M & Co

The turtle in my attic part 2

Photo: me 

Some of you wanted to see my turtle shell, and here it is :-) Apart from the smell its in good condition after spending 50 years in the attic. My grandfather has written Kap Verde 1936 on it, so that should be how old it is.

While I'm a lover of unusual natural history things, I'm also a nature and animal lover, so if you like these kinds of things, buy vintage or from approved sellers of abandoned houses!! 1stdibs.com has some beautiful vintage ones in their inventory, as well as other turtle related collectibles.

I'm trying to figure out were to have it, and have some photos of different optiones on my Flickr page. The colors on the photos are a bit off, as my walls are not pink.... but it was kind of dark when I took the photos, and I've yet to figure out how to get indoor nighttime photography work ;-) Your opinion, and suggestions on the new habitat of my turtle shell would be very much appriciated, as always ;-)!!

A view of my home, and the the black tulips I just can'nt get enought of!

Photo:me

Firstly I have to apologize to you, my super sweet friends and readers for the lack of posts here lately, and for my unexpected absence from blogging. I'm now back with regular updates :-) I'm so grateful for all the sweet comments you've left while I was away! You are all just too sweet!! and I've missed you immensely! Thank you for not abandoning me ;-)

I just had to show you these spectacular black tulips today. I'm crazy about them these days, and I wish I had planted more of them ;-) Last year I started adding some black flowers in an area of the garden, and I'm quite thrilled with it (Even though I'm opting for an all white garden ;-)) They really are quite striking for cut flowers! 

The not so elegant dog...

Todays post was going to be on my upholstered chair. I'm really thrilled with how it turned out, and I'm particulary happy with the silvery grey fabric from KA Int. I decided to use my dog Luna as a prop, as I've seen so many gorgeous interior photos with dogs in magazines, commersials etc. Usually these are small dogs though, but they always seem to add that little extra touch to the images....

   

anyway I quickly figured out that Rottweilers are not very well suited to this task .... first of all the chair looks like a tiny child chair compared to the dog, secondly I'm not that keen on having my dogs on my furniture so I had to add a blanket ... and third my dogs are quite active so posing in a chair is not their idea of fun....  ....it started well.... and in the end she was just not cooperating at all...

   

A bit of Spring feeling from my home

Just before the snow set in I managed to pick some Forsythia branches from my moms garden. I love the yellow flowers on the bare branches so simple and beautiful!

I'm quite worried my bulbous flowers will be ruined due to all this snow. Just before the weekend I had crocuses and daffodils ready to bloom, but now they are covered in 15 cm of snow, and it keeps snowing...

We've been spending the weekend at home as the eager husband changed to summer tires two weeks ago, making it way too dangerous to drive in this weather.  This probably means I'll be walking to work tomorrow ...  Love walking with the dogs, hate walking to work at 07.00 in the morning, in snow !!

Best/Pest

Photos by me

Poppins of Poppins Tragard challenged me to show you the Best and the Pest of my home. I actually love this challenge as I have much of both ;-)

The Best of my home is the attic! Living in my grandparents old house ment that we was stuck with a lifetime of collected items that nobody wanted ... several container loads was given away to the fleamarket, but I still have a treasure trove of wonderful things (and not so wonderful things)up there! Quite often I'll go on a treasure hunt, in my own attick, finding beautiful items I've never seen before. My favourite finds so far are ; my coral, and shell collection, several old porcelaine dinner and coffe sets, one coffe table, one side table, a collection of olde ebony and ivory figurines and a crocodile.

Now to the not so pleasant part.....the Pest of my house .... well its quite a lot living in an old house but the worsth is the upstairs bathroom! In order to not ruin my blog completly I've just added a picture of the ceiling .... its awful!! And the rest of the room is kind of in the same state. I must admit I never allow people to enter that room, and we do not use it either ...apart for my husband who have done some "decorating" there, hanging up posters from different Metal bands, and some Calendar girls... I must say that really impoved it *hihi*

I'm passing the challenge on to some people that surley must have Pest free homes, but lets see what comes out of their closets !:

The Beedlam of Beefy, Patricia Grey, Studio da Lu, Karna and Decor Amor .

The rules are; Link to the person who tagged you (So we can follow the trail), show us the Best and the Pest of your home, and pass on the challenge to 5 others! 

Spring inside and outside ... nearly

I've been writing about my desire for spring since ...December?! And finally the first signs appears! Inside its been going on since early January ;-) (Narcissus) outside however my first spring delight, my hellebore, was literally crushed by another snowfall .. but today they reappeared ...some damage but I think they'll get over it :-) I also discovered that my snowdrops are about to flower ...only a bit more sun and warmth now.... I couldn't resist picking a few tiny ones to see if i might get them to flower inside :-) Impatient?! Its my middle name...

I'm having so much fun taking photos with my new camera! And sooo much to learn! ;-) I hope you do not have too high expectaions for me ;-)!! I'm still going to post bad light, bad technique, bad composition pictures, as sometimes I just have to show you something quick ...and then I cannot wait until the light is right, or I have the perfect backdrop...hihi ...

Soo many have joined The Easter Bunny's Chicks Easter Swap by now! I'm thrilled, and soo looking forward to see everyones creations! I've updated the Easter Bunny's Chicks page with a few swap graphics if you want to show you're participating! :-) Remember the deadline for joining is the 28th of February, and the swap items should be sent by the 14th of March :-)

 

What a wonderful day! :-)

Hmm.. were to begin! :-) Yesterday was quite wonderful!! When my husband arrived home today he asked me to close my eyes, he then handed me a gift! (Another one? Only yesterday I got flowers! :-)) It was square, medium sized and heavy. He then told me it was something creative .... (which is weird because frankly he's the least creative man on this planet, and he does not understand why I'm fretting about easter already, and why on earth I don't buy the decorations instead of making them....) and I had no idea what it could be....so when I opened my eyes and saw that he had got me a Canon EOS 400D Camera I was stunned!! I've been wanting a new camera for the past  few years, believing I would never get one, and certainly not from him, since he's always been saying he does not understand why I can't just use the one I have... so today I'm the extremely happy owner of a new camera, and I'll now try to learn to take proper photos!! Jippi :-) Thank you husband!!! I'm thrilled!! I've already taken a few shots while trying to learn my way around the camera ; my old fireplace (with unicorns! love it) , Luna baby (I'm sorry Hector, next time I'll use you as my model (He's been having a bad rash so I've shaved his head...)) and my creme roses.

About the roses .... The gorgeous giant red roses my husband got me for Valentines just died ....so I took them back to the florist, who exchanged them into these creme roses, and even gave me a bunch of tulips because she was so sorry about the dead roses. Apparently this frequently happens at Valentine when all of Europe crave red roses at the same time.. I must admit, if I had bought them myself I would never have returned them, but since it was from my husband I really felt like making it right.

And then this evening my mum brought me a whole box full of easter decorations for my craft projects :-) Since my parents spend every Easter at our mountain lodge they don't really decorate, so my mum thought I needed them more. Sooo kind my mum :-) In the box was everything from some horrible chicks I made when I was 5, to my fathers easter egg from the early 1950's and a lot of other goodies !

Now its the middle of the night here in Norway, but coughing made me unable to sleep so I decided to do some blogging instead :-) I'm a bit behind on visiting your delightful blogs, and on answering my mail, and some comments, but if this cough keeps up, I'll be awake, and having fun visiting you !

Takk Mamma!

My mom is so sweet! As you might know I've been sick since the beginning of the year, first with the flu, and now a stubborn pneumonia....so my sweet mom sent me these wonderful flowers yesterday so I have something beautiful to watch while I'm stuck inside !! I do'nt usually get flowers, so when the flower delivery man rang the doorbell I was sure he was at the wrong address ;-) I was thrilled when I discovered the flowers really was mine! Takk mamma!!

Today is mothersday....so its quite weird that I've got the flowers and not my mom... we're not celebrating mothersday today as I'm not a mom (maybe a dog mom at best ;-) ) and my parents are at our mountain lodge, and my in-laws are in Cannes, so no mothers to celebrate :-) I'll get them some beautiful flowers when they're back home though. They really deserve it! :-)

I would like to celebrate all the wonderful mothers I've met through blogging so : Happy mothersday to you all! You are doing an incredible important job raising your children :-) So I'm sharing my boquet with you all!!!

More kitchen pictures :-)

Too tired to write today ....so looking forward to the weekend now :-)! But here are some more photos from my kitchen :-)

I'm so happy for all the positive response on my last post, and on the Flickr group ! I'm sure we'll have loads of fun with this! :-)

Another glimpse of my kitchen ;-)

Another glimpse of my kitchen... Today I took this picture of the kitchen. As you can see its still not finished....I've been planning to put up the side panel for the cupboards for the last three years...but I'm still delaying it ;-)

Five years ago we bought my grandparents house from 1954. It was in a poor state, as nothing had been done with it, except some wallpapering in the 1970's, so we've been renovating it ever since. We've done most of the work ourself, as we're young, and do not have that much money.. In the kitchen we tore down the wall between the old kitchen and a bedroom to get space for an eating area.

Its always something to do in an old house, and we never seem to finish..but its all worth it. I so enjoy being able to live in the house my grandparents had built.  My grandfathers brother is the architect, and my grandfather asked him to find inspiration in the traditional New England saltbox houses he had seen on his travels in the US. So the house is part New England, and part 1950's Norwegian style ;-)

Btw. Happy Fastelaven to all of you! I'm enjoying it through the images on your blogs, as I haven't been out for days, to get Fastelavensris (I have no idea what this is called in English? Any ideas? Its tree branches with colored  feathers..)