Car Boot Corner

The winter sun didn't bother making an appearance today but thankfully, dozens of booters did as another year of retro-treasure hunting begins! The first car boot of the year and it was cold but as always, fruitful!

With two pairs of socks on each, we headed off to one of our favourite stomping grounds, Canford Park Car Boot and there was some speedy purchases made from the first three stalls we visited! Tam picked up Jo Verso's Cross-Stich for Children which has yet more beautiful, inventive and colourful designs from the popular craft author - bargain at £1. Next, Abbo got his 'buy of the day' after spotting a Dog's Playing Pool rug bundled up at the end of the stall. A perfect accompaniment to the 'Dogs Playing Poker' print we have in the kitchen, the bold colours and flying cigar butts will be brightening up our hallway.

Half an hour later and whilst purchasing a couple of 1980s kids LP's featuring the cast from Rainbow and the green bird with aviophobia Orville, we bumped into our friend Jamie from Fish4Junk. With clients all over the world including NYC, Tokyo and of course Bournemouth, F4J are the experts in tracking down delicious, 100% retro and vintage goodies - their fine selection of plastic 70s kitchenalia always sings to our orange and cyan hearts. Out hunting for goodies, Jamie proudly announced that F4J are now also part of the Dorset Curiosity Centre which sounds like a great excuse for us to already start planning our next day out! After comparing swag bags, we said goodbyes as Abbo had spotted some Bullseye poly metronic hard flights on a nearby stall!

As the cold seeped in, we managed to grab a telephone and address book and of course more lovely postcards. Sadly the bread and cake man wasn't there this week so no treats but a promising start nonetheless to the car booting year!

Big Car Boot Bargains

Ah, Sundays. We absolutely heart Sundays here at Orange and Cyan HQ. Every morning is a musical celebration as we loudly sing our heads off to Abbo's show "SoundsTracks" on Forest FM, then after gulping down some milk and checking if the sun is shining, we head off to the car boot.

This week there were dozens of old Xbox's on sale and the first thing Tam picked up was the original C.S.I game as she likes to pretend she knows complicated and impressive things about solving murders. Moving swiftly on, we then bagged a retro delicious 10p Tron Video, a yellow glass fish dish, a beautiful mustard yellow cowboy tobacco tin (perfect size for kirby grips) and a blue sewing needles pouch in need of some Tam T.L.C.

There are actually 2 car boots in the area - you can see the other over the road from whichever one you're in so swinging our carrier bag of bargains, we hit car boot number 2, stuffed ourselves with broccoli and mushroom quiche (from the tasty polish run cake stall - massive slices for £1 - we love it) followed by Strawberry and Lemon cakes. Charged with sugar we hit the stalls, haggling over a lovely little invaluable and instructive 'Love, Courtship and Marriage' guide for the romantically inclined from the Hugh Evelyn Victorian Library. We rather like the morbid advice under the section of 'Etiquette for Husbands and Wives' that states you should always leave home with a tender good-bye and loving words as they may be the last...

Next Abbo snapped up 3 gorgeous Bus Driver ties for 75p each that we can't wait to show our friend Nursey Bang Bang as she is currently working on a Gentleman's range of tailored ties (we got a sneak preview this week and love the new range). Some Citadel Combat card games, cheap greetings cards and cheaper postcards later, we finally grabbed 3 loose tea spoons for 10p each that with a bit of spit, polish and elbow grease, will make excellent gifts.

Sunday afternoons are spent remembering what we've bought and playing pooter games. We're currently reviewing LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, Gatling Gears, Section 8: Prejudice and trying to finish Portal 2 - that's if you can tear Tracey away from Dragon Age Legends on Facebook!

Bliss :D

One Man's Trash....

Yesterday we saw a dazzling array of skimpy tops, over sized sunglasses, skinny white legs and sandals, neon shorts and burnt necks/beer bellies/noses as we trooped around our favourite Car Boot in search of yet more treasure! In fact the weather was so hot, the boot wasn't very busy this week as people must have been staying shady cool indoors or had gone to the beach - which meant we could shimmy out way to the front of each stall with ease and as always, our rummaging paid off.

The first bargain of the day was a very pretty maroon handbag for 30p with the money going towards the Bournemouth Youth Marching Bands - music to Tracey's ears. In the same row of stalls, we also picked out some fabulous ThunderCats badges (25p) and two more cowboy books to add to our collection. Written by Edna Walker Chandler, illustrated by Jack Merryweather and first published in England in 1966 but originally written in the early 1950's, The Cowboy Sam series is a US equivalent of our Peter and Jane Ladybird books here in the UK. Featuring Sam and his friends from around the ranch, they have a vocabulary list at the back of each book whilst the red, yellow and black pictures are beautiful - best find of the day.

We also picked up some plastic gadgets that turn cans into bottles and keeps your pop fresh, handy for the beach, some garish coasters with Spanish dancers on and we spied a game for our niece - Matching Pairs. Tracey and her sister used to play this when they were little. It's a great memory game with fabulous pictures. This weekend, we've also been playing with our new Nintendo 3DS! Though we didn't pick up any StreetPasses at the boot we did use it to take a photo of our bargains when we got home!

Finally, we got a huge bag of baked goodies for £3 - flapjack, Eccles cakes, pasties, a honey seeded loaf, a stilton and red onion loaf and a fruit loaf. Tasty happy sunny days.

Car Boot Keepsakes

Sundays mean only one thing in our orange and cyan world 

CAR BOOTS!!!

We love trawling through other people's unwanted treasures in search of some bargains. Ian is particularly good at haggling and this week at our favoutire spot - the giant Magna Road site, we got some beauties!


The morning started with this pretty little tin for 20p. It's full of wonderful buttons that are carefully guarded by a yapping dog on the front. We went on to buy a pair of hand-knitted mittens in glorious black, mint green and pale pink from the dear old ladies that run the Julia Hospice stall - our £2 goes towards the hospice and Tracey gets to keep her fingers warm so everyone's happy! Two Coca-Cola trucks, some double decker red nail polish and a Home on the Range  - best of the western's music CD later, we spotted this amazing book all about space with some great technical drawings!

As it was packing up time, Tracey was looking at this picture of horses and deciding if there was room back at O&C HQ when the lady gave it to her for free as she didn't want to cart it back home again. Now if there's one thing we love most, it's the word FREE and the horses are now up in the studio.


Biggest purchase of the day was 80 postcards for £5 - all amazing pictures of cactuses and deserts in America. Some lucky Postcrossers are going to be getting very happy mail soon.

Our final find of the day was a pair of deck chairs, haggled down to £1.50 for the two and we can't wait to test them out on the beach this summer.

We were sad we didn't see the cake lady today as she does a very nice cherry slice for 50p but all in all, was a great morning! We're so glad the weather is getting good again as this means more carbooting for us! Might see you there next Sunday!