2008

So it's the last day of the year, time to look back at...

January: We buy and move into our first flat! It felt so amazing and we're still so thrilled with our beautiful place. George started going to nursery school, a real big boy!

February: We spend most of the month settling into our new place.

March: This is what easter looks like for an (almost) two year old:

I also started the Obbosi-blog with a couple of friends. It's all things kids and family, in Icelandic though. Do check it out if you speak the language, or even just for the links.

April: Preparations for our new shop start.

May: The shop is coming together, Terry and the girls are working around the clock and stocking up all over Europe. George turns two on the 23d. We had a busy summer entertaining guests and on the 29 th the first one comes round, Johnny from London. He arrives on the day of the big earthquake, a spectacular welcome for a spectacular guest!

June: Foxy Gold opens! A fabulous mix of vintage and new.

July: I turn 33. Tanja, Eskil and three year old Elias arrive from Denmark. We have a great time and everyone is left slightly deaf after two little boys' shenanigans. Language is no barrier for those two! A few days later, Frankie comes from Holland and stayes for a couple of months working with Terry and checking out the Reykjavík night life.

August: We announce: We're expecting a little bundle of joy early next year!

September: It's back to work for me after 4 lovely weeks spent relaxing at home. We decided on no holiday this year, instead we entertained guests from abroad and worked on our shop. I start this blog. The Icelandic banks and the whole economy starts crumbling.

October: It's life as usual, except I get my letter of notice, our office hasn't made it through the credit crunch! I'm lucky though, at the end of the notice period, I'm going on maternity leave anyway.

November: It's Terry's birthday, he's 32. Obama gets elected president of the USA.

December: Well, it's the holidays, I try my best to drag my heavily pregnant body all over town to get ready, decide christmas will still come even if I haven't washed the floors, the tree isn't super-trendy and I and leave my mum to bake cookies.

This was 2008, tomorrow is 2009 and we have so much to look forward to. Happy New Year!

Happy holidays!

A little late, I know! I've been busy relaxing you see, and being completely un-goddess-y. Now though, it's time to get working, the nesting need has hit me bad and so I'm off to go shopping for a few baby things for little 'S'.

This is what I'm wearing; later: how the home is slooowly transforming to welcome the new addition (and to pick up where we left things a few weeks after moving in... we're ready to get started again!).

Winter lights

Outside a storm is raging, but inside it's warm and cozy.

I plan to keep most of the lights until way after christmas. I'm due to give birth in early February and with the dark days I'm guessing I'll need all the lights I can get. Only the santas will go, the kitch is only for christmas!

My kind of how-to

Check this out!

Ingibjörg Hanna

One of the most talented designers I know happens to be one of my very best friends. Everyone has been raving about her designs, from Grace at Design*Sponge, to the ever savvy guys over at Design Spotter, to ICON magazine. She also got a lot of attention at both 100%Design in London and Tokyo. And the best thing about it all is that her designs are very affordable (well actually that's the second best thing - the best thing is that she gave me all 3 raven hangers AND the Not Rudolf antlers just out of the blue... now that's the kind of friends we like!). Get hers and other great Icelandic designers' stuff here. More retailers here.

My antlers are going to look great on my black living room wall with fairy lights for christmas!

I've been tagged!

Thank you Viv, of wonderful blog ish & chi, for tagging me with the 'I love your blog' award. I'm thrilled! That means it's my turn to tag people, so here are my 7 favorite blogs:

1 A cup of Jo - for some New York fabulousness
2 Chez Larsson - for inspiration to make my life less chaotic
3 East side bride - for indie wedding inspiration
4 Le Blog de Betty - for French chic
5 Babyccino - for all little kiddo things, from 4 stylish girls in 4 stylish cities
6 Nesting - for family lifestyle, and finally
7 Crabmommy - because we're not all perfect goddesses!

The rules:
1. The nominated is allowed to put the picture on their blogs.
2. Link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate seven other people and link to them.
4. Leave a message on those people's blog to make them aware that they're nominated.

Thank you Viv!

Beautiful bride!

There was something about this bride that intreagued me... and then I got it, she looks so much like my mum on her wedding day in 1976! What a beautiful woman!

Wedding wings

Totally loving this bride's outfit, especially the feather shrug. Seen on East Side Bride.

I want!

Something for me!

Easy effortless holiday decorating from Real Simple.

I have a follower!

Yep, to my great surprise and delight, I found I have my first follower when I logged on this morning! Feeling quite fabulous, I celebrated by adding in a few more links.

apartment # 34 for a bit of home deco, fashion and life
a history of architecture for (pregnant) fashion and life
the sartorialist for fashion on the streets of the world
and rules of general economy to stop consumerism

Now where did I put that bottle of whiskey?

A colleague of mine once told me how he knows it's time to clear out the storage room. He simply hides a bottle of whiskey in there and when he's forgotten where he put it, well, it's time to start clearing out again! I intend to use this method. This is the task I have ahead of me now:

Looking at these pictures I feel like downing that bottle of whiskey right now, but it'll have to wait. Something tells me that I'll forget relatively quickly where I put it - let's say around the time I stop breastfeeding my unborn son, so in about a year and a half...

Stop consumerism!

Laws of general economy is a fantastic new clothing/accessories swap blog. Fancy this amazing vintage gold dress?

How about an ella moss cotton chambray striped pullover blouse?

This is all about giving and receiving, so dig out that old piece that just wasn't right for you and swap it for a future favorite!

Working on a sunny Saturday

Might as well make the best of it.
Lovely herbal tea and walnut bread with chocolate spread.

Desperate Housewife (that's me, in case you were wondering)

It can be so difficult to find time to clean the house properly. My husband and I both work full time (and then some), but we still try to keep evenings and weekends free of major housework. One of the best advice I've been given is to get a babysitter to come round one or two afternoons a week and play with my son while I do some housework. I tried this for a while and now that our second one will be here soon I'm thinking of doing it again. I actually went ahead the other day and googled something like "quick housecleaning tips" and found a few I'd like to share:

Clean up while you cook. Put away the flour/sugar/seasoning as soon as you've finished using it. If you only used a measuring cup to measure flour, you can just wipe the inside with a (clean) damp cloth and put it away. Put used bowls and plates straight in the dishwasher, you'll have less clutter and more space to cook and bake. You'll also enjoy your food better if the kitchen is clean and tidy-ish while you eat!

Let the kids help out. The older ones can help do the dishes and laundry, but they don't have to be very big to help out. The other day after we'd had rice with dinner it was all over the floor (as those of you who have ever had a two year old over for dinner will know all about) and when I was getting ready to hoover it all up my son wanted to play with the hoover. I just let him do that and he hoovered almost all the rice, one at a time, while I finished doing the dishes!!!

Try to get some things done before you leave in the morning (can be very difficult when you're trying to get the kids and yourself ready to leave on time). I try to clear some of the dishes while my son eats breakfast, you can take the garbage out with you when you leave the house, and it's always a good habit to make the bed as soon as you get up. It helps a lot to not find everything a mess when you come home from work and need to start getting dinner ready.

When the kids are in the bath (if they're big enough that you don't have to hold on to them while they're in the tub), you can get ready to go out. My son has reached the age where I can now take a shower while he's in the bathroom with me playing with the water in the sink or some toys. When I get out I'll put him in the bath while I get ready, comb my hair and put on some make-up. This only works on the weekends though, I'm not about to start giving him a bath every morning before taking him to daycare.

This is the best one I think, I did this just tonight. Again, it's about bathtime. While the kids are in the bath, clean the whole bathroom! Just hoover before they get in (if the like to splash, like my son), and you now have plenty of time to shine your sink and do all the rest. The fantastic thing about this is that they can stay in the bath for as long as they want, so you can skip the hassle of getting them out.

Some people have a fixed routine for when to do what, but that doesn't work for us. I can never know if I'll have time (or the energy) to clean the whole house every Thursday and do the week's shopping every Friday like my parents do, but if it works for you, it's an excellent idea!

Betty's blog

I just had to do a post on fashion when I saw this girls' blog. She has amazing style, makes me want to throw away everything in my wardrobe and start over!

I'll be following her blog very closely in the future, using the next few months to dream of the outfits that I'll finally be able to wear, post partum!

Our gallery wall

This is the room in our house we spend the most time in. It´s where we read, watch TV, work on the computer, build Lego forts with our son and just chill out.


We've almost been living in our flat for a year now, and I still can't decide what to do with this wall. I know I want it to be a gallery wall, but exactly how I hang the pictures (and what pictures to hang), I don't know. I have the two big pictures, the red one, which is a poster I bought at the Saatchi Gallery in London and had framed, and the one with the two ballerinas which my best friend painted and gave me when I graduated from Uni. I also want to hang smaller pictures, photos of my family, my son's artwork, my own drawings... and so on. Anyone have any helpful hints?
I don't know whether to hang the large pictures somewhere else and just have the smaller ones here, or whether I can combine the two. I've also contemplated putting up a couple of long IKEA Lack shelves to organise smaller bits and have maybe just the big red one hanging to the side of the shelves... I keep going in circles, please help!

Toys

It seems toys are everywhere in our house. Before I had kids, I thought this would be something that would bother me. I envisioned loud garish plastic toys, Legos everywhere (particularly exactly where I would put my foot down - literally) and, for some strange reason, cheese filled musical instruments. But you know what, I think toys are cool! At least they can be. Legos are fun. Our friends and family seem to like us, because they haven't given George any squeeky or otherwise loud parent torturing machines. The only toys he has that make a sound are musical instruments, which I don't mind. And some of them also look totally cool. Like this cute little Elmo my parents got him on a trip to the states recently.

There he is, trying to hide behind a green bucket full of other toys.

Last summer our cousin came to stay with us for a couple of monts. We don't have a guest bedroom so he stayed in George's room. He always sleeps in our bed, so that wasn't a problem, and we took most of his toys and gave them their own place in the living room. We had an old teak coffee table that we used for this, we put books, jigsaw puzzles, cars and such on top of it, and underneath went the green buckets containing Legos and other assorted things. George was obviously thrilled with this arrangement, and we were actually quite happy too!

What I really like about this is that the piece of furniture holding it all together isn't a designated nursery piece. This could be used in a kid's bedroom too.

Wow!

This makes me want to change EVERYTHING in my home!

(from inspace locations)

Ooh yay!

My radiator on AT again (the black one of course, here).

And ooh yay as well for productive evenings. I put two posts on the blog in one evening, added a whole bunch of new links AND mopped the floor! That's a lot for me. Somehow I just get more done when my husband's not home. He's in the studio playing rock'n roller for the night, I'm being a total homebud...

That time of year

I decided to sell my car in the summer and was lucky enough to buy a used Kronan bicycle from a collegue's wife, including the baby seat. I've enjoyed my short ride to work via George's nursery in the summer, but now it's getting cold, slippery and my baby bump is growing every day it seems (it's getting more and more difficult to get up that hill with a 13 kilo baby in back and a 7 kilo bump in front). So it's that time of year, it's time to park my lovely bike for the winter, I'll miss the wind in my hair and George loving the ride, laughing behind me. As "luck" would have it, or rather this recession we're going through, no one has bought my lovely car. So I picked it up at the dealership and am back on four wheels! Well, I'm in Iceland, I'm sure I'll be very happy not to have to plough through knee deep snow with a huge bump and a pushchair!!!

Bedroom before

Ok so my next post was going to be about the great storage space I want to create in my bedroom. Well I haven't quite got round to it yet, but I thought I'd show you the corner of my bedroom that I'm actually pleased with. Trust me when I say that the rest of the room is a mess!

I´ve gone for a different colour scheme in the bedroom, with slightly cooler colours than in the rest of the flat. White, dark brown and teal dominate in here. We chose a low bed (actually just two box mattresses from IKEA) as our son shares our bed. The lamp is a simple rice paper shade from IKEA, I use white bedsheets only, the throw is from a shop window in a shop where my husband used to work and we normally have a few books stacked next to the bed, either to read to our son or for ourselves. A bottle of water and a glass for those nights our son wakes up thirsty.

The list of things to do in the bedroom:
Hang a curtain to cover a nook, perfect for storage.
Move the bed to the wall to make space for a cot (crib)
Hang the light in a different corner
Finish doing up a little piece of furniture that is going to be a present for a friend of mine ;)
Hang a beautiful design object that was a present from a friend of mine ;)

I'll post better (worse) before pictures soon, I haven't taken them yet and my son is sleeping in there right now.

Another post coming up soon, a little landing strip, or rather a request for ideas for my landing strip.

Thank you for the mentions!

I was very excited to see my living room in the Roomarks: inspirational interiors on Apartment Therapy.

Even more so when Beth of Apartment Therapy LA contacted me about doing a before and after post on my black entryway.

Thank you for the mentions!

Entrance Hall - part II

I finally did it! Well actually, I finished it a few days ago but didn't get round to blogging it until now. Like I said, it's pretty simple. A section of the wall painted black, a couple of FRÄN hat racks from IKEA and some baskets on top for hats, scarves and such.

And what a wonderful opportunity to show off my vintage 60's cape that I absolutely adore. Too bad it's getting to cold to wear it now.

A few well chosen pairs of shoes on display (they make my eyes so happy!).

And for our son's coats we got these fantastic BÄSTIS hooks from the pet section in IKEA!

That's it, my entrance hall sorted. Next will be creating a better storage space in the bedroom.

My plastic bag drawer

As you may have gathered, I am not the most organized person. There is one thing, however, that I do organize OCD style: my plastic bag drawer! Maybe not the drawer itself as such, but no plastic bag goes in there without having been folded and tucked neatly into a very manageable triangle. Let me show you how it's done:

Lay your plastic bag flat on the table, fold it over lengthwise twice, so you end up with a long strip.

From the bottom up, start folding the strip into triangles, until you get an end that you can tuck into one of the triangle's sides.



What you get is a nice, tucked up triangle. No bags overflowing your drawer, very convenient in a small kitchen because you can make do with a very small space for your bags.



P.S. I know that kitchen worktop is absolutely hideous, it's on the top of my wishlist to replace it. In fact I want to replace the whole kitchen, but with our current budget, that's not an option.

Home office

One of the things I really want to set up in my home is a little workstation. Besides being a desk, it has to include a storage space for a laptop and some minor paperwork, but it also has to accommodate my monstrously big printer/copier/scanner/fax machine. Right now I think I'll go for some minimalist shelf/drawer type thing as a desk, and then wrap the monstrosity printer into some sort of container on it's own. I was looking for inspiration on flickr and I came across this incredible desk by commonhumans made from an old x-ray display, found in a university surplus store. What can I say, my jaw just dropped (as I'm sure yours did when you first saw this picture)!