A lot of things have been going haywire over here, but the worst of it seems to be over and the only mess that is left has been made by yours truly.

Last Friday I sent out a cry for help on Facebook.

Remember my craft room challenge? Well things aren’t going as I planned.

Instead of dutifully sewing through a pile of beautiful fabric in my craft room, I was bringing in new closets and dumping the contents of the old ones everywhere. I really, truly had every intention last Friday to clear my table, set my sewing machine free and dig in and work my way to the finish line of my first craft room challenge deadline.

And then stuff happened…..

And I happened…….

And I really liked that new closet in my craft room. But it made me hate the things that were standing next to it and then it totally spiraled out of control.

I cleared my office corner of all the stuff that was there and took inventory of what and how I wanted to change it.

Of course that meant that my table was now nowhere to be found anymore under the mountain of stuff, and sewing anything in there was really out of the question.

But I felt such a serge of energy just looking at the new possibilities and it truly did wonders for my soul. So I went with it.

I made a list and I dove in, head first…..

First stop. Buy a few new things (only a few I am doing this on a budget). So I invited my love to an IKEA breakfast (he is such a sucker for food, I can tempt him to do just about anything that way).

And we started to follow the yellow brick road….

I was really good. I almost bought only what I came for……

Then the deconstruction, makeover and reconstruction could start for real.

But not until we made an early morning visit to a flea market first.

This is such treat on Sunday morning. This flea market is held at an cattle market. During the week there are cows standing where the vendors are showing their wares. Since it is covered you can even browse leisurely when it is raining. I’ll go again soon and show you a bit of how a flea market in this region looks like.

But first for me it was back to work again…..

I have nothing to show you yet. And the full reveal might take me a while.

(yeah I know how to build a little suspense….)

Because, now that I have that new closet in there, and my office corner is starting to look all new and lovely, the rest of the room is starting to look dated, dull and not up to par.

Isn’t that just how it works. You do one thing…. and to do that you have to move some stuff around….. and that means moving more things and finding new homes for leftover items…….  and then the old stuff that is still there clashes with your new projects….. and then you even get some ‘good’ ideas….. and then it just spirals out of control……

So I guess I have set myself a new Craft Room Challenge: Complete Makeover of the Craft Room itself.

Ha, as long as I keep myself busy…..

So stay tuned for some projects along the way and a full craft room reveal as soon as I can make it happen.

Love,

Only Donna would come up with this. Use an old horse gate as an headboard AND hang a barb wire wreath on it.

Love the look of this colorful bedroom, and if she wants it all those accessories are swapped out instantly to go back to the neutral look. Full reveal at:

Funky Junk’s Sponsor Store: The horse gate headboard reveal.

This post starts with a bunch of flowers I recently received.

Actually this post should start with the weeks and weeks, if not months, of time my Love spent searching for our new bird mobile. You see we bought ourselves a ‘new to us’ car recently. I didn’t take any pictures of it yet, but maybe I’ll drape myself on the hood one day and show you. Or maybe not….

Anyway we bought a ‘new’ car for oodles of money, (I don’t even want to think about how much white paint I could have bought for that heap of euros) because the old one was dying on us. When we picked the car up I got a bunch of flowers. Oh and a lot of compliments too.

Apparently the sales guy hadn’t met many women who went straight for the tools compartment when he mentioned the car had one.
Or women who had to try for themselves immediately, right there on the spot, how to take all of the seats out. But you understand don’t you?! I need to know how to make room for that wonderful thrift store dresser I am going to find soon. A girl has got to be prepared for the next find-of-the-year.

Anyway it was a fun evening and we drove of in a newish car with a free bunch of flowers.

Holland is known for its flowers, and you usually can’t really buy an ugly bunch here. But those mixed bouquets just aren’t quite my thing. Maybe they aren’t your thing either?

Well this is what you can do with your next gas station bouquet.

Break it up!

I love breaking up bouquets into a collection. Somehow the flowers together make a much bigger statement that way and at the same time the individual beauty of each flower shines through much stronger.

As you can see I used everything that seemed right to me. Vintage bottles, a small lemonade glass, a liquor glass, medicine bottles. Just anything that got in front of my hands and that might work.

I always think flowers that are cut short like this, last longer too. Maybe I’ll do a little experimental research one day to test my hypothesis (sorry researcher in me surfacing). Maybe it’s because they don’t need to sustain a long stem and lots of green leaves this way. But these flowers are still on my little side table and I think they are almost two weeks old now. They were a week old when I redid the bouquet like this (I tried to like it the way I got it, silly me) and took the pictures. They still look like this a week later. Just a tad older, but still with lots of life in them.

I don’t think I have ever bought myself a bunch of orange flowers. Orange just isn’t really my color. But I must admit that the punch they bring against the white background is really nice. I guess orange just has the oomph factor. I suspect I will see a lot of orange this year, considering that Tangerine Tango is the color of 2012. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me.

Yeah. I guess this little bouquet really was worth thousands of dollars euros

So are you always happy with the flowers you get? Do you re-arrange the bouquets that the florists carefully crafted together too? And will you add a little orange to your life this year?

Love,

There are so many ways to read and follow blogs there is bound to be a way that suits you and your lifestyle.

So let’s get on with it.

First things first. Why did I start this series again, let’s recap.

Word is that Google Friend Connect is going to go away, first on WordPress blogs, probably later on Blogger blogs too. So if you rely on that followers gadget to keep you updated about new posts from your blogging friends you might need to start looking for another solution. Or do you?

UPDATE ON THE DEMISE OF GFC!!!

About Google Friend Connect going away. I have recently learned some more about it that has made me modestly optimistic that there might not be a problem at all, at least for most of you. Let me tell you quickly what I learned, and I need to start with a little history lesson.

Once upon a time there was Blogger that decided it would be neat to have a little gadget that would make it easy for people to follow blogs and add blogs to their sidebar blogroll. The followers gadget was born. And we in the women blogging community loved it and jumped on the followers train. We put a FOLLOWERS gadget on our blogs and started to FOLLOW blogs through it.

Some time later Google decided that it would be nice to have a function where people could become members of sites and enter into discussions, sign up for newsletters, share the news from those sites with friends. And Google Friend Connect was born.

Fast forward a couple of years (or months). The guys and girls at Google and their Blogger department got together over lunch, started yapping and decided that there were a lot of similarities between followers and members: they both loved a blog/site, they both signed up for updates, they both made a ‘connection’. So they decided why not join those two functions. And that’s what they did.

I think most of us didn’t even notice that we no longer had followers but instead now had friends, and that the name of the gadget changed. It seemed like a hardly noticeable, peaceful merger.

Or did it?

We did notice that the followers gadget became unreliable. Disappearing on us for days, not updating even when we knew people were signing in, no longer customizable etc. Well the problem seems to have been that the two different sets of code that were based on different source programs didn’t really work together very well.

So why is this important?

Well apparently Google is disconnecting the two again. Discontinuing Google Friend Connect but keeping the followers gadget!!! In fact I have read they are going to improve and strengthen the followers gadget. So what does that mean for us? Well if you are on Blogger it means that the followers gadget will definitely stay and probably function even better than before. And for us on WordPress? Well I am secretly optimistic. Since my original followers gadget was set up through Blogger and is in fact still attached to Blogger (I moved it with me without losing any of you) I am hoping it will continue to work here too.

We will have to wait until March 1 to be sure…..

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Ok that about Google Friend Connect and the Followers thing.

If you think now ‘”okay nothing is going to change for me and I am happy where I am” good for you. If you think “there is room for improvement” read on….

Because here is a short list of some alternatives ways to follow blogs

.

1. Google Reader.

I shared the pros and cons of Google Reader in my last  post in this series. Go there for the video of all my tips and tricks on how to use Google Reader. I show you how to set up folders, share on social media platforms, translate, and of course how to set up the ‘one click to the next unread blog’ button.

2. Feedly

In there own words “Feedly is a news reader for creative minds, a simple and elegant way to read and share the content of your favorite sites”.

• It has a beautiful minimalized look (and you can choose a theme of choice)
• let’s you personalize and customize the way your read blogs
• Uses keyboard shortcuts like Google Reader
• Remembers your preferences and favorites and adjusts the presentation accordingly
• It allows you to read blogs in a magazine style
• It let’s you import your subscriptions from Google Reader
• By adding a little feedly button to your toolbar you can ‘one click’ add blogs to your follow-list
• Is fully integrated with Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus
• Mobile friendly
• Many ways to add extra features, preferences etc.

3. Bloglovin’

In there own words: “Sign up, add all the blogs you want to follow, and then you’ll get notified every time one of your favorite blogs has written a new blog post. Both on the web and on your iPhone or Android phone”.

• It seems to be designed by and for a women audience
• It collects the latest updates of your favorite blogs and gives you short excerpt of the most recent post and one click access to the original source
• It gives you lot of suggestions for blogs and sites to follow
• You can choose to have email notifications when blogs are updated
• Allows you to import from Google Reader etc
• Mobile friendly

4. Networked Blogs

You might know NetworkedBlogs as a Facebook app. Well it is, but it can be used a blog reader too. Since Networked Blogs allows you to sign in with your Facebook account you don’t need a  separate login and you can easily import and connect to your FB favorites.

• Offers a wide range of suggestions to follow
• Adjusts those suggestions according to your likes and votes
• Fully integrated with Facebook
• Gives you a list of recent posts on your favorite blogs and a one click way to the original blog
• Has a widget to put on your blog to show off your networked blogs followers and allow following

5. Linky Followers Tool

Recently some of our DIY/ craft pal bloggers got together with the Linky Party coder Brent and developed Linky Followers. It is brand sparking new and new features are being added almost daily.

• Easy organization of your blogs in categories
• You can see who follows your blog
• Gives you the most recent post of your followed blogs and a one click to go to the blog
  [updated, thanks Tina], the most recent post is manually added by the blog authors, so it depends on them when you will get notified of the update.
• Has a reading panel to read the post within Linky Followers
• Has a widget to put on your blog to show of your followers and to allow following

6. Facebook, Twitter, Google+

Of course if you still haven’t found what you are looking for… Then signing up to the Facebook page or Twitter stream of your favorite bloggers is a way to stay up to date too. Most bloggers send an update or message to their Facebook wall or page, their Twitter stream or their Google+ page when they write a new blog. Of course in the mad stream of those social media sites you might miss the notice, but it is still there. Set up a list of your favorites and you won’t miss the link to the update. Of course these sites offer the additional benefit of connecting and communicating and getting to know your favorite bloggers in a whole new way.

So I guess I have given you enough options on how to stay updated on all of your favorite blogs. And if you don’t want to miss a thing from me, simply subscribe and read in your reader of choice, subscribe by email,  or follow through Blogger (guaranteed until March 1 ), Like me on Facebook, Tweet me on Twitter, Follow me on Pinterest.

For part 1 of this series: What is a feed reader and why do I need one?

Part 2 of this series: Tips and Tricks on how to use Google Reader

So do you think I covered it all? What’s your favorite way to read blogs? Have I changed how you think about readers? My favorite way is still Google Reader because I know it like the back of my hand, and when I want a little more beauty I turn to Feedly as the runner up.

Love,

Yesterday we said the final goodbye to a very dear aunt of mine. She had been sick and in failing health for a long time, so in a way it was a blessing that her suffering was over. Yet every goodbye like this, is so final that no matter how or why, it still hurts.

And then in the evening we had new friends over for diner. Friends we haven’t known that long yet, but who have found a way into our hearts and life so fast and so good that it feels as if they have always been there.

A weekend of loss and gain at the same time.

So what is a girl to do with so many different emotions at the same time playing havoc in her head. Exactly! Start fluffing and playing and creating beauty and some order out of things that are familiar and comforting.

I started playing my favorite sport of table setting……

Setting a table like this, for a simple dinner with good friends, is so comforting. I had no idea what I was going to do with this one. No theme or idea in my head before I started. So I just took it from where I always start, with the basics, choosing the background.

I tried out a few combinations of tablecloth with runners or placemats but none ‘did it’ for me, until I combined the crisp white with the black. That started talking to me…

So I rummaged around in my kitchen cupboards to see if I could come up with enough whites, and blacks and combo’s to make this work.

A quick label of chalkboard vinyl made an old pitcher just right for the job.

And when I went down to the basement to look for some candle sticks I grabbed the mirror off the wall on my way back.

No table scape without flowers, I took some white tulips out of a mixed bunch and clipped some greens from the garden. I really like the contrast of the greens with the black and white theme. It definitely would have gotten a little boring without it.

Playing around with my ‘toys’ like this was so comforting. Decorating always does that for me. The more turmoil there is going on in my head (and there is plenty of that at the moment), the more I need some order and beauty around me.

Funny now that I am looking at the pictures and I see how this table decoration turned out I can see that this black and white table setting was a perfect representation of my mood. The contrast between the dark and the light, the heavy and the airy, the cold colors and the warm greens. I didn’t realize it at the time.

Like most of my decorations it came about instinctively. The start is always difficult and I am usually not sure where I am going – if anywhere -  in the beginning. Then I add that one element that makes it click and I can see the theme, the rhythm starting to come alive. And then it is just a matter of continuing to add things until I feel that that last item was too much and I take it out again and it feels done.

So do you have routines that you turn to when you need some comfort? What is it for you that quiets the mind? How do you ease the turmoil in your head?

Love,

Pale and Interesting – Pair of Vintage Metal Chairs.

I stumbled on this beautiful site from an English furniture shop. This picture in particular made me gasp. There is something about that contrast between the rusty ‘white’ chairs and those crisp white boards. O how I love wood, and how I love rust…..

And how I love WHITE….

One day I’ll have a white wood wall, one day……

Visit Pale and Interesting for more inspiration and who knows maybe something beautiful will ‘stick’ to your clicking finger.

After writing a month long series on avoiding procrastination and getting things done, you’d think I learned a lesson….

After getting myself into trouble more times then I can count, you’d expect me to be smarter….

I guess I am not.

This weekend I had a diner party. A diner party that had been planned months ago. I was to bring the desert. At the last diner party I was the hostess and I had received this wonderful rose shaped baking form as a gift. Of course I had to use that to make the desert.

I knew all of this for months….

I had good intentions on trying out this baking form and then come up with a rock solid, well tested recipe for the party. I didn’t….

I had planned to document every step of the making of this wonderful dessert, styling the heck out of it and then blog about it and sharing the recipe. I couldn’t……

Because in true procrastinator fashion, I waited for that last day to start baking my dessert and it took me until the very last minute before I really had to hit the shower to finish it. The best I could do was to quickly grab some pictures.

I brought the cake over to the party with no real idea if it was any good. I just knew it looked kind of good…

The baking gods were on my side. It was delicious. But boy did I end up panicking over this one.

Why oh why, do I keep on doing this to myself? When will I ever learn my own lesson and Get Things Done! ON TIME!!!

Please tell me I am not the only one who does crazy stuff like this?

Love,

This time it was…..

I made Ice Lanterns. Well actually I made one ice lantern, the next one is in the making right now.

This is so cool (pun intended). So easy, yet so cool.

We are having a very cold spell here right now. Temperature hasn’t been above freezing in over a week. And in this little flat country persistent freezing temperatures means that a particular fever is rising. Ice fever, as in ice skating fever, as in shall this be the year that the infamous ‘tour of eleven cities’ will be held again.

You see we have this thing here, where when the winter is severe enough and the frost lasts long enough for the canals and rivers to freeze over, that people start to plot holding the tour of tours. It happens rarely, the last one was in 1997 the one before that in 1986 and 1985 and before that it was back in the sixties.

This elfstedentocht (Dutch for tour of eleven cities) can make this little country even more crazy than the world cup football championships finale. Must be something about the real men heroism going with it. As I said for more than twenty years the tour was a myth. The one in the sixties had been particularly brutal. And the black and white images of bearded men going over the finish line with popsicles hanging from the eyebrows, completely exhausted and almost frozen became part of our cultural heritage.

And then in the eighties it finally happened again. A strong winter with enough freezing days in a row to built a strong ice road. It was such a big event that we all got a day off from school. Yes I once got an ice-day holiday. Once, as is hasn’t happened since.

And no the talk is on again and hope is rising as fast as the ice is growing…..

So while my country is talking about the centimeters of frost gained in the night, meetings between ice masters are held every hour, people are sharpening their skates and hoping they can get on the participants list (you actually have to be a member to be able to participate in the race. People are members for decades on the off chance that the race will be held again and that they will draw a lucky number). Everyone hopes it will get colder and colder while the fever rises.

And I had my own little ice celebrations.

A lit ice lantern to celebrate winter. To marvel at the force of nature. To have a little fun with the freezing cold.

Just water and a couple of olive tree branches and a little patience. That is all that it took, to create this beauty.

A light in a cold, dark night….

Here’s to hoping that the frost will linger long enough for my country to have its special winter fest….

Love,

Peacock wallpaper in a lovely romantic bathroom. Beautiful room makeover by Just Jeanette

No really, so far I am loving the move, and I am loving the new comment system the most. I am a chatty person, so what could be better than a chance to talk back to you, right away.

Face to face so to speak. Except I don’t see your lovely smiling face anymore. And I miss that.

Instead I see these logo’s. While my face keeps showing up. Makes me feel like I am talking to myself. And I do enough of that already.

So please smile back at me again…..

So if you want to start smiling back at me in the comments again, there is an easy fix, and the beauty of it is, it doesn’t only work on my site but on any WordPress (and probabaly Typepad too) site. So you’ll be smiling at The Nester or Sarah or Layla too

WordPress gets it little profile pics it attaches to comments from the official profile picture database, otherwise known as GRAVATAR. If you upload a picture there, it will show up everywhere on the internet where Gravatar is used to get profile pictures.

It is a two minute job, tops, I promise. And really easy. Just a few simple steps.

1

Go to http://www.gravatar.com

2

Click on register:

3

Fill in your email address (important use the email address you use for your online/ social media presence, and the one you use when leaving a comment).

4

Go over to your email account and confirm your registration.

5

Choose your username (f.e. your first name, or your blog name or a combination of the two)
and safe password

6

Upload your profile picture. This could be the same one as you use on Blogger, Facebook, Twitter etc. the choice is yours.

Promise that you are G-rated

DONE!

And then leave me a comment and see your face appear!

Can’t wait to see your lovely faces again and be able to smile back at you.

Love,