Finders Keepers: Take Two

Last weekend my best friend, Bird and I jetsetted away for our annual winter Finders Keepers holiday; what a fabulous affair it was.

I’m not going to lie – we booked this holiday 6 months ago, and for the months leading up to the Markets, we were refreshing our Finders Keepers webpage’s, stalking their Twitter feeds, and emailing daily – correct that – hourly, to discuss beautiful letterpress prints, cupcakes on the lawn and filling our totes with all that crafty loot.

We arrived at the markets early schmearly and parked up on the lawn on a bale of hay. There were kooky girls with red hair pixie cuts sashaying around us, and cute-as-a-button café workers preparing chocolate slices, carrot cake and bags of popcorn underneath an eclectic mix of vintage glass domes with doilies.

As soon as the doors opened we sauntered in, and headed straight to the Frankie store, where I purchased some vintage pillowcases with excitement, and smelt the fresh flowers they had surrounding their stall of magazines, posters, retro clothing and a good ol’ fashioned lolly stand.

We wandered from stall to stall, purchasing jute love-heart bunting, porcelain jewellery, letterpress prints and hand-crafted ceramic owls.

Bespoke Press, again, was my favourite for the day, as I picked up a beautiful limited edition print, and some tangerine twine. I was blown away by the beautiful designs of jewellery at Erin Lightfoot’s stall, and may have left with a beautiful bangle, or two. Attia was also another favourite with their wooden rolling pins, spoons and ceramic beakers. Crayon Chick was a new edition, and certainly didn’t disappoint with her hand-crafted jute string bunting and pocket mirrors. I also loved Able and Game, where I stocked up on their quick witted cards – featuring very cool cats of course!

I loved every stall, and could sit here for hours writing about each one, but to save my hands from typer’s cramp, I’m going to draw the line in telling you all that the markets were in no doubt more fabulous than last year’s. They had new designers, and a bigger space to house all their wares. A new photo-booth was set up with random dress-ups of moustaches, hats, glasses and animal masks; while the food stalls on the lawn were bigger and better with hand-made bunting strung from the buildings to the trees, vintage fringed umbrellas popped up all over the lawn, and copious amounts of coffee stalls, cake shops and hot soups on offer for all those curled up on rugs listening to the live music.

I had a wonderful day yet again with Bird at the markets; and also with fellow ring-in Popcorn who was enjoying the day with her friend as they met us on the lawn for an afternoon cupcake.

Finders Keepers, thank you for a lovely day out with beautiful friends, I bought so many crafty delights that I will have to start saving for next year’s adventure… yesterday.