Chez Larsson

Outdoor Decorations

Day

Yesterday was Advent 1st and my decorations are up outside.

Dusk

This year I went all faux except for the real junipers in the zink pots on either side of the front door and in the window box outside the kitchen.

 

 
 
 And now I want snow! 
 

Holiday Bunting

  

While you guys are still digesting your turkeys (Happy belated Turkey Day!) or are making mad dashes scoring Black Friday deals or are simply still at work (it's a regular ol' Friday over her in Sweden) I'll just quickly share this simple holiday craft project with you. For those of you in Aby's workshop here's the how-to in pictures.

Remember the Easter bunting I made in March? This is the Christmas version of it.

So easy to make. This time I recycled used holiday cards and some craft paper...

  ... and simply snipped them into triangles and stitched them together on the sewing machine.

On Sunday we have Advent 1st over here. I'm heading out now to hang my exterior decorations. Have a good weekend and see you again on Monday!

Favorite Shirt Pillow

Check out our new pillow. Recognize the material? (Oh and yes, that's Bonus making his loaf of bread impression in front of it.)

 

Yup, it's Martins favorite old shirt...

 

Martin actually wore this shirt the day Wille was born 15 years ago and it's been in his closet ever since. The fabric is soooo increadibly soft. The cut of the shirt was very 80's so Martin didn't wear it any longer and agreed I could turn it into a pillow case. Here's the how-to.

 

Cut two squares in your pillow size plus seam allowance on all four sides. No need to worry about closure because it's already built in.

Pin the two pieces together with buttons towards inside.

Sew along all four edges and zig zag to prevent fraying.

Turn right side out and there's the pillow case. Probably one of the easiest I've ever made.

If you don't have a shirt but have a favorite T-shirt you want to turn into a pillow I have a tutorial for you too. Check it out here.
 

Help me Out Here Please

Can I ask your honest opinion on something?

I get approached by companies all the time who want to send me stuff to review or to give away. I usually turn them down for one or several reasons like a) They won't do international shipping of give-aways b) The product's not something I'm interested in c) It's a lot of work on my part to be honest.

So far I've turned down lamps, home office accessories, sunbeds (would have loved to give those away but they couldn't ship them outside of Sweden), paint ( would have loved to do that give away too but paint doesn't travel well overseas...) etc etc.

I'm aware that hosting give-aways can get you more readers but I'm fine with the one's I have (that's you :). Hosting give-aways can also provide you with blog content but I have plenty of that, not stumped for ideas yet.

It has gotten to the point where I'm thinking "What's in it for me? When I get these e-mails where Company X want to send me say a paintbrush, write x amount on the benefits of said brush AND administer a give away of three of the presumably Super brushes and I'm like "you want me to do all that and I get a by then used brush in return"?!

To the point finally. Lately I've been getting some pretty nice offers of give-ways by companies who WILL ship prizes abroad (to the moon, if necessary as one said) and there's a little freebie in there for me too. 

I'm on one side thinking "Now we're talking!" and at the same time don't want to labeled as "bought". How do you guys feel about this? Would you mind if I occassionaly accepted free stuff and if I like it blog about it or host occasional give-aways? I have to say I'm not someone who get showered with free stuff all the time and I have to admit I like the idea of the occasional goodie being dropped of in my mail box...

Be honest, I can take it! I'll obviously still make up my own mind about it in the end but I do value your view on this and you can decide whether you still like me after.

~B.

Our Thing for Tartan

As I told you last week we've had this thing for tartan.

When Martin and I met on New Years Even in 1986 his then anglophile style and my love for anything checked merged and we had quite a few years of tartan mania.

Martin's tartan thing acually even partly stems from his great great great grandmother who met and had a fling with a Lord of the Isles who was salmon fishing in Norway. Hot stuff, huh?

Here's (part of) our tartan run down in pictures.

 

Dishes and pillows.

 

Throw.

Shirt.

More pillows and photo album.

Another shirt. More on this one in a later post.

Baby Björn carrier.

Matching bouncer.

Another pillow.

 

With tartan being one of those things that comes around at regular intervals I'm always happy when it does but Martin loves it always.

How about you? Any pattern that you love and that you keep reaching for when shopping?