rosemount bowl

brown

Tip shop scores!

the tip shop

I'm not sure if I should even share this secret... but... do you know about tip shops? They are totes the new op shops. I went for the first time to the one in Balcatta. I was overwhelmed. Piles and piles of stuff! Insanely cheap!

I've been op shopping for possibly 15-20 years now... but had really given up in the last few years. The "vintage" market has become so huge that there is nothing left to buy in op shops! I guess a combination of the vintage shoppers getting there first, and maybe that people don't even donate stuff any more because they know they can sell it on Ebay... So it was like a step back in time to go to the tip shop, where you don't so much "donate" things as chuck them out, and let someone else discover them - the way op shops used to be. 

There was a ridiculous array of stuff. Outdoor, indoor, broken, in good condition. Sporting. Furniture. Books. Anything you can imagine. Some of it was actual garbage but, again, that's kinda how op shops are.

I scored two chairs, a table, two ceramic vases, an enamel pot, and a piece of metal grate that will be used as art on the Perpendicular Pumpkin's shed for $10. Yes, $10, you read that correctly. Like days of old. So you can understand my reservation about letting a top secret like this out. But in the spirit of sharing... enjoy!

P.S. I am pretty sure Barry Morgan would have a fit to see that organ, complete with a one finger method setting, at the tip. Sadly I don't have room for an organ at home. Unless Barry came with it, to give me lessons.

hot rods to hell (2)

hot rods to hell (1)

Howdy. These photos were actually taken a few weekends ago, at the Hot Rods to Hell thing at Devilles. I wandered round the whole time just going: whoah, shiny, nice... shiny, and consequently came away with more photos than I knew what to do with. But I am used to that I guess. It's a long weekend here, so I finally have time to sort through some photos. I actually have a fairly random backlog of things, so I think I will just chuck them up, no particular order, over the next few days. I have been busy at work, hence not a lot of posting. And my dog was sick for a little while - she is ok, but it does zap your energy to be interested in anything else when that happens doesn't it? She is back to her normal nutcase self now, sitting next to me on the floor, no doubt wishing I would turn the computer off and come outside.

This is only somewhat related, but I was remembering this morning how when I first got the internet at home, in about 2002, it was dial up and it would take forever, but was still awesome because it was still faster than say, driving to the library. Ten years later my internet it faster, yet somehow being on it annoys me more, and some days I struggle to be interested in anything it has to offer. It's also like I want it to be even faster still. I want photos to just automatically ping themselves up instead of me having to bother to select, upload, post etc. It is all so ridiculously easy and fast compared to old ways of distributing photos, but my 2012 brain wants it to be even easier and faster. Crazy. I am planning to start a Colour H facebook page, but the main reason I haven't done it yet is because it's just more time on the internet! I need to muster some enthusiasm for the awesomeness that is the webs, but am seriously struggling at the moment.

Hope if you got a long weekend that you are having/had a lovely time!

H.

yellow

A few scenes from the Restyle set up in the Cultural Centre which is part of the Perth Fashion Festival. Vintage clothes and a very cute caravan. I think it will still be on over the weekend.

green & white

You may recall my efforts not long ago to build a bookcase on my own. Not really recommended. They show two people in the instructions for a reason. But anyway, I persisted and I succeeded. And here is what it kind of looks like now. I'm going with green, as you can see. On top is the op-shop bowl I craftily spray painted not too long ago. I found the H in that shop Typo for $2 and spray painted it with the same green.

red, green & yellow

My mum came back from a holiday in Malaysia last week, and brought me all this cool stuff from a chinatown somewhere. I especially like the big red tray. Also last week I spray painted some metal bowls I got from the op shop. Definitely easy for a quick, bright effect. Its been cloudy and raining a little bit for a few days, which is... weird... but its great that its not so hot and I can keep the windows open and the blinds up. Oddly, it feels like spring, because everything feels fresh and bright and colourful, but technically its autumn... weird!

blue

This weekend just gone I abandoned my mission to sort out all my vintage clothes. A project I started in the xmas holidays. Yep, total fail. Over the years I have accumulated a whole spare wardrobe of vintage clothes, dresses mostly, that I don't really wear any more. I bought them all back when you could get stuff in op-shops, kind of pre the explosion of vintage dress shops. There was even this insane place called Windsor Wiper Sales (perhaps it still exists?) that sold piles and piles of second hand clothes, all for one dollar each. It was like some weird dream. This was also pre everything being on the internet, and they didn't advertise themselves, you had to ring them up and ask when their next sale was. Then you'd go along, line up, get given a big plastic bag in exchange for a gold coin donation, and go nuts! I think most of it was actually stuff that had been rejected by op shops, for buttons missing or other minor crimes. It would all arrive in huge bales that they'd slash open onto trestle tables, and you would have to seriously rummage through it all. I was a broke uni student and I'd come home with a bag full of 20 different items for $20 and be so completely stoked.

But anyway... I used to wear some of this stuff, other bits I used as fabric to make stuff, other bits I just enjoyed owning. These days though, while I still like owning it, it does take up a whole wardrobe (and this is not counting the cupboard full of bags, yes, seriously a cupboard full) and I very rarely wear it. Over xmas I pulled the whole lot out with the intention of trying it all on, and sending most of it on its way, either back to the op-shop, or perhaps to sell at a vintage market or something. But it was all a bit hard. I realized I really liked it all still, and of course might want to wear it one day... so it all sat in a giant pile. A too hard pile. Until last week when we had some slightly cooler weather and I realized my doona was at the bottom of the pile. And also I would quite like to have the spare room back to some kind of functional state. So I packed the lot up. Back into the wardrobe!

H.