Gentleman's club lamp

I keep forgetting to take photos of this wonderful little lamp that Andrew's mum picked up from a car boot sale. I love the old fashioned style and the evocation of bygone era gentleman's clubs, where rich men went to sip brandy, discuss politics and escape the wife. It's going to look wonderful in the new flat, I'm hoping to wrestle it from Andrew's grasp and have it on my desk while I study.

Suitcases

I've been going through a phase recently of buying suitcases from charity shops. I don't mean natty old suitcases, I mean vintage old-fashioned looking, waiting-on-a-steam-train-platform-for-your-lover-to-return-from-the-war type cases. I need to take photos to show you all but sadly studying keeps getting in the way, by the time I get round to taking photos it's dark and the light in my room is appalling, I'm turning slowly into Gollum in the shade.

Anyway, here's some delicious cases I found on Etsy, I'm planning on getting one for my brother for his birthday, he loved my newest leather find so I feel the need to spread the suitcase love. Photos of mine-own to follow!

I love this one by HappyDayVintage. I love green, it's definately my favourite colour and the rounded edges and quilted inner definately sells this one to me.



Oh my gosh, I'm actually in love with this one from JohnnyVintage. It even has a tray inside for all your little travel items, powder compacts and the like.



Tweed AND leather in one wonderful case? How could I resist! This one is just gorgeous from BackThennishVintage, I've just got to find one in my (rather meagre) price range now...

New Year's Resolutions

So Second Fiddle took a break over christmas and the new year. I didn't really mean to, quite the opposite in fact, I thought the holidays would give me more time to craft. Sadly though these things never work as we mean them to and between seeing the family, working 2 work placements (I'm mid-way through dairy farming as we speak), seeing the boyfriend's family and studying, very little crafting got done at all.

So, this is just a text-only post. Rubbish I know but normal service will resume shortly.
In the meantime, here's my New Years Resolutions. I figure if I write them down somewhere I'm much more likely to stick to them. What are all yours?

1. Speak less, listen more. I come from a long line of women-folk motor-mouths and a week in a bungalow with them over christmas reminded me how much I don't want to end up like that. So I'm resolved to start trying now, with the hope that by the time mid-life hits, when this nefarious disease starts to seriously raise it's head, I'll be prepared.
2. Not take on too much. I'm really bad for not being able to say no, to dinner invites, parties, craft projects, you name it. Invariably these things mount up and I end up trying to be in half a dozen places at once or doing 5 things at the same time and I always end up stressed and upset. Well no more!
3. Get myself out of my overdraft. After not being able to work last summer due to work placements, I'm now severely into my overdraft. It's interest-free and so not that big a deal but Andrew and I want to start saving for a flat deposit now he's got a job and so having a giant hole of an overdraft round my neck isn't a good place to start. I estimate if I'm sensible and make a budget (and stick to it!) I should be out of it by the summer, fingers crossed.
   

Soap, Trons and a work in progress

Crafting has been plodding along recently, exams and studying have got in the way sadly. Still, I got my oral and spot exam out of the way yesterday (oral = good, spot = bad) and have my last written paper tomorrow so hopefully things will pick up again over christmas.

In the meantime though, here's some handmade lavendar soap Andrew and I made a while back. It came out really nicely and soaps up with lots of creamy rich bubbles. It goes a bit gooey if you leave it in water though, but then what soap doesn't? The flatmates are suitably impressed, more than for the last piece of soap which was my failed chocolate and oatmeal attempt from the summer. I don't know what happened but it flakes into bits when you use it and looks like someone threw up in the sink.

How do you like the teacup as well? I bought a box of blue and white china from a car boot sale for 50p over the summer and I'm in love with it all. I'm currently using 3 teacups as soap dishes (2 at Andrew's, 1 at mine) and 2 teacups as plant pots (holding my mint plants). I plan to make some teacup pin cushions out of them at some point as well but I guess I should really drink out of them in the meantime!



Pictures to follow of the other teacups...

The work in progress, another t-shirt bath mat. I'll post photos of the first (rather wonky) bath mat once I've finished this one, it's coming out much more square which is nice. Although the photo is really dark, apologies for that.



Last but not least, the Trons in their respective carry cases. At £10 each from Pets at Home these things aren't cheap, but they are sturdy and make me feel safe carrying the tiny creatures around. They sit in them whilst they're being cleaned out and having their bedding washed, the pink frisbee thing is Viola's heat pad (which doesn't fit prooperly in the carry case sadly).

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree...

We finally put up our christmas 'tree'! There's been a bit of a saga to this so I'll start at the beginning.

Andrew's flatmates Michelle and Chris announced a few weeks back that they were going to Asda to get a real tree in a pot, the kind you can use year after year. I'd been planning on buying one like that for ages but hadn't got round to it, so I was fully supportive of this idea and we all decided to split the cost 4 ways (including Andrew of course). Michelle and Chris returned with the cutest little tree imaginable and set about trying to find somewhere in the flat to put it up. Here lies the problems. The flat has a long but narrow hallway, meaning the tree wouldn't fit in the hallway. It would fit in the alcove where we keep the Trons but obviously they're in there so that doesn't work. There's no space in the kitchen/lounge area and so the only place left was Michelle's bedroom. Michelle is the unofficial flat matriarch, it's her name on the lease and she's the one who sorts all the bills. She also has the largest room, so it makes sense that the tree goes in there, it's just gutting because Andrew and I can't really enjoy it. You can see it as you pass the door, but that's about it. I was quite upset about this, I'd been really looking forward to getting a tree and had got mum to post up all my christmas decorations but it was all in vain.

So, I moped about this for a while, then went over to my grandparents' for dinner on Monday and to help them dress their tree. They'd had to cut some branches off the bottom to make it fit in the stand and so I pounced on these in delight and proudly bore them home to Andrew. But, problem upon problem, we couldn't find anything to stand them in. Cue: CHARITY SHOPS! A quick trip to Hope of Romania (and my first foray into there, I found a vintage Jaeger wool suit for £20! Sadly I looked a frump in it, but huzzah all the same) and I returned triumphant with the glass vase seen in the photos, all for the princely sum of £1.50. Next year we'll have a proper tree when we're living together, but for the moment this one will do nicely.

Teapots

For a while now I've been looking for the perfect teapot. Everytime I go into a charity shop I have a search but to no avail. So, since I've got no time to take photos of my own crafts at the moment (plus I'm embarressed to take photos in front of Andrew's flatmates, I don't think they understand the concept of a craft blog) I had a quick search on Etsy to see what I could see-see-see.

I really like the blue and white design on this one from Ric Rac and Buttons, it seems to shout 'Sweden!' at me.



I love the colours of this teapot from Jolly Polly Pickins.



I love how antiquainted this teapot looks from Vintage Foster Care, an old copper teapot just conjures up Dickensian times!



I'll have to keep searching, my perfect teapot is out there somewhere...

Nordic Craft

So, the studying continues, I feel like my head might explode and I'm walking around with a giant rubber band round my chest, squeezing my breath out of me. Still, first 2 on Wednesday and last 1 on Friday, then it's off to St Andrews with the boy for a weekend of relaxation. I can't wait!

In the meantime though, here's my latest craft blog find, Nordic Craft, from the very talented Karin. I especially love this quilted collage she's done, definately taking inspiration from that when I move in with Andrew next year.



Along the lines of little quilted things (I love quilting and little = awesome, if I can finish it in a night then I'm automatically in love), I found this rather adorable quilted post card from Merry Mayhem on Etsy. Holy cow man, it's super awesome!