Freecycle and finds

The weekend before last was bright and sunny round these parts and there was just a small car boot sale at a local school .... couldn't resist could I ???

The very first seller had mountains of children's toys and baby activities so I dived in ..... I came away with some lovely toys including the Fisher Price Peek a Blocks Press and Go Train, Tomy Discovery Stack, Pop n Tumble, wooden puzzles and a gift set from Emma Bridgewater in the Men at Work series.

They were all in perfect condition and still in the boxes .... all for a grand total of £15 ..... the train on it's own is £29.99 in Toys R US  and we all know how much the Bridgewater costs so I was well pleased.

On the next stall I spied a print from one of my favourite artists Faye Whittaker .... her studies of Edwardian children are charming. I was just about to buy it when the stall holder said she had two more so I came away with 3 for a fiver and one of them is a limited edition signed by the artist.

My final bargain that day was a boxed set of game, DVD and book of Going on a Bear Hunt (one of our favourites) and for the first time in my life I haggled upwards, if such a thing is possible, the lady only asked £1 and it is pristine .... even I couldn't take it for that price and gave her £3 instead.

Then yesterday on Freecycle someone was offering some old embroidery and crochet magazines and I was very lucky to be selected to give them a new home.  Just take a look at these

They are almost 100 years old ..... the blue competition slip in one of them states that entries have to be in by 10th June 1916 ..... how marvelous is that and what a prize ..... £130 in 400 awards which is the equivalent of almost £37,000 today measured against average earnings.

I love old textiles so I'm really going to enjoy reading through these ... the advertisements are fantastic too.