Happy fall, ye all!

New pillows to me must be like new shoes to other women. ☺

I like the velvet lamp shades I found at the local good will.

The safari chairs, whom my sister in law found at a flee market in Germany add a touch of quirkiness.

They are surprisingly good to sit in!

We have stocked up on fire wood, I have plenty of my beloved rooibos tea... I feel prepared for winter.

Pillow talk

Last year I found four pillos for 100NOK in the sale section of a home goods store.

Two with toile, and to aqua blue ones.

(As previously shown in this pic.)

But I never told you that I always just showed you the backside of the aqua ones. :)

Because the print on the front was not really my cup of tea.

While not totally bad, it somehow did not work for me.

I bought the pillows anyway, because

1.  they were cheap
2. I knew I could do something with them
3.  they had some really cute pompoms attached

With a floral print they make some summerly touches for my living room.

lampshade

I made a lampshade from my japanese  Echino fabric.

This old lampshade was  a boring beige and I didn't like it.

I removed the old fabric and measured the new.

Than I sewed along the needles and pulled the fabric over the shade.

Hotgluded the edges. Done. 

A sunburst mirror made from flower tags

When sunburst mirrors first entered home fashion... honestly, I hated them.

 But it seems even I get influenced by what's "haute couture" ;)

They grew pretty quickly on me.

Especially those made of wood...

In fall I made one of driftwood.

Than I sold it.

So I copied Nester's craft paper eddition.

It was a tad to small on this wall.

Than I saw those cheap flower tags at store (Biltema)...

and I kept my eyes open for a round thrift store mirror.

I played around a while with how to arrange the tags.

After finding how I liked it best, it was just to warm up the hot glue gun...

And voila:

Sunburst mirror 

Nr 3

Japan and our living room

Some days ago I cut some bare branches in the garden and look at them now!

Isn't this amazing?

Out of nothing - green leaves, soft pink flowers.

HOPE!

In the background yet another sunburst mirror I made some time ago.

Now it makes me think of Japan everytime I see it.

Land of the rising sun

So does this little bonsai tree.

quirky candle holder

Just a little impression from my January livingroom...

I love sukkulents and zinc pots.

See that little candle holder with antlers attached to it?

I paid 5NOK (0.85USD) for it at my favourite thrift store!!! 

It makes me smile.

Otherwise I'm busy preparing the guest room today, scince we expect a visitor.

And somehow all sewing projects pile up on top of this bed...

New sunburst mirror

Since my homemade sunburst mirror is for sale, I had to replace it with something else.

How convinient that the Nester just posted about 

how-to-make-a-sunburst-mirror

the day after I took down my old one!

This is the Nester's original mirror

I had all that was needed on hand - a free and quickly done project is what I love!

This is how my copied version turned out.

Mine is a bit smaller and will not hang there for long - but works fine as space filler until I get something else.

Happy weekend!

Linking to:

Cozy mornings

On Monday I promised to tell more about the map on my wall, but than I realized the Nester had her Christmas home tour party going... so I had to join 500 other people showing off their homes ;)

I had trouble finding something to have on this wall.

I can't have anything big, because there is a door to the right.

I tried different things:

(Spring 2010)

I loved the trunk there, but it was to large, you stumbled right on it entering the room.

Than I suddently remembered that we bought this old school map on a fleamarket many years ago for 20NOK (3.4 $)!!! It had been damaged on the bottom and therefore was put on the attic and forgotten for years ;)

But now I taped and glued it and Mr Viking drilled some holes into the brick wall.

I love how the beige/blue colors go with the rest of the room.

The map actually shows the county we live in, even though bought in another county.

This is the island we live on.

Scince 1955 there is a bridge over to the main land.

It's not on the map...

While it's still dark outside, the two youngest and I have a cozy morning today!

picture wall

I told you I'm not good at creating picture walls.
Now I know why.
There are to many possibilities, and therefore to many choices involved.

1. First you have to gather all the picture and stuff you want to include.
2. And than you have to get it up on the wall

I liked using the piano to display the pictures.

(mental note: wipe fingerprints away BEFORE taking pictures)

But it is a little impractical.

So get them up and get it done.

Tada:

This is what I came up with.

And I was actually more or less happy with the result.

Well, at least until Mr Viking came home.

Have I ever told you that this man has strong convictions?

(that's why I married him!)

Even about pictures and frames and...

... and how they should be hung over a piano.

So this adds a third step to the challenge of creating a picture wall:

       3. get your husbands approval

He is my severest critique. As I am his in other areas. This makes us a team.

So I removed some pictures, changed some frames. And it looks like this.

It's possible I'll tweak it a little after a while,

but for now that's it.

Linking to:

sunshine in the living room... and a missing curtain.

First I want to say *WELCOME* to all my new followers and *THANK YOU* to everyone leaving me such sweet and encouraging comments!

Merethe from Many Little Blessings had this genius idea to decorate each room as it gets cleaned.

(Why do not I think such obvious thoughts? - I thought I had to clean the WHOLE house before I could start to decorate...)

So today with sunlight beaming in my windows I gave them a good cleaning. (The sun is really standing low above the horizon now - and we have just a few hours of daylight here in the north.)

.

I added these small stars which gave the whole room instantly a little christmas touch.

And "my fair lady" (as I call her) got a scarf...

(BTW, she was golden when I discovered her in a thrift store, but I like her better grey ;)

And yes, there is a curtain panel missing... or two...

But I just had four large white damask table cloths - and as I never really used them I figured out it was better to have them as curtains.

Than we went to look at the sunset down at the shore.

(This was about 3pm)

I want to add a little more decorative lightning to my living room,

and some greenery. I totally love what Pretty and Posies did in her house:

But it's still some weeks to christmas... so I'll wait a little longer before I get the forrest in ;).