Keep Young & Beautiful

Monday morning, and here at Milly & Dottie HQ the weather is decidedly bleurgh and to make matters worse the drizzly skies are conspiring to give us "bad hair days". Or is that just our age we wonder?
We might have found a solution




What do you think? To our minds, it looks scarier than the highest roller coaster ride at the fairground. Not sure if either of us would fancy plugging ourselves into a permanent wave machine that bears more than a passing resemblance to milking machine crossed with a chandelier...

We're strictly "wake up and wash your face" gals, the least time looking in the mirror these days the better. We were heartened when we found this lovely book the other day though...




Full of the most wonderful beauty tips from the 1930s and offering help for the over 30s (no mention alas of the over 40s or 50s - we guess it's just a question of following the advice and then some...). Physical exercise is, alas, advocated. The author expects the reader to 'sag around the waist" has visions of our hips running to fat along with our bust and imagines us sitting round shouldered, poked head and hollow chested ... how right she is.




But worry not, help is at hand - there are exercises aplenty - but oh dear they do involve wearing the dreaded navy blue knickers that we had to wear at school. Tips on walking properly which would, it seem, result in us striding along a la Joanna Lumley in Ab Fab.




Our wardrobes are also considered and perhaps our favourite tip is to always choose knickers "With a slippery surface" (and, we're guessing, reach from your waist to your knees!).



There are chapters on hair (rather a lot of the hairstyles seem to require being plugged in to the aforementioned "milking machine"), aids to a lovely skin, manicures. keeping well in all weathers, and (ha ha) how to put on weight.




We're off to beautify our throat and chins, guard against prematurely greying hair, indulge in some powder puffs, reduce our legs and launder our collars.


Overcoming Troubles...


If you however, are sitting "hollow chested and round shouldered" whilst reading this, you might like to read more - the book's in The Library. And if you fancy some vigorous striding through the departments of the Emporium in lieu of those physical exercises, we're happy to tell you that there are lots of new goodies lying in wait for you.

Down the Garden Path...

Now is the time to dust off your wellies, tidy your trugs and untangle the garden twine.. With an early Spring this year, gardens up and down the land are looking gloriously rich with plentiful blooms. The warm weather of April made us forget the arctic winter and our plants showed willing by shooting up and growing at a rate of knots. Unfortunately this also included the weeds which put on a race to break the record for the biggest explosion of Dandelions we have seen for many a year.



Chelsea Flower show each May has many keen gardeners salivating over Salvias, palpitating over Peonies and swooning over sweet smelling Roses.. not to mention fretting over snails and all the ruin that they can do to your prize blooms overnight. Whether you are an armchair gardener or a hands on gardener, Milly & Dottie have several floral lovelies in the emporium to whet the appetite for green fingered pursuits..

Scatter some seeds around your border and fill the garden with blooms that the bees will love you for ...



To aide your planting schemes .. flick through the pages of this lovely book ..



To keep those pesky moths at bay.. pop one of these pretty Lavender sachets in your knicker drawer or a pocket in your wardrobe, to leave a scent of an English garden ..



Lie back in your hammock and fill your mind with poetry whilst smelling the roses ...



Of course Milly & Dottie always like to put on their best Crinolines whilst pottering about in the garden..



As dear old Monty would say.. Enjoy your garden whatever the weather.

Knickers, Needles & Knitting

Oops you've caught us! Sitting in our stockroom, kettle boiling, munching on the custard creams and leafing through the vintage magazines.



We love browsing through the pages of these old women's weeklies. It's not just the articles and stories that grab us - more often or not its the adverts that really interest us. They tell us so much about the lifestyles and aspirations of the time. These magazines, directly after the war, reflect in their ads, a time of austerity and rations, but also a time of optimism and above all, invention. With goods slowly returning to the shop shelves and rations increasing it's interesting to see that recycling and ingenuity were still required.



During the war, silk as a fabric was required to make parachutes,so the luxury of silk lingerie was forbidden. In May 1947 there appears an article on using parachute silk to make lingerie and a blouse, (Please click image to enlarge). A fallen or discovered parachute became treasure indeed, A case of necessity being the mother of invention if ever there was one! We also found this interesting post here, should you wish to read more.




The 1940s sewing and knitting books that we have in our Sewing Room seem to be very popular. Not just for the vintage patterns and styles but, we think, for the common sense of recycling and reusing that prevails in them. This video is absolutely fascinating.




The wonderful "Make Do and Mend" leaflets produced by the Ministry of Information are packed full of recycling tips and hints - from recycling old tweed jackets, making blouses from oddments and unpicking knitted garments to reuse the wool.


That's if you could get hold of the knitting needles ...



We love the sense of reusing items and perhaps that's one of the reasons we love all things vintage. Sometimes in today's throwaway society it's good to reuse what we already have, to find a new purpose for a pre-used item and take note of all those women's magazines!

Of Bunnies & Butterflies, Baa lambs & Bees

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter and were able to enjoy some of this marvellous Spring weather. It has been good to leave the stockroom and custard creams behind for a few days and don our wellies and summer frocks and head for the hills for a spot of walking, talking, animal spotting and chocolate scoffing.



It certainly has been "Famous Five" kind of weather hasn't it? Long days spent outdoors with the promise of Aunt Fanny's famous fruitcake to welcome you home at tea time! The odd glass or two of ginger beer to keep us going and mercifully not a glimpse of Uncle Quentin to spoil the day...



When we returned to the Emporium it struck us that many of our treasures reflected the kind of halcyon days that we have been enjoying.



Butterflies and bees fluttering from flower to flower.



Lambs gambolling in the fields



Children playing in the farmyard



And, wherever you look, bunnies appearing from nowhere!



Long may it continue...

Dottie's Dwelling

It has been rumoured that Dottie lives in a dolls house.. though not strictly true.. she does live in a house with a family of assorted dolls and moth eaten teddies and toys.
Her home is also rather cluttered as any dolls house would be.. but for this special occasion, all Dottie's detrius was swept under the carpet and stuffed into cupboards and hidden from view from the unforgiving lens of the camera. This occasion was a lovely mention of Milly & Dottie's Emporium in May's issue of House Beautiful magazine.
If you look very hard, you might just spot Milly in the corner of the room trying to hide the packet of custard creams behind her back and wipe those tell tale crumbs from her mouth..

Spring Posy

So Spring has sprung, the sun has shone, the days are longer and the windows are open!
In corners of our gardens or on woodland walks primroses start to appear and whilst, we may still spend our days dressed like this little boy, all wrapped up against the elements, we're sure it won't be long till we don our Spring frocks and wellies, garden trugs on our arm and a spring in our step as we step out into our gardens to sow our Summer seeds.



It is certainly an exciting time of the year, a time to embrace the daylight, enjoy the birdsong and the sweet scent of Spring blooms.



With this in mind we have been busy filling our shelves with all kinds of Spring related goodies. A Song to April and vintage wooden chocolate boxes for your Easter delights in our Attic. Petticoats and posies in our Boudoir – a delicious brooch especially for Mother’s Day and a pretty crinoline lady foil picture for your walls.



There are daffodils, poppies and birdsong in our Dovecote, just beckoning you out to the garden. Spring embroidery, vintage sewing kits and more Make Do and Mend in our Sewing Room., all manner of flora and fauna in our Box Room and jigsaws aplenty in our Nursery to keep you busy, from frolicking lambs to bunnies and chicks and velvety rabbits to grace your shelves.



If you fancy a read on the garden bench, why not have a look on our Library shelves? Daffodil story books, Spring time walks. The Darling Buds of May, butterflies and birds all await you.



So if you fancy a Springtime saunter, our doors and windows are open, the shelves are freshly dusted and, as always, there’s a welcome and a vase of daffodils waiting for you in the stockroom.

Rhubarb Rhubarb

As a nation renowned for having a sweet tooth and penchant for all kinds of sugary confections.. we favour our puds and are fiercely proud of our old stalwarts such as Jam Roly Poly pud..a formidable concoction of suet and sticky jam guaranteed to stick to your ribs and other extremities. Or how about Sticky Toffee Pudding.. another calorific challenge..



Eve's Pudding, Floating Islands, Apple Charlotte, Eton Mess, Knickerbocker Glory, Rice Pudding, Baked Alaska, Peaches and Cream, Syllabub, Bread and Butter Pudding, Tapioca with a blob of crimson jam, Gooseberry Fool..there are many more from this larder of British puds and we expect you can add a few of your own favourites. Milly is rather partial to Spotted Dick whilst Dottie has a particular fondness for Rhubarb and Custard ... Rhubarb Crumble and custard to be precise ..



Anyone who has a rhubarb patch nestled in their garden, will have noticed the spires of ruby red stems sprouting, stimulated by the frosts. Rhubarb is a vegetable with a unique taste that makes it a favorite in many pies and desserts. It originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago. It was initially cultivated for its medicinal qualities, it was not until the 18th century that rhubarb was grown for culinary purposes in Britain and America. Rhubarb is often commonly mistaken to be a fruit but rhubarb is actually a close relative of garden sorrel, and is therefore a member of the vegetable family. Rhubarb is rich in vitamin C and dietary fibre. With delightful names such as Champagne and Timperely Early. So pull some of those ruby red stalks today, stew lightly and make a crumble topping. Smothered in lashings of creamy custard.. It's a marriage made in heaven !!