Nothing much to say except that I got two new teacups and one teaset recently and they are ADORABLE. I’ve been wanting to share pictures of it but the traffic’s been terrible lately and I have not been able to be at home during daylight hours. But the sun rose a little earlier today so I quickly grabbed some pictures.

First up, an owl teapot set that stole my heart the minute I saw it:

And this mismatched trio that also stole my heart (it was side by side with the owls so it’s hard to say which I fell in love with first):

These are both from Angela Bloom Tearoom (Instagram) who kindly took out more of her collection when I visited. She also taught me how to check for hard-to-spot cracks by running my finger gently around the plate or cup to feel for cracks. Her enthusiasm for Royal Albert is also contagious and the reason why I ended up getting one more tea duo than planned:

But it is so sweet that I have no regrets.

Interestingly enough, Angela Bloom Tearoom also mentioned that I should go slow on the collecting so that I can actually use my pieces. Which is a sentiment I absolutely agree with but am terrible at following – I have already found two more pieces that I have my eye on! I’ll probably think about it a bit, but since I’m doing No-Buy January, I’ll probably have to decide soon.

Or perhaps I’ll wait till February to get the pieces (if they are still for sale) and learn some self-control.

Not pictured: some really cute cups (or is it cup?) that I got during 11.11. Hoping to collect them on Saturday! I’ve also got a teacup reserved from Vintage Garden in the Tropics that I need to collect and yes, this is on top of the other pieces that I’m looking at. I should probably be stopped but I still need to get a gaiwan! I haven’t found one with a pattern and pour that I like (probably because I get distracted and look at teacups instead).

In happy news – it’s tea exchange season and I just got some tea from Em at The Geeky Jock! I’ve already used one of the teacups, but I know what to christen the other two with!

I’m pretty much jumping all over the place, but while writing this, I remembered that Northern Teaist pointed out that I should probably get more shelf space.

The good news is: I found some! We have some empty display shelves in Malaysia that I can use.

The bad news is: I can’t decide which teacups to bring over! It’s not just a matter of using them – I’ll probably be able to use them in Malaysia (and anyway, one of the reasons I bought more teacups was to have one in the office). Nope, the reason is that I don’t know which I’d like to use for photos and one photoshoot in the office was enough to convince me not to do another one.

(Unless I can get over the awkwardness.)

Still, there’s only so much space (and so much tea) I can keep at home. Sooner or later, one or two teacups will begin to cross the border.