Thistle Vintage

As this is our first post here on Thistle Vintage, we thought we'd do a little introduction & tell you a bit about ourselves!

Thistle Vintage is based in a pretty village in rural Angus (hence using a thistle in the name!) & is ran by myself (Sarah) & my friend Jo.  Whilst sitting in a coffee shop one morning, we were discussing what jobs we did before the kiddlies came along & realised that we'd both been involved in furniture restoration & upcycling before.  I took up this hobby whilst living in France & took great joy scouring the local brocantes & vide greniers looking for pieces to renovate & consequently revived many an armoire & lit corbeille!  In fact, French beds became my 'thing' & I absolutely loved taking something that looked fit only for the bonfire & transforming it into a piece of beauty.  I sold my pieces locally & on eBay - most going to shop owners specialising in the sale of French furniture in the UK!

Jo also used to restore furniture, her speciality being large pieces such as dressers & sideboards & she has transformed some beautiful dining suites too.  She also loves using the technique of decoupage too, something which I have yet to get the hang of!  She does the most stunning decorated clothes hangers too, just perfect for the vintage home.

After many discussions, we decided to join forces & form Thistle Vintage, secure in the knowledge that we have enough experience between us to create some fantastic pieces of furniture.

Although in the past, we both used the usual technique of sanding, priming & painting with eggshell, we now use the fabulous Annie Sloan Chalk Paint® & both love the finish it leaves on furniture.  It's truly wonderful paint & if you want to know a little more about it, hop on over to Annie's website.

At the moment, we sell our pieces on eBay & on our Facebook page but we're looking for a small workshop or retail unit as we already have ideas for a sideline business, however we'll keep schtum about that for now!

If we have any pieces that require reupholstering, we only use good quality, complimentary fabrics, some of our favourites being from Voyage, Laura Ashley, Vanessa Arbuthnott, Moon & Clarke & Clarke.  We also try to source specific pieces for customers should they have anything in mind & paint to order.

So please bear with me as I set up all of our social media pages - I'll add links as soon as they're all ready!  We're also waiting on our graphic designer to finalise our logo design so we can order up new business cards & add it to our blog etc.  I hope you'll keep popping back to see what we've been up to & in the meantime, if you spot any pieces on here that take your fancy, please email us on thistlevintage@gmail.com & we'll get back to you!

Sarah & Jo