Yes that’s how things rock in Songbirds world. From candle stick to cookies to a pretty little photo-shoot.

See! A bright blue candle stick with matching cookies. Now doesn’t that make perfect sense. It does to me!

It all started with this candle stick I found at the flea market a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was nice and sweet and I got it almost for free.

I liked the shape and the size and I adored the little details like the lions heads and the angel faces. I wasn’t too thrilled about the brass though. That’s why I started plotting a little makeover right away.

But first I had to deal with a little problem. The stick is made of two parts that kept falling apart.

The screw that was supposed to hold it all together had come loose. I didn’t think glue was the way to go so instead I opted for a little trick my mom taught me.

Thread! If you have a screw loose, as in an actual screw that is loose, not the loose screws that may or may not be in your head, but we are not talking about those screws now are we, although I do think I might have a few of those too……
Anyway – still with me? -  if you have a loose screw somewhere, tying some thread around it, usually does the trick of making it tight again. You see I can lift the candle stick again without the bottom dropping off and I can even still turn the top part the way I want it.

After fixing the screw I gave the candle stick a quick spray with some primer and set out to find the perfect color for it.

Of course I contemplated white…..

But lately I have been stretching my color wings a bit so instead I opted to go daring and dashing.

Except we don’t have a wide variation of spray paint colors available here…..

So I just painted her with regular old craft paint and a brush. And it worked like a charm. I went with this sky blue, or is it aqua blue or baby blue? Anyway I chose a really nice blue that I am loving at the moment.

And that inspired me to bake some cookies…..

Don’t know why exactly, but I really loved the way my little candle stick turned out, so much so that I felt a little celebration was in order. And celebrations ask for treats, sweet treats.

It was the first time ever that I worked with food coloring (and now you know why I had blue fingers) and I must say that seems to be a whole art and craft in itself.

But it was fun and the cookies yummy.

Outside we are having a wet and cold Spring. Today was one of those days that felt more like Fall than summer. But inside with this cheery little white and blue vignette the sun is shining and I can feel the warmth.

Lovely isn’t she. All those details are so much more precious in blue than in brass.

DISCLAIMER: these photo’s were utterly and completely staged and the whole vignette lasted barely long enough for me to photograph it. Those cookies were flying off the plate whenever I turned my back, because they are were even more eatable than they were photogenic.

And that’s it for today, I promise next time I’ll save a cookie for you…..

Until later sweeties!

Oh and remember you can find me here too:

Love,

Yeah wouldn’t you know it, here is actually a decorating post again. I promised you some variations on my white mantel and I must say it has been so easy to deliver on that promise. I love this fiddling and foofing and nesting thing. So coming up with new ways to work with my basic white mantel is easy and fun.

I actually can be caught gazing at my mantel from across the room (instead of focusing my attention on the TV show we are watching), trying so come up with my next decoration. Should I go yellow? Could I use that particular candle stick? Do I have something nice to show off around the mirror?

In my head I have redecorated this mantel twenty times over. But today I am here to show you the one that I actually pulled off recently.

As so often it all started with flowers…..

I took my cue from a mixed bunch of hyacinths I found at the florist. They looked so beautiful and abundant and smelled heavenly. I really have a thing for fragrant flowers. It just adds that extra special “je ne sais quoi’. So with those flowers at center stage I hunted down some more purple.

These little flowers were almost free. The florist uses them as fillers, and she gave me an odd look when I wanted a small bunch of just them. Well she could hardly know that my flowers almost never are simply used as a bouquet.

……. Hmmm I wish we could add smell to our blogs. If I could have, you sure would be loving me right now….

Ok, back to the purple theme. I added a little silk covered notebook I have had for ages. Silly me, but I have never actually used it to write something down, for fear of messing it up.

The big lantern got a purple candle from my stash of candles.

Above the mirror I added three little frames I bought at a discount store ages ago. Not sure what I intended them for anymore, but they are serving their purpose  here quite nicely.

And yes you’d be totally right if you thought that that was still the original sales picture inside. It even still tells us that it is a picture frame (in case we thought it was something else). But you only notice that when you are really close, from a distance it just looks like three identical pictures of flowers in a cup.

See you can’t even tell they are not actually filled when you take a step back.

I enjoyed coming up with this little purple and white mantel display. And the ideas for the next one are already brewing in the back of my mind. So I am guessing you won’t have to wait long to see the next reincarnation of my white mantel.

What do you think? Like it? Do you have a favorite so far? Would you like to see a particular color or theme to challenge me with? Let’s talk mantels people……

Go here to see the original white mantel in all its glory.

The first incarnation was an infusion of browns and natural colors.

For some more Spring/ early summer mantels go here, and here, and here.

Love,

Sharing this with:

Stroll Thru Life: Tabletop Tuesday
Not Just a Housewife: Show Me What Ya Got

Let me show you where I have been, by showing you what I have been capturing with my phone.

Spring is a bit freaky here. A roller coaster of rain, cold, warm, almost freezing, and blue skies. It means that nature is seriously late. It also meant that the blossoms on the cherry trees lasted really long. This is a quick pic I shot while walking on my lunch break.

Speaking of lunch break….

Look what finally happened this week at work:

Yeah that horror of a project that had me working overtime for weeks now, is finally finished and has been sent off to the surveyors. And I finally got my Inbox cleared again. Can I hear a hooray!!

So I finally had some play time again.

I baked cookies….

Cookies with pretty colored icing….

And then I had to send out a cry for help on Facebook. My hands looked like this for days. They are almost back to their natural state now. The shaving cream/ vinegar combo got most of it. The rest just wore off.

Saturday I went shopping….. herb shopping.

And today all those herbs got planted in the garden and some already landed in our diner too. Yum!

Speaking of yum….

We celebrated just another Saturday night together yesterday. Instead of cooking diner, we stocked up on delicious tapas and Turkish delights, popped a bottle of bubbly and had ourselves a feast.

Life is good…

Oh and about that bubbly. You don’t have to worry we’ll run out of that soon….

This week one evening after diner, we jumped in the car, hopped over the border into Germany and stocked up on our favorite bubble. Oh how I love living in this little corner of the world, where Germany and its wonderful prices for bubbly is just around the corner.

And yes that are six cartons with six bottles each. What can I say we like our bubbly. Some people drink beer, others drink wine, or a coke. We drink bubbly

But we have earned it….

My Love and I are running…..

I ran 20 minutes mostly uphill during training Saturday morning. Ouch my legs hurt all day after that. I snapped this tree one night when we were doing our second training of the week together.

Can’t say that I am loving the running yet. But I do love the guilt-free indulging in bubbly.

Okay enough about my addiction to sparkly wine. You’d almost think it was all I drank.

No,  a nice cup of hot tea, together with a stack of magazines and 50 pink tulips, still make my heart sing too.

So now you know what I have been up to. What have you been doing?

Let’s share (oh and most of these images were previously posted on Instagram. I am stretching my photography wings there and you can find me there as msongbird (what else).

Love,

Well for everybody who has ever felt that they needed a little extra inspiration and motivation to get things done, I have the perfect Euro Blogger for you.

Today in my series of ‘Meet the Euro Blogger’, I have a Scandinavian delight for you.

Meet Benita from Chez Larsson.

This Swedish blogger (who blogs in English) is my go to blog for sweet inspiration for light Scandinavian living.

Homemade Quilt in grey and white

Things can get quite dark for a long time in Scandinavia, I guess that’s why they are so good at decorating their homes light and airy. Benita is a big lover of white (aren’t we all) and uses it everywhere. But she also combines it in the most perfect way with color. Oranges and green are her favorites now.

Modern Living Room

In general the style of Chez Larsson is quite modern, maybe even a bit too modern for my taste, and yet I love it so.

Home Office

Benita is quite the all-round lady. She tackles just about any job you can think of herself and she gets so much done! About a year ago she moved into a ‘new’ old home (bloggers heaven) and when you look at the progress she has made so far it is amazing.

Kitchen Makeover Project

Whenever I need a ‘fix’ to get my rear moving and start tackling the clutter, I pay a visit to Benita first. She has so many organizing tips and tricks, there is always something new to find. And she lives by her example too! No organizational ‘rules’ coming from someone who has only just shoved the mess out of the camera’s reach. No sirree, Benita lives by her own motto. This is her ‘old’ candle drawer. A drawer, perfectly organized for candles, people!! Oh how I want one…..

Oh and did I mention she crafts too?

She has even won some crafting contests. These are a few of the different projects she came up with for a concrete challenge:

Concrete Bookends, Concrete Star, Concrete House Number, Concrete Candle Stick

DIY and Crafts, Order and Organization, Tips and Tutorials, Inspiration and Motivation. What is there not to love about Chez Larsson. Go visit her, and tell her I sent you.

Hallway Decoration Forcing Branches

If you liked this post you might also like my previous episodes in this series:

Style Queen from Germany: Sofies Butik

Sweet Cottage Living in Holland: My Everyday Things

And remember Pin from the original source!

You can find me here:

Let’s hang-out together.

Love,

We all need to be reminded of this sometimes. Especially in this day and age when we are bombarded with images of women who are too skinny, too young, too perfect. Images of women who are not real.

Images lie, Photoshop lies, statistics lie, our self doubt is based on lies.

So today I post this image of this beautiful woman, in all her curvaceous awesomeness as a reminder:

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

I found this image here

Love,

That is why I love white so much. It can be a true star all by itself. And at the same time it is the best background to let other colors shine.

This mantel decoration is all about texture. Cause let’s face it. Brown isn’t the most expressive of colors either. And yet it works so beautifully. The two wreaths and the rattan dish plate, all three have a different pattern going. And the shiny feather balls add their own soft texture to the mix.

This mantel makeover started when I found these cotton stems at IKEA. I loved them. With the help of some sand I put them in the vase and then the whole mantel just begged for more of that gorgeous brown and white combination.

This mantel display came easy. As if it was already out there and I only had to unveil it. Does that make sense at all?

Sometimes create a vignette is a struggle. And it takes forever to get it right. And sometimes it is as if the decorations find themselves, as if I am only the sculpture chipping away at the rock to reveal the statue that was in there all along.

Tomorrow it is Queens day, and my country will be one big partying wave of orange again.

But tonight I relish in my natural mantel makeover.

And since I have enjoyed giving my white mantel this makeover I think I am going to set myself another little challenge. For the month of Mai I will do variations of it. Stretching my wings a bit and playing with color. Trying to create different mantels with different moods even if the base elements of this one stay the same.

What do you think? Could you stand to see this mantel made over a couple of times more?

Love,

Today I want to share a little project I did with that silverware (that isn’t really silver) I found at the flea market over Easter.

It is a sweet little project that turned out exactly like I had planned.

Want to make a wind chime yourself?

I’ve got you covered….

Just hop on over to Pretty Handy Girl. I am in her line up of DIY talent there today. Don’t know where Brittany got the idea that I have talent, but I’m not arguing

So see you over there!!

Oh and while you are there check out the wonderful tutorial posts of the talented ladies before me.

And maybe you have a little talent to share too. Well Brittany is having a special Linky Party on Friday. So prepare to link up!

In the mean time. Let’s hang out here:

Love,

You see, I had to, bake breakfast muffins that is. They made me do it….

Who is they you say? Well all the diet and nutrition gurus that say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I hate breakfast.

Just out of bed, eating is the last thing on my mind. Especially on Mondays…

But I cycle to work. Circa 4 k, slightly uphill. Shouldn’t be a problem. And it isn’t.

Except when I haven’t eaten anything, then that baby slope starts to feel like Mt Everest.

So I have to dupe myself. Eating something nutritious that doesn’t feel like a proper breakfast but rather tastes like a treat.

These rhubarb muffins fit that bill exactly. Fiber rich, vitamins, good oils and when combined with my morning latte almost all the food groups are represented.

And yet they taste like a treat.

I like duping myself that way.

Okay granted besides the rhubarb, oatmeal and walnuts there is a fair deal of sugar involved too. But otherwise they really would be too healthy. That would be overdoing it, don’t you think?

They are really easy to make. Combine the wet ingredients with the sugar, stir in the lumpy ingredients, fold in the dry ingredients. Mix gently, sprinkle with topping and bake in oven.

These are best eaten warm (not hot), they freeze well and warm up nicely in the microwave.

Rhubarb breakfast muffins. My kind of breakfast.

Want to try them too? Here is the recipe:

Rhubarb Breakfast Muffin

For 12 muffins

• 250 gram/ 1 1/2 cup  + 2 table spoons brown caster sugar
• 80 ml/ 1/3 cup of vegetable oil (I used sunflower seed oil)
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 250 ml /1 cup buttermilk (I used skimmed yoghurt)
• 1 large stalk of rhubarb cleaned and diced in small cubes
• 100 gram / 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
• 300 gram 1 3/4 cups of flower ( I used self rising and didn’t add the baking powder and baking soda)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 50 gram / 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees ( 392 F)

Mix the sugar, oil, egg, vanilla and buttermilk in a large bowl.

Mix in the rhubarb and walnuts (keep some walnuts for the topping).

Mix in the flower, oatmeal and the baking powder and soda. Mix lightly, it is okay if it stays messy. Mix too long and the muffins won’t rise well.

Put mixture in muffin tin

Mix 2 table spoons sugar, leftover walnuts and cinnamon, and sprinkle over rhubarb mixture.

• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Got any good recipes for breakfast that doesn’t taste like breakfast?

Let’s share! You can find me here:

Love,

Just a few days ago this is how it looked like in my craft room: an empty wall, a cupboard waiting to be hauled to the dump and junk everywhere:

This is how that corner looks today:

Tada! I built a storage unit from pallet wood and I decided to repurpose that little cupboard after all.

The storage unit has been in the making for a few weeks now. I worked on it of and on. It wasn’t that much work, I just didn’t have enough time to commit to it.

It began with some simple pallets that got dismantled and sanded.

See, it was nice, warm weather then, so I could do the sanding outside (oh sun how I long for thee).

After cutting the planks to size I gave them a quick wash with white paint (sorry no pics of me painting, just imagine me brush in hand and covered with white paint spatters).

And then I screwed it all together with an assortment of screws. (sorry no boring pictures of me holding a cordless screw driver either. Just use your imagination).

That’s basically all that it took.

I love the rustic look of it. The roughness of the boards, the visible screws, the irregularities, the simple design.

I designed measured it around the library card unit I love so much. I love how the painted wood and the brown wood look together now. The combination enhances them both.

The baskets are actually those ‘hanging on a shelf’ kind of baskets (like Ikea has), I found for next to nothing in the thrift store.

My boards were to thick to use them, so I cut the hanging bit off and screwed them to the underside.

And look at that little cupboard, just fitting in perfectly in the corner.

I was so ready to say goodbye to this baby, she was practically on her way out the door.

Until I realized she fit perfectly next to my new unit under the slanted roof and I could use some hidden storage too. So I figured I could just give her a little makeover to fit in with her new position.

Remember how she looked before?

All pink and girly. This IKEA hack is the first ever tutorial I did on my blog. I gave an already-old-then Ikea cupboard a cottage look with fabric and chicken wire.

And look at her now!

Who would have thought that replacing the fabric with burlap coffee sacks and changing the door knobs for some black ones, would have such a big impact. She doesn’t look girly anymore at all. Now she looks tough and industrial. Love it.

So glad this project is finished. Can’t wait to fill it all up and put it to good use.

So have you uncovered some hidden treasures among your furniture? Ever repurposed pallets into storage? And do you agree that my little cupboard has lost all her girly charm and instead now oozes industrial goodness?

Love,

Sharing this with:
The DIY Show Off: Project Parade
Between Naps on the Porch: Metamorphosis Monday
Keeping it simple: Motivate me Monday

But Cherrie has some comforting thoughts for all of us “An organised mind seldom produces shades of beauty”. Now that is my way of thinking!!!

But there is nothing like posting some big embarrassing pictures on your blog to spur one into action. Look what I did today. I cleared that big mess off of my garden table and made a nice big Spring centerpiece. And while I was at it I gave that garden shelf in the back a little makeover too.

Of course the most time was spent in clearing away the mess I had left behind in past weeks. Finding a place for those unused wreaths and other decorating paraphernalia wasn’t easy. It did made me realize that a good purging and organization round is definitely in order.

But all in due time. For now everything is put away and can be semi-easily found again when needed.

When I had cleared the table and the shelf and everything was wiped clean and waiting for things to come, I hopped on my bike to get some fresh flowers to use.

I bought these at the DIY store, not the best place to buy flowers but they were nice and cheap and with some TLC form me, I hope they will last a long time anyway. I gave them a good soak in the garden sink first, because they looked a bit parched.

And then it was play time…….

Adding  bottles, some natural thingamajigs, a candle (that I will most likely not light in there) and of course the flowers.

~~~~~~~~

The shelf got a super easy treatment. Just some black and white action, with a little green for good measure.

And then I happily clicked away with my camera…

Yeah, the start is here. One part of my garden is ready for some lounge action again.

And I am sure that when I will be sitting outside under my porch and enjoying the beauty of my little table decoration, my hands will start itching to get started with the rest of the terrace and garden too.

Or so I hope…..

Wanna come and lounge with me?

And hopefully I will see you soon again…. some more craft room stuff is almost ready for a reveal, Yeow!, and I feel a serious urge to start baking again too….. and I also feel that my need for some serious ‘playing stylist’ fun is heavily overdue. So stick around for things to come.

Love,