my etsy favourites: things i'm not allowed to buy

I have too many Things. Some big things, but mostly small things, things that don't have any use and take a lot of dusting. My husband was looking for some Useful Thing the other day and found a ceramic cat playing a violin. For some reason this was the last straw and he is now convinced that I have too many things. (I agree, but that cat has REAL WHISKERS. And several bandmates. I'm not getting rid of the cat.)

So when I see Things on Etsy that I want, I add them to my favourites. It's like walking around a shop, filling your cart and then abandoning it. It's almost satisfying.

Plus, I have all these Things ready to buy when I move into a mansion.

op-shopping

Today I took the day off, and went op-shopping. It was wonderful.

 

Two classics.

 

I have a huge collection of Little Golden books, but there's always room for more.

This amazing, hand-crocheted owl tea cosy was at a tiny little church op-shop I'd never seen before and happened on by accident. It's kind of jammed on because my teapot has a weird spout, but you get an idea of the awesomeness.

I bought its sister too. Is this an owl? It doesn't have the feather 'ears', or a beak...

Vintage Tupperware is a current obsesssion. It's hard to find these lovely decorated ones!

 

The avocado green containers are my favourites (along with the bright orange ones).

And I couldn't resist this teeny tiny glass unicorn. I'm only human.

stuff to read, stuff to do

 Here is some stuff for you to look at.

1. The amazing Sara Bauer (@yellowcardigan on Twitter, owner of the world's only comic-making cat Paisley) mdae her own spice rack and then put up a tutorial because I asked her to and she is sweet. This is exactly what I need in my new, smaller kitchen: easily accessible, taking up no counter or cupboard space.

2. This Tumblr is fantastic: Citation Needed, a collection of the worst Wikipedia writing. If you need convincing, read some of my favourites.

3. Please watch this:

"YOU OK YOU OK YOU OK." This is my favourite video of all time maybe? I have it bookmarked so I can watch it when things go wrong in my life. Via Videogum.

4. Yelping with Cormac is a collection of Yelp reviews "written by" Cormac McCarthy. This is hilarious and beautiful.

5. I want to make this, how is it even possible? Radmegan posted a great tutorial but I am pretty sure it is mostly magic. Via Craftzine.

6. This Raindrop music maker is so soothing and happy-making. Play with it for a while.

i'm back!

Looking at the date of my last post I see that I have been neglecting this blog for over two weeks! I am so sorry. I have been in HELL, also known as trying to move house in two weeks. I looked on Google image search for pictures to use for this post and tried 'despair,' 'pain' and 'tearing out hair,' but it was all pretty depressing so I decided to use pictures of the famousest cat on the Internet, Maru. For the last few weeks I have been as obsessed with boxes as Maru, so it seemed fitting.

The process was really overwhelming. I am a bit of a collector/packrat/hoarder, and in the end we gave away nearly a bookcase's worth of books to the Save the Children book sale, 2 carloads of various things to the op shop, a few more boxes to family and friends, and also rented a skip bin for the rubbish that had managed to accumulate in the house. Moving is good for making you brutal; when you look at something and think, can I be bothered packing, moving and unpacking this? you find it a lot easier to get rid of it.

Today I read a great comic about moving and things and attachment which really spoke to me. Stuff No-one Told Me is a really great comic by Alex Noriega (whose girlfriend Iris Yan has her own, equally awesome comic, Pigs in Maputo).

I want to try to hold on to this feeling and not keep blindly accumulating things I don't need.