Weekend trip

I'll be going away for the weekend, to Valdres (a 3-4 hrs drive from Oslo). It's an annual trip with a group of friends. We stay in a farm house belonging to one of my friends, and I will undoubtedly post some photos of the rather curious interior there, when I get back to civilization. The pictures above are from a nearby lake where said friend owns this little cabin. It's a great location and weather permitting we'll be walking up there to enjoy the quiet and the scenery. Can't wait!

An apple a day, etc.

Apropos of a visit to my dentist today, here's an illustration I did a couple of years ago when I thought I'd try and get into doing a bit of illustration. I've still got that ambition...

Random Friday stuff

I took inspiration from Mrs Eliot Books' post today. This is a vintage pattern that has been lying around my office for some time. I bought it simply for the picture.

Long time, no blog

It's been a hectic few days here recently with freelance work and a busy national holiday weekend (May 17th - Norway' Independence Day). And it's been freezing! So weird all these weather extremes.

Anyway. Here's a little tidbit I forgot to post earlier - another piece of vintage Figgjo, this time a lidded sugar bowl with 'Mecca' pattern. First time I've come across this pattern.

Thomas plates

More goodies from todays thrift trip: two plates stamped Thomas Germany. They remind me a bit of Lena Corwin's melamine 'Travel' plates.

Buying books for their covers

I thought these vintage book covers were too good to miss out on. I hope it's not going to be another collection (read: obsession) of mine...

Orange Figgjo and Stavangerflint

Scoop of the day from my local thrift market: bright orange cups and saucers plus a few egg cups from Figgjo. Unfortunately the plates were nowhere to be found, but I hope that I will find some in the future. Meanwhile I'll just use them together with plain white ones. Despite not having any pattern on them, I really like these cups. They are a good size (I often find vintage coffee cups to be a bit small and mugs to be a bit big) and have a simple design that rests nicely in the hand. Plus they go well with my love for orange, of course.

The pitcher in the background is stamped Arklow Studio Craft, Made in Ireland. It pours really well which is not a given - I have quite a few useless creamers.

The serving platter is by Stavangerflint and actually not one of my favorite patterns, but on a single item like this I think it works well. The design is called June.

Architecture, soup and new shoes

The last images for you from my outing today:
The doorway of the Snøhetta architect office, my lovely new shoes stepping out on the white marble of the Oslo Opera house rooftop and lastly a fantastic soup from the opera house brasserie (creamy potato and leek soup with crunchy bacon and a hint of truffle.Yum!)

Opera house details

Here are some of the architectural details of the Oslo opera house that caught my eyes today.

Possibly my favorite details are the 'mesh' walls surrounding the cloak room area. Designed by the marvelous Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.

The Oslo Operahouse

Today's outing was rather spectacular. The weather was fantastic - proper summer - and the destination for our little family excursion was the new Opera house here in Oslo. To walk on its roof, more specificly. We ended up having a great lunch there as well.

The architects behind the Opera is Snøhetta Arkitektkontor. There has been lots of controversy over this building, which officially opened less than a month ago, but now it seems to rapidly become our new national treasure.

I was hoping to come inside to the main stage and photograph the fantastic prism chandelier I've heard so much about, but that will have to wait. (Access only via guided tours).

Garden shed/workshop

I've been dreaming about a little house at the end of our garden that I can use as a workshop.This fabulous one above is from English interior magazine Living Etc. some years back.
However, putting up something like this is way out of our budget. Instead, I'm planning on setting up a workshop in our existing shed (which is connected to the house) and rather move as much as possible out of there and into a more ordinary garden shed. I'd quite like something like this one (below). With a lick of paint, of course. It comes as a flat pack and costs about $3 300 (NOK 16 900). They are quite easy to put up. (Apparently..) I'm lucky enough to have a handy dad with a surplus of building materials, and hopefully he'll be able to put up something similar. We'll see.

Polarn O. Pyret blues

Kiddo has been wearing his share of orange (not to mention brown) lately, and I thought a new additional color would be good. I don't usually go for blues, but I really liked these sky blue patterns and the very 70s Bjørn Borg-like shorts that I found at Polarn O. Pyret recently.

I think I will look for some green patterns next, to go with the fantastic spring green we're having at the moment.

Orange

I'm still very much liking the color orange on things.