Things I bought in August 2025

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I’ve been trying to be more mindful with my spending lately. Not necessarily cutting back (although I should probably do that), but being more intentional and only buying things that will actually enhance life and move us closer to the type of beautiful life that I want to create for us.

A corollary of that means less Amazon and more sustainable shopping (either because it’s second hand, it supports local artisans or because it means fewer purchases in the long run).

So, why not share?

Butter knives

After years of buying cheap ‘sets’ of crockery and cutlery, one of my aims this year has been to build a collection of crockery, cutlery and stemware that we can build on, that we will always be able to get replacements for and that is timeless.

When I started my current job a few years ago I bought the basics of a new crockery set – plates, small plates, bowls and soup and deep bowls – a mixture of Rorstrand’s Ostindia and Ostindia Floris in blue. We’ve since added side plates and tiny little dip bowls.

Back in May as a sort of birthday present to myself, we invested in new cutlery – Robert Welch’s Radford Bright – buying a set of basics that we could add to over time.

I also got a voucher from work for John Lewis and, worried that I’d forget about it, I decided this month to spend it and add some butter knives to our cutlery collection. So now we can have bread on tiny side plates like the fancy people we are not. Bonus, they make us feel like giants.

Stemware

In the same vein, this month I spotted and won a set of stemware that was up for auction at an auction house in Nottingham. Most of it is Waterford Alana but there are a few etched glasses in there too.

Buying stemware at auction is tricky because it’s one of those things that can’t really be posted, so it has to be at an auction house where you can pick it up. Being in London and sans car, that’s difficult for us, but Nottingham is near home for us and so I knew I could enlist my mum (and her car) to help with the transport part of the puzzle.

All of this for just £120 plus fees! Now I just have to gradually shuttle the 44 pieces (well-wrapped) back home to London on the train… meanwhile most of them are chilling in a drawer in my childhood bedroom.

Mikimoto pearls

Another auction win (different auction) and oddly enough, another £120 plus fees. I love the idea of a pearl necklace and didn’t want to spend a lot without knowing that it was something that I would wear, so picking up a necklace at auction is ideal.

It needs to be restrung but it was wonderful seeing how the pearls started to come alive again after a wipe over with a damp cloth.

Framlingham haul

Our visit to Framlingham on our Suffolk glamping trip led to a couple of purchases from little independent shops. A pot from Peter Grogan Ceramics that reminds me of a little Pooh Bear honeypot bought from the bookshop, a cyanotype kit bought from Converge and a book and fountain pen ink from Ottie and the Bea.

Speed track

I hate to admit to being influenced by an ‘influencer’ but I was on this one. I saw it on their stories and loved the idea. The Speed Track is a British-made flexible two-car track that you can take anywhere. One end sticks to a window (or anything like that) and you can create loops or put items below the track to create little hills and then create a jump off the end, so it is literally more flexible than a regular car track.

I bought it for my four year old nephew and two year old niece. I dithered over length but ended up with the 5m one as being long enough but not too long. I could have easily bought the 6m one though, especially when you factor in the initial ‘drop’ and then any loops etc.

Lululemon sling bag

I, like everyone else on the planet, have a Uniqlo cross-body bag. I love it. It’s perfect for day to day stuff – it fits my phone, my Fuji x100vi, card wallet and small hairbrush. But, the only problem is, if I’m going somewhere where I want to take my DSLR, it’s just a tiny bit too small. My camera goes in but it doesn’t quite fully shut. So I’ve been looking for something that’s basically the same but a tiny bit bigger.

The best thing about the Lululemon 6L sling bag is that it was basically free. Work give reward vouchers periodically for going over and above and so I had a £50 voucher. It’s via one of those sites where you convert the generic voucher into a brand voucher and Lululemon was one of those options.

It retails for £58 but after applying a 10% discount from signing up for the newsletter and then adding the voucher, I got it for £2.20! Leaving me more money to spend on the boring things that need doing, like getting the sofa professionally steam cleaned… le sigh.

Henry Holland fabric

Living in a small house means taking advantage of storage wherever you can get it and for us that includes two storage cube footstools. I bought them years ago from Wilkos for £15 each. They house board games and various craft supplies and they’re brilliant for hiding away stuff in plain sight. Although I live for the day when we don’t have to try and maximise storage in every possible nook and cranny.

Unfortunately the storage cube upstairs is looking a little worse for wear after years of my husband putting his feet up on the edge of it. Rather than try and find a replacement, I decided to try and give re-covering it a go. Aside from giving it a new lease of life, it’s a chance to actually give it a bit more personality (it’s currently boring grey).

It took me a while to find a fabric I liked and that was the right type of fabric and that wasn’t something crazy like £200 per metre. The eventual winner was Henry Holland x Harlequin’s Ludaix in Pacific. Noting that the other colours in the same pattern were being sold on eBay, I set up an alert and waited. When two metres popped up for less than the RRP of one metre, I jumped on it.

Now I just have to work out how to re-cover this footstool…