ilove.....this song

My favorite song this Christmas.....

Maria Mena....home for Christmas   thank God i am  :)

Merry Christmas everybody.

XX

ilove....this church

ilove to visit beautiful churches.
This is a church in the south of Holland with beautiful frescos in pastel colors wouldn't it be lovely to go here on a snowy Christmas eve? ( or get married in Summer.....wish i could do it all over when i see this....with my own husband of course :)))

   I'm a little stressed... we have our family Christmas dinner ( 19 people) in our house. Still have to gather everything for the tablesetting ( doing pastels)  and think about what i will make for a starter.....oh my God. How are you coping my dears?

Let's not forget to ENJOY

                                                                    XX

ilove.....my dad

It's my dad's birthday today....and it's no secret...its the big 70 for him (you don't look the part though:))

Here are some of the things he loves....

Gliding...

My dad has been a glider pilot ( as a hobby) for many years. He decided to quit 2 years ago but had his share of fun. My dad is very "cool " in a sense that he is hardly ever stressed but hubby almost wet his pants when he took a flight with him, thinking that he was TOO cool that time.

Wine......

He loves to drink a  glass of wine. (doesn't say no to a good whiskey too).  So as soon as it's five
 o 'clock somewhere  he opens a bottle and enjoys a good glass with my mother.

Smoking.....

Here's something i don't love about him. But there is no way he would even THINK about stop smoking.
He has to smoke outside nowadays.... but Jil loves to keep him company so she can talk for hours about horses ( my father is a great listener). I do pray that she never starts smoking.
Now let's quickly drop this subject because he gets irritated when we discuss it...

Computers and gadgets.....

 Computer, mini laptop, multi media phone (yes he Pings) camera's, tv's .... you name it he wants it.Thanks to his son in law he stays updated and i must say he does well for a 70 year old man...

So Dad for your 70 th birthday the family will give you your new passion.... an iPad
But PLEASE  promiss you don't forget mum!

Happy Birthday Dad, you are the best.

                                                                        XX

ilove......giveaways part 2

I put all the names who entered my giveaway in this bowl....

Let Jil take out one ...... (please don't look at her chipped fingernails, she's always busy with her pony nowadays)

And the winner is........

Nina from " Temps perdu" in Finland.

Well deserved Nina, i will do my best to send it before Christmas.

To be honest, i would have liked to give you all something.....so if i win the lottery this year you might get lucky :))

                                         Have a happy, happy Thursday.

                                                      XX

ilove....Christmas and a giveaway at last.

Long time, no see...... (stay with me there is a giveaway in this post)
Been a bit busy with Christmas preparations. iloveit and ihateit. Schlepping things from the atic, hanging lamps in the Christmas tree, not my favorite passtime. But happy when sitting in my house and looking at the end result.

Normally i do the same tree every year. Mainly because of the children, they love to see every old Christmas ornament back. But this year i did something different. A pastel Christmas tree.ilovepastels

Bought a lot of the Christmas things at the thriftstore.

We also decorated the house. (thanks hubby for the technical support, and the patience :))

Picture is not the best, but i had to go outside with minus 7 in a small snowstorm

 ( we Dutch are not so used to extreme winters). We made the Christmas wreath ourselves.

And because i wanted the children to see the traditional Christmas ornaments i made this in the kitchen.

I  decided to do a give away at last... I wanted to give away these two handpainted Dutch Christmas ornaments.Here are the rules.....

Place a comment and be(come) a follower, be happy!

Wednesday the give away ends so i can ship them in time for Christmas.

And in the mean time have a happy-jolly Sunday 

                                                      XX

This post can als be found on Anna's Much love Monday. 

ilove.....creative space

When Ren of  the great blog Lady of the arts ( go visit her, she has a project of bloggers arond the world and her latest post is about me :))  asked me if i could send her a picture of my creative space i started to look at my creative space and what a mess it is :((
So this weekend i decided to work on a new creative space.
I has to be a space just for me, kids can only LOOK, filled with things that either make me laugh or make me happy. So this is the beginning and it already  gives me such a good feeling everytime i pass it.

Here are some of the items that passed the test.

I cannot imagine my life without inspiration coming from books. These are some of my favorite inspirators on interiors.

On top of the books is a snowglobe made by a local artist of a Dutch nudist beach. The details are perfect :0

Of course my creative space cannot go without a funny  postcard of my dear friend   Martien. For years we send each other hilarious cards and we are now into the German ones ( if you can understand German, you can see why it's hilarious, otherwise put auto translate on)

                                       Have a happy, happy Sunday make sure you laugh a lot! 

                                                                                    XX

                                                   

ilove...tossed and found.

Doing the laundry today, i've been running behind so i've got loads and loads to do.....in between i try to clean up the mess around the house. I keep telling myself how great it is when i finally settle down tonight ( big glass of red wine included) in a clean house.
Anyway, while cleaning i try to remove all the clutter that's been gathering around the house. Problem is, ilove tossed and found so what should i see as clutter?
Here are two items somebody tossed and i found them.

  
For this chair i made a new seat pillow, i cut the print out of a blouse (my grandmothers?) and sew it on. The dog pillow i bought because it reminds me of my dear Harry, the sheep pillow is from  Ikea.

This yellow trunk i found in the garage of my parents apartement in Amsterdam, i put in my the trunk of my car before somebody would change his mind. Wanted to make it another color but it's one of my many projects i never seem to find the time for.  You see that pillow on top? Handmade, and sooo proud of it. Normally i'm not into needle work and i already wanted to quit the project after  number 4 but i hung in there and finished it :))

Sorry, have to go now, finish my today poject :(

                                                 
                                                               Have a happy, clean weekend !

                                                                               XX

ilove....horses

Do ilove horses? My youngest daughter Jil  loves horses sooo much, and ilove her sooo much that we finally gave in. We bought her her own horse. Her love for horses started the day she learned how to talk and hasn't stopped since. We always said we would not buy her a horse so she rode the little wild Shetland ponies my neighbour farmer keeps.

   This is her on one of them. (same hairdo:))

She even took one of them with her, all fancy dressed, to show him off on the school playground. But they did not belong to her.

So when the farmer decided (after being single for a long time and finally meeting a girlfriend) that all the little ponies had to leave, Jil became the saddest girl in the world. That's when  Mummy started a lobby with hubbie to convince him it was time to buy her her own  pony (and believe me it wasn't easy :))  So here's the result of my lobby, Jil  with her own pony called Promiss.

The happiest girl in the Universe

 

                                                                             XX



ilove.....(h)optimists

Another lovely monday today, at least it's one for me. I've been working my *** off this last week, weekend included. So today my weekend started. After helping my two girls and hubbie out of the house ( am i a bad mother/wife when i'm glad they actually left for school/work :)  With the house to myself again i sat down with my usual cappucino and  a new interior magazine. Then the sunlight hit my baby birdie hoptimist. I bought her last summer in Denmark and she makes me smile everytime i see her.

She is created by Gustav Ehrenreich a Danish designer. She was wrapped in a great box and it was love at first sight. Her being pink might have something to do with it :) and of course  she immediately connected with my inner child :))
I hung her at our chandelier and now and then i pull her string and she looks very happy, just like me at this beautiful  monday morning.

Have a happy,happy Monday too!

XX



ilove....good packaging

So good to see that my blogfriends have not forgotten me, thanks sweeties for all your lovely comments.
Now back to work.
Don't you all agree that good packaging is at least 50% of the attraction (doesn't this go for men too;)
This is what i mean with good packaging



I would take my vitamins faithfully every day if presented like this. (besides the fact that i would prefer liquid  in stead of those awfull big pills)



Ok, i admit. I would eat this without good packaging................why do you think i make the healthy smoothies in the morning?  (so i can eat junkfood at night)

Let's celebrate this beautiful monday!

XX

pictures were found here, and here



ilove....Sophie Dahl's voluptuous delights

Hi darlings, i got back from my cocoon. I needed it I guess.... sometimes i feel like i'm a bit like the main character in my all time favorite movie "into the wild".
 I just get fed up with all material things and see no sense in buying stuff and decorating my house. ( ok a small exception for the new winterboots i bought :0
So i started of by making a new header, this might not be the final one ( i think it's a little big) what do you think about it? Gosh i missed you all!I will try to catch up on some of your posts.

While i was in my cocoon i did do a lot with my other obsession, cooking.
My new heroe is Sophie Dahl and her latest cookbook, "Miss Dahl's voluptuous delights"  . I know it's been on the market for a while, but i just started to appreciate it.
My favorite breakfast in the morning now is the Blueberry strawberry smoothie.
The secret ingredient i looooove is peanut butter.Believe me this smoothie contains everything you need to kick start your day!

                                                                 So here is the recipe

Serves 2

115g/1 cup of frozen blueberries

200g/1 cup of frozen strawberries

1  scoop of protein powder ( i like the vanilla tasted ones)

250ml/1 cup of soya milk

Honey to taste ( i never need it)

Peanut butter (optional)

Just throw everything in a blender and sip it through a straw. Enjoy!

                                                                       XX 

ilove....doing nothing

I don't know what it is. Is it an early autumn dip, or just being lazy. I just can't seem to get myself to do anything creative. I'm even tired of blogging, the thing that gave me so much energy, usually. So all my friends, please excuse me for not commenting and neglecting all your new posts. Just give me some time, and please don't leave me because you all mean a lot to me.I will be back asap.

XX

ilove.....Denmark

Hi everybody. First of all a big thank you for all your lovely comments (sorry i have not been commenting the last weeks) and a warm welcome to all new followers. I got back a week ago from a lovely vacation. Our plan was to go to more Scandinavian countries be we stayed in Denmark. What a great country! Here are some pictures from our trip.



We stayed a few days at the beautiful island Rømø at the North Sea coast. We were aloud to ride our van on the beach and there was a great relaxed atmosphere among all the people.

  A lot of kites were let up. This kite reminded me of the "pigs in space" of the muppet show.

On the island there was an old house that belonged to a Dutch ( yes the Dutch have been everywere) whale fisher. So beautiful, i have to show you all the pictures i took.

  An old boat in front of the house.

All the doors and ceilings were painted. Lovely,lovely colors.

The Dutch tiles and a red VOC  box.

Closet bed.

I loved the striped bedding.

This grey and white calm atmosphere in this old toolshed is so typical Scandinavian for me.Love it.

Then we travelled to one of the most beautiful cities i know, Copenhagen.
We parked the car in the neighbourhood of the shop of Brinja, she has such a lovely shop and her blog made me start blogging. Please check it out and visit her when you are in Copenhagen.

After visiting Brinja's shop (where i bought a handmade wallet) we took our bycicles off the van and explored the city by bike.

This is my daughter Jil who rode her bike through the city as if she did it everyday. ( and yes she is a Adidas fan)

 This is the old harbour, ilove the colors.

Copenhagen is a city where i could live. Clean, friendly and very hip!

The last picture i wanted to share is this beautiful red caravan, a neighbour at the campground. Now i want a caravan too!

 In my next post i will show off everything i bought in Denmark. It's great to be back in blogland and i  have  a lot of cathing up to do :)

XX 

ilove....our VW camper

Hi darlings, just a short post to let you know i will be on vacation. We are leaving with our 21 year old VW camper to wherever the road will take us.(praying it keeps driving).We will probably  go up north towards Denmark and Sweden, iloveScaninavia and... the south is too busy right now. This is our VW camper still parked in our garden.

  I made some small changes to the interior.

Couldn't resist buying this some polka dotted cutlery...

Will be back in 3 weeks and i will miss you all :(

XX

This post is also featured on Anna's Much love monday.  

ilove....this place

Is there a limit to what you should share with all your blogfriends? Yes i think there is. With this post i have almost reached that limit.I wanted to share some pictures of a "place" in my house i visit multiple times a day ( and yes i wash my hands afterwards:) It's a place that i can lock and be alone with my thoughts, without being disturbed. So i personally think that this "place" should not be neglected and styled properly.This is what i did to make every visit worthwile :0

I framed some pictures of the Kennedy family and a roadmap of the island  Martha's Vineyard. I spent a whole summer there when i was much younger,  and have very fond memories of it. It makes me smile everyday i see it. The thriftwood was given to me by my mother, she bought it in South Africa. Then of course to make my "place" smell good there is the Marseille soap....

  

  

I brought it back from our last trip to the Provence and besides the smell of the soap, ilove the pastel colors. There is also an old horseshoe ( huge size) wich i found at a thrift store in the South of Sweden and some advice to other visitors of my "place" to keep it clean and tidy. You see, my "place" is an everyday trip down  memory lane. What brings you down "memory lane" ?

Have a happy day.

XX 

ilove....H&M home

I'm sure i will not be the only one who makes a post  about the latest campaign of H&M home. But for those of you who cannot buy it in their country take a good  look...

This simple white linnen bag.

Girly,girly pillow.

Who would't want to dry the dishes with this teatowel.

Or sleep under these covers. ( they have the finest cotton quality)

How about these romantic curtains.

Got to have this towell.

Their campaign is called "Fall in love with"   I just did.

XX