Fanciful favours for summer

Cute polka dot's add the fun element!

With wedding season fast approaching, Vintage Twee have 2 new additions to the popular favour box range to tempt brides and party planners alike! Starting off with the fabulous Polka Dot favour boxes which couldn’t be more perfect for 1950’s glam appeal at your special event. The stunning box design has a lift off lid which is perfect to pop a delicious treat inside. Standing out in cornflower blue with white polka dots, there are 3 designs to choose from to complete the look on the top of the box. Choose from a mini heart of pearls, a beautiful vintage lace bow or a cute tea rose and ribbon- even better, why not have a selection of all three?! All you need now are retro sweets or mini cakes to complete your polka perfect favour!

Perfect for summer favours

The second new addition is a beautiful butterfly themed favour holder, different in shape from the standard box and thoroughly gorgeous! Keeping up with the current trend for all things winged, they are ivory in colour with touches of vintage pink and sky blue. Each box has been embellished with a hand pressed butterfly shape and finished with co-ordinating ribbon, an ivory pearl and a hint of vintage inspired floral paper. These unusual favour boxes would look great at any English Garden themed party, summer wedding or even a baby shower!!

Priced at a mere £1.75 each for the Polka Dot and £2.00 each for the Butterfly, don’t miss out and secure your orders today!!

Royal wedding with all the trimmings!

My husband Lee and I with our Union Jack chopping board!

It’s been almost a week since we all proudly hung our Union Jack bunting from the rooftops and toasted the Royal newlyweds as they started their journey in to married life. In lieu of any street parties in our area, Vintage Twee and family decided to host a little themed bash all of our own!

The day began in full swing at the hands of Mother Twee who decorated the front room with kitsch paper chains and newspaper photo’s of Wills and Kate. My husband and I, escaping London and it’s thousands of tourists, were pleasantly surprised to see that we could still be in the thick of it whilst safely 200 miles away from the bustling capital! Joined by the lovely Nia from Gallery6Studios, Joanne, Mum, my husband Lee and I, sat down to watch the most anticipated ceremony of this century.  I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous when I saw Kate step out of the car in her beautiful vintage inspired gown looking every inch the lacy princess. In fact, feeling like I had the rare opportunity to show my solidarity for other brides, I revived my own 7 month old veil and proudly perched it on my head for the entire ceremony! I was stopped short by my fellow revellers of wearing my actual wedding dress….

As anyone worth their salt knows, a natural part of any celebration is definitely the food served after. And Mother Twee didn’t let us down with  a Royal Buffett to be proud of! Complete with all the British favourites including HP sauce, cheese and pineapple cubes, home-made cupcakes (thank you Nia!) plus jelly and ice cream, the 5 of us really did indulge in the process of carrying your food around on a Union Jack paper plate. Joanne of course was on hand to provide the table decoration, whipping up some patriotic party picks which  no one wanted to throw away afterwards! Working carefully around all the Vintage Twee orders ready to be shipped out the following day, we enjoyed every mouthful of our British banquet and more than one or two top buttons were guiltily undone!

Take a look at our pictures which make me want to do it all over again! Prince Harry will be receiving a strictly worded letter urging him to pop the question very soon …

Vintage Twee themed party picks ruled the buffett!

Car Booty = Vintage Beauty

Never has the saying “One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure” been more appropriate than this weekend! Joanne decided to check out the local car boot sales of the North West to see if she could find anything more than redundant audio cassettes and broken kids toys- and she did well! Aided by Daddy Twee who is renowned for spotting a bargain, the two set off on a mission to find hidden treasures in need of a little tender loving care.

First to be snapped up was a stunning Brass Letter Rack  for the unbelievable price of £1.00. Ornate and decorative, after a bit of elbow grease and patience it now looks as if it’s been standing proudly on the mantelpiece of a stately home instead of spending the last 20 years lying in somebodies cellar! Perfect for displaying Vintage Twee Bridesmaid postcards, it will be making an appearance at a craft fair very soon…

Following the bargain trail, Joanne picked up a beautiful Vintage Sadler China Sugar Bowl which quite conveniently was a vintage dusky pink colour with gold gilded edges- perfect Vintage Twee colours! Dated 1922 on the underside, it will be a welcome addition to the props Joanne has collected for the Vintage Twee photoshoots. And priced at 10p… who could resist?!

Also to be used for photoshoots was an amazing early 20th cenutry vintage butterdish which we’re sure you’ll agree is absolutely stunning. Unfortunately it had one corner missing which usually would put most people off… but not Joanne! She added this delightful dish to her growing collection for a mere £1.00 and will be sure to photograph it from an angle which definitely shows off its best side!

Plenty of vintage pieces of jewellery were discovered which will become features on Vintage Twee Table Plans and Wedding Guestbooks, as well as a whole host of vintage music sheets dating back to 1919. These will be transformed in to the trademark Vintage Twee Paper Rose Place Settings and romantic Rose Cones , ensuring these long lost music sheets get to live again. Accompanied by the purchase of a selection of lace doilies at a rock-bottom price of 50p each, it proved to an extremely successful shopping trip for under £10!

The only item of the day that so far has yet to be fully restored to its original glory is a cream, lace and pearl 1920’s handbag that sadly, is proving to be a challenge. It’s deeply stained with rust and tea (understandable after being over 90 years old) but for an absolute snip at 50p Joanne found herself drawn to it for more than just the price tag. If anyone has any ideas on how this could be re-invented please get in touch!

Help us restore this antique gem!

Be sure to check out the Vintage Twee website to see all the fabulous products that will be created using both inspiration and materials from purchases this weekend. And as Joanne is hoping to hit another barrage of car boot sales over the next few bank holidays there may well be more treasures still uncovered that will shortly be making their very own Vintage Twee debut ..

Cupcakes and lovely-Ness!!

When you think of the Wirral, it probably doesn’t automatically conjure up images of idyllic flowered gardens, beautiful landscaping and lush lily ponds. However the award winning Botanical Ness Gardens defies anyone to not fall in love with this romantic and awe inspiring venue, proving that the perfect place to hold your wedding lies just around the corner..

Vintage Twee was recently invited to exhibit our items at the latest wedding fair alongside Roses Tea Rooms, a company whose original and top class wedding and tea party catering has earned them new premises on site at the lovely Ness Gardens. Starting the day with breath-taking views over the River Dee to the Welsh Mountains, Joanne got stuck in helping decorate the gorgeous Roses Tea Rooms cupcakes with Vintage Twee’s infamous Party Picks, ready to showcase to the public. From all accounts it was hard to resist the frosted treats with lemon, chocolate fudge and the more unusual but delicious beetroot and ginger varieties! All handmade by their extremely talented chef Raf, there was even homemade marshmallows and honeycomb…diet? What diet? Roses use all locally sourced ingredients and everything is made on site, fresh on the day of your wedding/event. Take a look at their mouth-watering website and you won’t fail to be impressed with the range of treats available.

Vintage Twee has been working with the lovely Roses Tea Rooms right from the very beginning, when they gave a “new starter” in the business (us!) the opportunity to be displayed at the events they catered for. An amazing working relationship has now bloomed and it was great to get the chance to work in person alongside Amy and Christina who were representing Roses at the fair. Good laughs were had by all and after consuming way too much sugar for a Sunday afternoon, Joanne and the girls crammed in to a photo booth on the stand next door for the obligatory photo! Provided by Cetra Studios, the booth can be hired out to capture your party guests in true photo-finish style with memories to keep for all!

Vintage Twee would just like to thank all the people involved including Jen, the wedding co-ordinator at Ness Gardens, as well as Amy and Christina from Roses Tea Rooms for making Joanne feel so welcome! A great day out mixed with delicious food, interesting people and gorgeous surroundings- hoping to book our space for next time already!!

Joanne, Amy Christina and Jen striking a pose!!

Shiver me timbers landlubbers, there be treasure ahead!

Talk about forbidden treasures!

Sat nestled amongst 2000 deliciously tempting chocolate coins sounds like any woman’s idea of absolute heaven and Joanne is no exception! This week she found herself knee deep in the chocolately treats as she produced a whopping 235 mini Treasure Chests for a very special kind of party. Altogether now… “Oooh- Arrrr….”

Contacted by Jo Bircumshaw back in August 2010, Joanne was asked if Vintage Twee would do the honour of making the unique party favours for the “Pirates and Pearls” MS Society Ball, presented by the lovely Calum Best to be held on Saturday, March 26th at Mere Golf and Country Club, Knutsford, Cheshire. The purpose of this fantastic event is to raise money for the MS Society, helping the sufferers and carers of this debilitating condition with much needed funds for respite. Jo, the organiser of the Piratey themed party spotted the eye catching Vintage Twee Treasure Chest favours in an edition of Cheshire Life and swiftly ordered 140 of the cute boxes. As the popularity for the event increased, the boxes multiplied and soon there were enough gold coins, pearls, skulls and crossbones piling up that Joanne could have filmed Pirates of the Caribbean 5 in her studio!

Each guest of the event will enjoy swashbuckling banter with the party’s very own Captain Jack Sparrow before being seated at the Captains Table for a delicious meal and goodies. Treated to fire entertainers before dancing the night away to live music from local band Beaver, at the end of the evening the guests get to keep their own Treasure Chest as a fitting memoir of the bash.

As you can imagine this has been an absolutely amazing opportunity for Joanne and Vintage Twee to take a step in to the world of mass production (still, all created by one pair of hands! Oh, and a little help from Mum and Dad who faithfully filled up the treasure chests with coins until they started thinking they were actually about to board the Black Pearl themselves!). We’d like to wish Calum, Jo and the team the very best of luck for Saturday night and hope they raise lots of pieces of eight for this well deserving charity. And not forgetting a hearty thank you for choosing Vintage Twee to provide the Treasure Chests and we sincerely hope the guests feel like they’re taking a little piece of buccaneering booty home with them!

Long John Silver would be proud!

A year in the life of Vintage Twee!!

Yesterday marked the anniversary of a particularly special day in the life of Vintage Twee- it was the grand old age of one year old!! It seems almost unbelievable that this time last year Joanne had just about started cutting, sticking and being badgered in to making her big sister’s wedding invites (thanks, sis!). Now, here we are celebrating a year of creativity with a cosy Vintage Twee birthday party!

Just a small piece.. oh go on then, make it a big one!

Gathering together on Little Underbank in Stockport, Joanne was greeted at the bash by Nia and Shaun, the duo behind the fantastic Gallery 6 Studios. http://www.niafiori.com/ http://www.gallery6studios.com/ Swiftly joined by Claire from the popular English Wedding blog http://www.english-wedding.com/ , the four of them popped open the champers and attempted to salvage a glass each from the bit that Shaun didn’t feed to the floor! Traditional birthday balloons decorated the room and of course it wouldn’t be a birthday party without a cheeky slice of deliciously calorific cake… The high point of the day though was the amazing collage board that Nia had thoughtfully made, presenting in true celebrity style all of Vintage Twee’s best bits! Spending the next 3 hours chatting and putting the world to rights, they all discussed how far they’d come in their respective businesses and how they’d managed to turn what once seemed like pipe dreams in to reality. It was a real celebration of all the hard work, long nights and trips to the Post Office Joanne has made in the last year but I think we’d all agree it has certainly been worth it to see this special business flourish.

I’d like to add how very proud we all are of Joanne and her achievements this past year, she always was the creative one in the family and when we were kids she could turn her hand to anything if it involved a glue stick and some glitter! Not sure if mum and dad ever thought they’d be packaging up rows and rows of miniature cardboard teapots whilst watching Corrie of an evening but they’ve been invaluable to getting all the deliveries out on time!

So, all that’s left to say is here’s to many more years of Vintage Twee and its rise to global stardom with Joanne and her antique treasures at the helm. HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY VINTAGE TWEE! xxxxx



Jazz hands, Claire (left) and Nia??

                                                         

And the award for best actress goes to...

This week was the much anticipated, celebrity event of the year, awarding the silver screen’s finest with that recognisable golden statue. If you were one of the millions that tuned in to the Oscars, you may have failed to notice glamorous young Joanne in her pearl earrings strutting confidently down the red carpet and wondered to yourself just how she managed to keep her “English rose” skin tone over in sunny LA.



"I'd just like to thank...."

Ok, so maybe Vintage Twee didn’t quite make it to the star studded Oscars but this week was quite possibly the beginnings of a new relationship with a camera of the motion kind. Joanne had previously agreed (in one of those moments where you agree to something without really thinking it through, e.g., signing up for a 5km run when you can barely trot round the block) to filming two adverts for Warrington Market to be shown on prime time TV and soon found herself panic buying the Spanx and hoping she didn’t fluff her lines!

Working together with Steve Pickering, the marketing manager for the fantastic Warrington Indoor Market, Joanne is the star of the latest advertising campaign which will be shown every evening the week before each of the markets, right before the North West settle down with their cuppa’s to watch Emmerdale. The first advert will see Joanne, in full party mode, introducing the Fair Trade Market to be held in Warrington on Saturday 12th March whilst the second will prove that Vintage glam really is the look of 2011 as she demurely promotes the Vintage Market on Saturday 30th April. Kitted out in a stunning floral dress and looking every inch the vintage beauty, Joanne enjoyed every second of the filming (despite wondering if the camera really does add 10 pounds) and is an interesting mix of excited, nervous and downright terrified to see the finished version be screened next week!

Make sure you don’t miss a) the advert and b) the unique, fabulous fairs, on from 10am-4pm, so pencil them in your diaries now! Joanne tells me she’s sharpening her quill ready for the barrage of autograph requests sure to come pouring in as she is aiming to flutter her TV lashes at the Vintage Market in April! Come down, say hello and purchase something from the brilliant Vintage Twee range (Joanne has assured me she’ll stay grounded despite the fame….)

The link to the adverts will follow for all Vintage Twee fans not living in the North West and it will be put on the Vintage Twee Facebook page once it's available.

Joanne would like to add thank you to Steve and colleague Paul for the wonderful opportunity to be part of the best indoor market in the UK and is looking forward to the offers flooding in from Tinsel Town!