Out of the Blue Flea Market

A couple weeks ago I popped along to the Out of the Blue Flea Market at the Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street in Leith. It’s an monthly event with different stall holder each time. It starts at 10am and carries on until 3pm on the last Saturday of the month, 28th of November this month.

Me channeling Lucy from Narnia

I’d been once before a couple years ago with my cousins and now that we are living in Leith I really wanted to go back for a nosy. We turned up at 11am and the Flea Market was in full swing. The Drill Hall was buzzing, the café was busy with folk drinking tea and chatting and we walked through into the main hall past the display cabinets full of local artists work for sale.

There were stalls selling all sorts, from home wares to haberdashery and, my favourite, vintage fashions. As usual I was drawn in by the shiny things and started riffling through boxes of old brooches and necklaces, swooning over the 50’s sewing boxes that we have no room for in our wee flat. Martyn was more interested in the records and petting the dogs that were there.

I like to have a plan with this kind of event, the rules were once around the hall looking but not buying and sussing out sellers, then second time around if it’s still there then it’s meant to be and then you buy, with possible haggling if required.

It took a while to get around the hall as we were chatting to the stall holders (one of them told me I looked like Lucy from Narnia) and having a good rake around the clothes rails. We pick a lovely set of 3 Pyrex dishes from the 70's that had never been used and were still in their original box for a tenner, I nabbed some clip on earrings that I plan making into collar clips and the Ladybird Book about Stamp Collecting for a friend. Martyn grabbed some music equipment and a Soul Jazz Records bag for under £25, he was very chuffed.

Over all it was a resounding success and I'm looking forward to heading back to Out of the Blue for the Vintage Kilo Sale held by Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fairs on the Saturday (21st November). 

Out of the Blue Flea Market - Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 36 Dalmeny St, Edinburgh, EH6 8RG 

Judy's Affordable Vintage Fair

This weekend Edinburgh was treated to a visit by Judy's Affordable Vintage Fair. I was particularly lucky as they set it up in Out of the Blue and Drill Hall Arts Café on Dalmeny Street, Leith, just a couple streets away from me! It's an amazing space with plenty of natural light and a great atmosphere. I've been to one of Judy's Kilo Sales there and one of their monthly flea markets before and they are great and you can stop for tea and cake at the café too!

 

The Drill Hall

The fair kicked off at 11am and my lovely friend Elaine had agreed to meet me at the hall then, I had spent the morning curly and pinning my hair, picking out one of my favourite dresses, vintage(ish) style but from Primark, I popped on my current favourite sandals of choice and grabbed my big vintage woven straw bag for all my goodies.

Me by the Kirsty Whiten mural.

It was £2 for entry, which I think was the first bargain of the day! We started wondering, and chatting, around the stalls. One of the first we came to had some amazing vintage and retro furniture, great lampshades, working record players, sewing boxes and melamine tables but my flat is already too full so we just admired them and kept going. We trawled through rails of vintage and customised clothes, there were 80's sparklers, lumberjack shirts, shell suits and some absolutely stunning dresses unfortunately nothing quite right for us. We came across a great stall of vintage jewellery, hats, gloves and bags and I fell totally in love with a Lucite clutch bag, it was white pearl with wee brass clasp the made the perfect click when you closed it, £75 was out of my budget but I'm seriously regretting leaving it behind. She had beautiful pillbox hats, cardigan clips and box purse hand bags too. Moving on we passed some amazing vintage inspired jewellery and some great head bands with toy soldiers attached to them.

My major weakness is scarves, any size, colour or shape and I nearly fell head first into a massive box of them trying to dig one out that I'd seen a glimpse of, it was huge and really colourful, I also found a wee pale blue chiffon head scarf with a rain drop pattern on it and bought the two of them for £5 **bargain alert**.

My last purchase of the day was a pair of vintage champagne glasses with Scottish landmarks painted on them. The first one, my one, has Balmoral Castle on one side and Edinburgh Castle on the other, I grew up in Aberdeen and now live in Edinburgh so it's quite fitting. The second one has the Forth Rail Bridge and Loch Lomond on it. I fell in love with them and braced myself while asking how much they were, the lovely stall holder said £6 and I didn't even haggle.

My scarves and champagne glasses.

Overall it was a fabulous fair, absolutely packed with treasures for everyone. I would recommend keeping an eye out for one of Judy's fairs coming to a town near you and if you're in or around Edinburgh then check out the Drill Hall and what’s going on there, the Flea Markets are on the last Saturday of the month 10am-3pm (but not August because of the festival).