Some of you will know I started working for Hemingway Design about this time last year and mostly I edit the Vintage Festival blog, run the Vintage Correspondent programme, organise the Vintage area at London Fashion Weekend and snap for the Instagram feed. Well, back in November my duties took another exciting turn when Wayne invited me to project manage their involvement in the Diamond Jubilee Festival which over time also developed into me curating all the fashion and beauty content for the Festival.

I’ve organised 3 marketplaces exclusively for the Jubilee – A Classic Car Boot Sale, A Right Royal Department Store and A Handmade Memorabilia and Vintage Collectibles Market. I invited Anita’s Vintage Fashion Fair to present the department store and Etsy to present the handmade market. Together we’ve gathered 36 of the most amazing stall holders dealing mostly in pieces which have been sourced or handmade specifically for the Diamond Jubilee.  For the classic car boot I scoured the land for super cool vintage vehicles with owners who wanted to flog their bestest thrifty finds from their shiny boots. On the day you’ll be able to trawl fun vintage finds from a 50s citroen traction avant; a 60s porsche; a 70s capri; an 80s ambulance and many more!

For the hair and beauty content I wanted to create decade themed salons from the years of the Queen’s reign and after months and months of plotting ‘n planning we have…

• The 50s Salon presented by Now, Voyager. Turn good or bad with a full makeover to either become a good girl debutante for the day or a bad girl rockabilly rebel.

• The 60s Salon presented by The Powder Room. The Powder Puff Girls will transform festival goers into icons of the 1960s British Fashion Royalty like Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, Mary Quant to name but a few, creating brilliant beehives and luscious lashes.

• The 70s Salon presented by Ashley Vanderford. Relax with friends and family atop a vintage picnic rug and make your own Summer of Love Crown from an array of beautiful fresh flowers.

• The 80s Salon presented by Hairport. Choose a hairstyle from the menu curated exclusively for the Jubilee: The Beatrice beehive, The Royal wave, Regal rolls, Duchess & Pearls, The Queens Guard or the The Crown Jewels.

• The 00s Salon presented by The Illustrated Nail. Take a pew in the Royal Nail Bar and choose from a number of nail wraps designed especially for the festival.

The festival also has a 1952 bandstand which will house swing orchestras and mass dance lessons; a Diamond Geezer pop-up London boozer (which I’ll certainly be rolling out the barrel in!); the WI are bringing 1000 cakes that we can all scoff with a cuppa; an open air cinema which I’ve spent hours and hours in the BFI archives selecting the most fantastic vintage royal clips for (including a young Queen learning to knit no less); a main stage featuring my fave trio Kitty, Daisy & Lewis; a village fete; souvenir making workshops; A Right Royal Art School and at some point in the afternoon we will all STOP and do a mass toast to the Queen and play God Save the Queen on thousands of kazoos. Oh yes indeedy. That’s what I’ve been up to for the past 6 months! Hope you can join us in Battersea Park on Sunday 3rd June!!! It’s a ticketed event for safety reasons ‘n all but they’re only a fiver from HERE. All this work for a 1 day event seems pretty crazy, huh? It better not bloody rain, but then how totally traditionally British would that be!

And the fate of Thrift-ola? After the Jubilee I’ll be working on the Vintage Festival which takes place on the 13th to 15th of July this year in the beautiful Boughton House and after that I’ll be back. Hurrah!

How it works………
1. E-mail leona@thrift-ola.com with the product name & the price you’d like to pay.
2. If I accept the offer, I’ll e-mail you back and change the price of the product to what you’d like to pay for the rest of the day – although you’ll have to quickly snap it up before someone else does.
3. If I don’t accept your offer, I’ll send you a counter offer and the haggle begins.

Make Me An Offer Monday starts NOW until midnight tonight. Go shop!

Sneak peek of my vintage books on the shelf ready to be snapped up!

For today only all my vintage books which feature craft, knitting, sewing and papercraft alongside 70s/80s teen girl annuals and a selection of 50′s movie mags have been reduced to one round shiny pound!

Offer ends midnight. Shop the vintage book sale here!

Thrift-ola Yard Sale - This Saturday! Vittoria Wharf, 10 Stour Road, London E3 2NT

I run Thrift-ola from a small warehouse unit in Hackney Wick and have been thrifting a-go-go for the past few months to fill my online shoppe with all kinds of super fun second hand finds ready for Christmas! Not everything makes it onto the website though, reasons for this include items that don’t photograph very well, maybe they’re too large/heavy/awkward to post or I feel someone should really see it in person before buying. I’m also generally behind with uploading stock as I have just started freelancing for Vintage again and am co-ordinating & curating some really exciting events for 2012.SO! For one day only I’ve decided to open up my studio this Saturday and haul everything I have for sale into the main room for y’all to sift through. Most things you won’t have seen before but if you’ve had your eye on something in my online shoppe then you can check out all that stuff too.

As always everything will be mega affordable and I’ll be cutting deals with folk who buy lots of stuff.

Bring your pals, a pocket full of spare change and get ready for a good old fashion rummage at Thrift-ola Towers.

Stuff I’ll have for sale….

• Christmas decorations
• Deadstock 60s French cotton dresses – I picked about 40 of these up from a flea market in France
• Beautiful vintage Winter coats
• a 1960s hanging chair and a two seater Ercol sofa
• oodles of cute ceramic ornaments (mostly animals)
• a tea urn (for you tea party hosts)
• so much kitchenware
• booooooks – mostly craft
• winter warmers – lots of fuzzy sweaters & vintage cardigans
• piles of vintage haberdashery items (all collected from inside the vintage sewing baskets I’ve been selling)
• vintage cameras
• crockery

SO. MUCH. STUFF.

My studio is no. 8 and I have a buzzer on the green gates to my building Vittoria Wharf which is next to the huge pink and black Forman & Sons building. The nearest station is Hackney Wick Overground. You will definitely need a map!

Thrift-ola Yard Sale Facebook event details – click here!

Original display box full of 1980s cat shaped erasers. Made in Japan.

Monday’s can be pretty grim, especially now we’ve well and truly waved goodbye to summer. So to get the week started with a smile I’m going to run a fun offer each and every Monday during the drab wintry months. For today only if you buy a colour pop kitty eraser then I’M GOING TO SEND YOU ANOTHER ONE FOR FREE. Hurrah!

From next week onwards I’ll send news of the Happy Monday offer out via this here blog, twitter and fb at 9am. Exciting!

Go shop colour pop kitties < here > Offer runs whilst stocks last : )

I'm in the middle of upcycling a little kitchen chair...

When I’m out buying for Thrift-ola I also source bits and pieces for personal projects like collecting cute buttons to change the boring ones on my cardigans and I’m a fiend for buying sweet scraps of fabric “to make into things”. I’m a bad, bad crafter though and most of these items are scattered about my place making me feel guilty. So this afternoon I decided I’d just get on with it. I finally scrubbed clean a cute little kitchen chair that I rescued from being used as a foot stool by a painter/decorator. I then reupholstered the cushion using a scrap of the cutest cotton fabric I picked up at a jumble. Tomorrow I’m going to sand down the frame and varnish the wood. I’m not really doing things in the right order but at least I’ve started… and it was a fun few hours. Satisfaction guaranteed.

A pair of turquoise fan earrings and a wooden windmill giant pendant.

Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t picked up a pair of jewellery tools or pinged a jump ring since I closed my beloved fun rocker jewellery label on Valentines day in 2010. Interestingly though Lady Luck Rules OK had evolved from my Portobello stall in 2001 where I sold vintage jewellery and so a decade later I’ve come full circle and doing the thing I love most seeking out odd little objects and magicking them into accessories. Above is a pair of earrings I’ve made from 1960s Christmas decorations and a gigantic pendant necklace I’ve made from a wooden souvenir knick-knack which to my absolute joy was the first thing to sell when I launched the collection on Friday night.

1960s geometric owl pendant and diamante peacock brooch.

Alongside my handmade jewellery I’ll be seeking out vintage pieces to fill the Thrift-ola Jewellery Box. I don’t need a crystal ball and a headscarf to predict that birds will frequent the online shoppe and so far I’ve unearthed this stunning 1960s geometric owl necklace that has the most captivating amber eyes and an adorable peacock brooch decorated with dazzling crystals.

Pink ice cream sundae necklace and blue telephone cord style necklace.

I thrift jewellery from all sorts of places and I often go to sales held by Stylists who of course have a never ending supply of interesting pieces. I recently bought this hot pink ice cream sundae necklace with golden filigree topper and electric blue telephone cord style necklace from a freelance stylist who was spring cleaning her fashion cupboard.

Going for gold! Sputnik style brooch and earring set and rose locket sourced in Paris.

I also jump aboard the Eurostar a couple of times a year to source from flea markets in France. I visit the largest settlement of markets in Paris called St Ouen and often pick out a lot of gorgeous vintage charms and jewellery sets. Above is a 1950s sputnik style brooch and earring set and a romantic rose motif locket which I added to a chain.

Lenticular brooches sourced from a Russian door to door salesman. Really.

The most exciting thing about the Thrift-ola Jewellery Box is it’s not confined by era, style or current trends. I select pieces that catch my eye based on their individuality and often whether or not they make me smile – like these 1960s lenticular brooches from Russia. As the images move on each brooch it tells a story from a rocket boy floating in space after escaping his rocketship to Little Red Riding Hood morphing into the big bad wolf.

A pair of scarf clips featuring a palm tree and a cameo.

I can’t help but be seduced by little jewels that attach onto and jazz up other accessories… I love 1980s shoe clips (which I’m on the hunt for) and really love a scarf clip! Above is a silver palm tree one and a classic cameo version. Wrap the scarf around your neck, take two scarf tips and pull them through the ring on the back until the clip reaches your neck. It feels very regal for some reason!

Stylised 1950s fan necklace and hand painted big eyed 1960s doll face brooch.

I’ve really enjoyed sourcing and making the first 35 pieces in my new Thrift-ola jewellery collection. At various points since closing down LLROK I didn’t think I’d be able to make the return to jewellery but as long as I stay true to creating and sourcing the pieces I love, it should be a whole lotta fun!

Wimbledon Boot Sale on a Wednesday

Every weekend I hop on a train and travel just outside of London to Essex or Surrey to go searching for cute treasures at car boot sales in big fields. It’s been a really mild Autumn so most have continued but will soon be wrapping up for Winter hibernation. Over the past few weeks I’ve tested out some midweek hard standing London based boot sales which run the whole year round.

A stall dedicated to the King of rock'n'roll Elvis Presley.

By far my favourite, simply because it’s the biggest and I’ve much more chance of finding something, is the sale held at Wimbledon Greyhound track on Wednesdays. It opens at 10.30am and the sellers aren’t allowed to start trading until this time. Buyers, however are allowed in from 9am (paying £5 for the privilege) to stalk around peering into the back of cars. My poor friend Gillian found herself “lurking with a motley crew” for about an hour.

Gillian with her magazine rack which she haggled down from £45 to £20.

I arrived at 11am after an unexpected bus marathon took me 2 and a half hours to get there from East London. By this time it was absolutely rammed, so all I could do was roll up my sleeves and get involved. Around the outside of the sale are massively crowded house clearance vans where you pretty much have to get down on your hands and knees and sift through piles and piles of crap in the hope there’s some good stuff in there somewhere and then grab it before someone else does. In the centre and the back car park are a small number of people having a clear out but *mostly* it’s full of professional boot sellers who have bought to sell – probably from an auction.

An onsite diner to have breakfast and show'n'tell your finds.

It takes a good few hours to get round the sale and then afterwards I recommend heading to “Cuisine & Dreams” the onsite diner where you can wash your hands (tis quite a grubby boot) and dig into a big breakfast whilst you show ‘n’ tell your finds with your thrifting buddies.  A quick word of warning: if you usually go to countryside boot fairs on the weekend then brace yourself for hard standing weekday city ones. They’re busy, full of competitive ‘dealers’ (people who buy to sell) and the sellers can be a tad brusk. Wimbledon on Wednesdays is the business end of boot fairs really, so if you enjoy a more relaxed amble about maybe go there on the weekend as it also runs every Saturday (from 6.30am) and Sunday (from 7am). I went there this morning and it was much less intense!

Hot pink cable knit mittens and sunglasses with a swooping bird like motif.

My favourite style of glove is the mitten and these chunky cable knit ones in hot pink with fleece lining will keep your paws warm all winter long. Just stitch onto a ribbon and thread through your coat so you don’t lose ‘em! Wear with these really unusual claret coloured sunnies with a swooping bird like motif. ***Sorry to say that both these cuties sold before I could even publish this post, but read on for more goodies***

Electric blue sunnies and claret colour hand knitted scarflette.

All the sunglasses I added this week were from a small stash I unearthed on my recent trip to New York. They’re all vintage deadstock from the late 70s/80s, handmade in France and in a fun variety of eye popping colours and seasonal colours like claret. Above is an electric blue stripe pair that would look cute worn with this beautiful hand knitted mini scarf which I’ve coined a “scarflette” – you pull one end through the gap near the other end and it holds together looking like it’s been knotted but it lays flat. So clever!

Hand knitted wool beret and burgundy sunnies.

I’m a real sucker for a vintage hand knit and a big fan of the beret so this cream wool hat ticks all my boxes. I would wear it with these sultry burgundy sunnies that have a little printed snakeskin pattern in each corner.

Cherry red sunnies and icy blue snowmen legwarmers.

I still like most things I wore in my Twenties apart from leg warmers. I used to LOVE them, now I’m not so sure. I *do* make an exception for the pair above though because 1. they have little snowmen on them 2. they’re in an adorable shade of icy blue 3. they’re actually children’s leg warmers so they have a skinny fit. Wear with these colour pop cherry red sunnies.

Jasmine soup bowl and knitted turban.

Autumn also heralds the return of the soup season! Pack away those lunch time salads boys and girls and start cookin’ up some of the homemade hot stuff. Yum. I have two of the prettiest soup bowls on the planet in the Kitchenette collection. They’re called Jasmine by Woods; they have 2 little handles, a matching saucer to catch drips and they’re in the most sublime shade of lemony yellow. Slurp your soup looking all sophisticated wearing this handmade knitted turban – why settle for an ol’ bobble hat?

Wicker basket and wicker picnic hamper set for two.

Of course, we’re all hoping this sunny crisp weather continues into November. If so this picnic set and wicker basket will come in handy for wintry picnics in the park. Wrap up warm, take a big tartan rug and fill the Thermos with mulled wine! I also use picnic sets and baskets to take food and drinks to friend’s parties during the festive season. This weekend I’ll be filling my picnic set with pumpkin pie, spiced apple cider and candy sweets for a Halloween house party. All I have to do now is sort out a costume……. help!

ZAP

For some reason today I decided to go to Holloway Road car boot sale. It was hideously busy and more dodgy goods market than having-a-clearout car boot sale.

POW

My four bus round trip would have been a total disaster had it not been for this pop-tastic Batman and Robin painted school bus overflowing with a stellar selection of mid century crockery, glassware, wall hangings and annuals.

A table heaving with lovely bits of crockery, glassware & annuals.

The guy running the show was really knowledgeable about his collection and I was about to ask him if he was a regular and where else did he sell and so on… when a girl tried to steal something. It all seriously kicked off. Where were the crime fighting duo when you needed them?