Coming Of Age

Miss Mac is going to be 16 at the end of this month.

Wow ...

It's hard to believe that my youngest will soon be embarking on her GCSE's, the final stage of school and, in just a few short months she will have left it forever.

She's excited and scared.

I'M excited and scared ...

Her Birthday falls the day before her very first exam and I'm hoping the worry and stress of it doesn't spoil the day.

I'm planning a small surprise party with just a few friends after school on the actual day and, if I don't totally cock it up I'm going to make her a Birthday cake in the shape of a shoe box with a pair of these on top:

I know!!

All KINDS of ways THAT'S going to go wrong!! But I've watched a tutorial over and over and it LOOKS easy enough ...

I've also been hiding away lots of little presents which I can't show you right now just in case she decides to take a look here (I'm sure she never reads my blog but you never know!).

One thing I CAN share with you is her main present.

There had been talk of a laptop which she will need when she goes to college.  The one she had now works fine but it's a bit old, a bit heavy and, to be honest, not very cool and really, starting collage is NOT the time to have things like that to worry about!

We had also discussed a camera as she is taking photography A'level and at the moment only has my old point and shoot and use of my Pentax which, although it's not top of the range is pretty good and I love it but she very sensibly decided that she should start the course first where she will have use of the college cameras and then maybe we can look for something at Christmas.

ANYWAY!

Back to what I HAVE got for her.

She's already had it as it's not something that could be hidden in my wardrobe (and NO Miss Mac, if you DO read this then that's NOT where your presents are!).

Miss Mac surprised me by asking for a piece of furniture, a desk or some shelves or a dressing table, something for her room that totally belonged to her.  Something useful that she could take with her at some point (in the dim and distant future I hope) when she has a home of her own.

We spent some time looking at various things.  Most were way out of my price range.  Some would never fit through the rather low and narrow doorway to her room.  We also had to take into account that her bedroom has a sloping ceiling and so the height of the piece would determine where it could go.

Just down the road from us is a shop that used to be a dolls house shop.  The man who owns it crafted the most beautiful dolls houses and furniture but about a year ago he decided that he couldn't make it pay any longer.  I chatted to him and he told me that so much was sold online these days and while people still wanted his stuff due to severe dyslexia he just couldn't keep up with the demands.  He wanted a shop where people came in and actually spoke to him.

And so his new venture was born.  He calls it the Thrift Shop.  He buys all manner of old furniture and household items, repairs where necessary and sometimes paints them.  He sells them for about half the price of anywhere else I've seen.

This is what we bought:

At some point it was clearly a writing desk, you can still see the grooves on the wide shelf where the hinges would have been for the drop down flap.

I suspect the top bit is an addition at a later date but I love the tongue and groove and the sweet little heart cut out at in the middle.

It's been shabby chic'd (before we bought it) not perfectly but I think it has a lot of charm.  It's a very pretty feminine piece of furniture and I think Miss Mac will get a lot of pleasure from it for many years.

Meanwhile she has given it her own 15 going on 16 stamp by filling it with books, memento's and of course plenty of make up!