The Danish Connection

Recently at Spitalfields I had another visit from a very nice Danish woman who approached me a while back with some items she'd brought from her home in Denmark. This time she had found me a real feast of jewel coloured enamel including ring shaped moulds suitable for cakes, jelly or brioche. They are in both ruby red and deep heavenly blue with white interiors. Some have little wire attachments to hang them up on the wall. Also there was a blue colander which was bought immediately and is now winging its way to America! It amazes me where vintage items begin and end. It would be great if they carried a little diary showing their history, where they came from, where they've been and where they are now! That would be so cool. I've bought things in Scotland - who knows if they started off there, then they've been bought by someone in London to take to Italy for example!
Most of the items from Denmark are that wonderful shade of sky blue but included in her latest haul were two grass green items, a funnel and a fish slice. They sold very quickly which I was a bit sad about as they were so beautiful on the stall against everything else. Included in the blue enamel was a striking coffee pot. I was told that they are called Madam Blue referring to the colour but people don't say pass the coffee pot but pass the Madam Blue which is very sweet. I also have blue funnels with white interiors which are great for decanting oil into smaller containers etc. I have a few more blue  colanders including an unusual jug shaped one. This also has a little wire for hanging on the wall where it is common in Denmark to display these items as they are beautiful as well as functional. There is also a zester and three cute tea strainers. Please contact me if you are interested in any items. 

Classic creams n greens n jewel coloured enamel

This is a selection of some of my enamel ware for sale. A beautiful cream n green flour bin which can be used as a small bread bin, a sweet red teapot, a really useful Bain Marie pot, great for making sauces, melting chocolate or making porridge. The classic cream n green cake tin dates from around the thirties/forties.

Back again!

For anyone reading this blog especially after my enamelware was featured in July's edition of Homes&Antiques, thank you and apologies that I have been very remiss at not writing here for a long time. I tend now to post news and information about fairs and markets that I'm doing on Twitter and Facebook. You can find me as Enamelama on both sites. I'm just back home after a wonderful family holiday in Majorca so feeling rejuvenated. I'll be back at Old Spitalfields Antique Market this Thursday and I'll be at Hackney Flea Market in Stoke Newington this Saturday so I'm busy getting new stock ready for both of these events. I've got some great milk bottles with advertising on them, wonderful for serving the obvious milk in or as a vase for a small bunch of flowers. Also I've got the last few Kilner jars which are great used for storage if you don't want to use them to preserve your own fruit etc. On the enamel front, I have some beautiful coffee and tea pots in a great variety of colours. Another interesting new find is a trio of saucepans which are cream n green, made by the company Judge, a well known English producer of enamel ware. They are triangular shaped and fit together to form a circular shape which fit together on one ring of a cooker. A very clever invention which allows you to cook three different things on one source of heat. I'm also looking forward to the next North London Vintage Market in Crouch End, a great place to find amazing items from Kitchenalia, china to furniture, clothes to record players and jewellery to fabrics. It is normally held on the first weekend of every month except August but this month it is on 19th July. Do try to come along. There's great food too and this month there will be a dog show in aid of North London Hospice. If you're reading this and you don't live in or near London, if you are interested in any items that I may have or could find for you, please get in touch with me and I'll do my best to help you. Meanwhile I'm off to search out some more treasures.

What's a Bain Marie?

Tomorrow I'll be at the  North London Vintage Market. As always I look forward to this venue. There'll be great stalls including mid century ceramics, textiles, furniture and of course Kitchenalia! Refreshments are yummily provided by My Little Cake Tin! I'll have lots of new items including a beautiful sky blue Bain Marie. What's that, I hear some say? Well it's a double pan where one smaller pan sits inside the other which is filled with water. The smaller pan holds sauces, custard, porridge or anything which needs to be heated gently. It avoids the sauce sticking the bottom. It's great for melting chocolate. I also have two small enamel flour bins, one in classic white, the other in cream n green with stencilled writing which is really lovely. Cream n green is a current n lasting theme in my choice of enamel and tin items. It reminds me of creamy roses on fresh green stems, crisp cauliflower peeping out of green leaves and I could go on but I won't. These colours can also be found in a1940s Salter scales, a three tier Tala cake tin and various bowls, plates and tins. These will all be available at the market tomorrow as well as at Thursdays at Spitalfields.

My stall recently at North London Vintage Market

I'm back!

Hi there, well I'm now back in the swing of things again - Spitalfields yesterday in the boiling heat! Must have affected the customers too as there weren't so many for me! Still, it was great to be back n get my brain in gear for buying n selling again. After an exciting two weeks waiting for grandchild no 2 to arrive after getting back from Scotland, he's finally here and appropriately cute n beautiful! I can begin to concentrate on business, hard as it is. Tomorrow, it's North London Vintage Market at St Mary's Church Hall, Cranleigh Gardens, London N10. It's been two months since the last one so I'm looking forward to it. It's always such a lovely market with great stalls, food n atmosphere. I've got lots of new things to sell including a washstand with a pale green enamel basin with the cutest tiny plug n matching soap dish. See photos on Twitter. My name is the same. I'll have another supply of  pie dishes in various colours from pale blues to greens n classic whites with blue edgings. These are always popular and especially at this time of year when we start thinking of warming food such as fish or veggie pie. I've got a lovely white Bain Marie pot for cooking sauces or heating custard.  I'm getting hungry talking about all this food! See you there tomorrow hopefully.

Sun,sea and swallows!

Here I am up in the west coast of Scotland. The weather is great, though unlike London I can breathe wonderful fresh sea air. We've managed to see the fledgling swallows before they fly off to South Africa. We've watched them emerge nervously from their nest in the eaves to sit for a while on one of the rafters to work up the courage to fly. Now already in a few days they are off soaring into the clear blue sky searching for food on the wing, returning only in the evening like errant teenagers who've come home past their curfew time!
I've managed to source a few goodies so far for my stall. Even on holiday, I'm always on the look out for interesting items. A little trio of duck measuring spoons and a lovely green and white storage jar are my first buys. It's only been a week so give me time!! Oh and also I couldn't resist some beautiful bone china flower brooches and earrings. They are so delicately made using dainty pastel shades. I don't normally go for jewellery but they were so hard to resist and remind me of pretty china teacups which I sell so they will fit in with my usual stock. I imagine they may have belonged to a nice elderly lady who looked after them and cherished them so I will look after them carefully too until it's time to hand them on to another careful owner.
Life here is very different from London and a wonderful contrast. Walking on an empty beach with the dog running in and out of the water chasing the oystercatchers, eating lovely fresh seafood, picnicking on the beach and for a change having to shelter under the shade of a lovely old beach umbrella. I've been swimming too, the water at first freezing but exhilarating too. Up here is a lot like Cornwall but without all the people! It's so refreshing and really does seem like being on a desert island at times. If I see a figure in the distance on the beach, it's like, 'what, people on our beach?'  In between enjoying all these glorious experiences, I will continue my quest for new stock.

Monkey business!

This cheeky monkey was bought from my lighthouse man! (See other blogs). He's pretty old I think n is beautifully jointed with beady glass eyes. I am tempted to hold onto him! Talking about monkeys, I've recently been clearing out our loft which has thirty years worth of memories up there. There were hundreds of cuddly toys, some very special and some bought randomly by my children at school fairs, charity shops etc for twenty pence or so. I have found these characters from the monkey family of various sizes, colours and characters (see below). All this time, there has been a veritable zoo above my head. Some of them are heading to new homes.There must have been a secret loft world which I have now disturbed. Baby clothes, toys, games, tins, as well as pure rubbish, if rubbish can ever be pure! I don't think so, considering how dirty I am when I come out after a session cleaning up there! It's amazing how much we keep. Often the things we keep are really beautiful items worth holding onto for future generations. My daughter's baby has inherited some of her mummy's clothes, even her christening robe as well as lots of great toys from the eighties! I have photos of both of them wearing the same things thirty years apart! However, there are things which I think, why on earth have they been kept!! An old pair of trainers?? Two old pillows? A broken football game where the spinning teams have no pitch to play on as it was used as a stepladder until someone's foot went through it! Why you may be wondering, did I hold onto these things? Well, your guess is as good as mine. One positive thing though is that my and other people's hoarding instincts protects items which will become our collectables of the future. When I sell a lovely old tin, I wonder where it came from and why someone held onto for all these years so that I could find it and then pass it on to someone else. I do often wonder in this minimalist age, where will all the collectables of the future come from? So at least when I'm despairing as I trail through my loft treasures/trash, I can feel some justification in holding onto things so that they may one day be someone else's treasure bought from a stall just like mine. I think part of the problem is that it's hard to treasure something which is so common at the moment such as all the big Roses, Quality Street tins which abound around Christmas time. Even I have thrown quite a few of these out after using many of them to store pens, nails, candles etc and exhaustingly ran out of ideas for any more uses. But perhaps in forty/fifty years time when they're a bit bashed and maybe tin isn't used anymore as a material, those very same tins will be fawned over by young people. You just never know!!!

They're escaping from the attic!!!