South Melbourne Market

I am Market Mad!  I love the hustle and bustle, the atmosphere and the array of goodies on offer.  Melbourne certainly has it’s fair share of markets and I’m checking them all off my list one at a time.

The first one I’m blogging about is my favourite so far - the South Melbourne Market.

Based in Coventry Street just ten minutes from the CBD, its easy to reach by tram or bus and there’s enough parking around if you’re going to drive.       

South Melbourne market has a variety of wares on offer including fresh fruit and veggies, butchers, fashion and footwear, homewares, books, fresh flowers and plants, jewellery, cakes and sweets.  There are some fabulous cafes and restaurants so definitely worth visiting for breakie or lunch.  

Best of all (in my opinion) is the Designer Market SO:ME Space.  A selection of super trendy stores that sell quirky homewares, jewellery and even bicycles.  They even have their own blog.

My fave is The Super Cool store which has been featured on The Block recently.  Their homewares are to die for.  I’m a cushion horder and theirs are a-mah-zing!!!  

The market also has it's own cooking school.  Small classes are taught by well known Melbourne Chefs.  Read more about the classes here.  

This weekend we're heading to Footscray Market so watch this space for more info.

Furniture Shopping on a Budget

Unless you ship everything you need from wherever you’ve come from, you can’t avoid furniture and appliance shopping.   And in Australia IT IS NOT CHEAP!  

We were advised to buy things like fridge, washer, bed etc from the UK and ship it over which is definitely cheaper if you’re after new items.  

But we didn’t know where we were coming to and what kind of apartment/house we’d have so didn’t want to buy a new fridge, for example, that might not fit in the space allocated for a fridge!   Also, as you know, I’m a thrifty type and I like the idea of upcycling my furniture.  Take a look at Loryn Loves to see what I've been up to; like my dining room table and side tables.  Obviously there are things that we’d rather buy new, like our bed and cot mattresses.  

There are various ways to go about furniture shopping and if you’ve got the time to look around then you’re going to be better off than if you buy the first thing you see.  Obviously if you have the cash to splash then go wild!  There are some amazing furniture stores here!

Good Old Ikea

I’m a fan of Ikea but I try not to buy too much from there, I don’t want my living room to look like I’ve ordered everything right out of the catalogue.  In saying that, their storage solutions are fantastic.  Don’t be surprised though, when you arrive at Ikea and find the prices are 20% higher than in the UK. And definitely don't forget to check out the Ikea bargain Corner. We got our cot for half price because there was a scratch on the underneath of it!  

Homemaker Hub at DFO, South Wharf

This centre is fantastic for new furniture with shops like Freedom, Provincial and Beacon Lighting.  They do have some good offers during sale time.  

Gumtree

As in London, Gumtree can be hit and miss.  But you can find some fabulous bargains, especially from people that are moving interstate or abroad for work.  Many of them have only been here for a short while and are being moved with short notice so will have newer goods at better prices.  Many appliances will still have their warranty in place.   Again, you need to be patient, new goods are uploaded every day so take a look each morning as the better bits get snapped up quickly!  I wouldn’t buy things like mattresses from Gumtree.  We found this great dining room table and chairs on Gumtree for just $50.  It was owned by a young IT geek who had probably never had a dinner party in his life.  You can of course go and check things out with no pressure to buy.   

Op Shops

Charity shops are a great place to find bargains.  Some stores, like Salvos and Vinnies, will sell larger furniture items like bed frames and dining room tables.  I’m a fan of wooden pieces that can be sanded and given a new lease on life.  Things like vases, platters and crockery can all be washed and if you find a style you love then why not.  I found these two lamps at a charity shop which I spray painted and recovered.  The lamps are all tested before they are put out for sale.  

Negotiating

Word on the street is that appliance stores expect you to negotiate on white goods.  You should be able to knock at least ten percent off the asking price.

Marked or Showroom pieces

We were able to do one better than negotiating on our fridge.  After going through the options with the salesman and deciding on our fridge, he mentioned that he had a ‘marked’ model in the back.  It was a brand new fridge but had a grey scratch mark on the top of it.  You can’t even see the scratch so we took it and paid 40% less than the retail price,including warranty. You will also find that some shops sell their showroom models at cheaper prices.

Sales

At the moment there are huge sales on in all stores because it’s the end of the financial year.  The stores want to get rid of their wares rather than have to stock take it for their tax return so you can find discounts up to 70%.

And that my dears is that.  If you’d like to see more of what we’ve been doing in our own home then take a look at Loryn Loves.

Happy Shopping!  

Shopping in Geelong

I've posted about Geelong before, we had a more cultural day down there when we first arrived in Melbourne.

This day was purely for shopping.  Dave and Jen were here for hols and Brad was at work so Dave was our driver and we shopped till we dropped.  The aim of our day was to visit as many Salvos stores and homeware/lifestyle boutiques as possible.   The Block is a very popular renovation/interiors show over here and we had seen that in the last season that they kept going down to Geelong to buy their decor.  So we had to see what all the fuss was about.

Amongst my research I came across the Oh Hello Geelong site.  A blog created by two young ladies that moved to Geelong and wanted to promote its full potential.  I found most of these quirky shops on their website.

We ventured into too many shops to write about each of them but I will put some info about my favourites.

Our first stop was the Geelong Vintage Market which is just on the main road heading into the city.  It's a massive warehouse filled to the brim with antique and vintage wares.  The prices do reflect this.  Unfortunately I don't appreciate the meaning of vintage and antique and the beauty of the pieces is lost on me.  I'm more of a sand and paint anything I can get my hands on kind of gal so I'm not going to pay a lot for the pieces I want.  But they had some amazing furniture so do make the journey down to Geelong if it's Vintage you're after.
They had a fab little coffee shop, called The Pickers Union, attached where we had our first (very good) cuppa of the day.

Salvos stores are charity shops that raise money for the Salvation Army.  They really are in every town of Melbourne and in Geelong there are at least eight of them scattered across the city.   I think we visited about seven of them, much to my brother's delight!  They vary from shop to shop as you can imagine and some are better than others.  I came away with a few vases, frames and a baby cot mobile (I'm pulling the dirty toys off and making my own, I just needed the 'stand').

  

After some serious op shop hopping we needed to feed our poor driver... he was going a bit dippy...

So we headed to the very cool and popular Packington Street, or as the locals refer to it - Pako.   There we found the absolutely divine (and award winning) Winter's Cafe.    The food was to die for.  Between us we had a roast chicken and stuffing roll, a rabbit ravioli and an all day breakfast which you could tell was made from the best of the best ingredients.   Even the fruit juice bottles were so pretty I had to bring them home with me. 

With full tummy's and a more sane Dave, we were ready to hit the shops again.  And we had saved the best for last.   We popped over to The Flower Dispensary on the same street, a smallish shop but we spent ages in it - so much to see!  As well as selling flowers, they had some beautiful homewares and gifts for sale.  These hanging plants were great and their window and shop displays were very creative.  Not to mention the gorgeous fresh and dried flowers.    

We then headed over to Garden Street where Frank & Dolly's are based.  What a fab little shop.  So much to look at, you just don't know where to start.  Beautiful clothing, gorgeous books, great jewellery and homewares.  I wanted everything!  I particularly loved these hanging plants.  The roots are covered in moss and wrapped in string to hold it all together.  All you have to do is dunk the ball in a bucket of water as needed.  Isn't that too clever?  I might try and make one of these in the summer.   I adore the wooden candle stick holders and pom pom flowers (definitely having some of these in our baby girl's nursery).  

Last stop was Goose, across the road from Frank & Dolly's.  Another great lifestyle/concept store with some great pieces.  Gorgeous cushions, fabulous bags and wallets, beautiful porcelain pieces and so much more.  

By then we were too pooped to carry on, even the most hardcore shoppers would have been ready to head home after such a long day.  But we came away with some goodies and enough creative inspiration to last us.  It's definitely worth a drive down to Geelong for some great shopping.   

Mornington Peninsula: Day Trip

Mornington Peninsula runs down the eastern side of the bay.  Great Ocean Road is over on the other side.   There is a lot of debate as to which one is the better to visit.  After much research it seems that Mornington is ideal for winter with its wineries, markets and cafes/restaurants.  Great Ocean Road is more of a summer destination with fabulous beaches, surf spots, amazing cliff faces and winding roads.

Although both are equally as beautiful in the opposite seasons, if you only have time for one of them then word on the street is that the above is the way to go!  

So with my brother and sisinlaw here last weekend, we decided a day trip to Mornington was in order.  We could have done with a night in a B&B as we didn't even make it to the wineries or the Hot Springs. 

We started our Mornington Peninsula adventure in the town of Mornington, of course!   This was our breakfast stop and we found a fabulous cafe called Blackbird Cafe where we had gigantic toasted sarnies and plenty of coffee.  The shopping on the high street looked fab but we were too early for Sunday trading hours and the boys were eager to get onto the next place... 

Little did they know that next on the list was a market in Rosebud.  The market is held on the first Sunday of every month by the Rosebud Lions Club.  They sell mainly crafts and second hand goods.   There are plenty of markets held throughout the peninsula but you need to research as they're not on every day or even every weekend.   The market is held on the Village Green, right on the beach so a quick walk and photo op before moving on...

Next stop was the view point at Arthur's Seat.  Many people walk up this 304 meter granite hill but the drive up the winding road was hairy enough for us.  The view from the top is spectacular, the beaches are stunning and usually you would be able to see the Melbourne City Skyline in the distance but it was a pretty cloudy day.  The gardens are gorgeous and would be fab for a summer picnic.  There's also an Enchanted Maze Garden and plenty of walks and hikes for enthusiasts.  You might even see koala's along the way.  We will definitely do this again next time as we didn't fully appreciate all there was on offer due to the howling and freezing cold winds!      All we wanted to do was get back in the car.   

Next stop was the beautiful seaside town of Sorrento, at the end of the peninsula, and where the bay joins the ocean.  We couldn't believe just how sheltered the bay is, it was absolutely flat and as soon as we crossed the peninsula onto the ocean side it was surfers paradise with enormous waves.   Sorrento is a beautiful town and ideal for a summer vacay.  With dolphin swims, fishing charters, golf, bayside cruises and stunning beaches, what more could you need?  If you want more there's wineries, spas, to-die-for shopping and plenty of restaurants and cafes.  Sorrento is an artist's paradise so if it's galleries you're after then you're in the right place.  

We left the boys in the pub and got stuck into the local shops - homeware and lifestyle boutiques like you've never seen, we were in our element!  After a good few hours of exploring, we joined the boys at the Continental Hotel and ended up eating lunch there.  The service wasn't amazing but the food was good.  After looking them up online I see they're a bit of a backpackers' place with a nightclub which figures. 

By then we were all sleepy and three of us a had a few winks in the car while poor Brad drove us home.  The good thing about the peninsula is that the Mornington Freeway shoots straight up the center to get you home pretty quickly.  Sorrento is just an hour and a half from Melbourne City. 

A really fab day out, I can highly recommend the day trip or even a night's stay down in Sorrento.  From there you can move further up the coast on the ocean side where there's even more to explore.  

Aussie Farmers Direct: Fruit and Veg To Your Door!

In my package of baby information booklets, samples and vouchers from the hospital, there was a voucher for a half price Couples Pack from Aussie Farmers Direct.   Never one to pass up a bargain, I decided to try them out...

Aussie Farmers Direct is a company that will deliver a box of fresh fruit, veggies and salad to your door once a week, fortnight or month depending on when you need.  The produce is direct from local farmers and always seasonal so changes as availability does.  

The Couples Pack usually costs $26 but with my voucher I got it for half price.  I usually do my grocery shopping at Coles or Woolworths and fruit and veg is really pricey.  I really think $26 for this box is very reasonable and will definitely continue to receive these weekly.  

It was like Christmas when my box of goodies arrived and it seemed never ending.  I’ve put the list below of what was inside so you can see just how much we received.

3 x Apples

3 x bananas

2 x oranges

2 x mandarins

1 x pack carrots

1 x pack potatoes

1 x huge bunch celery

1 x bunch coriander

2 x onions

1 x iceberg lettuce

½ a cauliflower

2 x large tomatoes

1 x punnet of grapes  

One of the good things about receiving what’s in season is that you are forced out of your weekly routine of buying the same old thing.  This week we received silver beet which I’d never even heard of before!   I had to search online for directions on how to cook it!  Turns out it’s just like spinach and can be used in the same way.  

So take a look, I believe there are plenty of options to choose from including Family Boxes and I think you can even add eggs and other things like smoothies to your order.