Present and Correct

My friend and fellow blogger Sarah came to visit this week with her beautiful baby girl and kindly gave me a gorgeous owl bib from Petra Boase and these cute baby books. Their retro graphics are so lovely they could be framed and put on the nursery wall, and the stories are written in simple Polish to get Vintage Baby on track to being bilingual (his Granny will be pleased!)

She found the books on my new favourite online shop Present and Correct which has so many things that I don’t really need but had to resist buying, including plenty of good old-fashioned, functional yet stylish paper goods, stationery and notebooks. 

There’s some great homemade wedding resources on there too - stripy ribbons, paper garlands, brass letter stencils, printed paper bags for favours, plus tags and cards for place names.

A few of my favourite baby things

With less than two weeks to go before B-Day, my nesting instincts have reached a crescendo and our former dining room has been well and truly babyfied with vintagey bits and bobs plus some gorgeous gifts from friends and family: 

A limited edition letter press print from my colleagues - the nursery rhyme refers to local East End haunts - bought from Nelly Duff on Columbia Road.

The cot with a homemade patchwork quilt and lavender pouch from Amy, plus colourful wool blanket from Oxfam:

Poppy’s beautiful hand-painted box lined with vintage fabrics, given to us as a wedding present and now being used for teeny-tiny towels and sheets. Booties found in a market in Bangkok, and cosy blanket hand-knitted in Wales.

Mum’s bathing basket that she has lined with old-fashioned Peter Rabbit fabric and loaded with organic baby toiletries:

A gorgeous book of ‘baby memories’ found in Sao Paulo by my friend Cesca:

Couldn’t resist a bit of bunting... or Cath Kidston:

Bath Time

I promised a post on my highlights from our recent weekend in Bath - such a fantastic city with plenty to tempt me. I loved gorgeous home boutique Kiss the Frog Again for its mix of reclaimed and up-cycled vintage furniture for children and adults:

While Hansel und Gretel is a den of Alpine-inspired goods with one of the cosiest cafes I’ve ever seen in its basement - serving up the best strudel and hot chocolates in town:

The city also has its own fashion museum with a huge collection of historical dress - a great resource for vintage lovers. An exhibition dedicated to vintage wedding dresses is just about to start, appropriately on Valentines Day and running until January 2012. It will include the museum’s collection of wedding dresses, as well as previously unseen photographs of 30s couture dresses.

A farewell Maternitea

It was my last day at work on on Wednesday and I was treated to a very special tea at The Wolseley...  complete with finger sandwiches, melt-in-the-mouth scones, gooey macaroons, pineapple upside-down-cake and a ‘Jonah’s Toasted Chocolate Sandwich’ which sent us all over the edge. I loved the old-fashioned polished silver teaware - each teapot was unique (beautifully modelled here by my colleague Elle - you can spot me hidden behind a scone on her blog too..)