Spotlight: Pedlars (Plus WIN some wonderful stuff for your home!)

Pedlars is a treasure trove of homewares, bags, stationary and gifts based in North Wales, with a general store and cafe in London's Notting Hill, and vast online store. But it's so much more than that too - Pedlars is fast becoming known for it's vintage marketplace, and their website is a fascinating source of inspiration (and cute dogs!) 

I have long been a customer (and fan) of their carefully curated range (these pencils are the only ones worth using!) and eagerly anticipate each weeks vintage additions! So, when I got in touch to see if the lovely folk over at Pedlars Towers would be interested in being featured in a Spotlight Post I did a real-life happy-dance when they not only answered a few questions, but also agreed to support an exciting giveaway! Read on to the end of the post to find out more about the prize and how to enter! 

1. For those readers who have yet to discover it, can you introduce Pedlars and describe what you do?

Pedlars is a homewares brand, which was started by husband and wife team Charlie and Caroline Gladstone. We are primarily based online, with a bricks and mortar General Store and Café just off Portobello Road in Notting Hill. Pedlars offers a curated, considered, beautifully designed range of homewares, and a huge range of vintage from all around the world. We have recently launched our Vintage Marketplace, a new venture that enables vintage dealers and enthusiasts to offer their goods for sale via Pedlars. We have a solid reputation for sourcing and selling the best vintage items and a large and eager customer base, so our aim is to expand our offer by inviting sellers to show our customers their goods. 

2. Your range of homewares, stationary and gifts is so varied, yet wonderfully curated - how do you decide which pieces make it into the shop?

Pedlars founder Charlie is our chief buyer and taste maker. He has a keen eye for top quality vintage and an incredibly strong sense of style. This is played out in all the Gladstone’s businesses; The Good Life Experience, their Farm Shop and their pub The Glynne Arms. We also try to source from British and European manufacturers where possible. Oh and if it’s orange, it stands a pretty good chance of making itself into the shop, Pedlars loves orange!

3. I'm becoming more and more disillusioned by the mainstream high street and increasingly wanting to support local, independent makers. Pedlars is a big supporter of British designers and makers - why do you feel this is so important? 

We’re interested in products that have a story to tell, and the warmth and detail that you get when you move away from the mainstream and seek out small, often one-man-band manufacturers.

4. Every Friday you launch a new vintage collection, often with a french or military connection. How do you decide which pieces become part of this, and how do vintage items influence your main collection?

It’s really a case of whatever catches Charlie’s eye. And as a team, if it’s something that we would want for ourselves, we’re confident that our customers will love it too. At this stage it’s almost the other way around, our non-vintage collection complements our vintage collection, which is what people now know us for.

5. Charlie and Caroline also founded The Good Life Experience festival which takes place in Wales in September. What is the Pedlars definition of The Good Life? 

Charlie and Caroline founded The Good Life Experience with their friends Cerys Matthews and Steve Abbott. For them, and for Pedlars The Good Life is all about good food, friends, great music, learning new skills, new crafts and perhaps a new perspective. And a camp fire, that’s important too.

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I love it! Everything about the Pedlars ethos makes me feel all warm and fuzzy (plus the cafe is big in avocado which is the way to my heart!)If you missed my post about The Good Life Festival 2016, do pop over and have a look - it was the definition of magical!

I'm thrilled to be able to share a little of the Pedlars magic with you all, and they have kindly given me a set of three Military Prints to give away to one lucky UK reader! These prints are reproduction of military instruction cards that were bought at auction in the USA, and have been printed on 1950's printing presses in Yorkshire with fluorescent inks!

Fantastic aren't they? I'm a bit envious that I don't get to keep them for myself actually!

There are two ways to enter, and each way counts as one entry so that's two chances to win! 

First - Sign up to follow The Salted Tail via bloglovin or email - (you can find the links to do so on the right hand side) then leave me a comment to say you're in and would love to win! 

Second - Head over to Instagram and find the giveaway post. Follow The Salted Tail, like the image and tag three friends who you think might like to win! 

The winner will be drawn on Halloween (so thats nearly two weeks to enter and tell anyone else who you think might like to win this lovely prize!) and they will win all three, unframed prints. Once the winner is drawn I'll get in touch for your contact details and the lovely folk at Pedlars will send your prize. The giveaway is open to UK residents only!   

Thank you to Pedlars for supporting me in this adventure of mine - hope you all enjoyed the interview! 

Happy entering - and may the odds be ever in your favour! 

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Vintage Mischief: Salvage Hunting in Suffolk

I write a lot about how much I love living in Norfolk, but in truth we are only just across the Norfolk/Suffolk border, and Suffolk is pretty special too! 

Just down the road from us in Beccles is one of the best vintage shops around. Vintage Mischief is run by Simon and Danielle, and specialises in mid-century, retro and industrial pieces. It is filled with everything from watering cans to record players, and is wonderfully curated so you don't have to sift through hundreds of bits and bobs to find the gems - every item is completely take-homeable! They were recently featured on Salvage Hunters (and we all know if Drew says it good, it must be true!) and popping over is one of our favourite ways to spend an hour (and some pennies) on a Saturday morning.

The shop is set out over several rooms, and furniture spills out into the courtyard at the front, as well as into several smaller buildings surrounding this.  I discovered I'm being very drawn to yellow things - particularly light fittings - we loved some of these ones! We also loved this hilarious deckchair complete with it's own sunshade!

One of the most exciting parts of the shop is one of the upstairs rooms, full to bursting with kitchenalia, brightly coloured crockery, glassware and some fantastic patterned items. I adore those grey and yellow chairs and the way everything is organised by colour!

Can you spot the little mug with the crocodile? It's a character from the Timbuctoo books which Rodger Hargreaves wrote before he wrote the Mr. Men and I had quite a few of them when I was little - I very nearly took it home with me. 

We had been hoping to find a mirror for our bedroom when we made the short drive over to the old dairy barn this morning. We didn't buy a mirror, but there were several we liked, including this large round one.

We also both loved this chair, but again left it behind as we've made a decision not to buy anything if we don't know for sure where we're going to put it! Otherwise we run the risk of filling the house with random pieces of furniture but having no finished rooms!

Isn't this floor fun! Vintage Mischief is definitely the place to go for vintage children's books (which we're both rather fond of!) They also have a large collection of Ladybird books (you can see them on the left in the first image) which I find really hard to resist, I just think the illustrations are amazing! 

The only part of the shop more exciting than kitchenalia is one of the smaller rooms attached to the courtyard. It's full of haberdashery supplies, patterns, fabrics, jars full of buttons and piles of amazing vintage towels that make me feel like I'm three years old and at the beach with my Nanny. I could lose hours (and hundreds of pounds) browsing through all these. Did anyone else have those striped flannelette sheets growing up? 

The wall between this room and the one next door is made of just that, doors!

There were a few bits we couldn't leave behind though. We've been planning to have a very loose nautical feel in our bedroom once we get round to decorating it, and I've been looking for a sunburst style clock because I always think they look quite compass like. This one is the perfect size and I love the style of the numbers! It's not working, but it should be fairly easy to fix, and it's made by a company called 'Smiths' (you can just about make it out under the hour hand) so it was meant to be ours! 

I also bought some little terracotta pots for my growing collection of succulents! I paid a pound for all three, and there were literally hundreds of them in all different sizes so I'm sure I'll end up back for more. I particularly liked the bigger ones because they have no rim, and the little one was too cute to resist! 

I also bought a couple of bits in Trip Trapp, the vintage clothing shop within the grounds of the old barn - but I think I'll save those for another post! 

I've you're ever in Suffolk, I can't recommend this place enough!