9 little pieces of paper with a name on each. Who smells the best, I wonder? No cheating, now...
Quick! Prise those gnashers apart before he swallows it. (Kurt looks vicious here. He's not. It's all in aid of getting it on camera.)
Oktavas ene sønnedatter. Congratulations!Having just had a 'big' birthday, this video feels kind of appropriate. Just too bad it's a commercial..
Let me also just remind you that you still have a few hours left to enter for my give-away (see previous post). Good luck!
Tomorrow I'm sending my son off to kindergarten with this new yellow Fjällräven Kånken Mini backpack. It's a kid size version of a design classic and a birthday present from us to him. It was originally designed in Sweden in 1978 and is still very much in production, being a best seller all over the world. These bags are great for those little forest trips as they come with a seat pad.
I wish I could do work like this... I love the deco/jugend/Pucci influences in this artist's work. I don't have much info about Therese Wendt, but you can see more of her great portofolio by clicking here.
Protect your pocket books from wear and tear or simply hide the topic of your reading material from nosy fellow commuters. How to participate: leave a comment on this post, and you will be in the draw. I give you one week to do so. Good luck!
I had my big 40 party Friday night. We were 10 'girls' for dinner at the fashionable Bølgen&Moi restaurant. It was really good. Having to spend all next day baking cakes and preparing for my son's birthday party the day after.... not so good. But I persevered, and these cupcakes went down a treat. I quite dislike blue food coloring, by the way, but it's for the kids, right? I was thinking Jonathan Adler color combos at some point when decorating these...
The Fatboy was popular.
As were the soap bubbles in everyone's bag of treats.
Birthday boy didn't want to take off his crown, not even when it was time for pajamas.
These are my blog stats right now. Well, counting from when I set up my statistics, of course. (I think I'd had the blog going for some months by then). So – it looks like I'll pass 50 000 total blog visitors today. Not a lot compared to the really huge blogs of course, but it's a big number to me :-)
Also, I think it's interesting to see how I used to have mostly American readers, but now, after some publicity here at home, the Norwegians make up my biggest group of readers. Australia seem to have fallen out of my stats completely ;-)
We've been trying to decide on what material to use for our patio (above). We have been putting it off for years, waiting for our next door neighbour to do some work on their property that included bulldozing their way through our garden and leaving a huge crater where our outdoors sitting area was. This work was done last autumn and the garden was (kind of) put back together again this summer, but the decking is still not decided on. We have pebbles in that spot now. We need to fill in more pepples to raise it up to the level of that black plastic lining (protection from damp) and we also need to fix those ugly steps.
I think they are really beautiful. It's a costly job, though. And now I'm not even sure it's the best look for our house. We're also considering a wooden deck. That's the solution that most of the houses in our area have.
Concrete slabs in different sizes, making use of the pebbles that we already have. This should be easy to put down, I'm thinking - a bit of DIY - and how much can it cost? But what about maintanance? (Do they 'stay put'?) If you have experience in this, I'd love to hear from you! 
I only just discovered these pieces by Alex Couwenberg. They really appeal to me.
(And by the way, I think this is the first really cute illustration I've ever seen of a baby inside the womb.)
Kurt has been with us for 3 months now, and we're slowly adjusting. Today he's been insisting on sleeping on my lap for most of the working day... And with those long legs, it's a bit akward. But I can't resist a dog cuddle. (My former dog refused to sit on the lap unless we were travelling). Bad news for our black floors though, as he's covering them with his shredding hairs. And hoovering is not my favourite pass time. He's also proving a handful during our walks sometimes, flopping about and chasing ankles, shoe laces etc. We badly need to take dog training classes again. So much to do...
(Image from Desire to inspire via Inspiration Bubble.)
I saw this film at the weekend and can only recommend it wholeheartedly. It's about a famous house by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas – seen from the house cleaner's point of view. Very funny at times, and certainly very interesting.
Trailer no. 2 for the same film...
I thought I'd tip you about a great book today, but unfortunately it's only out in Swedish... So, big apologies to all my non-Scandinavian readers, but I hope you might like some of the photos all the same. The book is called 'Daggs att renovera – Var rädd om detaljerna'. It translates to something in the region of 'Time to renovate – Be careful with the details'. It shows houses from the 1920s to the 1970s in existing villa areas (in Sweden), and deals with the different architectural and interior details specific to each decade, and talks about the importance of keeping with the original ideas, whether it's to do with extending a house, altering the facade in some way or just changing doorhandles inside. The book also has some examples where house owners have done just the opposite. There is a lot of that going on in my own neighbourhood actually, and I think it's a great shame as this whole area of houses (built in 1968) used to be very homogenous and 'clean'-looking. Anyway, here are some images from the book:
Oh, the horrors... What were they thinking?
I really love the sleek funkis-houses of the 1930s.
This is from the 1960s and in a similar style to the house I live in. I wish I had those long windows and the tiny balcony on the side of the house, though.
