The Glorious Cheddar Carboot

Cheddar carboot is hands down the best carboot I have ever been too, and probably ever will! Its on rain or shine all year round. Even on rainy days its still worth a visit as they have a huge in-door hanger as well as a massive outside space. I thought it was about time to share some of the goodies I have been finding over the past few weeks. Every Sunday I usually wake up and head out there for an hour or so (longer in summer as the whole field is full). The great thing is the things I am looking for means I do not need to be there at stupid o’clock.

Trunk £8, Doctors bag £8, teapot 50p, plates 10-50p each, handmade Laura Ashley curtains £15

Suitcase £3, plates 10-50p each, weighing scales £1, books 50p, milk jugs £1.50

Vintage lampshades

Treasures…

What I would say is that I think its hard to find clothes / shoes. It is better in the summer when there is much more of a range of stall holders.

Sainsburys new homeware range

I was in Sainsburys (as I often find myself on my lunch) and went to browse the homeware section. They usually have some nice homeware bits and pieces but to my surprise, I found myself wanting to grab and trolley and buy the lot.

Vintage style decorative bottles

More shabby chic homeware…

Belljars

I am very aware that Sainsburys often have a 25% offer so I will just have to wait for now…

 

To the happy bride and groom

On Saturday I went to John’s friend/old boss’ wedding. As part of their wedding present I made this cake stand for them. I chose complimentary gold colours with a nature theme throughout. I thought this would be perfect as it can be used year round (I am thinking canapés on Christmas day).  I managed to find a perfect box for the stands, which I must find more of. What made it even better was a text from the groom the following day telling me that they loved it, so happy!

Wishing Lauren and Ray all the best and a very happy future together x

 

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

As well as hanging out on the beach and watching the sunsets, I am keeping myself occupied at Seaside in Oregon as its nowhere near as hot as the heat wave hitting the UK right now (jealous). These are a few finds from the last couple of days…

Leather jacket $5
Red vintage dress $4
Frames $2 each

Vintage and Thrift shopping in Portland OR

Jars at 69cent each

A couple of nights ago we spent the night in Salem, Oregon. There was literally nothing around where we were except horrible fast food places and an enormous thrift store called ‘Value Village.’ Going in I was sceptical but there was tonnes of clothes and a big book and bric-a-brac selection. Unfortunately the clothes were uneven/high priced. In the end I came out with nothing except these two old jars which I will make cocktails with when I am back… I seem to have quite the collection of glasses now, not sure how I will get them home but oh well.

Horse Racer shoes $4

Luckily my great aunt Susan who we are staying with also loves thrift shopping so we go together (which I think John is secretly happy that he no longer gets dragged in). I found some amazing horse racer pattern shoes for $4 in a Goodwill in Milwaukee. Unfortunately having worn them the next day black stuff was all over my feet, so will have to wear them with tights when I get back to the UK. We also found some amazing Kiss vans but john would not buy them, someone snagged them as soon as we put them down… In fairness as I always say when it comes to thrift shopping ‘you snooze you loose.’

Susan and I hit 3 thrift stores in one morning including a surprisingly cute mormon one. Needless to say we were exhausted by the time we got home. The Salvation Army’s in America are 50% off on Wednesdays but because of this are busy and you need to get there early. Luckily I find I am looking for different things to what other Americans are, unless the thrift store is in a city and are rinsed of anything good by the cool kids or are completely over priced or BOTH. The Goodwill in Haight Ashbury San Fran comes immediately to mind (don’t even bother).

Mormon thrift store finds, total $4.75

Salvation Army, Milwaukee Market Place
Vintage Levi’s 501s $4, which I plan to cut to make some shorts
Cat t-shirt $1
Deseret Industries, 10330 SE 82nd Ave (another Salvation Army is directly behind it)
Navy leather shoulder bag $2
Black Nine West leather backpack $2
American flag head scarf 50cent
Clip purse 25cent

Thrifty Eats and Drinks in New Orleans

New Orleans is definitely the place where you can continuously eat and drink all day long without feeling those annoying guilty pangs. Since prohibition ended there has never been a last orders bell rang, which means you could potentially stay in the bar for a whole weekend if you wanted to. Lots of places have happy hours for both food and drink. Higher end eating is not out of the question as a lot of places have a $20.13 pre-fix lunch menu. Personally I love per-fix menus as it allows me to try things that i would not necessarily go for. Also if its crawfish season, eat as much as you can and keep an eye out as a lot of bars offer free crawfish (crayfish in England) around 4-6pm with your drinks. Here is my guide for happy eating and drinking New Orleans style:

Atchafalaya,
I was told this is one of the best restaurants in New Orleans and was not disappointed. We had the $20.13 per fix lunch special menu. The food was amazing, a highlight was the crab ravioli. With lunch there is a choice of 3 wines rotated daily for $5 a glass, so if course I had two.

Commanders Palace
There are lots of options for lunch here but I did not go for the pre-fix menu. I went the turtle soup for starters (mean turtles from the swamp), shrimp and grits entrée and pecan pie. The price was similar to the per fix menu and it turned out to be the best decisions ever! What is Unbelievably amazing about this menu is the 25 cent martinis, they are super strong and you can have any flavour of your choosing. After the large portions of food and 3 martinis we left well and truly satisfied, so satisfied we went home for a nap and woke up that evening, whoops.

WW2 Museum, American Sector Bar and Grill
This is a John Besh restaurant, John Besh is a local food hero. His restaurants having fantastic happy hours. From 3-6pm there $2.50 drafts $4 well drinks and wine (well drinks are spirits and a mixer) and then 75 cent snacks, which include Korean duck wings, puller pork sliders and meat pies. Needless today they recognised our faces after a while.

August
Another John Besh but much higher end. I loved this restaurant. Again we opted for the $20.13 lunch menu, otherwise it’s pretty pricey. The food and staff were great and I loved the mousse served in egg shell amuse-bouche (as seen in photo) and to top it off we even received an after dessert yogurt coated lolly pop thing yum yum yum.

Antoine’s
This restaurant has been in the same family for 5 generations. We enjoyed the $20.13 pre-fix menu and 25cent martinis. The only negative I had is that you had to have the flavour off the day and they were not very strong. After lunch you our offered a tour of the building which was very enjoyable and I would recommend doing.

Po-Boys
Po-Boys are essentially sandwiches on soft French style bread. The first one I had was shrimp, I thought it was pretty sickly which I guess had something to do with the deep-fried mayonnaise shrimp, I will never eat deep fried shrimp again. I much prefer beef or pastrami Po-boys. What is great is that for around $8 it’s enough to feed 2 people. Our favourite two spots were Verti Marte,1201 Royal St and Frenchman Grocery and Deli, 650 Frenchman St. Both and grocery shops USO you can have a beer while you wait and then go and enjoy you food by the shop or in a park near by with a nice cold beer.

Muffalettas
An Italian style sandwich, with olive frochata bread, olive oil veg able mix and fresh sliced italian meats. Personally I loved this sandwich as it was fresh tasting with the olive oil mix. A whole Muffalate will set you back around $14, however this is easily enough for two. The best places to have one are both in the French Quarter, either sit in at Napoleon House or go to it’s creator Central Grocery and sit at the deli counter or take it out. We ended up ordering a half to share at Central Grocery and were full.

Beignets
Beignets are a very popular dessert in New Orleans. I liked them but thought they kind of tasted like a chewy square donut. The most popular place to eat them is Cafe Du Monde and there is always a que so we ordered them at the take out counter. A couple of days later when it was raining we went to Cafe Beignet on Royal street for coffee and beignets. Personally I preferred it there as I got to sit down and enjoy my afternoon delights without feeling rushed and it was not too busy, also there was a cat asleep on the chair on the table next to us and I LOVE cats.

The Sazerac @ The Sazerac Bar

When in New Orleans you must have a Sazerac cocktail at the Sazerac bar in the Roosevelt hotel. The Sazerac is actually the official cocktail of New Orleans. It is $13 for the cocktail itself but it is worth it. Also a Sazerac never a tastes as good as it does at that bar and that’s a fact. The bar itself Art Deco and felt quite romantic and sophisticated even though we were sat at the bar.

Daiquiris
If you have a car go to the New Orleans Original Daiquiris as every Monday and Wednesday its $5 for a large. Otherwise there are loads dotted around town so get one anyway. I found them perfect in the hot weather to cool down, although I had to ban myself from them for a while as they do contain a lot of sugar.

New Orleans to San Antonio

Driving from New Orleans heading west, we opted for the US90 rather than the I10 towards Lafayette as the I10 is pretty soulless. Lots of small towns along the way but not a lot to stop for apart from one, Avery Island which was for the Tabasco Factory. Avery Island is beautiful so it was a nice drive in. The Tabasco factory tour was made up of a 10-15min video explaining the history and then a short walk through the bottling factory. It was not the most amazing tour but they did give us 4 sample bottles each, which was great. The Tabasco country store also has a lot of things you can buy, I recommended the peppered jelly as its perfect with cheese. Also on Avery Island there is a bird sanctuary, we chose not to go in as they wanted to charge $8 per person, which we did not think was worth it so headed up another 30 miles or so to Lafayette.

Lafayette – I hate to say but was pretty disappointed with Lafayette, especially after hearing great things about it. We arrived Monday evening, the streets were empty and everything closed apart from a couple of restaurants and bars but after 6 weeks on constant drinking in New Orleans it did not seem appealing. We drove in on Tuesday morning hoping things would be open but the streets were still empty and most things closed (I wish we had gone on the weekend and it may have been better). There was however 4-5 large muriels on the side of buildings to see. Close to the town at the cathedral is a 500 year old oak tree, which is definitely worth seeing how impressive it is.

An hours drive west on the I10 towards Sam Houston State Park just outside of Lake Charles, stopping in the Walmart near the park for supplies and beer. The park has great camping facilities, hot showers, clean toilets, BBQ/fire pits, clean and lots of trails for walking or running. It also has a boat jetty but unfortunately I don’t have a boat. There are lots of alligators in the area so definitely no swimming! In the evening we were visited by some cute looking raccoons trying to look for food, luckily we always throw ours in the bins as not to attract bears/raccoons etc which can destroy things and get vicious when it involves food.

In the morning we headed west coming off onto the 14/27 to do the Creole Nature trail. There are loads of alligators, beavers and birds etc but driving down we only saw birds. In fact the best thing i saw were some very cool looking mushrooms. There was not much to stop at, so we pretty much drove straight down to the Gulf Coast.

The gulf coast had some cute little holiday homes but not much else. There are 5 beaches to stop at on the drive west, all pretty similar, long stretches of beach and very windy. On the third beach Little Florida there is a bird sanctuary area, although we did not see many birds but there is a small private grassy car park which was quiet and wind free, a perfect place to have a picnic lunch. All along the coast a few miles out to sea you can see all the oil rigs, the beaches were littered with dead fish and bottle nosed dolphins, which were spray painted orange. I looked it up and it meant that the dolphins had been counted by the Institute of Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, but then left there to rot for days and days until the beach clean up team take them away. All of these dead dolphins and fish were really quite upsetting and I later found out that this was an affect from the BP oil spill in 2010, which is still happening today and they are trying to cover it up. This runs all along the gulf coast for hundreds of miles. In Alabama there are endangered sea turtles washed up, just in case dolphins and fish were not enough. More can be read here DO NOT LOOK AT THE BELOW PHOTOS IF YOU ARE DISTRESSED BY DEAD FISH/DOLPHINS.

The Sat Nav told us it was 5 hours to San Antonio so we decided to drive the I10 all the way there that same day, which is worth doing as there is nothing on the I10 unless you want to go to Houston but we did not.

Goodwill Warehouse Fun

My new door handles would have looked amazing on this after I had repainted it…

I literally love the Goodwill warehouses out here. There are lots of Goodwill stores around but in the warehouse you can buy homeware and clothes by the lb for 1.39, I find it hard to shop anywhere else. I had to post these pics as I found so many upcycling opportunities in the homeware bins. If only I could have bought these back with my, unfortunately they cannot fit in my suitcase and I very reluctantly left them behind. I did however get a silver christmas candy spoon and a lovely christmas decoration.

More Time More Hobbies

Due to the recession I found that in many small-America towns a lot of business’ are closed down. And with it being slightly to cold to be in the motel pool, I have found myself with time on my hands (although luckily not the case in Austin or New Orleans). Not that I don’t mind having time to relax but I still have not got over the fact I am not working for the first time since I was 14. However in Austin I discovered the best shop ever, the Hobby Lobby. It has EVERYTHING in there, literally everything, and what is amazing it always has discounts and offers, even John was happy exploring all they had to offer. All the door knobs were 50% off which made them $1.50 each (about 80p), bargain! I also got candle scents and dye for when I start to make my tea cup candles back in England. Not only this is I got all the equipment I need for jewellery making. So far I have made two necklaces and I expect to make a lot more. All girls I know should expect jewellery as Christmas/Birthday presents, homemade presents always seem more personal.