Flower Power

Florals, ahoy! The weather's a balmy 12°C and there's a suggestion of spring in the air. I'm off to 'Spoons for lunch and I'm giving the Dollyrockers Edwardian-style maxi I recently found in a charity shop its first outing.

Here's my replacement denim waistcoat, too. I have the feeling you'll be seeing a lot of this over the next few months.

In anticipation of the Spring-like weather we've been promised, I wore my vintage Pucci maxi yesterday.

The dress is from Emilio Pucci's range of American-made lingerie for Formfit Rogers (produced from 1959 until the early 1970s). With a button fastening bodice and cuffs, a side zip and generous pockets it's far too good to be worn inside the confines of the house and I don't - it's had many nights (and days) out on the town since I bought it from Sarah at Tin Trunk three years ago.

Saturday was glorious and I was out in the garden, bare-armed and weeding in the sunshine. Keeping to the theme of lingerie as outer wear I wore this 1970s St Michael off-the-shoulder nightie with that denim waistcoat and a pom-pom choker I made. This nightie has been to loads of festivals and travelled to India at least six times since I bought it for 50p from a flea market in 2010. I've even been known to wear it to bed when it's freezing cold!

And, while we're on the theme of nightwear fancy taking a look at the next room in my latest doll's house project, the second bedroom? Like my recent outfits it's mish mash of floral prints in violet, green and blue with a splash of yellow.

I'd intended for this room to be the bathroom but when I installed my super groovy avocado suite it looked disappointingly cramped. Luckily for me the Lundby extension I'd been watching on eBay ended with me being the only bidder so I was able to relocate the bathroom to a bigger and better space, allowing room for this, a second bedroom.

The details:

• Cushions and bolsters made by me from felt and Indian trimmings.
• The bed cover was made from a pair of toddler's trousers found in a charity shop. 
• The pendant light was the lid from one of these plastic eggs with a kid's toy inside (from the five for £1 basket in the charity shop) which I trimmed with Indian braid,  threaded a plug chain through and attached to a lid.
• Bead perfume bottles on a giant sequin.
• Felt slippers 
• I chopped off the original headboard and made one from a washing up sponge which I covered in silk and hand-sewed to give a quilted effect.
• The full-sized version of this Fornasetti chest of drawers retails at £1500 - I cut out a picture of it from The Guardian Weekend magazine and glued it to a cabinet I'd made from a cat food box and topped with the discarded wooden headboard from the revamped bed. The feet are beads and the drawer knobs the tops from dressmaking pins.

When Curtise, Tania, Annie & I went to Chesterfield market a few years ago I fell in love with a vintage Pifco freestanding hairdryer but I didn't fancy lugging it back on the train to Walsall via New Street Station and had to leave it behind. I was excited to find a mini version in the bag of furniture I bought from the charity shop the other day. The West German wardrobe was a £1 eBay find.

My latest doll's house came with the Swedish-made Lundby framed pictures still attached to the wall. Their subject matter was dull (the larger one featured The Haywain, & the smaller a faded Degas ballerina), as I'm sure you know, Vladimir Trechikoff & J H Lynch are far more my style. I copied the wallpaper from a posh website.

The blanket box came from eBay and was a horrible orange coloured wood. I painted it teal and roughed up the edges with sandpaper and shoe polish so it looked less like cheap & nasty repro piece and more like a careworn antique. Just don't call it shabby chic.

WEARING: Dollyrockers by Samuel Sherman 1960s gauzy cotton maxi ; 1990s denim waistcoat (both charity shopped); vintage 1970s sunglasses (Moseley Vintage Fair, 2016); Pompom earrings (made by me); gormless expression (all my own)

I'd better be off, there's charity shops to explore before we hit 'Spoons!

See you soon.

Linking to Patti & the gang for Visible Monday.