It's really hard to...

...take pictures of jewellery without an SLR.

I said I would get pics and that is exactly what I have done. Although they are not very good pics. There are a few reasons for this:

1. There is terrible natural light, so I had to rely on the daylight lamp. Not ideal
2. As I have said many a time, my camera is dying and isn't good at the auto focus it's supposed to be good at.
3. Taking pictures of a ring leaves you with only one hand to balance camera and said daylight lamp which was misbehaving and not staying still.
4. These rings are small, detailed and have sparkly details I just can't seem to capture on my rubbish camera

That being said, here are the rings (which I am wearing as I type) I promise to get new ones as soon as I remember to hijack someone else's camera.

My great-grandmother's opal ring. I'm not sure when she bought this but it's at least 50 years old. Opal was her birthstone. It's not mine, but that's ok, I'm not supersticious.

Those last two show you some of the awesome qualities of the opal. It's quite a pale stone, not as
firey as some opals, but I love it and the setting, because it's been in our family for 4 generations now.

(and hopefully many more to come!)

My Nanny's engagement ring (Nanny as in grandmother, not aupair (: ) I'll have to ask my mother if
she knows which year it's from, but it's definitely 30's, so 70+ years old.

I found it really difficult to capture the details of the ring and the sparkle of the diamonds. I'll
have to look up how to photograph rings properly and then comandeer a decent camera!

So I have learned several things today. Apart from the above I've also realised that I really don't like my hands :( But that's ok, they'll look better once I've lost some more weight (21lbs down people!)

Ciao for now xx

Awesome vintage jewellery.

I went for a meal with my family on Easter Sunday. I wanted to wear my grey dress, but seeing as it's too big and I haven't bothered to exchange it yet, I settled for my flowery one. I wore my great-granny's opal and my mum gave me a pair of earrings to wear, which I totally creamed over. Have a look...

After the meal and a few extra drinks, my sister wanted to go through the jewellery in the safe. So we dug everything out and went through it all. I absolutely love my nanny's engagement ring, it's fabulous and I took it out to clean and then promptly stuck it on my finger, when my mum said that if I really like it that much that I can have it. I can have it? Seriously, this made my day :D There are two rings that I have lusted over ever since being a tiny girl playing with my mum's stuff and they are great-granny's opal ring and nanny's engagement ring, and now I own them both! I'm so happy and will definitely get some pictures soon.

Also, I was trying on some pearls, which actually really suit me, and my mum gave me a string of pearls too! So I'm super duper vintage/antique jewellery queen. The best Easter EVER!

Vintage love.

So while trawling etsy for supplies and secretly looking for pretty things, I did a search for vintage suitcases. The only ones I've ever found in person have been particularly beaten up, stained or ripped. Oh, and grossly over priced to boot. On etsy I've found a haven for vintage luggage in surprisingly good condition, but most of it is from the states so the postage is through the roof.

Can I justify spending $77 on the most gorgeous piece of luggage I've ever seen in my life, when I really don't need it and seeing as it doesn't have wheels would have to lug around and because it's too big to carry on, I'd have to get it shrink wrapped everytime so it doesn't get damaged by bag throwers, thereby losing out on the joy of having beautiful luggage anyway?? Sure I can, it's gorgeous!!! But I don't have that kind of money, so I'm going to secretly hope no one else buys it and pray I win the lottery or something so I can buy it.

Well, enough with the wishing, here are some of my favourite picks from etsy...

Can you guess which is my dream case??