Magpie Monday - Buckle up

The other week a friend and I visited our local auction.  We spied a job lot of china and decided to go for it, splitting the cost and the contents 50/50.

Now, we were effectively bidding on this lot blind.  The job lots are contained within locked 'cages' and although you can ask the porter to open them up so you can inspect the contents. we merely pressed our little excited faced up against the wire mesh and decided the cups and saucers were pretty enough to warrant a punt.

The lot sold for less than we were prepared to bid for, so to our glee we won!  However, it was some time until friend's obliging partner could get along to collect our spoils and pack them up.

Last weekend we finally got to pour over our purchase together.  The china was all as we expected - pretty and vintage, but we had no idea what else what in the lot.

There were little hand written notes, crochet instructions and newspaper clippings dated pre-war.  There were a few dusty old books and a certificate from the Mother's Union.

But hidden right at the bottom, was unexpected treasure.  A little wooden cigar box opened to reveal a whole host of pretty belt buckles.

We fell on them like a children on their granny's button box, oooohing and aaaahing at their prettiness.

There were bold coloured plastic and bakelite ones

Pearlescent shell and mother of pearl ones

Sparkly diamante ones

And my personal favourite, a huge clear glass one.

I've since been scouring my craft books and the internet to find ways of using them.  So far I've found:

Katie Ebben's book Sew Stylish suggests pretty buckles and ribbons on cushions

Pinterest brought me to this beautiful blog My Salvaged Treasures & this stunning pendant

Maybe I should get the rivet gun out and make some Liberty belts?

Martha Stewart shows how to make belt buckle photo frames

Got any more ideas?

Have you bought anything second-hand recently?  Are you buying thrifted Christmas presents?  Grab the badge and link up. x

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