French brocante
September and October are big brocante months here in France (click here to learn a little more about what a brocante is). This past week-end was no exception, there were 13 brocantes listed in my department alone, and we went to three. To give you a geographical idea of what we are talking about, I’ve posted two maps. The first map shows the region of Île-de-France, which is also called région parisienne, “Paris Region”. As you can see, the region is broken down into sections, which are called departments. The region of Île-de-France is made up of eight departments, I live in the department of Val d’Oise which is the second map picture below.
The more eastern part of the department of Val d’Oise makes up an area known as the Vexin, which is a beautiful and dreamy countryside I love. You will see three town on the second map which are underlined in red, these are three of the little towns we visited on Sunday, where we went brocanting (I’m pretty sure that word does not exist, but for the purpose of this post I will leave it). Our first stop was Valmondois, which happens to be the next train stop over from Meriel (where I live and noted by the big blue dot on the second map above). Valmondois is a charming little village town, the brocante was not a large one, but one I never miss! I was hardly disappointed, I found many little treasures and at the same time launched a new exciting feature for Et Voilà!Design. Have you ever heard of Periscope? I was introduced by Kim at The Paris Itinerary, have been following her live feeds, Patrick happened to be home one evening when one was broadcast live and well, we decided to give it a try! So here’s the scoop, we will provide snippets of live feed, en direct, while we are at the brocante. We hope this will give you a feel for the energy of the place and might get a glance of me getting my hands on some goodies! These live recordings will be available for you to watch (and share) at a later time if you miss our live connection. Keep in mind, we are just learning, we will need a couple attempts to get it just right. I think you should go directly to your app store or google play store and download the Periscope app, and find us @etvoiladesign (yes and be sure to follow The Paris Itinerary too!) and start watching! Once you get it set up you will see that we several recordings saved from Sunday. We would love your feedback on this new feature!
Our second stop was Menucourt, another charming village in the Vexin, there I scored (and I mean practically given to me) two vintage rosaries, some vintage buttons for a song, a couple interesting necklaces with glass beads and the cutest tiny jewelry box. I am always in search of little boxes and tins, they are what make my special packaging for my “custom order” pieces, (click here to see an example of a bridal piece I made and the special tin box I used for packaging). Interested in seeing what I picked out, my loot? Check us out on Instagram, where from time to time, I even put a video of the scenery from the car while driving from brocante to brocante.
Our last stop was Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, I have no regrets going, but not sure I would add it on the list for next year. St. Leu is a larger town with more of a suburb feel to it. There were 800 vendors, which made it quite crowded, there were times I felt like I was wading through a sea of pink. Let me explain, a brocante can be hit or miss, you may find some great antiques at a fraction of the cost of a flea market, but at the same time you have people selling things right out of their closets. If you have small children and are looking for second hand clothes and toys, this is the place to go! From the looks of it (the sea of pink), the population of females is on the up! All that aside, I did score a cute little metal box, four vintage rosaries and two St. Therese charms (from different vendors, and yes, click on the link at her name to read a little more about her). Saw beautiful scenery, discovered beautiful little village towns, came home with some special treasures and walked about 6 miles, I’d say it was a good treasure hunt day brocanting!
Stop by tomorrow to get a peek at what did come home with me, cute little boxes, rosaries, charms, tiny tea cups and more!
