Vintage Treasure Hunting At Malvern Flea

We had a lovely day out at Malvern Flea on Bank Holiday Monday. I've written about it before, but if you missed it I'll fill you in - it's a big flea market that happens about once a month at the Three Counties Showground near Malvern, in Worcestershire. The stalls can vary massively in price, and vary from proper antiques through collectables to pretty much junk. We tend to focus on the 'pretty much junk' end of the scale, as we love bargains above all else! Here are some of the weird and wonderful things we spotted. (Apologies, the picture quality isn't great, I snapped them all on my iPhone as I didn't want to be lugging around my DSLR all day!)

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, we really did see a real stuffed bear, several rocking horses and disembodied legs, a kettle that looks like an apple, a surprised stuffed fox, Paul Daniels' Mystery Box, the Knight Rider annual, giant letters, and lots of cute doll related stuff. What more could you want from a day out, eh?!

It's such a fun place to visit as you really never know what you might find. Here's what we took home with us...

I'm a sucker for a bit of Cornish blue, those lovely blue and white stripes just look so homely and comforting. This teacup and saucer set was just £3.

These pretty embroidered tablecloths were just £3 each, I love the vibrant colours. They may be playing a part in our wedding... but that's another story for another day.

These (very creased) vivid green floral curtains are massive (actually too big for our bay window, I'm going to have to hem them) and bold and bright and happy and lovely. I'll have to post another picture when they are up.

These glass bottles are for a top secret wedding project which I can't speak any more about at the moment! I'm collecting lots of varied bottles and vases in a range of colours, which is a lot of fun. I love these medicine bottles and the beer bottle from Newport.

Finally, probably our most exciting purchase of the day, four 1970's retro garden chairs for £30.

I think we did pretty well, but managed to be pretty restrained at the same time. I could have come home with about a million things very easily. Have you ever visited Malvern Flea? Or can you recommend a must visit flea market near you?

All the fun of the flea!

If you're a vintage lover (and if you're reading this blog, I'm guessing you just might be!) and you live not a million miles away from the midlands, you simply must check out Malvern Flea! It's basically vintage heaven. It's a huge market that happens once a month and is a fantastic blend of vintage, antiques and oddities.

What's great about it is the fact that it isn't a full on antiques fair, so the variety of stalls means that you might find pretty much anything, and that's the fun of it. And for the odd stall that is selling nothing better than old tat, there are about twenty more selling amazing treasures. Also, Great Malvern is such a pretty little town, so you can pop in there afterwards for spot of afternoon tea, and you have the perfect day out! You can find out more here.

The Haul

We didn't actually buy all that much, we tend to buy a mix of stuff for ourselves and for Minimum Mouse, today we picked up some beautiful leather bags, a cool 1970's flight bag, a gorgeous Welsh tapestry purse and some pretty hand mirrors. I also picked up a 1930's guidebook to Glasgow and the west of Scotland, which I'm planning to give to my dad as it covers his hometown, and then, perhaps inspired by this, we spent quite a while at an amazing stall jam packed with old postcards and found a few hometown treats for ourselves - two old postcards of Aberystwyth for me (one is from 1904!) and a couple of retro 60's Birmingham postcards for James. We're going to frame them and add them to our growing collection of kitsch pictures at home.