THE BELLS

The lovely old shop bell has been installed at the workshop. So now Olive will have no excuse about not greeting people when they come into the main space.

We say ‘greeting’, we mean, of course, barrelling out, barking and then going back into her basket and getting the visitor a present (an old bone, but only if she likes them) before charging back out and barking some more…..and then going back to sleep.

BEACH BONANZA!

I took last Monday off to go on a driftwood safari to the Suffolk coast with Olive. I have to say that it was an interesting experience given the recent weather. Among our finds were two rowing boats (one halfway up a cliff), a dead porpoise, a concrete gun emplacement and a large chunk of fat (whale blubber?). Olive wanted to bring back the blubber but it was about the size of her and she’s a 30kg Labrador so, instead, we ended up dragging a lovely old zinc tub along and filling it with ‘beach’ metal…..I feel another sculpture project coming on!

STRANGE SELLING WEEK!

Well, we do like to claim we stock an eclectic mix....a very mixed bag of sales this week....from letterpress to milk churns, suitcases to recycled book illustrations. That's the joy of it, we never know what we're going to sell which is just as well....as we never know what we're going to come across to buy!

LETTERPRESS LOVE!

We've long been known for our letter press...we've got so many different fonts and sizes, it's difficult to know what to put on the website, but we give it a try!

We've had people buy personal messages including pertinent lines from poems, very rude words, birthdates and even 'Will You Marry Me'...we did ask that he come back and tell us how it went...he never did, so we can only hope he was too happy to remember to return!                                                                             

EXTRA SERVICES!!....

One of the things we provide at www.homestuffwithhistory.com is a sourcing service for interior designers, set dressers, props companies... and people we just get talking to! Given a decent lead time we can pretty much get most requests….and on a budget.

Vintage cameras have always been popular with these guys so with this in mind we recently made a speculative buy of six little lovelies. If this interests you, or you’ve got some other must-have in mind, then give us a call!

VALENTINES...WELL, YOU HAVE TO, DON'T YOU?!

This is our token Valentines gesture! A sweet little tray...that was once a giveaway from a medical supplies company to doctors...they don't do freebies like they used to!

ALARMING!

We’ve picked up a lovely little collection of vintage alarm clocks. After a little badgering and harsh words, they all appear to be keeping pretty good time. There’s a sweet pecking chicken clock. A grumpy little German model. One very cool Japanese flip clock (think Groundhog Day without the radio) and three très chic French models (my favourite) including the sweetest little ‘should appear in Amèlie’ clock.

We will be putting these on the website along with lots of other goodies very soon…!

THE THINGS YOU DISCOVER...

Anyone else have a favourite teaspoon? I have two!! 

One has the initials NAAFI stamped in and the other has the initials NACB.

Now, I know all about NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutions). Formed in 1921 and still going. If you’re in the forces and you want a cup of tea, you go ‘down the NAAFI’ (if you’re not in the forces, you could go down homestuffwithhistory and buy a fabulous NAAFI enamel jug!).

I thought that NACB must be similar but only twigged today what it stood for after seeing a blooming great double sided enamel sign. Obviously it stands for Navy and Army Canteen Board! The organisation was formed in June 1917 and lasted 4 years until NAAFI took over. This must make it quite a rare sign!

We need to research this more! And conclude our argument about whether we’re actually going to sell it, or not…..

WORKSHOP SPRUCING

We start soon on getting the workshop ready for our Easter/Spring Open Weekend, when all our lovely customers can come to Shepreth and wander round our premises with a cup of tea and a slice of cake and hopefully buy something they didn’t realise they needed!!

At the moment, Kathryn and I are ‘discussing’ how to achieve a homestuffwithhistory workshop retail place. As anyone who has visited our workshop will know, there is quite a large ‘Matt play zone’ where I keep all my rusty, dusty, boy stuff. It will either be ‘edited’ or ‘enhanced’ I’m sure, but should provide an interesting viewpoint!