High Street Vintage

Do you love Vintage clothes, but hate some of the prices?

Well visit your local Sainsburys and then your in luck, for some inspired vintage pieces.

(I tried to write that like an old advert)

I love 40/50/60s - Everything from the Music to the homeware, but something I love the most is the clothes. Whilst with my mum shopping in Sainsburys a while back I noticed a lot of dresses and skirts all inspired by the 40's and 50's- The style, cut and prints. Now Sainsburys isn't somewhere everyone would look for clothes and especially someone my age, but Sainsburys have some great pieces- Especially if you, like me like vintage.

These are two of my favourite things I have picked up from Sainsburys. The white skirt is a perfect summer piece with the light fabrics and lovely floral pattern - I picked this up in one of there half price sales fro £9. Another favourite is this black dress covered in yellow and orange parrots, again light fabric perfect for summer but also transitional into autumn and winter - This again was picked  up in one of there half price sales but I cant remember the price. Both skirts on these come just above the knee and perfect for creating a circle when you spin around - key....
Neither of these two things are still available as far as I am aware but Sainsburys do some nice dresses with a 40's and 50's feel - I have my eye on a navy spotty tea dress.

1940 and 50's are two of my favourite eras for clothes and hair, and I love looking at original vintage pieces of clothes until I see some of the prices. I think really, with vintage clothes shopping you have to go to the right places to get the bargains, some places throw any old price on things just because of the era its from.

I like to scroll through Pinterest as well as Instagram all the time to gain vintage outfit inspiration. To then create something which is inspired by the images I have found. Both outfits above are inspired by 50's and the other call the midwife (so still 50's), Yellow floral dress I picked up in Next a while ago, I dressed this up with vintage inspired accessories as well as some vintage hair. Whilst I posed with the Tardis at Chatham Dockyards I wore some dark black and purple tartan trousers (Primark) and a white knit jumper (charity shop), Inspired by an outfit Jenny Lee wore in Call the Midwife.

I am always looking out for some vintage inspired pieces in high street shops as well as charity shops that are inexpensive - Sainsburys is the best in my opinion for inspired pieces.

Know anywhere to get some affordable vintage pieces?
Leave places in the comments.

Call the Midwife Location Tours

It wasnt long before my 20th Birthday last year I mentioned to my mum about going to the Call the Midwife Location tour for my birthday. On Friday (19th June) I turned 21, I was given an envelope my dad had quite clearly made with a picture of Miranda Hart (as Chummy) on the front. Inside was an email saying there was 2 tickets booked for me and my mum to go on the CTM tour.

Call the Midwife is one of my favourite shows, which is why I really wanted to come to this and see where they shoot the show and how they dress it up to look like 1950's Poplar. When you arrive and collected your tickets you are greeted by your own 'Midwife', which I loved the idea of- Keeping it in with the show. Each of the tour guides/ Midwifes has there own different style of showing you around and telling you different things, Our guide was so nice and friendly but...she got two or three things wrong which did annoy me a little...but then again we all make mistakes.

This isn't real! This building is featured alot in Call the Midwife, the doorway and the sign is completely fake. Talking about fake doorways, On the image below to make it look more like homes/flats they add in a lot of fake doors (the side with the light on).

During the filming of the last episode of series 3, Children are seen drawing on the wall just as Jenny leaves a mother's home after a difficult birth. The workers in the Ropery over in the next building come and draw over the drawings every time they get washed away by the rain.

Fan of Call the Midwife? Recognise the building in the image below? Yeah they dont show you this on the tour! They take you up to a tunnel and then this is right at the other end, as well as another building which is featured a heck of a lot.

The most recognisable street from Call the Midwife! 

If you are a fan of Call the Midwife I recommend going on the tour of Dock yard, you learn so much about how they dress the buildings up and how they use different parts of the dockyard for the show. I really want to go back!

How to make Garibaldi biscuits!

If I had a list of my top 10 favourite biscuits this would be close to the top. I love Garibaldi biscuits!  I fist came across these when I was watching Call the Midwife the episode where Jenny met Alec. Over the weekend I chose to have ago at making them they turned out alot better than expected. Its a bit impossible to find many recipes to make these and I wanted to share mine with you.

What you will need:

110g Self-raising flour

pinch of salt

30g butter

25g caster sugar

2 tablespoons milk

25g currants

1 egg white

The fist thing your going to need to do is pre heat the oven I put mine at 150.

Put the flour,salt and butter into a mixing bowl and rub the butter in until it turns to fine crumbs. If doesn't matter if it still has some bigger crumbs.

Next, add the sugar to the crumbs and after enough milk to mix into a firm dough. After you have made the dough roll it out onto a lightly floured surface. You want to roll it out enough so you can fold it back on itself.

Sprinkle the currants on one half of the dough and then fold the other half of the dough over the top and roll again.  Once you have the desired length cut the dough into a rectangle. (With the cut of dough pieces use it again to create another 2/3)

Line your baking tray with the baking paper and then place the dough on the tray. Once the dough is on the tray lightly dent lines across and down the dough to create the rectangle size biscuit. Brush with a little egg and sprinkle with a little bit of sugar.

Let your biscuits bake in the centre of the oven for 12-15 mins, take them out when they are slightly golden brown around the edge. Leave to cool and cut out the biscuits whilst still warm.