Kawaii and a Frozen birthday

Warning: Picture heavy post….

Summer means enjoying life outside. But before we can relax and enjoy life some prepwork needs to be done. So the past weeks inbetween Summer showers, we have been painting. Painting floor board left and right, lots of fence boards..the end is near. Just a few more boards left. Note to self: don’t do both front and back patio the same year…

Back patio

Still need some greenery, just not sure what we want yet. And I have big plans of “making” some kind of steps on the right side so that the girls can play on the small woods we have right behind our backgarden. But think I might have to push those plans to next Summer…we’ll see…

Now over to some kawaii. My plans for tonight is adding some new and refreshing the girls lunch boxes. Some of you might remember a post a while back about my pimping up some boring Biltema food containers. You can see that post here. As you can see, the boxes have been well used and are in need of some refurbish.

So last night I did some surfing after new designs and today I found my Sharpies and clear nail polish. ready to add some “kawaii” to the girls kindergarden lunch boxes.

I will be changing a few design, as I’m not happy with how they turned out the last time. Hopefully the new designs meets SweetieS and BabyLs approval.

Since I’m on a “blog roll”, I might as well post the part I mentioned in my previous post. SweetieS Frozen birthday with the girls from kindergarten. As always when researching…check out Pintrest. There I found inspiration and help for the birthday invites. Of course they were Frozen themed….

I can’t take credit for these. Eventhough I did make them myself, I had alot of help from Jenn Ericksons blog Jennuine. Spesifically this post about how to make your own Frozen invites. Jenn even shares the picture file needed to make this invites! Thank you Jenn I scored HUGH with SweetieS with these invites.

Of course I had to make a Frozen cake….after spending hours on a failed attempt, this was the result @1AM.

Though a failed attempt in my mind…I had sooo many ideas for this cake and wound up with none…the girls approved and had seconds. With my big plans came huge amounts of fondant. As the plans failed I was left with large amounts of marshmellow fondant…in comes SweetieS with an idea. Can all the girls also make an Olaf? She remembered Olaf being very tasty last year and wanted the other girls to be able to taste yummy Olaf. So that’s is what we did! All the girls were given a lump of MMF and some accessories…Toothpicks for stability and arms, dried mango bites for Olafs nose and cloves for eyes and buttons.

Some cool olafs were made…a huge hit with the girls when they found out how tasty he was…

All in all, successful birthday in the eyes of SweetieS.

If I am to finish the lunch box lids before bedtime I better get cracking…

- what are your weekend plans?
- what birthday themes have you had success with?

Stacked

Winter is coming and the temperature is slowly dropping on the thermometer. A few weeks ago I mentioned to my Facebook friends how I had cleaned our fire place, getting it ready for another season in service. Well this past weekend I organized our log storage better.

The before and after pictures speaks for themselves…looks way more organized. Going from a on-the-fly solution (made of what we had available, a pallet and some planks) to metal racks. After BabyL started pulling out logs from the sides, I realized we had to find a more childproof solution.

before	after

The ones we used here are available from Jula, called “Anslut vedoppbevaring”. We bought two so that we could store logs between the racks too.

picture borrowed from the Jula site – side view of one rack

- how do you store your logs?

Finally done and beautiful globes

I’ve been working on these pillow cases for ages. Well the knitting part was done in a couple of weeks, but adding the zipper took forever. Over the course of the last few weeks I have added the zippers. And now I’m finally done! Just four more pillow cases to go…but before I can start with them I have a few Christmas gifts that I need to finish first.

Knitted in Lana Grossa Classic Tweed, color 002 – a speckled brown/beige color. Lovely.
December is here and time for some Winter magic. These days I’ve been busy with another project. Making ice globes for Lysnisseprosjektet/Making a magical December. I found a tutorial thanks to Pintrest. So I’ve been experimenting with balloons and various amounts of water. It’s not cold enough outside to make these globes, so I’ve made them one at a time in my freezer.

my two globes yesterday…

I have placed mine on a bed of pine needle branches on top of a storage case I have on our front patio. Today I added another one…but forgot to take a picture. Instructions on making these can be found here. Thank you Anne! The tutorial is in Norwegian, but the video shows the steps so well no need for sound.
- How do you create your Winter magic?

A roof over my head

Today our new roof was finished! Yay! I’ve been longing for a roof at the front of our house for ages. When I had my maternity leave with BabyS it was even more sought after. Coming home from a long stroll with the stroller I had no place to park the stroller protected from the elements.

For those who have followed my blog the past years probably remember our attempt at a roof with a gazebo at the front of our house. Unfortunately the gazebo didn’t like a huge amounts of snow that falls down here at “the top of Oslo”. And broke under the heavy, wet snow.

The company that built this roof for us is Andreassen og Fjeld Bygg AS. Super happy with these guys. Every day they cleaned up after themselves – so no worries that BabyS would get her hands on anything dangerous. A dialog with them daily gave us updates on that was done and what was left.

Already started a new dialog with them regarding the patio on the backside of our house – that is in desperate need of some “help”…

- have you done any renovation on your house lately?

On my shopping wish list

With Baby S growing bigger for every passing day I’ve started thinking of furniture to have on the front patio. This way we can sit outside in the shade (from our gazebo).

A hammock looks very comfortable…just needs a couple of good pillows

picture from www.plantasjen.no

Today I also saw an inspirational blog post… We have a big lounge in the back garden with HUGE pillows, which don’t fit in a standard pillow box. The ones we have found that fit our pillows I can’t say I’ve liked. So still looking. Well in this inspirational blog post (here) I saw a pillow “cupboard”…have to look further into that…

Look, a gazebo!

Ask and you shall receive…

In a earlier post I “asked” for a wooden gazebo on the patio at the front of our house.

We came across an offer (@Jula) we couldn’t resist, a wooden gazebo at a fraction of the prices I had found so far.

With the early arrival of our little baby girl we didn’t have time to assemble until this weekend, with the help of a few family members the gazebo was finished. Thank you! (we wouldn’t have finished without your help)

Well here is the finished result…

Time flies…

Can’t believe that I’m already one week into my maternity leave. Time sure flies…and the baby isn’t even here yet. Haven’t even had time to blog (!).

Thought that I would have better time when my maternity leave started. Since my midwife has been worried about me having preeklampsi I’ve had a few more check ups and follow ups than normal…just the last week I had THREE doctors appointments!

The past week has gone to some preparations for the coming baby…and just getting the house out of “renovation mode”.

Just to mention a few projects that have been going on the past week:

• assembled the baby stroller
• bought a wooden gazebo (still need to assemble though-see my earlier post)
• getting the front patio washed and ready for a new season in the Sun (crossing our fingers that the Sun grants us some presence this summer)
• finished putting down wooden flooring in the hallway on the 2^nd floor and the wooden moldings are put in place
• (finally) finished the last washing load of baby clothes and folded them nicely into the dresser in the nursery

Now if I can only find some time and inspiration to do some scrapping…

Murphys Law rears it head again…

Just a few weeks ago I mentioned Murphys law for the first time in a post…once again it rears it's’ ugly head. This time in the form of bad weather.

I mentioned in a post I wanted a wooden gazebo for the front patio of our house, to provide shelter from the weather for our baby stroller.

Luck would have it, I found a wooden gazebo like the type I wanted at a VERY reasonable price. At just 1495 NOK it was way cheaper than any of the options I had found so far. But there was a catch…it had to be picked up in the city of Moss. Which is about an hours drive from Oslo. Manageable. and with a little help from my friend, we were able to pick it up Friday evening.

We even had such luck that by the time we went to pay for the gazebo, the price had fallen further, to 995 NOK!!! Because the item is being discontinued. Lucky we thought…we even got the last one they had in stock.

But when I woke up this morning, Murphy has struck. Several centimeters of snow had fallen during the morning hours and our front patio was now covered in snow…

after a day in the Sun, a lot of snow has still not melted

The gazebo is originally not painted, but this blog did give me some inspiration.

Now just waiting for the snow to melt and give the patio a once over before assembling the gazebo…

I want, I want

At the front of our house  we have a patio, and there is just a small roof covering the front door. The plan is to build a roof over the front patio later on. But for now, as a temporary solution, we have landed on buying a wooden gazebo. This way we have a place to park the baby stroller when at home, without it being in the way and protected from the elements. Where do you park your stroller when at home? Is it in the way?

So far I’m surprised over how expensive they are!This one costs 9990 NKR!!

the next one I find, more expensive than the last one…11990 NKR!

We haven’t set a budget for the gazebo, but I feel almost 10K NKR is a little on the expensive side…

from when we bought the house

last summer we did an overhaul of the flooring

Our house has a wooden exterior, so I feel a wooden gazebo will complement the exterior. Now starts the search for a wooden gazebo at a reasonable price. Wish me luck, I really want one…