Addicted to love

Well, actually, I'm addicted to Etsy, I freely admit it.  I spend at least 30 minutes a day just browsing through the beautiful, the clever, the stylish, the ridiculous, the hideous and the incredible.  So what's a girl supposed to do when it's down for maintenance?  How am I supposed to get my culture fix?  Firstly, I whip through the main blogs I like to read, mostly previously mentioned here, and then I check out the Victoria & Albert Museum website, because they have the most amazing collection of 'stuff' I've ever encountered, and every single time I go to London I drag my poor long-suffering WH in there.  He says it reminds him of the biggest jumble sale he's ever been too, and I guess he's right... who'da thunk that some of the stuff they have in there would be considered valuable now?  You can bet your bottom spool of yarn that nobody thought wrought iron would be worth putting in a museum when they were hammering it out 200 years ago:


But how beautiful is this?  Imagine this as an embroidery pattern, then think "this is made of metal".  Amazing.

Then, when I've finished there, I have been known to spend entire days in the costume section...

Did you know you can order images from the V&A collection?  They're really nice quality & make fantastic cards or even items on your noticeboard... but I digess, shoe-wise...

The other thing I love to do is to check out Panoramio, which is a fantastic way of having a super cheap holiday - you can go to all the places you've ever dreamed of, and see what other people actually saw, rather than what the guidebooks show you.  Here's some examples:

Isn't this beautiful?  Wish I'd taken it!

© Franco Truscello

And this one

Fabulous.   Check it out next time Etsy is down & your're bored, there are pictures from all over the world!