The Owl Has Landed :) !

We have been collecting owls for a few years now, but I have never seen one like this guy until I was browsing on ebay a couple of months ago. He is a total one off ( at least I hope he is a he :) and a lot bigger than what I thought he was when I bought him !  This owl stands about 7 - 8 inches tall, and whoever made him had the painstaking task of cutting sheets of metal into very thin strips and then moulding the owl into the shape you see here ! We love him ! I very carefully brought him back from the US on my last trip, and he now has pride of place on our hall window ledge. Not sure how he is but we think it is either the 1950's or 1960's.

Vintage Portobello, London

The Vintage trend has been prominent for some time now. It is a wonderful story giving rise to pretty feminine techniques like ribbonwork, lace re-invented, sparkle and glitter, collections of objet d'art in many forms, antique buttons and keepsake charms, little floral prints, ginghams, cross stitching and stab stitch.

Mixed fabric textures, patterns and appliques.

Here are some market finds mixed with personal treasures :

Avoca in Belfast : 

Cath Kidston in London :

Office in London : 

Paperchase : 

Artbox :

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Paperchase :

John Lewis in London : 

Tokyo Japan : 

Portobello Market in London : 

Accessorize in Belfast : 

Retro Clock

We picked this great retro clock up from an old antique store in Fairburn, Georgia. The store was probably well over a hundred years old, and was a great place to spend an hour or so. One day we drove over there and the whole building was gone ! It was a double width store and a spark one night had set the whole place on fire, and because of the wind it burnt out really quickly. Such a shame because it just oozed history, and everything went up in smoke ! Here are a couple of photo's of the clock :

Vintage Mechanical Toys

We have been collecting tin toys since we moved to Georgia last year. The colours and bold graphics are a designers eye candy. Some of them are slightly used, but that all adds to the Retro patina.

This little car was a great find, from the 1950's :

Andrea spotted this bucking bronco recently, it's a lot of fun because it actually bucks like a rodeo horse :

This little car and driver is eastern european and again from the 1950's, it still works too :

What a contrast these two are :

Americana

We bought these wonderful vintage kiddies books at Pride of Dixie antique fair in Metro Atlanta.
The books range from 1948 - 1975. Since Retro is so topical at the moment, it is always great to
find some new inspiration.