cheap & cheerful (and some even for free)

About a couple of weeks ago my boyfriend spotted this little oil lamp on a quick visit to a junkshop. We bought it without much hesitation - with its tarnished copper base and mint-coloured milk glass shade it is a very pretty thing. It cost only a couple of euros.

The books were an accidental find. I was in a library printing something and realized that I didn't have anything to protect the printouts from the rain on the way home. I thought I'll quickly borrow a book to put the printed pages into, but instead I ended up owning three old books. I came upon a shelf that said "Customers' exchange shelf" where people bring their unwanted books and the books are free to take. The old bindings in beautiful blue are just so attractive.

How about those handsome creatures? They are made by Britains in the 70s - I got lucky and bought a whole big jar of them for a single euro. These three are my favourites at the moment. They are all joining my ever growing plastic animal zoo.

By the way, we tried the oil lamp, it works but alas, it flickers so strongly it's impossible to use. I have a feeling the oil container needs cleaning or the wicker needs replacing, but I have not decided about how I could really fix it. If anyone has any tips for curing flickering oil lamps, please let me know! In any case, it's a beautiful  old thing and it is nice to have as decoration.