ilove....Portugal

Happy, happy tuesday!
The sun is shining, its cold outside by the end of the week we might get lucky and can  go iceskating. THE national sport in Holland when its freezing. This reminds me of....
End of november hubby and i went to Portugal for a long weekend (yes without the children:)). We had 4 days of sunshine and 20 degrees.
We found this beachclub and settled in the beanbags with a great cappucino.( and great white wine after that)

Being there off season we were the only guests...

We had our choice of hammock....

I could live the rest of my life in that little blue house...God how i love the Ocean.

See those sunglasses.....thats Mr. R enjoying some november sunshine....

Just google this name and go there sometimes....we are in love.

                                                                  XX

ilove....my house

So proud to have our house featured in house and styling magazine Ariadneathome.
I don't have the original pictures yet so i took some pictures from the magazine to give you an impression.(So please forgive the poor quality)

 This Jil and me sitting at our table, sipping coffee (of course just for the picture, she doesnt like coffee)

The table i got from my dear friend Antoinette when she moved to Italy. (she is back now, but no way i'm returning the table ;)). And of course my (not my brothers :)) painting and bench.

Our kitchen.. see that cookbook. My favorite from Sophie Dahl.

Our bathroom and Jils bedroom.


                                                           Have a happy,happy tuesday

                                                                                  XX

ilove....colours

I don't actually. Well of course i do, but there is a reason why i painted our house white...whiter...whitest.
But life is boring without colors.Isn't it?

So to ad some colours (and Lord knows i need colours in january:))
I stole/borrowed these French old waterbottles from mum's house . Mum knows about me borrowing things, my house is full of it .... i don't return it  
(remember my library books mum?) and the bills that came in....

This old horseshoe is from a thrift store in Sweden, boring....but not with this violet ribbon.
(Did you know that you never,ever hang a horseshoe with its opening pointed towards the floor. The luck will poor out of your house and we dont want that, do we?)

I bought this colourful rope to tie hubby  to make presents more colourful.

Have a happy,happy colourful Thursday.


                                                      XX

ilove.....my parents house

So the New Year has started and of course i have New Years resolutions. Behave,blog more,drink less wine, watch less soaps and eat no chocolate for a while.....( a day or so)
I also bought a new camera.(thanks to hubby)
Yesterday i went to my parents appartement and tested it. Here  you can see where my love for styling came from.















Living room
















Like me my mother loves magazines and cant throw any away.




















My mum loves designers stuff...















And she irons all her bedlinnen....not something i inherited :))














My favorite colors...
















Ilove this chinese room divider, the Maria statue was found on the streets of Barcelona years ago.
Mum almost had to buy an extra plain ticket to take her home.....





















Mum and i both love to mix old and new stuff.

ILOVE her house and ilove her......(and Dad too of course)




                                                           XX

ilove......Christmas

Yes, yes still alive and kicking. Not going to write that i'll be blogging as usual again (as if anyone would still be remotely interested :)))  But for you who hung in there..
Just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year.... may all your dreams come true ...

Here are some photos i wanted to share.
We had a wonderful Christmas with lots of wine,good wine,great wine, desert wine, red wine, white wine, french wine, spanish wine ... (and a head ache). Oh yes and we had some lovely food.

See that drawing on my mantle... i copied it from something i saw on Desperate housewives ( see watching this does make you creative :)) 

   
































Candles, candles, candles.
Just used my good old pastels again.

No white Christmas this year...... dont you hate it when its green and rainy?

Anyways darlings...wishing you all the best for 2012 and hope to "see" everyone again soon.



                                                                            XX

ilove....livingrooms

Its out of sheer frustration that i am making this post. Too lazy to make pictures of my own house(which is a mess anyway).Nothing has changed out of lack of inspiration and me preffering watching Desperate housewives with my mouth full of chocolate instead of arranging some fresh flowers....
Now that this has been said i would like to share these pictures of different livingrooms and hope in doing so i get off my lazy b*tt and start making my own livingroom ready for Fall. (or clean it would be nice too)

   































This aint exactly Fall, iloveit anyway...maybe next summer (oh summer PLEASE come back, i miss you)

I might go and live in a lofty house someday  (oh that garden is driving us nuts sometimes, imagine spending a sunday morning on your terrace overlooking Barcelona) and start learning spanish, and go poledancing, kickboxing.....start a restaurant or foodtruck.....surfing.... and begin a webshop or a bed and breakfast ( i think i might have ADHD)

Me likee the combinations here....clean crisp

This is my inspiration for Fall colors, and the mix of styles. Perfect!

Have a happy, happy Wednesday..its sunny outside!

                                                      XX

ilove......route du soleil

For all of you who want to test your relationship. Try driving in the rain on the " route du soleil" (sunshine highway) and have nothing but traffic jams.

See that Lonely planet? Very optimisticly we headed towards Spain. It took us 22 hours to get there....

Because on this saturday everyone in France decided they had to go south also ( how dare they?)

Making a stop for gas and find at least 15 people in line in front of you having the same idea. (And i am not even talking about getting a cup of coffee)

 Jil gave up,the DVD player did not work.........

But we ended up in Spain. This is our VW in San Sebastian, a great town with great food.

Lessons learned.....

Our relationship still rocks....

And  never ever go to the South of Europe  on a saturday in august.

Have a great weekend...it feels great to be back.

                                                      XX

  

ilove....milesofsmiles

On a Danish beach

After having so much fun with our VW camper we decided to rent it to other people sometimes. (And to make some money :)) let's be honest....
I made a blog called milesofsmiles. It's in Dutch. But if my friends from overseas are ever interested in a fun trip trough Europe.....get in touch.


                                                                    XX

Back again......

My dear dear followers. I cannot explain why i have not been posting for such a long time. This is so typically me i guess. I'm pretty good at starting something but finishing it......and the fact that i am a lazy person :)
Anyway, just wanted to let you know ( if anyone is still interested...) that i am doing well and i missed all you guys. Many Thanks to themiddlestsister, Temps Perdu and Crumpets and cakes who asked where i was and in that giving me the final push to pick up blogging again.
Anyway everything is well with me and my family  just got back from a very nice vacation in Spain and the south of France with our Old Volkswagen.  We had a great time and such beautiful weather, amazing. Made us realise that we might, might just sell our house and live over there. You never know.Will post some pictures of our trip soon.

The exciting news is that our house will be featured (with an interview with me) in one of Hollands leading interior magazines Ariadneathome  and they will mention my blog. It will probably come out somewhere in October, will keep you posted. Pinky promiss :)

So now back to my ilove......

This is one picture ilove  

contemporary spaces design by san francisco Urrutia Design

It has everything ilove. The outdoors, the combination of old and new. And lets not forget that swimmingpool. Check out Houzz.com for more inspiration.

That's it for now, lets not overdo it :)


XX

ilove.......work in progress

This weekend we've been busy with Jil's new room.We finally made the decision to give her Nick's room.As Nick went to university and lives there i found it hard to give his room away too soon. But Jil's room was so small it made no sense anymore to keep Nick's room  just for the rare occasion he sleeps here ( very busy social life :)).

So we started painting and i was soo happy when Jil and i agreed about this beautiful wallpaper of Nina Campbell. ( ok i pushed here just a little ...)
So this is where we left it, still got lots and lots of work to do.I'll keep you posted.

 
































I still had some wallpaper left ( in fact it was a whole roll but please don't tell hubby...he was in shock when he saw the price).So i made a panell for our own bedroom with it.

I makes me happy, everytime i see it.

Have a happy, happy week.

                              
                                XX

ilove......this picture

If there is something that can move me its a picture. This picture was taken when a firefighter  in Wisconsin saved an old woman after a fire broke out in an appartementcomplex. It's the look in his eyes,the snowflakes, the dirty gloves and the sweet old lady, of course in a state of shock.
Thank God everybody was saved.

 



































                                                 XX

ilove.....this dress

As you can see in my profile i used to work in the fashion industry and had enough of it. For years and years trends and styles were my "core" business and i went to work dressed like a smart business woman :)
So after  i changed my life radically t-shirts and jeans is what ilove to wear.
For Christmas i already decided to wear a simple black dress from two years ago untill i saw this one while shopping for my last Christmas gifts. Tried it on...it fitted perfectly.

But i never feel comfortable when being dressed up too much so i also bought these  boots to wear it with.Oh yes hubby loved them :)

I wore the same outfit New years eve.......my feet are still sore but i felt great in it.

What did you wear for Christmas?

                                                                     XX

 

 

ilove.....this New Year

Happy, Happy  New Year everybody. I hope i'm not too late with my best wishes but i needed a while to recover from all festivities :))    May all your dreams come true......

Just wanted to share pictures of our Christmas table. We had a wonderful evening filled with love and laughter ( and lots of wine, food (and crazy dancing much to my childrens embarresment...)

 By day.....

By night....


I  used everything i already have ( i always buy too much in thriftstores) and put it on the table. I just invested in Bambi and a new tablecloth. 

So now it's back to normal and i must say i was ready for "normal". Just threw my Christmas tree out of the window, it looked pathetic after no water all the time.

Anyways, again have a good one.... and ilove and look forward to reading all your posts in 2011.

                                                                XX

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