Cute Cottage Overload

Greetings from London!

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sat, 26 May 2012 13:17:00 +0000

Staying there for one night, means in my calculation: Two times breakfast is possible! Well, that's what we did. The always friendly hubby was kind enough, not to ask questions, why we have to go especially to this place, etc etc and were just helpful to find it! The first morning we went by bus to the "Tina we salute you" cafe in Dalston. The food was great, (nice idea to poach the eggs with a plastic bag), nice staff, we left quite satisfied. However, I am not sure if I really need to go back there again next time?! It is not that special to me.

Our highlight on the next breakfast was "Lantana". Underground station is Goodge Street. and this is like heaven there, well, for me! mixed guests, all ages and kinds, great food, great staff, great athmosphere, so relaxed...,fantastic place! if you go to London. go there, it will make you happy! I can recommend the banana bread, or, no, maybe more the french toast, or the scrambled eggs, or....?! I like everything!!

Afterwards I wanted to check out the Columbia Road, not for the flower market, bec it was saturday, no just for the shops there. I love it! I want to life there. It was great. All those tiny, colourful shops! with handmade things (j&b the shop), the best shop with fabrics i have ever seen (beyond fabrics), vintage heaven with cakehole cafe, just to mention a few of them!, every shop has their own bench standing on the street, so the hubby was very pleased to get a break every 20 minutes when I changed shops. columbia street, we will be coming back soon! promised!

Going to Anthropology

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:09:00 +0000

Going to london, meant in former times "going to topshop". Since 2 years or so, it got a new meaning: "Going to Anthropology". And that's what I did yesterday. why is it, that you always want to move in their store?!? how do they do this??? and why are they constantly so good with all that stuff for the kitchen, bathroom, etc.? I wanna buy everything and put it in the luggage to bring it home... it is just too expensive and you have to decide, for only a few small items, which you can bring home easily by plane....see what I got this time....

Vintage Chandelier

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 06 May 2012 15:20:00 +0000

Last time we went to our hometown Stuttgart, I visited the flea market with my friend. Well, the expectations were not so high, just a little look around here and there....I saw some old carpets and windows, hmm, they are too big for the car....the plates were not so nice and also the teapots were just old, nothing else. Many,many coffee machines and an old dirty waffle maker,....but finally my eye spotted this wonderful chandelier!

Could this be the perfect one for our living room ??? I was wandering around, still thinking of the lamp, hoping that nobody else will gonna buy it. At the end - it was bought and packed into the back of my car. My husband connected it the same evening we went back to our house. Isn't this the perfect lamp for a living room?

Rhubarb Cheesecake

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:12:00 +0000

Thanks to the 1st of may holiday, we have a really long weekend ahead! and, to make it even more perfect, Inge from Munich and Kristina from Hamburg are coming for a private "reunion" party of former collegues from the company we are working for. I am looking so forward to meet them again! They wanna arrive at coffee time today, and I needed an easy but yummy sunday cake.

I had that great rhubarb cake in mind, my mother always did, when I was young. so I called mum and asked her for the recipe. I think I did great, there is no difference between the cake from mum and mine...but sure, unfortunately, you cannot try....but trust me, it is really nice and tender and sweet and vanilla taste and and and....

Tart Time

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:03:00 +0000

What shall you do with all those fresh asparagus, ready to buy nearly everywhere now? I was looking for nice ideas at Martha's website - I found the asparagus tart! so I blowed the dust off my tart pan and started right away. The tasty recipe included gruyere and ricotta cheese (which sounds great I guess) and I want to spread some fresh herbs over the finished quiche later, lets see what's available in the garden?! maybe some rosemary...can't wait for dinner time to try it out. Thanks martha for always giving me tasty ideas!

Vintage Bunting

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:47:00 +0000

Well, we all love colourful buntings. There are so many different ideas and you cannot only use nice fabrics, but allover printed paper as well. Today's bunting idea for our porch was to use old handkerchiefs. The result is: supernice and quick to do project! The most difficult thing was to find enough of the vintage handkerchiefs in different dessins and colours (at the Diakonie Kaufhaus I found some and on Ebay of course). How many you will need? finally I had around 30 pieces available, thats why the front door got their own bunting as well....than iron it down diagonal. As a strap I used left over gift wrapping tape. Our porch and main door entrance looks fantastic. Hope you like it as well!?

Vintage Warehouse Store in Amsterdam

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:50:00 +0000

Well, easter is gone. We went to Egmond aan Zee in Holland, like every year. Cute litte town, very relaxing. The weather was not really nice, so I can't give you pretty beach pictures....but, on the way back to Germany we visited the Van Dijk & ko Warehouse in Amsterdam. This is always worth the trip. I took some pictures there so that you can imagine the varieties of this store. Please have a look to the new chairs and some small cupboards we took back home with us!

Some of those small cupboards have already made it....

... onto the wall in my workspace area

The new garden chairs waiting for good weather.

Vintage Birthday Party

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:07:00 +0000

Hello sunshine, this was the greatest, lazy sunday afternoon birthday party ever....so relaxed, easy going, enjoyable time with some friends and great cake buffet. When I searched for a nice idea for my birthday party, there were always blogs with this vintage fair birthday party theme and I loved it! In Germany we don't have these kind of country fairs, so I tried to adopt the theme and built some other stuff around it. Most important thing for me is always the sweets & treats table (the empty spot on the upper right from the cake buffet is reserved for the cinnamon rolls - they were still in the oven). To get the country feeling I added some ponies and also ribbons patched on linen fabric to the table. Not to forget the homemade cherry lemonade in some vintage bottles with doily labeling. The surprisingly fantastic weather was enough reason to put everything out on the porch: cushions, blankets, even the decorated floor-lamp, ballons, the paper baubles, a Hello Kitty pinata, everything was set up outside... We did some crafty thing as well: I provided embroidery hoops, fabrics, lace and stuff and all ladies were sitting in the sun doing some needlework.

Vintage Birthday Afternoon

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:58:00 +0000

Finally the long planned vintage birthday party was today. The weather was even better that anyone could wish for. Everything today was perfect: food, decoration, guests and gifts. More detailed pictures from this afternoon and it`s activities and buffet will follow.

Fabric covered Tea Pots

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:43:00 +0000

I love the book "Everything Alice" and this idea comes from the book: Cover up your old and no longer used plates, pots, bowls, etc with nice fabric cuttings. I used glue which is supposed for wallpapers. At the end it turned out to be a really quick and easy thing, and so convincing! what do you think? do you like it as much as I do?

Cookie Decoration with Rosey Sugar

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:32:00 +0000

Finally - the cookie decoration movie is finished, and I love it! As usual, it took my hubby quite some time to finish it (getting up every morning very early to work on the movie before regular work...and in the evening: sitting in front of the mac until midnight...) But: even the cookie queen Rosey is now impressed of the movie, and what more can we wish for? but now: relax and watch three amateurs and one pro doing some cookies....

Cute Wooden Spoon Stamping

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 11:25:00 +0000

Yes, ladies....I am in the busy, busy mood today....need to prepare things for my birthday party in two weeks. I started yesterday already with my old lampshade (not finished yet, some stuff I need to buy tomorrow when shops in Germany will be open again...), and today I am finishing the cutlery....as you can see: not only provided me Shop Sweet Lulu with this cute wooden spoon. no, you can also add some kawaii stamps on it....quickly done and sooo cute....love it!

Decorating Cookies with Rosey Sugar

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:30:00 +0000

After a sleepless night, counting the minutes down and totally excited, the day finally came: the cookie queen herself, Rosey Sugar flew all the way from Tokyo to Germany, just to let us join a tutorial with her....until the last minute I was not sure, if she really gonna pop up at our house, but, yes, she really did.
As you can see from our faces - we are just about to start with preparing the icing. EASY! and so excited!...we still do believe, that we can manage to prepare some pretty, cute and nice cookies today, well, just like the cookie queen!! - well, our skills in the baking area are not that bad, aren't they?, at least we thought so.

Ok, after 2 hours only, we realized that there will be only be one real cookie sugarcraft queen forever and it will be not one of us, unfortunately, no! (this is for sure!). we started with icing lines just on papersheets and we were even not able to manage the straight icing lines correct.....I don't have to tell you (or show you?) about the dots, round lines, flowers?! (damn it, how on earth can she do that?!?!?)

and just that you know, what i am talking about, i will show you one of the cookies she did ad-hoc with her own rosey-technique.....any questions here? ahh, and no, I will definetely not! post some pictures of our own decorated ugly looking cookies.

We also shot a movie about the day with her.

Croque-monsieur for Breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:51:00 +0000

After Bratwurst and Sauerkraut we tried some total 'non-German' dish for our special guest from Japan.

Preserving jar decoration curtain

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:16:00 +0000

A decoration curtain for our stair area made out of preserving jars.

Window Decoration

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:20:00 +0000

A little too early to call it spring window decoration, but with temperatures close to 12°C we are getting there.

Banana French Toast

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:14:00 +0000

We love french toast. This is a new recipe that we have tried in little baking pots together with banana slices.

Breakfast Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:45:00 +0000

New flower decoration methods are being tested at Sunday breakfast.

Valentine`s Day Card

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:02:00 +0000

A classical Valentine`s Day dilemma. Should the kitten get nothing ? (Un)fortunately a our house there are no kittens yet, so we can have it all. The card, the mini cakes and the Valentine.

Hot drink on the cold porch

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:43:00 +0000

It is freezing cold. But with the right equipment and a little bit of sun you can even enjoy a hot drink on the porch.

Scones with Strawberry Jam

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:23:00 +0000

For the Sunday afternoon tea we tried a new Scone recipe. It is said that the Grand Hotel in Torquay would be making up to 6.000 of those during busy days. The difference to normal scone recipes is 'no egg' and 'milk powder'.

Home Made Dutch Apple Pie

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:06:00 +0000

With outside temperatures going down to -12°C, the best thing to do is home made dutch apple pie. For this one we have tried a new recipe with very dark sugar giving the cake it´s special warm color and taste.

Cute Jewelry Box

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:09:00 +0000

Even if you do not have any real jewelry, you definitely need a cute box for it. This one is makes looking forward to Easter a little easier.

Christmas Afternoon Tea

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:12:00 +0000

The 26th marks the end of the Christmas holidays in Germany. Reason enough to celebrate again with a special afternoon tea served on a self made etagere.

2011 Christmas Card

noreply@blogger.com (hellokittymuseum) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 07:34:00 +0000

With our 2011 Christmas card we are trying to combine both of our 'interests'. www.hellokittymuseum.com and www.cutecottageoverload.com. Thank You so much for following us through this cute, kitty overloaded year. Have a merry Xmas and a very good 2012.