Welcome to my first blog post for our AllThingsRetroStore.

The other day I was in my car driving to a house sale with my daughter suddenly started laughing. What's so funny I asked. She then announced, much to her amusement, that daddy had a retro wife because I was old. Oh well I thought I was born the 60s.

I love the term retro. Wikipedia does a great write up about retro fashion, art and style. But looking at the dateline I guess I'm actually vintage. But don't tell Emily.

Time goes so quickly. I remember when I started buying and selling collectibles and antiques over 35 years ago in London, England. I'd spend hours at auctions, antique trade fairs, boot fairs and second hand stores every week. I went on to have one of the first online shops for selling antique teddy bears... but I always had space to keep one of the furry friends I came across. 

15 years ago I moved to Sweden and left that life behind. I's not so easy to find bears here but Sweden does have a lot of treasures. It's just to look and do lots of research. So I've been buying and selling collectibles for a couple of years now on the auction sites.

A few days ago my family suggested we set up an Etsy store. So we did. We now have  AllThingsRetroStore. It's still early day with our planning and the hard work has just begun. My house looks like a warehouse. My one room dedicated to my hobby has spilled out all over the house. But in the days to come we'll get organised.

We went through a bit of a buying frenzie. Well to be honest, it was a lucky strike. Now we have so many vintage bags, retro collectibles, swedish glass that my brain is exploding thinking of all the items we have to clean, photograph and list.

I've also decided to find new homes for some of the 100s of vintage teddy bears and animals I've managed to collect. To be honest I have a room full of them and I'm running out of space. So if you are looking for a vintage animal, I'll be adding some soon to the store.

Now this vintage chic is heading off. I've found some space in the corner of a room which needs filling. Time to hit the thrift shops.