Amazing Vintage Finds

If you haven't been into our little shop for a while, you may not know that we have picked up some wonderful vintage items from Castlemaine and South Australia recently.

From trikes, to carts and a rocking horse, to wall clocks, fobs, industrial shelving and stencils, we are nicely stocked up (sorry, the lovely horse is now SOLD).

That being said, we brought into the store last evening two of the most beautifully preserved folding measuring staffs that I had ever seen. Made in England by the engineering company Holbro, their colour and patina is just gorgeous. And after today, we have only one left (some of our regular customers are just so wonderfully regular)!

This staff is a trifold, measuring 90cm in length, and is secured with a leather strap (each segment is around 30cm). It complements our stick of inches, yard sticks, dumpy level and surveyors measuring staffs (metal and wood) quite nicely too. POA.

The Little Veggie Patch Co.

As promised in our Summer newsletter, we now stock a variety of heirloom seeds from Melbourne based business, the Little Veggie Patch Co.

Beautifully packaged, the packets are artworks in themselves! Seed packets are priced at $4.50 each.

These heirloom seeds are directly descended from cultivars grown pre-1950s and are not used in large scale modern agricultural practices. So they look, and taste, like veggies used to.

We currently have the following seeds ready for planting right now:

• Carrot 'Baby Amsterdam'
• Lettuce 'Boston'
• Radish 'Cherry Belle' HURRY - VERY LIMITED STOCK
• Spinach 'Bloomsdale'
• Swiss Chard 'Rainbow'

Guides on the propagation and transplanting of each seed variety are provided at the following website:

http://littleveggiepatchco.com.au/products/heirloom-seeds-2/

Fobjects

Well it's been a while since our last post, so here's an update on our little shop. Starting with our Steampunk corner, we now have a specialised range of fobs - from watches to pedometers to voltmeters. We also have the brass goggles ring in store, available in both ladies and gents sizes, direct from England.

New vintage stock has recently arrived from sunny South Australia including haberdashery, industria and tools.

We also have a wider range of new stock - from stationery to organic soaps, face creams, market baskets, parasols and coming soon to our gardenwares, secateurs!

To help you in your Christmas shopping, we are now open Friday nights from November 11 until December 23. All gift wrapping is complimentary.

Pianola scrolls

Many people wonder what they can do with the pianola scrolls we sell (apart from play them on a player piano of course).

So we explain how good they can look if you unroll part of them and hang them on a wall.

Or in the case of our place - in a stairwell where you can get a good 12 foot of pianola scroll down a wall.

We think they look pretty good this way.

Have you seen Madame Brussels?

If you have found your way to our little shop lately, you may have noticed our new front window display.

Madame Brussels is on display, advertising our new collection of pocket sized books from Arcade Publications, right here in Melbourne.

We stock the following titles, each one a pocket history on an amazing part of Melbourne.

- EW Cole: Chasing the Rainbow.

- MacRobertsonland.

- Madame Brussels: This Moral Pandemonium

- Making Modern Melbourne

They make great gifts if you want to give someone a little part of Melbourne.

Little finds

Sometimes you get a few things in without having had proper time to have a real close look at them, and when you do have a closer look - you make some amazing discoveries. Like the old trunk we got on the weekend.

The trunk itself is beautiful, all old wood with a patterned paper finish, but it is this label on the side of the trunk that makes it special.

Anyone who stocked velocipedes is worth researching in my book. I have looked into the history of Eastern Arcade in Melbourne, the building no longer exists as it was knocked down a couple of years ago - but it seems it was rather notorious in its heyday.

Must have been all those velocipedes...

Now in stock

Our first four days of trading have been busy with over two hundred people through the doors and plenty of interest (and plenty of sales).

We have a good stock of assorted bobbins in now, very popular little decorative items (almost as popular as our selection of old souvenir tea spoons from all over the world).

And we have added some 'green' to the store to liven it up a bit (can't be all rusty metal and old wood).

And finally, we have set up a Face Book 'like' page - just trying to keep up with 21st Century marketing and webvertising!

We live here

Well, we are now officially 'in' the building. We moved all our belongings in upstairs on Tuesday this week and we are mostly unpacked and sorted.

The store is looking almost crowded with stock, which is great because we thought we may not have enough to fill it. We hope to start on the weekend, laying out stock and making it all look good on display and ready for customers.

So it is starting to feel real now...

Inside the shop

It has been a very busy week or so, beginning with two coats of gloss black on the shop floor last Friday, followed by the beginning of the big move.

Now we can see the retail space taking shape. We finally found a suitable bench for a shop counter (a timber kit wooden workbench via eBay), and we have also found some more exciting big pieces for the store (wait until you see the butchers scales!).

So Tanya and I are busy packing this week, ready to move out of our home and in to our new home above the shop - the big move is next Tuesday so we will do our first blog post from the shop next week.

First stock delivery

Well, the old walls are down, the new wall frames are up, there is a huge pile of rubbish to be removed on Saturday, some of the holes in the walls have been patched...

... and the very first of our stock found its way to us last night, delivered to the store!

We are getting to know our neighbours too. Umberto Espresso is only a few doors up and already a great place for coffee, food and big Peroni beers. And a few other folk have stopped by to see what we are up to.

I think we are going to enjoy life on the High Street.