a sunny day in march and the beginnings of a vintage fever

a submission to a website to promote our good photographer friend who took photos at our wedding earlier this year, has resulted in a blog of our barn-inspired wedding. i think this is where my love of all things vintage had the fire lit beneath it, as we searched op shops and garage sales for vintage bottles, decanters, frames and napkins.

reusing and local produce was a big theme - dusting off my mariana hardwick debutante dress from high school to add bits and pieces from my mother's wedding dress, using flowers picked out of my parents garden, making blackboards out of op shop picture frames, ryan brewing organic beer with my dad...

the rule was that both of us had to know every single guest - no introductions on the day. the day started out with spraying 'possom off' into the roof of one of the guest cottages and digging out a flooded driveway, then decorating the previously junk-filled barn before everyone arrived. a tandem bicycle restored by ryan's dad was the vehicle of choice...

so many good things have come from one sunny day in march - the best husband a woman could hope to have, and a passion for all things rusted, crooked, worn and bent. oh, and and an etsy shop! with one more currently in the making - stay tuned.....

marnie xxx

lawnmowers

yesterday ryan mowed our lawn. with our 1960s electric flymo lawnmower. my job was to rake up the grass, as it doesn't have a catcher. it sucks, so i avoided the task by weeding a path...and ryan swore a lot, with the electric cord getting in the way.

so today on our way to the local market, we saw a garage sale sign. the balloons directing us to the garage sale were tied to an old lawnmower - with a grass catcher! luck was on our side, it was for sale for the princely amount of $50. they also had some brilliant kiwi fruit crate bookshelves for $20 (that would be perfect for storing my ever increasing vintage goods), so with a bit of bartering, we drove away with both of them for $60...

and now we have nicely mown grass! i love our barn sign that we made for our wedding now lives in our back yard - it reminds me every day of one fantastic day in march...at the moment we are also attracting tiny red-browed finches to our garden with our bright little bird feeder, it's awesome!

anyway, we found another 2 garage sales before getting to the market, and got some great finds - more about that tomorrow...

marnie xxx

my very first post....

i have always been a very scientific minded person, and thought that i didn't have a creative bone in my body. it wasn't until i decided to make our wedding nearly 6 months ago a reflection of 'us' that i found a passion for upcycling vintage treasures, op-shopping, bargain hunting at garage sales and making something out of nothing.

i opened an etsy store 3 months ago as a way to pass some of these lovely pieces of vintage and industrial history along to other people (and it gives me an excuse to keep buying them, if i'm buying them for future owners!). two weeks before our wedding we moved into our first home, which is a 1890s weatherboard cottage in the macedon ranges that has the old Riddells Creek post office on the title. so we have lots of room for storage (and little black dogs, and future chooks and vegie gardens...). in fact, the slightly crooked old post office is currently where i keep all my stock, and i even have my very own study here, so running a part time business is made a lot easier.

this has been a great  year so far - married the love of my life (and brother's best childhood friend), moved into our first home (and first home to ourselves since coming back from a european motorhome adventure late last year), started epoch co on etsy (www.etsy.com/shop/epochco), and about to open a second etsy shop (yep, why stop at one when you're still learning...!).

marnie xx