Welcome to The Country Brocante Journal

At The Country Brocante we love to connect with the many people and places we work and collaborate with. The Grange, our new Hampshire venue for the Spring fair, is home to the inspiring Baring family, who are working with the land they have inherited, to breathe new life into the Estate and create a living and working collaboration. The stunning House is now a unique venue for weddings and events; the Estate’s once abandoned model farm is undergoing a complete restoration and at the...

My mum was always sewing! I loved turning the handle on her treasured Singer sewing machine while she created curtains and all kinds of clothes for her and me. Most evenings I would sit sewing clothes for my teenage doll or inventing patterns for teddies and horses, I still have them! As a very shy and rather anxious child, I completely lost myself in crafts of all kinds and later, in my 42-year teaching career, I realised how important creative activities are to mental health, both...

Some of you reading this already know me, Angeline and my small business Chalk & Paisley, you will therefore be familiar with the fabrics and products that I love to work with. My 'brand' is one of delicate pastels, historically within the pink palette, with more forays into blues (faded of course!) My 'makings' are a continually evolving area for me, partly because I like to incorporate a 'one off' quality to everything I create, it could be my stitch calligraphy around a heart...

And so it appears that the whole of April will be spent at home! In many ways, casting all the obvious worries aside, this is such a luxury - to be able to spend time at home, pottering, baking, gardening.. all the time in the world! It is as though we have pressed pause on life, just for a little while (we hope..) The weather has been absolutely beautiful so far, warm sunny days that are longer and lighter and filled with the sounds of spring now that there is far less traffic, on...