For you all

a Merry Christmas from us. May you all have a wonderful time with the ones you love, sharing laughter and maybe some tears but always greatfull for being together.

This Maria statue is given to me by old neighbours where it was standing in the garden of their new home. At our place, it stands beside my daughters bed, watching over her when she sleeps. At Christmas times she's standing in the middle of the dinner table surrounded by light.

Party

Yesterday we had the last childrens party of 2010 in our family. Our daughters wish was to do this at the the Hollandse Manege in Amsterdam. Beautiful place & great party.

Flow

Nice, our Add & Edit Notebooks are in the Flow, THE Dutch magazine for a mindfull living full of creativity.

Only sad thing is, we are not mentioned as the ones who designed it & making them by hand. Only Skoon Ecodesign, an excellent online shop who sells them.

Anyway, it's always nice to see your products promoted! And just to remember you, we also offer this as a possibility for our Add & Edit Notebooks.

Takes my breath

For the very first time in 41 years I found a couch that takes my breath away, what a beauty! Apparently this is what happens when you mix India & Scotland. By the designersduo Doshi & Levien.

Doshi Levien

Not cold enough?

This would be lovely in summer, but we want the ICE CREAM BOMBE as a Christmas dessert!

Recipe via: BBC good food

Getting acquainted

Did I tell you that my husband got me a huge present last week, the Macbook Pro, yes, yes, yes, he did! You can imagine how happy I am. I don't know if any of you share the same problem as I have, meaning having troubles buying these pretty costly things for myself. If it were up to me, my precious Macbook should at least have waited for another six months to find its way home to me.

Were getting used to each other, like all new relationships one shouldn't be too eager. So we're taking it slow, only a few hours a day, no sleeping over yet. For making it feeling welcome, I made my new baby a nice cover, a special one of a baby blanket a client once gave to me.

Rocking Christmas songs

This week some rocking Christmas songs, actually except for Mariah Carey (sorry, but I'm only allowed to play her on Christmas at home, restricted to once a day, so forgive me).

Photograph via henk jan van der klis

Trying to get somewhere

Bummer

Its not my day, I've spend an hour making nice photographs of the Christmas decoration at our place. And while trying uploading them on the computer, the disk was empty, it doesn't work anymore!! So my Iphone & Hipstamatic followed, but its poor.

Anyway, last year I created a tree of boxes filled with old mostly handmade Christmas cards, fabrics, embroidery, photographs etc. Some of them you have to look through the holes, some have windows and most of them are filled with ledlights. It really looks nice, if only I could use my Nikon to give you a good impression.

Excellent tree

Excellent Christmas tree made by All the luck in the world

Via Stijl Magazine, some lovely reading (in Dutch)

some light in the darkness

Cute gifttags

Download them for free via the lovely: Camilla Engman

Result

Well, meet the pink barbie cake in a dress of marzipan & sweet sprinklers. I must say, it turned out pretty good given the fact that I can only make apple pie from a package or an extremely well Maitre Paul from the freezer.

And lets just pretend she's kneeling down, for the queen or something, otherwise she would have very short legs (none actually as I torn them of).

Leftovers

Baking is not my thing, but with two birthdays in a row I can't make the same easy recipe twice. These are the leftovers for the one in the oven at this very moment. Some spare legs anyone?

So nice!

It's a shame, I can't spend any more money! But I still have this on my wishlist for Christmas, so pretty. I also know where I want to place it, in my new to be re-furnished, re-designed garden house, soon to be transformed into my palmistry practice. Wouldn't you just feel happy by looking at it.

For sale at: Simply Hue

This weeks favourite band

Golden Oldies Chaps, The Byrds

Photograph via: KEXP

Only two days

It was only two days in Hamburg, Germany, but so much can happen in 48 hours. We were received at the hotel by this enormous but friendly smiling Steiff bear. The hotel was full of Christmas decoration and the snow outside was the finishing touch. Looking so much better than the ordinary snow spray, really Astrid, don't know how you pulled that together :).

The first evening we were invited for the Opening Night of Sister Act. A bright & swinging musical. Honestly, when you're feeling depressed, go there, it's an absolute party! Isn't this a wonderful picture of Whoopi (co-producer) & the leading lady of the show? For more: Sister Act

I remember going to the World premiere of Sister Act in London in June 2009, a similar wonderful evening, different temperature though! But through my eyes, not being an expert on this, I would say the show even improved since then.  World premiere June 2009 London

We all know, and in case you didn't, now you do, the Germans are big fans of Christmas. They decorate everything, in style I must say & have Christmas markets with loads of people actually standing outside chatting & having fun. Never got the part of having fun in the cold, but that's me. It must be said Hamburg looked like a fairytale, it was a joy and extremely difficult NOT to spend huge amounts of money.

One more thing. At the superb Christmas dinner I learned that one of the guests,  which I know for almost 10 years now, opened a shop full of delicacies. Mostly German, based on grandmothers recipes. You can visit it online, but also in Hamburg. So, if you're still looking for that special Christmas present for mom or dad, hurry! My Supper

Toffee & Advent Calender

I'm an absolute fan of online magazines. Why, well 1) environmental reason like less paper which also means for me 2) more space available in my house as I have a difficult time throwing magazines away. 3) Print only what you really want and simply read everything on your computer. I wish, wish, wish we would have them more over here.

I believe it was last month that a new Australian online magazine called Toffee came out. I meant to write about it, but simply forgot. Absolute adore this Advent Calender which you can print for yourselves as soon as you bought yourself a copy, believe it was 2.99 Australian dollars for the whole magazine at Toffee

The influence of..

Look, even 'zwarte Piet' is transformed in a Little Pet Shop mega head figure.Looks like we're finally beyond the Disney princess phase, it's still wearing a dress though. Wonder what 's next.

By Tinker