calendar 2012

Yes, it is time again to look for a nice calendar for the upcoming year. Actually I'm already kind of late this year...So I started browsing etsy and wanted to share my five favorite finds and the calendars I bought the last two years as they are also available for 2012.

2010 I had this desk calendar from story by mia  

2011 I got a tea towel calendar from Claudia Pearson

 

These are my contenders for 2012

1. desk calendar by Ruby Red  Design Studio 2. poster calendar by yumalum

3. wall calendar by BriarMade 4. poster calendar by edubarba 

5. black & white calendar by petitpaperie

merry christmas

Merry Christmas! Enjoy your holidays with your family and friends!

Can you spot our christmas penguin in the tree?

11 aus 2011

The year is almost over and it's time for a look back at what happened in 2011. Ricarda from 23qm Stil started 11 aus 2011 (11 of 2011) so people can share the highlights of their year. 

My highlights are mostly projects in and around the house I finished, love crossing things off my list(s). It feels good to see what I accomplished over the year because somehow I thought I didn't finish much. Of course it was not all work, I made my own bowl out of melted glue and saw U2 in concert in Anaheim, CA. Yay! Let's see what 2012 holds in store for me...

If you click on the pictures you'll be directed to the original posts.

office update

Today I write to you from my new and improved work space. Although it is not quite finished and there are still mountains of magazines that need sorting it's such an improvement from the previous mess.

The only things I bought new are the Alex drawer unit and the Forså desk lamp from Ikea. Everything else I already owned. Actually the birds are new as well. Sitting on the lamp is the coocoo showhorn and on the printer sits this little bird from West Elm. Yes, there is a Super Grover hanging on my bulletin board. He was one of my favorite Sesame Street characters and my husband gave it to me a while back. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Super Grover!

advent 4th

Today we tried out our new Muuto Gloria Candleholder that I bought at the Design Within Reach Outlet in Secaucus yesterday.

We drove there to look for a new chair for P's desk because now that my work space is almost finished we can work on setting his space up. He found one and was already standing in line at the cash register when I took another look through the store and then I saw the candle holder. I had to have it! Already had spotted it in magazines and on blogs but thought the $99 price tag was a little too steep for my taste. The one at the DWR Outlet had just been marked down to $40 the day before and with an extra 20% off on everything in the store that day it was mine for only 32 bucks. Yay! :)

another curbside find

Last week on Thursday I went to see a play with a friend. After the play I took the bus home from NYC, which is not my usual route but the theater was close to the bus station. Walking home from the bus stop I found this chair. The cushions were missing which is not a big deal because they might have been yucky anyways. I think the chair will clean up nicely with a little bit of work and once I work on my sewing skills I can hopefully sew some box pillows for it.

My list of projects for 2012 is growing steadily and 2011 didn't even end yet...

secret santa

On Saturday P and I went to a Christmas party at a friends place and as is tradition at her Christmas parties we needed gifts for the annual game of secret santa/yankee swap/white elephant. This year I picked this cute little sparrow key holder that somehow reminded me of a cuckoo clock. I totally want one for myself as well. The bird is also a whistle in case you should need one...

I am not the best gift wrapper so I'm going to show you my go to last minute gift wrapping solution. You just need a paper lunch bag, a Christmas ornament (I always get mine from Ikea, like this felt wreath) and a paper clip. Voila!

And the lovely mug in the last pictures is what I brought home although I was the proud owner of a bottle of bourbon briefly until somebody took it away and gave me the mug instead. Bummer! ;)

neutra house numbers in red

The Neutra House Numbers we got from Design within Reach are also available in red now. I wonder what color I would have painted the front door if we had bought them instead of the Aluminum ones. Maybe black or grey?

If you do like the lines of the Neutra house numbers the Neutraface fonts created by House Industries in collaboration with Dion Neutra will be right up your alley. One of these days I'm treating myself to one of the Neutraface font packages...

another one bites the dust

On Saturday we (actually I didn't do any of the work, it was P and R working) tore down the existing ceiling in the basement below our kitchen. Turns out above the wood planks were tons of dirt which blew very fine dust into every room in our house even though I taped the basement door shut and the openings to the kitchen. The dust was worst in the kitchen but it traveled everywhere in the house so we spend our Saturday and our Sunday morning cleaning. When I first saw the mess in the kitchen I had a little bit of a melt down but now that everything is back to normal I'm happy again, although all muscles in my body are sore. And I thought that this would be a relaxing weekend...

You may wonder why did we tore down the ceiling in our basement. The answer is that we added insulation underneath the kitchen floor because the basement below gets very cold in the winter and therefore the floor gets very cold as well. We will see if the kitchen stays warmer once it really gets cold here, so far the weather has been pretty balmy.

With the house there is regularly work waiting for us and inevitably renovating is not always a pretty sight ;)