ilove Queens day

If you ever have the chance to be in Holland on the 30th of april, please come and visit. It's the day our Queen celebrates her birthday and everyone has the day off.

This is her with a slightly trendier hairdo than usual.

Orange is the color of the dutch royals so everybody ( and i mean everybody) dresses in orange.

Even the tulips join in...orange

People sell their old junk on the street, but  if you like vintage (as i do) this is the day for you.

The canals in Amsterdam get a little bit crowded with little boats.

Happy Queens day :D

ilovemymum

Happy birthday to my mother :)

This is my mum, with my brother and me, back in the seventies. My mother is a woman with great taste and a perfect eye for beautiful things. Here's a small selection of things i know she loves.

Bedding. Oh my god! You should see her closet, it's full of the most wonderful sheets and bedding.All perfectly ironed. We call her the queen of beds. Stay at her house and your bed is always perfectly soft and colour coordinated.

Barcelona, Spain. Her favorite city. Back in the days she went on a lot of business trips to Barcelona, and enjoyed being there on her own .Happily leaving her family in Holland behind, well done mum! You deserved it!

Magazines, leafing thrue magazines is her favorite passtime ( and mine)

Fashion is another passion of her. My mum built her own fashion labell, from scratch, and was very succesfull.This is an outfit she would love to wear.

And last, but not least. South Africa. A country she loves. Every year she and my father go there for at least 6 weeks.Saying they will miss us, but i'm not quite sure :)) She can go on and on about how she feels at home there and how beautiful it is.Again something you deserve mum, and hope you will enjoy for a lot of years to come.

Happy birthday mum, you are the best! XX      

ilove...flowers

I used to think creative people sat behind a desk and just thought up new wonderful things. I can't do that so i considered myself not a creative person. After working in the fashion industry for many years and working with many so called " über creative" people i saw that everyone got their inspiration from somewhere and that's how it works :). It's not stealing, it's getting inspired. So when i saw this.....

And this...

And this....

And this....

I did this...

I bought the bottles at the thriftstore, about 50 cents each, and just made sure that the type of glass was the same. Than i bought some different flowers for about 5 euro.It made me happy and creative.

Later i saw this....

It's a workshop from Design Sponge about  wild flowers, even more inspiration.

reviving and recycling

Plastics, paper and a lot of empty winebottles. Of course i recycle and "schlepp" everything weekly to our local recycle centre.When Frédérique Morrel found a hand embroidered painting from her deceased Grand Mére she decided to recycle it. Actually she calls it decycling because for her it's not about the recycling but about saving the tapisserie and giving it a second life. Here's what she created.

Footstool and cushions

Sofa, these are pictures of her beautiful appartement in Paris.

Now i know what to do when you see these embroidered paintings in thriftstores :)

The Beirut based design duo Bokja have a love for ancient textiles and tapestries. This is their latest creation for the Milano  fair.

The dutch king of recycling is Piet Hein Eek who for years made beautiful things out of demolished wood.His latest recycling project is a collection of vintage glass with which he created stunning chandeliers.

just some things that make me smile

I have some things in my house which make me smile each time i see them.

This is a cookie factory which i used a lot to bake cookies with my children. When you open it you see this..

 

Everything you need to bake cookies (apart from the ingredients), the cookie cutters are so cute.My favourite is the pig. I think back at the little hands of my children preparing cookie dough and pressing the cookie cutters ( they always stuck to the cutter, by the way).Smile.

This lady i bought in Florida a long time ago, she was together with..

This man. They are a couple. When you press their chests  they say things like:

He:  Let's go to bed and talk all night..

She: I don't mind taking the trash out, i could use the excersise..

He:  Darling take just enough time to get ready, i don't mind waiting

She:  You don't need a glass, just go ahead and drink right out of the carton...

I know it's stupid and stereotype but when i press these chests and they talk... Smile

This is a diary i bought recently from Nothing Elegant. It has all kinds of cute drawings of this girl.

I bought it together with this stamp.

 

Each time i open the diary or use the stamp.Smile....:)

i heart hearts

For those of you who've been following my blog ( and many thanks for that by the way) you might have noticed that ilovehearts. Hearts make me happy, hearts make me smile. When in a boring meeting i doodle hearts. My company logo had to be with a heart.I can go on and on about hearts. A new trend here in Holland,  is to say "i heart it", instead of saying "i love it". So here's what i heart!

This is the ring my husband gave me when our youngest daughter was born, heart it sooo much ( as i heart my husband) 

 

Hand knitted hearts, heart it.

Heart shaped macarons, heart it.

Heart shaped photowall, heart it.

Should have worn this dress at my wedding,heart it.

I drank a coffee like that in Italy, heart it ( as i heart Italy)

 If i were single i would park my car here, heart it 

 

 

Receive a heart letter? In here please, heart it.

 

Heart, heart, heart this.xx ( what do you heart?)

letters

Something written or printed can move me, or brighten my mood. When my sweet dog Harry died i wrote this on the wall. I recently thought it was time to remove it, it's been almost a year now since we lost him. But everytime i saw it in the past year i thought about how much  i loved him 

Just some other things i like

These vintage handprinted handkerchiefs from BirdandBanner remind me of how grateful i should be that this is true in my life. 

This makes me want to travel!

All you need is Love 

Everyday is a new day!

iloveholland

Because i do my posts in English i have a lot of followers from outside of Holland. So i wanted to share some things my country Holland is known for.Let's focus on the positive ones ;) shall we ?

I got this from my mum, she just visted a famous fishing village called Volendam and bought this for me.Cute!

Then of course the windmills, i like this white one (can't figure out why?) 

Wooden shoes, but let's stay elegant and buy these of Viktor&Rolf  

And last but not least Tulips, if you're ever in Holland in Spring make sure to visit the most beautiful flower exhibit the Keukenhof and me.

clean sheets

I i were a millionaire there would be two things i would want everyday.Clean sheets and a massage. Today i did a small spring cleaning  and changed the sheets. One of my favourite bedding is from H&M home. Their cotton is affordable and the threadcount is perfect. After all the hard work i could not resist to take my favourite book of this moment, its called  "Naked" by David Sedaris and relax for a while. When hubby comes home i'll tell him it's time for my massage ;)  

old people are cool

Although i'm (only) in my forties i hope when i grow up (if ever) i become a well-dressed, sweet (sometimes not so) old lady some day. I think old people can be really cool! (and a little annoying sometimes)     

        





















So well dressed

The movie "UP" made me cry because the main character is sooo cool

LOVE the glasses

ÜBER  cool  Karl Lagerfeld

(Necklace of "old is cool"can be found at Kabiri, should you be interested)