Wishful thinking....

Dear reader,

 I had a wonderful, quiet Christmas-evening with my family this year....I finally had some time to spend some time in the kitchen to prepare Christmas dinner. I prepared a nice pumpkin soup, a great stew of venison with homemade potato croquettes and cranberry sauce and ended with my home made chocolate cake....

Everyone enjoyed it ! 

It has been a strange year with lots of ups and downs...looking back on 2013 I must say that I also learned a great deal about a lot of things, but also about people...Overall it was a good year ....We also got a lot of new, interesting & lovely clients who found us through my blog,  for which I am very grateful. 

I also want to thank all my other clients for the confidence they had in us. It always makes me very humble...

As tomorrow is the last day of this year I would like to make some wishes...:

* I wish you all a safe and healthy year

* I wish you an interior filled with the things you love the most

* I wish to find the time to post more on my blog...

* I wish people would  talk less and listen more

* I wish  you all  more quality time

* I wish you all the love you can get ! Given or taken: it's for free !

See you again next year !

Lots of love

Sabine

XXX

To end, I would like to share some impressions of our Christmas....

Oh so lovely blog - free printable calender 2014

How cute is this mint morrocan tile calender? And it´s totally free to print.

 I choose this one for my office.

Go to Oh So lovely blog and choose your designs.

Swedish Christmas Market

I'm sure we all have a pretty good idea about what a German Christmas Market has to offer now that they also seem to pop up around the UK. So, whilst it's probably not radically different, I thought some of you might like to see a traditional Swedish Christmas market.

This one was held in the Medieval town of Sigtuna. This lovely town is on the shores of a big lake and is the oldest town in Sweden. Narrow shopping streets are filled with welcoming cafes and shops and the main street leading up to the town square is where the market was held. A very popular event, the town was rammed full of people. On the whole the market was predominantly hand made goodies mixed with food stalls, the cake stall drew our attention and I do believe we 'had' to buy one of each type of cake, just to sample them all.

a huge variety of different types of wreaths

The little gnome figure can be seen a lot. He is called Tomte and is a mythological figure from Scandinavian folklore associated with the winter solstice. He is three foot tall and is a gift bearer, rather like Father Christmas.

yes, we will have one of each please.

Apologies to this handsome chap for an unflattering photo, he became known as "my future husband" for the times when I dream of marrying a Swedish Viking and run off to live in the mountains. 

these hand felted boots are very similar to the Russian Valenki boot.

Knitwear aplenty, and so lovingly made.

straw ornaments are a very popular feature, either these hanging ones or a horse figure. 

hot nuts anyone?

And then to round off the bright cold day, a sunset to be proud of.

So as they say in Sweden, God Jul to you all, lots of love to everyone who found my blog which I started this year, hope to see you again soon. 

A purchase that Kelly Wearstler would approve of

Dearest all, I am almost due to deliver the baby, and my hormones are going nuts.

I have to organize the whole house and I also went to an antique market yesterday and purchased this marble roman foot. I am so so happy with it. I think this is a purchase that Kelly Wearstler (my decor godess) would approve of.

It is now on my coffee table and it matches my roman painting behind the sofa.

an image of Kelly Wearstlers book Hue, a stone foot on a table.

I am soooo happy to have found a moment to post again. Oh my I missed it.

love xxx

Swedish Windows

This could be rather a long blog, photo-wise, as I saw so many beautiful things in Sweden. As I mentioned before, everyone, and I mean everyone, puts lights in their windows at Christmas. Even shops, offices, you name it, if there's a window they put either a star or an advent light in it. Sometimes one or the other and sometimes both. If this sounds a bit uniform, then I hope these photos will show how individual they can be. I also wanted to show the lovely colour combinations of traditional houses and they way the old houses are painted, I hope this inspires you to do a Swedish window in your house, it cheers up a rather dull and grey time of year, if only everyone in the UK would do it too, lets start the fashion eh?

My first outing was to the cute little town of Sigtuna, there was a Christmas market in the town centre, a separate post will have to cover that so I can go into more details. This little city is the oldest in Sweden, founded in 980, and a prettier place you could not imagine. It has a Medieval town centre with a gorgeous shopping street full of cosy cafes and also a place where you can get big knitted pants !

So onto the lights, here are some pics taken around the area where I was staying just outside of Stockholm. 

apologies to this lady who was watching tv but here windows were fabulous

We had a photo shoot at our favourite backdrop, the hotel called Gorvalns Slott near Stockholm. If you want to treat yourself it is superb, every room decorated in different styles. They had opted for just the star decoration for their windows, very classy.

And yes, it snowed, the first snow of winter for Sweden, so with their winter tyres fitted, their cars plugged into a heater and their snow boots purchased (from Canada funnily enough), the Swedes are set for the white blanket to follow. Yes, that will also have to be a separate post. 

I found and always do, many wonderful things in the charity shops, so I brought back some crochet snowflakes, a cute crochet window valence and some vintage candle lights. Most houses not only put the lights in the windows but drape the inside frame with Christmas curtains and a little valence along the top. Here is my Swedish window. 

In the meantime, off you go and get your windows lit up, you know it makes sense. 

Winter Solstice

The winter solstice is usually on the 21st December but I do believe that this year it's the 22nd December. Its the shortest day of the year and is celebrated because soon the light and warmth will return.  If you have ever wondered why we decorate for Christmas the way we do, well it dates back to our Celtic, Nordic, Pagan roots and heres some history behind the things we recognise. 

The tradition of bringing evergreens inside are as a 'symbol of life' through winter, a period of terrible hardship for your average Celt.
The wreath, yule log, holly and mistletoe decorated the houses of our ancestors during the winter solstice and these traditions run across the whole of northern Europe. 

the colour in the background is Annie Sloan Chalk Paint - Provence.

You can learn to make your own wreath at florist workshops all through December and when it starts to look a bit droopy, just pull some bits out and add some fresh. Heres one I made with things I found in the garden, primarily rosemary and bits off the pine tree. The dried oranges were bought from my local garden centre (Waddesdon Plants). I don't hang mine on the front door because then I don't get to see it very much. Instead I put it somewhere in the lounge.

It seems that the wreath dates back to Roman times, when winners were crowned with a laurel wreath. They would hang it on the front door to show their victory in ... whatever it was they were doing. It went on to become another symbol of fighting through the winter.

The scarf in the background is from Folkski.

The Yule log is not just a cake you know ! It was traditionally something a family would chop down and bring inside on the winter solstice, it then was doused with cider or ale, sprinkled with flour and burnt. It should then smoulder for 12 days and was the highlight of the solstice festival.  I shall not be dousing mine with my precious home made cider, but in true Blue Peter fashion, heres one I made earlier.  I got hubby to drill me three holes and voila, tied on a few garden bits, a homemade candle holder.

Paints used here are by Annie Sloan - Provence in the background and on the table its Aubusson with a stencil of white and red. The candelabra and hanging came from charity shops in Sweden.

So I'm off to Sweden this week for a photo shoot and heres some traditional Swedish Advent lights I bought on previous trips in junk shops for a few pounds. The advent lights are displayed in the the windows of every Swedish home, primarily its thought because its so dark there during winter that it would light the streets for passers by.  It has no religious significance and the candleabra come in various sizes from 3 to 7 candles, always an odd number but just for aesthetic reasons. The electric advent light came to Sweden from Germany in the 1930s and the man behind H&M was the first to import them. 

Other traditions regarding holiday decorations are that bringing inside some mistletoe, holly or ivy would invite Natures Sprites in the home. I like this idea. Holly kept by the front door all year invites good fortune.

I love to make an event out of tree shopping and its all made possible by the wonderful Ingrid at Claydon Christmas Tree Farm.
They are growing their own trees which will be ready in 2015 but in the meantime they bring trees from Wales up to us in Buckinghamshire and they are truly great quality.

But I haven't told you yet the main reason why I go there, its because (ssshhhh now don't tell anybody) Santa leaves his Reindeer there to be looked after by Ingrid. Here is Tatiana from Folkski with Sophia.

A real life Reindeer can be a formidable creature to meet you know. Poor little Sophia had to hide inside her mums Babushka scarf. The Reindeer are so well behaved but those antlers are huge.

I've been decorating the house to fit with the winter season and found some things to paint. This wooden carved 'thing' was found in a charity shop so I painted it up with Annie Sloan chalk paints and stencilled with my own hand cut stencils. The colours used are Graphite, Emperors Silk, Antibes Green, Greek blue and old White.

I made the little felt Dala horses by doing a mini version of the one in Mollie Makes issue 32. The wall behind is my chimney breast which is now Aubusson blue. 

So as its time to climb into the loft and find where the hell we put the decorations last year, I wish you all happy hunting and will catch up on my return from Sweden.