It’s that time of year again!
The Festival of Thrift is an annual festival held in the North East to celebrate sustainable living and for the last five years that I’ve been going, it’s absolutely been my favourite day of the year.
I love everything about it although it’s really hard to describe it to people who’ve never been and I can never quite put into words what it is that I love about this event. The brochure says that it’s ‘a big weekend of sustainable arts, music, fashion, food, entertainment, shopping, demos, workshops & more’ which pretty much sums it up to be fair.
Poor Mr Frugal got the job of accompanying me this year so we got up bright and early yesterday morning and managed to get ourselves there just before it opened officially so we had a cheeky sausage bun while everyone was still setting up. It got busy quite quickly after that but because it’s set out over such a large area, it didn’t feel overly busy at any point which is another thing I love about the Festival of Thrift.
I never know where to look when I visit because there’s always so much going on and I end up taking so many photos as I want to remember the things that have inspired me. Obviously, I’m not going to show you them all but here’s a few from my collection from yesterday.
Over the years that I’ve been going to the Festival of Thrift, I’ve tried so many delicious foods, had a go at so many new crafts and bought lots of beautiful handmade things from small independent retailers. I’ve also bought some amazing second-hand vintage finds that you can have a read about in my previous Festival of Thrift posts here – 2015, 2016 and 2017.
This year though, I deliberately didn’t want to buy much at all as I’m seriously de-cluttering at home so I before I went, I consciously decided that I wasn’t going to buy any of the beautiful-ness that I knew I would no doubt find.
I didn’t come home empty-handed though! My favourite purchase of the day is the new little wicker basket that Mr Frugal proudly presented me with. 😉 I’ve been after one for ages so when he spotted this one he bought it straight away for me without even checking in with me as I was in a queue for brownies and it was the only one on a second-hand vintage goods stall and he didn’t want someone else to buy it.
I’ve wanted one for so long and I know that probably makes me a bit sad but it’s exactly what I want.
The apples in there are windfall apples that we got for free from another stall which I think I’m going to try and make an apple pie or some applesauce with.
The next thing I came home with was a Riverford Veg cookbook which I got free for signing up to the veg box delivery scheme with them.
This is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while but I just wasn’t sure I could justify the cost but lately, I’m really trying to use less plastic and try and support local farms rather than buy from supermarkets. Riverford is a name that kept coming up when I looked into a company who would deliver good value, organic produce to my postcode area. I also love that they use less than a quarter of the plastic that supermarkets use.
I also bought some organically produced sausages from a local farm which we bought last year and loved. They make really interesting flavours so we bought a pack each of the pork & minted mushy pea, pork and lime pickle and orange marmalade & caramelised onion varieties. They’re good value as you get 3 packs for £6 and again, supporting a local business and buying organic produce is something I’m trying to do where I can.
I also bought some bunches of lavender for 50p each which I plan to do something crafty with. 😉
I was going to make some scented hand warmers but I might just go simple and make lavender sugar or a lavender and oats bath soak with it. Who knows, but for now it’s in my kitchen making it smell very relaxing!
As a treat for everyone, I bought some cheesecakes and some brownies as they looked amazing but naturally, when I went to take a photo of them to share with you, they’d been snaffled – including the raspberry and almond brownie that I’d been looking forward to.
I feel like I had quite a minimalist Festival of Thrift this year compared to my previous visits but I love what I came home with, and even more importantly, I feel extremely inspired about some of the things I learned. I definitely want to learn a few of the crafts I had a taste of and I realised that there’s so much more that I could be doing to live more sustainably.
If you ever get the chance to visit the Festival of Thrift, I would absolutely 100% recommend it!
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