Castlefield Christmas Market

We will be at Castlefield Market’s Off The High Street Christmas Market this weekend (5th, 6th & 7th of Dec & 12th,13th,14th of Dec) We thought we would show you what we will have for sale and tell you a little about our products and how they were made.

WALL CHARTS
Inspired by Vintage School Room Educational Wall Charts all of our Wall Charts are handmade, they are printed onto artists canvas by a local independent printer one69a based in Salford, they are attached to hand finished FSC wood, painted in Little Green eco paint and are hung with British Nutfield string and are approximately A2 in size.
Our designs include.
ALPHABET & BLACKBOARD
Based on retro school room prints these illustrations will give any room a vintage feel, great for room’s for children of all ages. 

MAP OF THE BRITISH ISLES.
This vintage map from the 1921 Times Atlas has been reproduced in stunning colour by our printer.

Deer
This  woodland image illustrated by Winifred Austin from a print in Wild Beasts Of The World 1909 adds a rustic, woodland, heritage feel to any room.

PRINTS
All of our designs come in A3 size prints printed by an eco British printer on recycled paper, they make perfect Christmas gifts.

NOTEBOOKS
Our range of Retro Schools Supplies inspired Notebooks are printed by an eco printer in Britain on recycled paper they have 36 pages which are gridded and come in 3 designs, Retro Alphabet which comes from our Wall chart design, Green exercise book, and Navy Blue and Red Retro checked.
They come in A6 or A5 size or a pack of one A5 and one A6 and make perfect Christmas gifts.

CANDLES
Our range of eco Soya wax candles are hand poured into recycled amber apothecary style jars. they come in 2 scents Woodland Spice or Warm Vanilla. Soya Wax is not only better for the environment and your health but when the candle’s have finished burning you can rinse the jar out with hot water and use again.

 We also have a range of vintage vessel candles including Retro Hornsea Pottery and Royal Commemorative Mugs. 

 CARDS
We have 3 hand illustrated designs which are printed in Britain by an eco printer on recycled paper. they also come in packs of 6. A6 in Size.

 CALENDARS
Available in A3 and A4 size our year to a view Wall Calendars are printed on recycled card and eco printed in Britain. They come with a punched hole to hang if you wish or you can use the hemp twine string provided.

All of our products will be available to buy on our stall at Castlefield Market’s Off The High Street Christmas Market on the 5th, 6th & 7th of December as well as the 12th, 13th & 14th of December more information about the market (including directions) can be found on their twitter or their website.

Crown&Country

CROWN & COUNTRY CHRISTMAS

So we said we would be coming back with news of our new business well here it is.

We are still Crown & Country but we are now selling our own range of Decorative Homeware. we have wanted to take this leap for ages and have finally plucked up the courage and taken the plunge.

We will be launching our range fully at the Castlefield 'off the high street' Christmas markets very soon.

We will be there from 10am-8pm Fri-Sat and 10am-6pm Sun on the 5th, 6th & 7th of December and the 12th, 13th & 14th of December you can find more information on their website and check out their twitter for what you can expect on the day and how to find the market.

We will be posting more information on our twitter soon as well.

Here is a sneak peak at just some of the products soon to be in our etsy shop from our new range.

New Plans Afoot

So we have been a bit absent recently, We won't be running any more events as a company but that is because we have been locked in Crown & Country HQ preparing for our new business and we are nearly ready to launch.  
We have been designing away for our new products and will be telling you all about it very soon.

But we can say we are very excited for this Christmas (more than usual) find out why soon.

So we posted a while ago about our plans for 2014, well the first of these are our very exciting and busy Summer plans.

We will be bringing something entirely new to this year’s Prestwich Clough Day a fabulous Vintage inspired Tea Tent.

We will be serving Tea and Coffee, Homemade Lemonade, slices of Homemade Cake and Scones as well as Sandwiches.

We will be inside the Lidl Big Marquee, so come and take a seat listen to great live music and entertainment and enjoy a cup of tea underneath the bunting.

Prestwich Clough Day is a great local event featuring the best of wonderful Prestwich all in the beautiful Prestwich Clough and St Mary’s Flower Park. 12-5pm on May 18th. www.prestwichclough.co.uk

Then in June we will be stepping back in time and bringing the Wartime to Prestwich at this year's Prestwich Carnival. With our 1940’s NAAFI Tea Tent. 

We will be serving Tea, Coffee, Lemonade and Traditional Cakes all from our military tents, so come along relax and step back in time with a good old British Cup of Tea.

Prestwich Carnival is a great family event set over two days with a Parade, kids activities, carnival and tons of stalls.  www.prestwichcarnival.co.uk

We will be on St Mary’s playing field on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th of June.

We are so looking forward to being a part of these great events and are hoping to see some of you on the day.

2014

Hello

Its been a busy 2014 at Crown & Country H.Q so far, we have been having lots of top secret meetings about a new venture for us and lots of not so secret meetings about some exciting events we are planning to be a part of this summer which we will be revealing very soon. 

We have been sorting out our collections of vintage goodies and have lots for sale on our Etsy. 

www.etsy.com/shop/Crownandcountry 

There are some fantastic mothers day gifts for sale right now with more being added soon.

We will be selling even more of our lovely vintage goodies at the Didsbury Charity Craft Fair Saturday 22nd March 11am – 4pm Parrs Wood High School Wilmslow Road East Didsbury

www.didsburycraftfair.org.uk full of great stalls of gifts, vintage and food along with a vintage tea room keeping you supplied with refreshments and a pop up restaurant by the renowned chef Robert Owen-Brown. it should be a great day.

Keep popping back for more information about upcoming events at Crown & Country and check out our Etsy for some fantastic vintage deals.
Susan & Charlotte.

Summer Fruit Crumble

May day was spent with lots of morning paperwork and emailing so we decided to take a longer lunch and enjoy a bit of summer in a homemade fruit crumble.

STRAWBERRY & RHUBARB CRUMBLE

1 Punnet of strawberries

1 Packet or 6/7 sticks of rhubarb

4 tablespoons of soft brown sugar

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of vanilla

1 table spoon of vegetable oil

2 tablespoons of non dairy butter [i.e vitalite]

Crumble Mix

8 oz of sifted plain flour

4 0z of vitalite or non dairy butter chilled

4 0z of demerara sugar plus extra to sprinkle on top

1 scant teaspoon of cinnamon for dusting

Pre heat the oven to 180c
Cut the rhubarb into 1 inch pieces. Heat oil and non dairy butter in a wide pan, when melted add the rhubarb and the sugar and cook until softened but not mushy. Add the vanilla and cinnamon.

Halve or quarter the strawberries depending on size and place with the cooked rhubarb into 1 large or 3 smaller dishes.

Crumble Topping

Sift flour into a mixing bowl add the cubed non dairy butter and mix together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, add the sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. Cover the rhubarb and strawberry mixture and dust with a little sugar and cinnamon.

Bake at 180c for approx 30 min's or until hot and the fruit is bubbling.

Serve in a sunny dining room with a pretty magazine and a cup of tea.

Hope you had a lovely May Day and are looking Forward to the bank holiday weekend, what are you doing? (sneak peek we are making jam with our WI so lots of jam pictures coming up.)

Crown & Country xx

Manchester Sewing Circle

We are setting up a new Venture called The Manchester Sewing Circle.

A mixture of Make Do and Mend and Sewing Circle/Bee.

Our joint New Year's resolution at Crown & Country was to start sewing our own clothes again but with a combination of work and rustiness we’ve had trouble starting. After making a pattern and sewing aprons for our WI (more on that in a future post) and being obsessed with The Great British Sewing Bee we were re-galvanized to actually set up this group.

http://stirredstraightup.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/its-sunday_28.html

We found a million great lessons, craft groups and Knit and Natter’s around the Manchester area but we wanted to create a social space which would just be about sewing, where we could talk about making clothes, swap patterns, tips and techniques and share a cup of tea.

www.allposters.co.uk

We are looking at some City Centre Locations right now probably for a week day evening but have arranged for our first meeting to be at the Creative Institute at The Old Northern Market’s Summer Garden Party on the 21st July. We will have a meet-up for interested people to talk about the group and what they would like from the group.

http://www.intuition-online.co.uk/article.php?id=1037

More updates of times etc will be published here soon, let us know if this is something you would like to be part of and when and where you think it should take place in the comments below or e-mail us at mail@crownandcountryvintage.co.uk

Stay tuned for more updates.

Thanks

Susan & Charlotte