Bruges

Two days of Bruges, Belgium together with my husband, without the children. A real treat. Below some highlights & links.

1. Wonderful guesthouse Cote Canal & Huyze Hertsberge. Big rooms, great ambiance and excellent service;
2. Being a vegetarian married to a non-vege, there should be both on the menu. Baobab serves great dishes with excellent wine;
3. A place we've visited before many years ago for a quick lunch, but also good for dinner or just a drink. Has a cinema next to it and serves the largest menu of rum I've ever seen. It's called De Republiek;
4. Only open during lunch hours and very popular amongst the vegetarians Lotus;
5. A little shop selling 'out of the ordinairy' stuff from tribal to industrial. Bummer they didn't have that lamp in another colour. Depot D'o;
6. Beautiful gallery with a great diversity of artworks, Absolute Art Gallery;
7. All about paper & postcards, definitely worth a visit Alfa Papyrus, you won't leave empty handed;
8. Though all of Bruges is one big historical monument, het Begijnhof has a special ambiance;
9. Nice exhibition at the 'Oud Sint Jan' From Picasso to Joan Miro;
10. Bruges is full of places selling the most excellent chocolates, I believe in total 53. Zucchero makes & sells all kinds of sugars for birth, baptism or wedding.
11. The very tiny oh so typical Belgian pub Garre, serving a huge list of beers including there own. Luckely for me wine is also available.

Merry Christmas

Just a few hours till Christmas Eve so we are still in time. We wish you all a very nice Christmas time. Although we are not exactly alike the two girls in the picture, it should resemble us, Mo on the left and me in the green on the right. Mo would have gained quite a lot of weight, which isn't true and I would have grown in height, which is unfortunately also untrue.

We've also taken James out of the Music section and replaced him with some Christmas songs. It's a bit of a rock Christmas section now, as we're not in to the very very traditional Christmas songs. Enjoy.

Christmas princesses

Wondering what your princess is going to wear at Christmas? Visit Moti, they have lovely dresses for your girls, made of natural fabric and out of the ordinary. Have a look! My favourite is the blue with gold. You can buy them online at Moti or at Imagine (also selling our postcards) or Lovely at the Park, both in Amsterdam.

Liefgoed in the newspaper Het Parool

The finest DIY for Christmas 2011

I've been surfing the web yesterday evening for the finest DIY for Christmas this year and maybe it's me being too difficult, but it was quite a search looking for extraordinary projects that I really really liked and wanted to do myself. But here they are.

1. Lovely white scenery in a jar from Tortoise and the Hare

2. Nice white clay ornaments, could be used all year around actually. I can also see them used for an advent calender. By Fancy House Road

3.  Truly nice christmas ornaments for in the tree or on a simple branch of wood. By Voyages of the Creative Variety

4. A twinkling glass and red and white chandelier by Fun.kyti.me

5. A beautiful soft and colourful christmas ornament by Happy Serendipity

6. Excellent gift tags free to print for you by Eat drink chic

7. A rendeer shirt, or skirt if you want. Also nice for the kids. By Freckles in April

Bidprentje

Joyce's husband found his devotional for his first communion, so cute. We're puzzled about the seven thingies at the bottom, anybody? We'll reward you with a virtual kiss!

Favourite artist of this very moment

As we are missing any regularity on the favourite artists section we've choosen James Morrison for the one, for as long as we like, could be a week, could be a month but don't coun't on any changes tomorrow.

Illustration via MALExtra

Go Green Market, October 30

This Sunday 30 October, Liefgoed will be present at the Go Green Market of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior festival (10.00 - 17.00). This festival will take place at 29, 30 & 31 October and 3, 4, 5 November, kop Java-eiland Amsterdam. What will we bring with us for you to buy:

Excellent laptop sweaters, made from sweaters done living a life as sweater and given a second life as a warm protector of your precious laptop. We even have Ipad sweaters!

Nice paperclips, given a second change as the were saved from a horrible man who used to molest them! They've been pimped with leather leftovers from musical costumes and finished of with old buttons. So now you can use them as bookmarkers or clips for your bills or anything that needs to be hold together.

Whatelse? The Liefgoed Family Planner for 2012 full with new Liefgoed designs that bring you back to the old days. You'll receive a special bag with the Planner made from old Bali ricebags. And of course the Add & Edit notebook filled with paper saved from the bin. Want to see more? Come and visit us this Sunday. For more information check Sunday Market or Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior Festival for the full program with discussions, music, entertainment and food.

Aalesund

Ever heard of Aalesund, it's a town in Norway and it has an excellent shop called Farmor Ingvarda selling lovely stuff and... our Liefgoed postcards. Have a look for yourself at Farmor Ingvarda's blog. It's not very likely that we visit Norway anytime soon, but when we do, Farmor Ingvarda will certainly be on the list of things to visit. Thank you Trine for having us in your excellent shop!

Project 52 Kaartjes

We love the idea of the Project called 52 Kaartjes.
An initiative of two sisters Annemiek & Anna who send each other a handwritten card every week and post about it on their blog and twitter.

Why? Because we hardly send or receive handwritten mail anymore. And isn't that a pity! Do you remember there actually was a time that we were looking forward to the visit of the mailman? I bet he was happier too those days, now it's mainly the bills that he needs to deliver, no fun in that. 

So join in, not only you will enjoy it, but also the one receiving it plus it will bring back happiness to the mailman's life, and of course us (... we love to design more and more postcards).

This was this weeks card from Annemiek to Anna.

Photographs via: Cees Picauly & Liefgoed.