Christmas decorations at home

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Here are some of the things I’ve done in the apartment to make it feel a bit more like the upcoming holidays…

 

 

 

And today, my sister and I are baking Swedish saffron buns!

see recipe at the call-me-cupcake blog, click on pic

Autumn decoration ideas for the home

The other weekend we went to the farmers’ market in Forest Hill and got lots of vegetables, cheese and fish. Perfect for weekend dinners.

I also got two mini pumpkins which are currently used as table decoration. I think it makes the kitchen look very autumnal.

Autumn table decoration

What we got from the farmers’ market

Other inspirational decoration for this season: 

Automnal wreath – etsy.com

Pine cone garland – twigandthistle.com

bhg.com

Chestnut decorated candles – mariangelasouza.blogspot.co.uk

candle holders with leaves – the alternative bride tumblr

I prefer the simple decorations to some of the many tacky and over the top fall decorations I’ve come across when looking for ideas.

 

Other amazing autumn pictures:

autumnenchanted.tumblr

whimseybox.com

westelm.com

acorns

etsy.com

splashnology

 

 

sources in urls

table decorations

These are my table decorations at the moment – a slate plate and shell that we brought back from our trip to Wales, stones from Croatia trip last year, a Fentiman’s rose lemonade bottle with lavender (I love that rose lemonade!), a table runner from the 50s and iittala candle holders.

 

 

Numi the kitten & her food dish

We have a new family member, Numi! She’s 9 weeks old and the cutest little kitten ever!

These are her food and water dishes, i didn’t have any actual cat bowls so we’re using my iittala candle holder and a sushi plate!

I also think it looks a lot nicer with these than normal plastic cat dishes in awful colours

my bedroom

The bedroom is not finished yet but it’s almost there so I thought I’d put some pictures up.

I love that we have two windows with amazing green trees outside.

I wanted a calm and romantic vintage feel in the bedroom so I mixed lots of white with wooden vintage furniture. I found the wardrobe on ebay for £50 and I think you’ve seen some of the mid-century chairs before as we have four placed at different spots in the flat. The trunk is my grandfathers, it has real labels from actual Atlantic trips. The cute little bureau is my grandmothers and the other day I found old insurance letters from the 30s in it!

 

This was my inspiration for decorating the bedroom, a picture from Zara Home

 

 

No what’s left to do in the bedroom is white curtains and some pictures on the walls. I bought an old map of Paris when I was there earlier this year, same map that my parents have had in their home ever since I was little. I just have to frame it an put it up. But why do these things always take so much longer than they should?

the map to be framed

 

new curtains & how to make your own

I have recently put up new curtains in the kitchen and living room. I made them myself when I was back in Sweden a while ago (with some help from my mum – tack mamma!)

Here’s how they look like in the lounge:

sorry for the scaffolding outside, it has been there for ages now which is really annoying! Here’s how it looks like when they’re pulled out, for example when watching a film

I wanted something discrete and black & white and found this textile at IKEA.

For the kitchen windows, I also wanted something black and white but with slightly more pattern. The kitchen and lounge are in the same room but kind of separate, so they needed to go well together.

In the kicthen, it wasn’t possible to have the normal kind of curtains because of the windows. So I made these short ones instead.

But both the kitchen and lounge curtains are made in the same style, I think it’s called slot top, or they’re at least similar to slot top. And they’re pretty easy to make!

 

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN CURTAINS:

1. Measure the windows and decide how long you want the curtains and how wide you want them. The wider, the more “waves”.

2. Add some inches for the hemline on all sides, especially a lot at the top (see further down why).

3. Cut the textile accordingly.

4. Fold the top hemline, approximately 10 cm, then make 3 seams (see picture below), this way you create some textile above the curtain pole and one hole for the pole. Make sure you make enough space for the pole.

5. Sew the other hemlines.

6. Iron the curtains (wrinkly curtains are ugly) and then put them up!

 

Picture for the 4th step above – the top hemline. The dotted lines are where you make seams.

 

 

This is my cute little sewing bag where I keep my sewing stuff!

 

hallway interior

I haven’t posted anything from my apartment in a very long time. Mostly because I wanted to wait until it was all done, at least in one room. But as all these things, it looks like it’s going to take a while before that happens. Here are some pictures from our hallway:

The one above is the view as you step into the flat. The chairs are from the 50s, I found them on ebay. The basket next to our wellies is a gift from my friend, we keep scarfs and umbrellas in it. Above is a painting I did a while ago. Further down the  hallway is an Ikea piece, Expedit, which I put on building blocks, like legs (as seen in another post: ikea bookcase fix up)

I’m going to put up more pictures above this sideboard, but haven’t got around to do it yet so these two have to lean against the wall until then. The fish one was me playing around with ink at a painting class last year.

50s dining table

We’ve now finally bought a dining table for the flat! I found it on ebay and it’s exactly like I wanted; a mid century  Scandinavian design teak table. Seats 4 and 8 if extended. It’s going to be delivered on Saturday! These are the pictures from ebay.

50s table

table when extended

the chairs

I think I’ll change the cover on the chairs to something else, shouldn’t be too difficult.

No more eating on a blanket on the floor and we can finally invite people over for dinners!

vintage treasures from paris

I went to Paris last weekend with two friends and it was just wonderful. The weather was amazing and we walked around in the sun, sat down at cafés and bars every now and then and just relaxed.

On Sunday we went to a flea market close to Porte de Vanves. I’ve never been there before, only to Porte de Clignancourt, but the market in Porte de Vanves is much smaller so that you can actually manage to find your way through it and it has lots of smaller vintage things for the home. They say it’s not as expensive as Clignancourt and I guess it wasn’t but it doesn’t mean it was cheap either. Although I did find some things to a really good price too. These are my vintage treasures from le marché aux puces de Vanves that I’ve now placed in my home…

  a vase

this glass jar

old perfume bottle

      a decanter

  a tiny silver spoon

 

my kitchen

Saturday morning! ahh time for some blogging while I’m having pancakes made for me… in the new kitchen. It’s the only place that is now in order in the home

• Turquoise china from Höganäs
• Blue cups with flowers from Åhlens
• Thermos from Stelton
• Pitcher from menu

I love old metallic jars. The one on the left hand is for coffee and the right hand one for tea. Lyles golden syrup jar is also  lovely.

And this was how the kitchen  looked before