home decor and garden are very famous in the world: brocante

Showing posts with label brocante. Show all posts

my new brocante store

10:50 PM | Labels: brocante

I am very happy to announce that I have a new on line

store for sharing my brocante treasures!

I've been wanting to do this for a while but there

weren't enough hours in the day!

I have created a new site, still called

My French Country Brocante

but now it is a site instead of a blog.

There are already a lot of items up for sale, and each
day this week new treasures will be listed.

Tomorrow I shall bring you a giveaway to celebrate this big event.

If you have a look around, I'd love to know how you find it, and also if you spot anything that doesn't function properly! :)

Thank you for your generous support,

without you none of this would ever be happening!

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the french ledger book

12:00 PM | Labels: brocante

This weekend at a fair I bought two ledger books. Nothing valuable, but the sort of encounter that sends a little frisson up my back.

I picked up the first book, with an unpromising dusty black cover, not really expecting to find anything interesting on its pages. Inside I found a most beautifully written ledger of accounts, dated from 1858 to 1893. No doubt, kept by a business man, keeping track of his expenses and investments. The contents are too vague to be really informative, but the careful handwriting and neat notes are charming and unique.

The lady selling her pile of bric-a-brac saw me smiling at the pages and sidled up to me with a much much smaller book in her hand. "You might like to look at this one too", she almost whispered to me.

The little notebook had a handwritten label on the front: "Recettes et Dépenses", (income and expenses).

I opened it to find a notebook, a financial record for the year 1912, whose sparse pages spoke to me of a simple life with few and inexpensive needs.

I thanked the lady enthusiastically, and she told me the book had been her great uncle's. He apparently bought bicarb of soda, shaving cream, stamps and other small necessities.

"Why are you selling this?" I asked; "But why would you want to buy it?", she replied. !!

I opened a page of the tiny ledger, where the owner had listed a hotel bill at 44 francs, and a list of othr travelling expenses*, then pulled from my pocket a receipt from a trip to the supermarket this week. Dozens of items required for one week of family life.

We both smiled as we looked at the two short pages that covered her uncle's expenses for the whole of the month of May ...... "Don't you think life was simpler then?!"

*[this is in old francs, so today 44 francs would be worth 67 centimes of a euro or 0.86 US$]

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an autumn loot shoot

11:41 AM | Labels: brocante, loot shoot

There is a sense of urgency in the air as we head towards the end of the brocante fair season. Fairs start earlier in the morning, even if it is dark and cold, and we all know that we soon won't be seeing the same familiar faces on Sunday mornings, scattered over the village squares, and country lanes of Normandy.

So this morning I headed off early with two friends and the morning saw us buying at two different fairs.

Here is some of what I brought back: my personal favourites are the silver plate egg cup set, (which I think would look lovely with roses as a table centre, but then you know me, I'll put flowers into anything) ...

Some wonderful old ribbon reels in gorgeous complimentary colours. Some grosgrain, some plain ...

a handful of excellent dinner knives to be restored, and a stunning handmade copper saucepan ....

Two very sweet 'vide-poches', pocket emptyers, made of fine china with a latticework edging .........

and a rather splendid mannequin, that was happy to line up beside another that I found during the week; (just looking at that waistline makes me feel faint!) ...........

and some beautiful lids to tureens. I'll be offering these for sale as a set, they would look charming hung on a wall in the same way that plates can be hung. The bonus to hanging lids is the extra detail in the handles!

Thank you to everyone who has emailed me for information about coming here to buy brocante next year, you will be receiving replies tomorrow - promise!

Also thank you to the kind readers who have asked about the on-line store. The summer months simply haven't been the best time to list, and sell and pack and post. But now that things are quietening down here, I'll be listing a load of goodies for you to pick from.

In the meantime yo are very welcome to email me directly, if you wish to enquire about purchasing anything you have seen.

Thank you for reading me, you really are the best bunch of bloggers!

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buying at french antique fairs

10:43 AM | Labels: brocante, brocante tours, paris

Here are some of the very very many pictures I took at the fair today.

Huge, colourful, interesting, amusing, tempting ...... just some of the adjectives that could

be used to describe the bi-annual antique fair at Chatou.

I adore these large fairs. They are a great place to find specialist vendors; to negotiate fair prices; to take as much time as is needed to hunt down that special piece, and to learn more ......

A thing you notice straight away at the french fairs, is how the vendors like to get organised for eating and drinking together ..... tablecloths, bottles of wine, ...... three course meals ... normal, we are in france after all!

At Chatou you can find large dramatic statement pieces ....

phenomenal fabrics ....

vintage industrial .....

or a breathtaking 150 year old china service (if you want to see more of this then take a peek here ) ...

I can't even show one per cent of the goods to be seen and enjoyed,

Just one of the places I love to shop, be it in Paris or in Normandy.

Next year I'll be welcoming a limited number of guests to shop for
antiques and brocante at my favourite addresses.

If you're tempted by the idea of shopping here and if you'd like some more information,

just a drop me a line and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

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paris antiques

12:49 AM | Labels: brocante

This is not the time to sleep, I'm returning to the huge antiques fair at Chatou, just outside Paris, today - when I get back I'll have loads of pictures to show you .....

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the giverny loot shoot

12:16 AM | Labels: brocante, giverny, loot shoot

Yup, Giverny is where I went to shop today, the fair started in the streets before dawn and I was there, flash light in hand, looking for goodies. and when the sun came up and I needed a pause from brocante I slipped into the gardens of the impressionist museum and immersed myself into my favourite 'white garden'.

Here are a few things I saw at the fair but didn't buy, that includes the little pup above, he was so cute, tied up to a vendors chair, but really really wanting to trot down the street after us!