Unearthing opshop gold (thanks to Aunt Peaches)

As you’re most likely aware by now, I need very little encouragement to go shopping at an opshop*, even though theoretically I’m trying to declutter and live a bit more minimally (ha!). But when I see covetable vintagey pieces on the internet and then find similar things just down the road on my lunch break, well, resistance is useless. Recently I happened upon this blog post and fell in love with the flatware, even toying with the idea of trying to find a similar set online, as it didn’t seem to be too expensive. But then I gave myself a talking to, along the lines of “you don’t need another cutlery set!” and kind of forgot about it. Until I walked into the opshop near work and found an ENTIRE BASKET containing a gold flatware set that was being sold for $2 a piece. It would have been stupid NOT to buy some, really.

Just like in the original post that I read, there were all kinds of utensils in the set whose purpose seemed kind of unclear, so although I agonised about whether it was cruel to break up the set, I decided I’d be unlikely to use special three-tined forks or little butter knives, and only bought four normal spoons, four knives (which have kind of scary blades which would dissuade anyone from trying to eat peas from them or anything silly like that), four normal forks and four parfait spoons (SO handy when you have to get things out of long jars, plus they are just very elegant). Some of the cutlery has “Thailand” stamped on the back so I think it’s from a souvenir set. With the elephants on the handles, it kind of looks at home on my little folding table from a Tokyo fleamarket, painted with a Singha, which I presume means that the table is also originally Thai (or possibly Cambodian?).

Just like Aunt Peaches said in her blog post, it really is nice to use decent flatware, although you normally wouldn’t give it any thought. This past week I’ve caught myself smiling as I eat something using this set of cutlery because it’s such a lovely weight and there’s also something about using vintage gold cutlery to eat your muesli instead of .. well, steel with yukky plastic handles that was bought from a supermarket.

Speaking of gold, I finally got around to doing something with this Celine bag I bought in Tokyo (at another fleamarket where, coincidentally, I bought something else with gold elephants on it… !! Just realised that weird synchronicity when I went do to the hyperlink!) more than two years ago (aggh!!! I must go back to Japan soon! I miss it so much…).

Again, it was a blog post by Aunt Peaches that inspired me – I’ve had this bag sitting around to be reworked ever since I bought it, but seeing how she painted her opshop bags galvanised me to get out my paint and do a kind of primitive design on the back of the bag in red, white and gold (although if we’re talking about Dressgate, I suppose I would have to call this red, blue and black?), kind of making it up as I went along…

…until I ended up with this.

Not bad for about half an hour’s work (although it felt more like play. Note to self – muck around with paint more!)

I’m not sure how waterproof it will be as the paint is water based, and I’m also thinking I should perhaps add a bit more to the design, maybe also paint the front (in a different design?) and do something with the fairly old and tired handles (paint them too? replace them?) but for the moment I’m quite happy with how it’s turned out.

At the very least, I like how it looks on my Thai table (with a plant I foraged and stuck in this opshop pot!)! Thanks, Aunt Peaches, for leading me to find so much gold this week!

How about you, have you found any cool opshop things this week? Or any amazing blogs I should know about?

*Although it would seem I *do* need encouragement to work out whether to write it as “opshop” or “op shop”. I’m well aware I have used both willy nilly throughout this blog which, seeing as I’m a sub-editor in some of my waking hours, is deplorable. I’ll try to use “opshop” from now on, OK?