The London Report, part two

No London trip is complete with at least a little bit of shopping. And while shopping wasn't the primary goal of our trip, we did manage to stop by most of the stores I was hoping to visit. The Cass Art flagship store was great, as was Foyles and Forbidden planet (geek heaven!). And of course, the fabric and haberdashery sections at Liberty was fantastic as always. Above are my Liberty finds: gorgeous washi tapes, a pretty lavender sachet, and... What's in that white package, I wonder?

The above is a phone picture I snapped as we were unpacking our bags on Sunday. With the exception of apparel (because really, this is not a style blog - I doubt you'd be interested in a couple of Primark cardigans) and a few gifts, this is everything I bought on our trip. Of course, leave it to the librarian's daughter to pack her suitcase full of books she could just as well have bought online from the comfort of her living room... I can't help it, books just call out to me! But I also happen to think that books make great souvenirs - every time I pick up a particular book I'm reminded of how and where I got it, and that's the whole point of souvenirs, isn't it?

As you can see these books are mostly my regular brand of non-fiction, but there are a couple of craft/art books in there too. My plan is to learn how to draw faces and draw people in 2015! I also got some postcards, brushes and art masking fluid for a watercolor project I'm planning. And of course there are a few geeky things in there too - the Deathly Hallows key ring has since been turned into a necklace, and the chocolate frog has been devoured.

But now, for the all important fabric reveal. Get ready to drool!


Seriously, how amazing are these?? I've been trying to pick a favorite but it's just too hard! I love the Kayoko Tana Lawn, I bought it in red this time but I actually have it in another colorway (pink/cerise) as well. But I think my favorite of these is actually the red and green print at the top of the stack, I can see myself using that a lot next year. The only problem with Liberty fabrics is that they are so nice, you almost have to force yourself to cut into them. But I wan't these fabrics to be used, not just sit around, so I will have to get over that. Any tips on Liberty-worthy projects I should add to my list?

The London Report, part one

My one week blogging break somehow turned into two - my apologies! Things has been a bit hectic since we got back from London. The past week has been all about job hunting stuff, Amnesty activities, Christmas prep, and hosting a Glögg get together for most of my extended family. It's been a great week though!

So, time for a report from our trip. We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and left Sunday morning, so in all we had three and a half days in London. It felt like a lot of time beforehand, but of course time flies when you're having fun! Still, I do think we managed to find the perfect mix of shopping, sightseeing, good eats and just hanging out with friends.

The most time consuming (and fun!) thing we did was the tour of the WB Harry Potter studios in Leavsden - our bus left at 8 am Thursday morning and we weren't back in the city until 3 in the afternoon. It was totally worth the time though, there's so much to see! I loved the whole experience, but some favorites included seeing the Diagon alley set, the Great Hall and the amazing set of Dumbledore's office which had SO much detail. We spent about three hours going through the exhibit but you could easily spend another five I think!

My birthday on Friday started with a huge breakfast at Pret a Manger - I used to work at Pret when I lived in London so I am naturally biased, but I just LOVE Pret sandwiches. Then we spent a couple of hours exploring St Paul's cathedral - despite living in and visiting London a ton of times, I had never been up in the dome before. The last part of the climb was a bit nerve-wracking, but the view from the top more than made up for it. If you're curious, there's a virtual tour of sorts on the St. Paul's website. After a bit of shopping and a change of clothes at our hotel we headed out for an amazing dinner and cakes with our friends Johanna and Marc, who had booked a fantastic indian restaurant (I love indian food) for the occasion. A great time was had by all!

On Saturday we did a bit more shopping, and then headed to the V&A museum for the necessary dose of culture (my dad the librarian would be disappointed in me if I spent all that time in London without visiting at least one museum). V&A was fantastic, even Johanna who is not usually a museum fan was swayed. The evening was spent at Johanna and Marc's place in Wapping, enjoying some excellent vegetarian shepherd's pie (beer might have been involved as well) and talking. And then on Sunday morning it was time to check out and head back home. I can't believe how much fun we managed to squeeze into those four days, but it was tough to go back home again. Can't wait to come back again!

In my next post I thought I'd show you some of the shopping I did. I didn't buy too much in the way of clothing, but I did get a lot of books, craft supplies, and of course, fabric! We didn't make it to Goldhawk road for fabric shopping in the end, but that was probably just as well since I already spent a ton of money on fabric at Liberty. Lucky for me, Keith's parents had made a secret deal with him that if I found something I loved that they would pay for part of it as their birthday present to me. A big thanks to Maria and Dennis! Anyway, more on that later. I'm off to start wrapping the Christmas presents!

ETA: I almost forgot to mention: I'm guest blogging today over at The Pickled Herring today for Kathryn's Scandinavian Christmas series! My post this year is about making pomander oranges, one of my favorite Christmas decorations. Head over there if you's like to read my tutorial!

Crafty London

Exciting news: I'm going to London in less than a week! It's my birthday next week (turning thirty - eek) and we're flying over to celebrate and to spend time with one of my closest friends, Johanna, and her boyfriend Marc. I used to live in London when I was younger and I absolutely love the city - and the last time I was there was in 2011 so it was about time for another visit!

Now, we only have 3,5 days in the city and we want to have as much time as possible to hang out with Johanna and Marc, but I couldn't resist putting some crafty things on the to-do list as well. I thought I'd share them here as inspiration, if you're planning a visit to London anytime in the future.

Image by Gryffindor (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0] via Wikimedia Commons

1. Liberty of London. Of course, no visit to London is complete without a trip to Liberty's. This department store has an amazing fabric section selling (among other things) the signature flowery fabrics. I plan to stock up on some Tana Lawn and soak up the atmosphere before taking on Oxford street.

2.Cass Art. When I started looking around for the best arts and crafts shops in London, this one kept popping up in all my searches. Looks like they have a great selection of paints and tools, can't wait to visit!

3. Paperchase. As a stationery nut I LOVE Paperchase products, but unfortunately they don't ship to Sweden. So I'm planning on stocking up during my visit!

4. IF we have the time, I would so love to visit the fabric shops on Goldhawk Road. Apparently, this is THE place to shop for fabric at reasonable prices. It is going a bit off since we will be staying in and spending most of our time around Shoreditch, and I'm not sure whether we'll find the time. If we do go I promise I will update you on my loot!

Image by Karen Roe, The Making of Harry Potter 29-05-2012 [CC-BY-3.0] via Wikimedia Commons (image has been cropped)

We have lots of not-so-crafty plans as well, for example we will be spending almost an entire day at the Harry Potter Studios outside London. What can I say, I'm a geek! Also, Keith has only visited London once before so some touristy stuff is a must. A lot of the "standard" sights we did last time he went, like Trafalgar square, Parliament, that sort of thing. We've done the London Eye and visited Tate Modern, so this time I'm thinking the St. Pauls whispering gallery, the Tower (I loved it when I visited as a kid!) and the V&A museum (I've never been!). And I'm also considering booking a Jack the Ripper tour of Soho - a fun way to introduce Keith to some of the history of the city.

I can't wait! I promise I will share some pics of the trip once we're back home again.

Stockholm Chocolate Festival

What did you do this weekend? I visited the Stockholm Baking and Chocolate Festival  - an annual fair focused on all things sweet. There were chocolate tastings, baking competitions, trade talks and of course LOTS of stalls selling amazing treats.

Apologies for the poor photos, I was a bit too focused on what was going on in the stalls (free samples!) to pay attention to my camera. I could not resist buying one of these huge "artisan" chocolate bars either:

Yum! There was a house and home trade show going on at the same time as the chocolate festival, so I actually scored two fairs in one day. I didn't buy much though, mostly I just walked around and soaked up the inspiration.

Among other things I had the chance to chat with craft book writers and bloggers Sania Hedengren and Susanna Zacke who were busy promoting their latest craft book and showing off this amazing vintage caravan. Isn't it adorable?

The inside was equally sweet, decorated with vintage wallpaper, linens and crochet. It's always been my dream to ride off into the sunset in an old VW camper van (this article could totally have been written by me), but a caravan as sweet as this could do the trick as well!

College Student Care Package

Just a quick update today, as I'm having a bit of a busy week. As last week marked the start of the college semester here in Sweden, I thought I'd show you this care package we recently sent of to a new college student.

I used to love the start of the new school year back when I was a student, partly because it gave me the chance to stock up on new office supplies. I am a total geek when it comes to things like pens, notepads, and binders! Now that I'm not a student anymore, I try to live vicariously through others...



Of course, the perfect college student care package has to include some edibles, as well. This particular student has some dietary restrictions, so instead of the usual chocolates we opted for some healthy snacks from Swedish health food guru Renée Voltaire. I LOVE her products! Lots of vegan, raw, clean eating type things, and always delicious.

(Image from Renée Voltaire)

This college care package included:
- A set of adorable mini highlighters from Muji
- Whitelines notebook (another love of mine)
- Neon page markers
- Glass and Porcelaine pens for this particularly crafty student
- The awesome book Me on the Floor, Bleeding by Swedish YA author Jenny Jägerfeld
- Chocolate covered gojiberries
- White chocolate covered raspberries & blueberries
- Heavenly Spread almond butter
- White sesame crackers

I hope you're all having a great week!

Instagram wall collage

I'll start by saying this; I like Instagram as much as the next person, but I still think there is something to be said for old fashioned printed photos. Yes I love my Instax instant camera and yes, I still order prints from my point-n-shoot. But over the past couple of years, most of my on-the-go photography has been done using Instagram, and I've found myself missing the tactile experience of printed photos. 

Luckily for me, more and more companies are now offering fun ways to print your Instagram photos. I am a big fan of Origrami, and have ordered their retro polaroid-style prints several times. When I got my latest batch in the mail a few days ago, I thought it would be fun to show them off in some way.

Our apartment has these super hard concrete walls, so hanging pictures is always a huge undertaking. Not exactly ideal for putting up a bunch of tiny 4" x 5" frames. Enter my washi tape collection! This project is so simple that I hesitate to even call it DIY - but I think it came out rather well. I just picked out a few favorites, and stuck them up in a heart pattern using MT solid color washi tape.

I even found an excuse to use my new mini-sized level, to ensure that the photos were hung (reasonably) straight. Oh, and sorry about the poor lighting in these photos. The weather has been really dull and overcast this past week!

A quick and easy project for a rainy afternoon! And just for fun, here's a photo I snapped of my washi collection - yeah, I'm not addicted...

Back to school

We're back from Riga! We had a great time, there was so much to see. We visited the amazing beaches outside the city,swam in the sea, got massages, rode a pedal boat on the canal, shopped, visited loads of interesting museums, rode go-carts and watched 4D cinema, and walked around the beautiful Vecriga (Old Town) and Art Nouveau districts. My feet were so sore after 4 days of sightseeing!

But now we are back home - and school has started! It was a bit of a shock at first, but I'm really enjoying being a student again! It looks like I'm going to be really busy in the coming weeks, so I probably won't be blogging as much as I'd like... But tonight I wanted to share something that's on my mind a lot these days:

Fun and pretty school supplies!

1. hand bound journal 2. pencil case 3. organizer 4. pencil cup 5. book pin 6. stationery sampler 7. letterhead set 8. tote bag 9. note cards 10. custom bookplates 11. journal 12. note cards 13. stikcy notes 14. pencil case 15. journal 16. mini planner

Aren't they just lovely? I want them all!

Thrifty weekend

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who left such nice comments about my quilt! I posted a thread about it on Craftster, and it got so much attention that my quilt was featured in the "Hot New Projects" section for a while:

It was great fun and also resulted in some new readers for this little blog, so I'm happy!

This weekend hasn't involved a lot of crafting, but I did do a lot of craft-inspired shopping! I'm still scouting the Gothenburg area for good thrift stores, and I haven't found any that I really love yet. Any Gothenburg residents reading this, let me know which stores you like! On Saturday I went to a flea market in a part of town called Bellevue, and spent about an hour wandering around in search of craft-worthy objects - keeping my eyes peeled for deals with the help of a slightly less enthusiastic boyfriend. Keith has been working the late shift for a few days now, so he wasn't overly excited about getting up early to look for wool sweaters and teacups. He puts up with a lot, poor man! :-) I found a few neat things at the Bellevue market, but you do have to wade through a lot of rubbish to get to the good stuff, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you've got a lot of patience! On Sunday, we went to a big thrift store called Holmens Marknad. We didn't stay there too long as they mainly sold furniture, and our little apartment is pretty full as it is! But of course I didn't leave empty-handed. Here are the results of my thrifty weekend:



The lovely blue and green fabric is a bed sheet, I'm not sure what to use it for yet but I love the print! I'm afraid my camera isn't quite good enough to show the pretty colors. The second pic shows a couple of nice wool sweaters that are going to become mittens, brooches and other neat things inspired by Betz White and her amazing felted wool creations. And I'll leave you with my very favorite purchase: these cute buttons that I foresee will be used a lot in the future as my sister is due to give birth to a baby girl next month!