Painted Furniture Courses

Visit a Brocante, buy a wonderful piece, learn how to transform it using paint, relax in the wonderful surroundings of a great French house (complete with pool, tennis court, wonderful al fresco eating etc. etc.!)

My husband is an artisan carpenter who creates wonderful hand built wooden furniture. He combines old pieces with new timber and finishes each piece with layers of hand mixed paint to create a unique patina.

He is now running residential courses to pass on his skills. For more details of his work visit www.collingbourne.wordpress.com or email me at www.angelahopehandbags.com 

To find out more about the wonderful La Son, visit www.domainedelason.com

Brocante Find of the Week

I simply love spending my weekends rummaging through piles of old French bits and bobs, some might call it junk?, I call it treasure.......

Every week I visit at least one of my favorite haunts, often more. This post is dedicated to my favorite weekly finds, many of which can be found in my shop www.etsy.com/shop/HOPEFRENCHVINTAGE

Vintage French Wallpaper

Lovely, albeit kitch, old French wallpaper. I managed to get 9 rolls, unused in the original packaging!

French Wine Bottle

This week I found an old glass wine bottle with the original cork stopper.

I have seen these before in the wicker baskets but I have never seem one in the hessian sacking as well.

I love the way the hessian is hand stitched onto the basket with holes that reveal the bits of wicker.

It would look lovely in a very rustic kitchen.

The bottle top has an unusual ribbed twisted glass detail.

French Walnut Oil Storage Jar

Found at a brocante near Carcasonne. I am told this is circa 1850 and was used to store Walnut oil. 

It has an interesting yellow patina around the base.

It would look amazing in a rustic style kitchen.

Hand Stitched Quilt

This gorgeous quilt is made from a rose print cotton in yellow on one side and pink on the reverse. The inner wadding is wool so imagine how warm it is. 

I love textiles that have patches and darns which show the fact the owner wanted to keep them going. This one has pink patches and red printed patches, all wonderfully faded.

The whole quilt is stitched by hand, imagine the hours of work that went into it.

Denim Slouch Bag

I found this amazing old denim fabric in a Brocante recently.

 I was told it was used for making prison outfits but I am not sure if that is true!

It has a lovely edge when frayed but I am not sure I will leave this exposed. I will see how it develops. I want to make a big cube shaped slouchy bag.

I also found this very faded pale grey linen with adarker linen floral print. I will use this for the lining.

These old leather straps came from an old French copper crop sprayer. After a very good wash and many coats of oil they are ready to use as straps.

 

Up-cycled vintage bits

Vintage French Button Cards

I have fond childhood memories of my mother's sewing basket and in particular her tin of buttons. I came across a large tin of mixed white buttons at a French Vide Grenier recently and could not resist buying them.

I also bought a pile of old postcards and as part of the lot there were cards whose images were nothing special. But, not being one to ever throw anything away I kept them as they might come in useful one day.

One rainy Sunday I decided to combine the buttons and unwanted postcards with a pile of old 1940's French fashion magazines.

The vintage button card was born!

They looked so good all together that I even used them to wallpaper the wall of my stand at the Made by Hand show in Tradegar in December.

French Linen Dress

I have been in France for a year now and have discovered a good selection of Brocantes. On my last trip I stumbled upon this lovely bundle of old floppy linen sheets.

The texture of this old linen is amazing and the more worn it is, the softer it hangs.

Within the bundle there were also some old chemises. They were worn and had darns and patches which only added to their charm. 

I decided to dye them a soft indigo colour and I also dyed some of the sheets and some monogrammed hankies. I thought I could use these extra pieces of cloth to make repairs or alterations to the garments.

One dress had the monogram 'S' so I decided to make it for my friend Saffron.

I started by using one of the hankies to make a new square patch to echo the existing patch on the front.

This was sewn onto the dress.

The dress was quite large and an unflattering shape, so I pinned darts whist on the body to create a new shape

I decided it would work better with long sleeves so I took measurements at the wrist and existing short sleeve circumference. I then created a pattern for a slim sleeve.

I used pieces of old sheet from the same dye bath to create the sleeves.

The dress was very 'A' line and a little too long. My friend had a cotton underdress that was the right length, so, I stitched the outer linen dress to the underdress, pleating gradually all the way round. This created a puffball effect.

This is the finished dress, fantastically modeled by said friend who's name begins with 'S'.........