Suited For Success

It really is all happening for the A Frock Affair team of late (hence the delay between posts!)

There's been two trips to Thailand (a honeymoon and a family holiday) and two new additions to the Frock Affair family - a fur baby for me and also I'm excited to announce that Kim is expecting a baby!

(Baby Bridget)

The last Frock Affair market for the year is being held on this Saturday at South's Leagues Club in West End. We are delighted to announce that Suited For Success will be joining us with a fantastic stall full of dresses and beautiful items for sale. All proceeds from the sale of their garments go back to Suited For Success and their vision for empowering women in the workforce. This really is a wonderful charity and we're really excited to have them on board for A Frock Affair.

We are also pleased to announce that entry to A Frock Affair is now FREE. Giving you a few extra dollars in your pocket to purchase some fabulous vintage and preloved fashion finds.

Look forward to seeing you all on Saturday morning. As always, we will be open from 8am - 2pm.


Amy

One sleep to go

Yep. One sleep. Seriously, where does the time go?  The Spring Frock Affair will kick off tomorrow morning at 8am - bright and early for the bargain hunters out there. We will be open until 2pm though for those that prefer a more civilised start to their Saturday mornings!

We have 25 stallholders for tomorrow, with some fabulous items for sale. Look out for the Bag-aholics stand as well!

For this Saturday's market we have moved upstairs at Souths Leagues Club - just giving us some much needed extra space to spread out. We're looking forward to a fantastic day and we hope you can make it along too.

Amy

Weddings, parties, everything!

As usual, it's been a very busy few weeks for us at A Frock Affair. Tis the season for weddings and babies at the moment. Amongst all that has been going on, I bought a house and Kim got married! Despite all this, A Frock Affair's September 11th event is gathering momentum and we have 20 stallholders already confirmed!

More details to come, but until then we're looking forward to seeing you all on the 11th!

Amy & Kim

xx

Feeling Crafty #2

Do you remember the 'Useful Box' that they had on the ABC kids show, 'Playschool'?

I had one of those.

Correction.

I HAVE one of those.

You know, a box of things that you can't bear to throw out - random things that will come in handy for any number of crafty related projects that may come up?

Well the other day I broke a pearl necklace, which, after losing half the pearls down the street, wasn't able to be fixed. So of course, the left over pearls were destined for the useful box. Actually, they didn't quite make it in there, because on opening the box I remembered some cute fabric off-cuts I had, and so decided on a little project to jazz up an old work blouse.

These cute little brooches were made with the aforementioned pearls and fabric, along with a safety pin, some cotton thread and a hot glue gun. They were easy-peasy to make and only required a bit of basic hand stitching and glue to pull them together. In my next post I’ll give you the instructions on how to make these gorgeous things.

In the meantime, do you follow Tracey Lau Art & Soul? Tracey is one super creative lady and her blog will keep you entertained for hours. She even has a fantastic prize giveaway at the moment, so make sure you stop by!

Amy

Piccies as promised

Some of you may remember Isobel from a few posts ago - she was our model extraordinaire for the photoshoot in Mx magazine.

Here is the article for those that missed it. Sadly my scanner can only manage black and white - the original is a very gorgeous and colourful shot (as our behind the scenes piccies show!)

Isobel decided to have a stall at our most recent Frock Affair and had some very gorgeous items up for sale (including the dress she wore for the photo shoot). She also very kindly provided us with some pics of her market stall for you to see.

If any of our other stallholders have any images from the day, we'd love to put them up on the blog, so please email me and I'll post them shortly.
Amy

Another Successful Saturday

This past Saturday was the third Frock Affair market in Brisbane. As much as I love what I do, there is a part of me that questions my sanity when I'm getting out of bed at 4.30am on a very dark and chilly Saturday morning. But then arriving at our venue, getting stuck in with the set up (and induging in a skinny cap or two) the thought of my big warm bed is all but forgotten.

Saturday's event was a great success with 14 stallholders and over 200 keen shoppers through the door. We even had a handful of patient husbands/boyfriends and partners come in and wait while the girls shopped. I think they were all relieved to find our 'Men's waiting area' decked out with sports magazines, newspapers and other blokey reading material to entertain them.

Two of our stallholders on Saturday had actually met each other at our May market (one was a buyer, one a stallholder), got to talking and then decided to share a stall! I was so excited to hear that. A Frock Affair - not just creating happy bargain-hunters, but business partners and friends too.

Our next market is on Saturday 11th September and so with lots of 'day job' events, some interstate, intrastate and overseas travel, two hens nights, a kitchen tea, a baby shower and three weddings (including Kim's) to get through before our next Frock Affair, it's going to be a hectic few weeks.

Applications are open for stallholders, so make sure you visit http://www.afrockaffair.com/ for more information.

I'll be back tomorrow to put up some photos from this past Saturday.

Until then, stay warm!

Amy

To market we go

Wow! Doesn't time fly! So much has been happening since our last market in May and with Kim's wedding only weeks away, we have decided to bring forward our next market to July 24th. Sounded like a great plan in theory, then I realised how soon the 24th was! Having not given up our 'day jobs' we have been busily working on A Frock Affair in our down time. So what's in store for us in the coming weeks? Well we're building a new website, planning a new fashion shoot, venutring into some design work and walking the streets letterbox dropping! You could hardly call it 'down time'!

Here are a few photos from the last market and our fabulous stall holders busily setting up there stand (and getting in a few sneaky sales before opening).

Sneak peak....

Here's a little look at some of the sweet treats we've been preparing for our stall holders for Saturday's market.

Selling fashion works up the appetite! Now it's just a matter of keeping them under lock and key before Saturday!

Feeling crafty

Kimmy and I have been working like crazy for our next Frock Affair on May 8th, and even a long weekend couldn't slow us down! Does anyone else feel a DIY project coming on?

Something that we've been wanting to pick up for A Frock Affair are some mirrors to hang around our venue. So we decided to head down to Reverse Garbage and see what finds there were to be found. For those who aren't familiar with Reverse Garbage, RG is a hoarder/ treasure-hunter's paradise - filled with all sorts of weird and wonderful bits and pieces. If you live in Brisbane, it really is worth taking the time to check out!

On this visit we were in luck! We were able to pick up three great mirrors for less than $2.00 each....

...as well as some great mosaic tiles for under $10 - perfect for framing...

...then headed home for a bit of crafting!

After giving everything a good clean, we used some tape to cover up the sharp edges. (yes, that's electrical tape - nothin fancy around here!)

Followed by some glueing.

After that, all that was left was to wait for the glue to dry (just long enough for a coffee break) and they were finished! Three great looking mirrors for less than $20.  

ta-da!

We've been super busy at A Frock Affair lately with preparations for our May 8th market well under way!

We were over the moon when Brisbane's Mx Newspaper wanted to do a photo shoot with us for our first market. The conversation went something like this:

Mx: Hi, we'd like to do a photo shoot with you for A Frock Affair
AFA: (screaming on the inside but remaining calm) ok great! what do we need to have set for you guys?
Mx: colourful props.
AFA: colourful props?
Mx: lots and lots of colourful props.

So, that's what we gave them! Check out some behind the scenes photos.

T-shirt Origami

Does anyone remember that film, The Wedding Planner (yes, the J-Lo one)? There's a scene in the film where she's at home and folding all her clothes using a t-shirt folding board. The obsessive-compulsive in me loved that part. Imagine, perfectly folded piles of shirts in your closet. So neat. I'd probably colour-coordinate the shirts too...

Well anyway, I have discovered the next best thing to a t-shirt folding board. T-shirt origami! Seriously, I'm not trying to say this will make folding laundry fun, but it certainly makes it easier. Give it a try!

My frock affair

It all started with a dress. A gold one. With gold sequinned stars. It was a dancing costume my mum had as a little girl and was relegated to my dress up box. I wore it endlessly - to kindy, in the back yard and even to bed. When I grew too big to wear it, I put my sister in it, and when she got too big, the cat (sorry Mitchie!)

My next frock affair was with a flowergirl dress my nan made for me when I was four to wear at my auntie's wedding. It had layer upon layer of white lace and trimmed with the prettiest of pale pink ribbon. With an endless length of handstitched pearl buttons and a pink sash tied in a bow, it was easily the most magnificient thing I had ever seen. And it was all mine. 20-something years later, I still have it and unfolding it from its box still brings a smile to my face.

And so began my love for all things fabulous. Not always dresses, and certainly not always fashionable; but precious items in my closet that, like all good love affairs, bring back wonderful memories that never seem to fade.