Salvo Fair at Knebworth House

I came across the Salvo Fair at Knebworth house in Hertfordshire on a trend website last year and made a mental note to visit it this year. With a love of vintage treasures and antiques, especially in interior decor this was one fair that wasn't to be missed! We went along on the Saturday which i am very glad of as i heard the weather was much better, and i must say that this fair did not disappoint! If you are a lover of interior design and get inspired by unusual items then this fair is definitely for you! With a selection of antiques and restored items, to handmade lovelies you will be sure to go away with something a little bit special. I have short listed some of my favorite items below, take a look and let me know what you think!

These old storage containers would look great on display in your home, and i love the beautiful colours they have been painted in too!

I love these lights i think they would look great in a Retro kitchen and the colours are great too, i will definitely have some of these in my house one day.

I have been looking for vintage grain sacks for a very long time, they are such lovely quality fabrics they usually cost around the £20 mark for one sack so can be quite pricey, but they are great for making cushions out of and re-upholstering old furniture, as you can see from my photos below.

I have been searching for a vintage crate for a while now, and there were tonnes of them at the fair, from old apple crates to wine crates they look great on display and look lovely as planters inside your home or in your garden.

This sink reminded me of our old art sink at school always covered in acrylic paints, that's the best thing about art, you can have fun with it and it doesn't matter if you make a mess as it is all part of the fun!

From messy to rustic these tables below would look lovely in a kitchen and would make a great focal point in your room, the best thing about these kind of items is that they are so unique you can be sure that there won't be many people with the same furniture as you!

There were a lot of old metal signs at the fair but this one in particular caught my fancy, it would look great hanging on a wall in your house as a focal point.

These old tiles were just stunning, and as a print designer a lot of inspiration can be drawn from these, there were a lot of stands selling tiles as one-offs or as a set, and they have no end of uses. You can display them amongst a set of plain tiles as a focal piece or have a few of them up on display. I was in a vintage tea shop just last week and they were using them as a centre piece to a table to put the teapots and salt and peppers on, they are just lovely!

Speaking of tea shops, there were also lots of vintage tea cups and saucers on show and i particularly liked these ceramic jugs below, I had to purchase one for myself, they are great to use as a vase with a bunch of hydrangeas in they look great!

As a lover of sewing these old reels look great on display in your sewing room, just as they are or wrapped with coloured thread or ribbons.

I absolutely adored this big bath, and i hope to have one just like this one in my house one day!

I thought this retro corner display was great and i loved the way that the colours had been put together.

I loved this shabby chic corner, and also the star fish which would look great on display in your bathroom.

As a lover of horses and shabby chic decor, these next few pieces really caught my eye, i think they are beautiful works of art.

I thought these old shoe lasts were very quirky and would look great on display in your home.

I thought these rustic numbers looked great and if you wanted to get very inventive you could make them into a giant clock!

And finally... the sun was shining and the sky was blue, there were flowers everywhere and i snapped a few!

Knebworth house what a beautiful setting for a great fair, i will definitely be visiting again soon!

I hope you enjoyed my blog, below i have listed a few of my favorite stands and supplier details from the day in-case you wanted to do a bit of your own salvo hunting!

Vicky xxx

Planet Vintage Girl www.planetvintagegirl.com

Charlotte's Yard www.charlottesyard.co.uk

Quirky Interiors www.quirkyinteriors.co.uk

The original home store www.theoriginalhomestore.co.uk (the old bath photo)

Inside Outdoors www.insideoutdoors.com (the ceramic vases photo)

Nikki Page Antiques www.nikkipageantiques.com (Shabby chic interior photo)

Beyond France www.beyondfrance.co.uk (linen grain sacks and cushions photo)

Vicky's Pretties print collaboration

Hello!

You may have noticed that i have been quite quiet on my social media recently! I have been a busy bee doing lots of research and designing, i am hoping to have a few craft fairs lined up in the next couple of months so i will keep you all posted on the dates, with lots of lovely new designs on sale, which will also be going online on my website very soon!
It is exciting times right now, Vicky's Pretties has collaborated with the "Craft Cotton Company" and will be developing a range of prints for craft fabric and selling in your favorite haberdashery stores! I cannot wait until they go into store it will be so exciting, keep your eyes pealed! Here is a sneaky peak of some of the prints i have been working on, but i am not going to give too much away you will have to wait and see for yourself!

This is some of my basic illustrations that make up the below print, based on retro sweets, i sketched these on my way home from work! You should always keep a sketch book and pencil handy as you never know when inspirational ideas will pop into your head!

This is the finished design, i must admit i am very happy with this and the colours i have chosen go well together!

I even had a little help from one of my little kittens Bella she loves to sit and watch me as im drawing and chase the mouse around the screen, bless!

That's it for now, i hope that you have enjoyed seeing what i have been up to lately, lots more blog posts to follow as i have been busy snapping away lots of inspirational photo's too which i will upload very soon!

Vicky

xxx

Shabby Chic furnitue up-cycling for less than £60

Hi All,

I just wanted to update you all on my latest projects, i have had a couple of old pieces of furniture lying around my house now for a while and after a couple of searches finding inspirational images on Pinterest i was ready to update them, i was full of ideas! The first stop was a 100 year old chair i bought from a local car boot sale for £5.00 an absolute bargain! I had been looking for one of these for some time, and after seeing them retailing for £80 in interior shops and falling in love with one in Laura Ashley i thought i would give it a go and restore one for myself.

Above is a photo of the chair in it's raw state, although it looks lovely i wanted to give it a shabby chic edge so that it would fit in with the decor in my home.

Firstly, i began sanding it, this took about two hours to do it properly and to make sure the surface was ideal for painting, myself and Jake (my better half) sat outside in the sunshine so the time passed very quickly indeed!
Next the fun bit, time to get onto the painting, to make sure that the paint i had chosen in my final colour would stick to the surface i had to use a Primer paint first, you can pick these up from B&Q for under £10 for a tin and a little goes along way. I did three coats of the Primer paint, but two would have been sufficient.
You need to allow time for the paint to dry between coats, it usually recommends 2 hours, however i found that 1 hour was ok and it meant i could see the finished project quicker! Another tip is to invest in a good paintbrush, as you do not want to get paintbrush hairs stuck to your masterpiece!

Below shows an image of my chair after i have sanded it and started to apply the primer paint.

Below shows an image of my chair after i have sanded it and started to apply the Primer paint.

The next stage is the final stage and probably one of the most important. Choosing a colour and paint consistency that you are happy with, i wanted a matte chalky finish with little sheen so i opted for a paint again from B&Q, which was the 1829 Eggshell paint in regency white which was only £11.98 for a 750ml tin, what a bargain! Some other great paints you can use are Annie Sloan's chalk paint, and also Farrow & Ball who do a great eggshell paint but these tend to be a little more expensive, i do not have any experience using these paints but i think my B&Q alternative gave me just the look i was going for. Below shows you the finished chair, i just love it!

Next my trusty sewing table, which i acquired...for free as someone was throwing this out, to them it may have been a piece of junk but to me it was a beauty waiting to be revealed! I again started with the same process as the chair and sanded away all of the old varnish, to make this easier you could use a paint stripper but as i didn't have any to hand i decided sanding would do the job.

Above is the image of the table before it was transformed, if you scroll to the bottom of this blog you will see it when it is finished, you will hardly recognize it!
May i also add that i have now managed to paint both chair and table with the same tins of paint, keeping the costs very low! To finish off the tabletop i bought 1 Metre of my favorite Cath Kidston oilcloth fabric and covered it using a glue gun to secure, you can use a heavy duty stapler if you have one handy too. This only cost me £22.00 per metre so again i kept the cost down.

Next is the chest of drawers i acquired when moving house, these were starting to look a little out of place in my sewing room after i restored the chair and the table so i decided time for another transformation!

As you will see it looks very dated, so i began again by painting the main body of the drawers (still with the same tins of paint!). Using some free samples i collected from the Cath Kidston store, I cut out and covered the front of the drawers. You can use wallpaper paste of modge podge to stick the paper to the wood, but i didn't have any of these handy so i mixed a little PVA glue with a tiny bit of water and pasted it on, be careful not to apply too think and uneven though else you will end up with air bubbles. Then all i had to do was wait for it to dry and tada i had a brand new lovely looking piece of furniture which i was very happy with!

The finished piece!

Below you will see how my sewing room looks now i have restored all of my furniture and if i do say so myself i am very impressed, and it cost me less than 1 piece of brand new furniture, and has a very personal touch to it! I hope that you have as much fun as i did restoring your lovely old items, if you need any hints or tips then please feel free to contact me and i will be happy to help!

Vicky xxx