Loveliness

Oh I could browse Etsy for hours (if I had the time). The vintage section is full of so much loveliness a shopper could do some serious damage to their credit card. Unfortunately (or maybe it's for the best) a lot of the items are not available for shipping to Australia and if they are, the items I love, such as housewares and kitchenware are way too expensive to post.

But there's no harm in doing a little window shopping, is there? Here are some of my favourite vintage items available right now!

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Sigh...

On the bright side I received a beautiful package in the post a couple of days ago. Kate from I Love You Big held a lovely giveaway and I was a lucky winner! A word of warning, visit Kate's blog at your own peril, she features such lovely things she may lead you and your credit card astray. I hold her personally responsible for leading me to Etsy, Book Depository and Urban Outfitters ;-)

Look at all that stationery gorgeousness! I have lots of ideas on what I'm going to do with all this! Thanks again Kate :-) How cute are those gorgeous lace shapes, map circles and paper butterflies?

Speaking of butterflies, we witnessed one of nature's wonders in our very own garden a few days ago. A butterfly emerging from its cocoon. The boys were agog as was I...

And so, I am signing off for 2010. I hope you all have a very wonderful Christmas and I will see you again in the New Year :-)

Let them eat cake!

I made my first ever Christmas cake a couple of weeks ago! Usually I just buy them (about 4 times cheaper) but had no excuse not to make one this year :-)

I'm really happy with how it looks. Hopefully it will taste nice, I won't know, I don't like Christmas cake. This is for my men :-) I shall be like a Masterchef contestant anxiously awaiting the taste-test. Oh well, if it's inedible there are plenty of other goodies stashed around the house :-p

Paying up

If you blow the dust off my archive you will see back in January I posted about "Pay it Forward" a lovely blog event where people send each other handmade gifts.

The deadline? 365 days - One Year!

So here I am, 11 months later, finally paying it forward. I would like to apologise to my 3 participants, Peace, Toronto Yardsaler and Thrifty Ba for taking sooo long on this. My only excuse is that I'm a very disorganised, last minute human being. But let's see the glass as half-full and think, "Wow! I did it a whole month before the deadline"!!! ;-)

My little gifts are all wrapped up and will be winging their way very shortly to Queensland - Australia, Toronto - Canada and Utah - USA.

Thank you for your patience, I hope you like my little efforts :-)

The C-Word

OK, with only ten days to go till Christmas I think I can safely FREAK OUT!!!! I LOVE Christmas more than any other time of the year. I grew up with magical Christmases, both my parents made them wonderful for us and I hope my kids will have the same happy memories of ours. I have baked a Christmas cake (my first ever attempt), mince-pies, Christmas shortbread and a squillion cupcakes for various school and preschool functions (See? My Kitchenaid mixer was a sound investment :-)

Pressies are hidden on top of the wardrobe, lots of surprises for my boys (including hubbie). And to top it off, yesterday I finally found a bagful of vintage decorations with lots of fab retro mercury glass ornaments, something that's been on my wishlist for ages now...

Aren't they beautiful? So bright and colourful! The whole bag cost $3 and there are lots more than pictured, these are my favourites though. These won't go on our tree, we are making our own memories with ornaments bought on holidays, made by the boys, given as gifts and of course bought annually in the Myer sale! But I'd love to do something lovely with them and may steal Sonja from Dime Store Thrift's idea of making a Christmas wreath out of them. She makes fab wreaths using vintage ornaments and a hot-glue gun. I doubt I'll get it done before this Christmas so will just display them in a glass jar for now (out of the boys' reach of course).

Yelp!

Have you ever gone into an Op Shop/Thrift Store or to a market and found exactly what you were looking for? I don't mean when you're hoping to find a few plates and get them, or a couple of toys and manage to pick some up. I mean when you find EXACTY what you were looking for? A very definite item, straight off your wishlist?

Well today it happened for me! A couple of months ago when aimlessly searching on eBay for a retro teapot I came across a listing for a Finel Arabia teapot in blue, made in Finland. It was love at first sight. The listing was at a "Buy it Now" price of $95 which I decided would be pretty hard to justify to my lovely husband so I have been hunting online ever since and have seen them in online vintage stores such as this gorgeous shop as well as eBay listings such as this. But I REALLY wanted to find my own. I knew the likeliness of finding such a specific item, a certain make in a particular pattern was highly unlikely but it went onto my mental wishlist anyway.

Then today, with a few minutes to spare before playgroup, we popped into my tiny, local Vinnie's to have a quick look. I didn't see anything of interest and was about to leave when I looked up and there on the top shelf, tucked in behind a couple of vases I saw a familiar blue spout peeping out. (Sharp intake of breath). Moving the vases aside, there it was in all its glory. (Jaw drops to floor). I take it down off the shelf and see it's in great condition (yes!!!) and then I find myself laughing at the unlikeliness of finding just what I was looking for in our own suburb.

Look at that beautiful blue enamel, retro shape and fab pattern? How could I not fall in love with it? And the best bit? It cost $7!!! So so happy :-)

Army

My eldest son made his Christmas wish official on Saturday by telling Santa in person that he would love a box full of Lego with wheels, windows and bricks. His wish will very definitely be granted but what he doesn't know is that there will be Star Wars Lego AND an army of Star Wars minifigs!!!

I can't wait to see his little face!

Aren't minifigs just so cute? I love surprises!!!

Expedit-ion

After searching fruitlessly for months for a really nice old pigeon hole unit to use for display and storage in our hallway, I finally gave up and decided to buy the next best thing - an Ikea expedit. I'm not usually into very square modern furniture but what I love about the expedit are the little cubes, each one acting as its own little display/storage space. I wasn't sure whether to go for the white or dark brown but luckily that dilemma was solved when I went to Vinnie's one day and picked one up in dark brown for $70! These retail at $219 in Ikea and it was in perfect condition so as I said to my hubbie "I haven't spent $70, I've saved $149" ;-)

It's now sitting pretty in our hallway allowing me to store a lot of books and display a few little things that had been stuffed away in cupboards...

Dark brown is definitely the right choice for this hall. With cream carpets and walls a white expedit would just have been too much paleness!

Yes, I admit it. I am addicted to cookbooks. There are more in the kitchen. High Australian book prices had curbed this habit for a while but the discovery of Book Depository caused me to fall off the wagon ;-)

Home Decor books are another weakness of mine.

More display space on top of the expedit.

The 3 Ngai Sing painting I posted on previously, a cute fan I picked up at a market for $2 and a beautiful turned wooden bowl I bought on eBay direct from the woodworker. Note the scratch courtesy of my eldest son, it always amazes me how furniture, toys, books etc can last for years and make it to an op shop in perfect condition only to be wrecked/scratched/scribbled on within minutes of entering my home, hmph!

$1 lamp with Target shade, wedding photo, little wooden family purchased on Etsy and cute helicopter bought from a vintage store.

Each little cube makes its own lovely little display space.

Baskets are great for stashing hats, sandals and other random stuff that accumulates in the hallway.