specific chosen field.

I also made a few purchases..... I couldn't resist the delicious soft green ceramic vessels by Sophie Milne (see picture above). They are very beautiful and quite multi-functional but I think they are a perfect size for drinking tea - especially as they are so lovely to hold. Sophie has a great blog: Six Hundred Degrees and here you can find where to buy her work.

I also bought some very yummy marmalade and dips from Elfreds. They had free dips and tastings opposite my little stall (mmm -perfect for hungry market sellers!) Elfreds are keen to use and promote local produce and use all natural, additive and gluten free ingredients. Yum!

Christmas at the Meat Market!

I'm taking part in a special Christmas market in North Melbourne's heritage listed Meat Market this Sunday! The Meat Market built in 1880 is a lovely example of Victoria architecture complete with large exposed beams and bluestone cobbled floor.
There are up to 80 stalls featuring talented local crafters and designers where you can find unique hand-made gifts away from the crowds and generic products on the high street.
I will be at the market on Sunday from 11.00am - 8.00pm - and it's indoors so I don't have to worry about the wind or rain!
You can visit the link to the market here.

Busy....busy....

Things have been pretty busy for the last week or so..... I have been working on some freelance design projects, as well as preparing for my second market stall which I had on Sunday. I made some more wall plates with cut-out kettle, cups and tea-pot shapes for the market stall which I hope to be listing on Etsy soon as these have proved to be quite popular.

The second market stall went a little better than two weeks ago (phew!) and I did sell a couple of my new teapot brooches and necklaces. It's lovely that people like them - and it's really funny to hear people talk about recognising plates they used to have at home!

I did learn a valuable lesson at the market...... that my hand-made tags aren't waterproof! We had several big bursts of rain and unfortunately the ink ran on my tags and got ruined. Fingers crossed for sunshine in two weeks time!

market lessons learnt

Still feel like I’ve got first-market-hangover, but slowly getting over it. I’ve learnt lots from this first market..... the main one being how hard it is to sell your own work!

It’s actually quite horrible - and I’d much rather hide behind an on-line shop than face people. I’m just no good at selling my own work – and say all the wrong things! It’s really hard to try and make small-talk and inform people about the process without it sounding like a sales pitch – so very often I said nothing.

When I sold one of my new wall-plates I panicked and then didn’t wrap it properly, had the wrong size bag and after the customer left I felt awful that I made such a mess of it! One of the good things of selling on-line is you can be ‘hidden’ from the selling process and almost separate yourself from it. You can take the time to make sure everything is packaged correctly and looks nice - which is really important to me, but at the market I felt under pressure and realised I had no space to easily wrap and package the goods apart from the floor!

The pricing of my products has a big impact on sales and I think even though it is a market selling all hand-made / designed products there is still an expectation that these will be at fairly cheap prices. When you sell through a retailer (as I am) you need to make sure your prices are consistent with their selling price (you can’t undercut them) and so it does make the pricing very difficult to tailor to a market.

Ho-hum. It was a good learning process for me anyway – and I hope that things can only get better for next time!

Post market blues

I am suffering today from ‘post-market blues’ – I wonder if this is a common syndrome craft-market sellers suffer from?....

Yesterday was my first ever market stall selling the products I make for Me Old China and also my own range of greetings cards – it was a beautiful sunny day at Abbotsford Convent and I was sweltering under the shade of 2 garden umbrella’s! I had two great stall neighbours – The Cats Meow and Babushka Baby and they made me feel quite at home in the market environment. After several weeks of preparation and madly trying to get everything ready, I now feel slightly deflated and very tired after the event.

Thank you to all my lovely friends who came along to say “Hello” – it meant a lot to me and I was really grateful for everyone’s support, interest, feedback and encouragement. Thanks also to the lovely Miss M for helping me man the stall for a few hours. :)