spectacular spring

I keep feeling completely overwhelmed by the loveliness of this season, just cannot get enough of it. The colours, the smells, the light late evenings, bare feet in the grass. The long, dark and horribly cold winter is nothing but a vicious dream we’ve all woken up from, finally. This tree above is a Bird Cherry, and it’s got the most amazing scent imaginable. Trust me, it’s intoxicating. I don’t wear perfume, in fact I kinda hate perfume, because perfume will never come close to the scent of Bird Cherry, for example.



Another amazing tree is this one called Lind in Swedish, Tilia Cordata. It smells lovely from the day it starts blooming, until the end of summer when it’s blooming again, with flowers that also makes for a delicious tea. Bumblebees come to feast at those flowers, and end up killing themselves, because they get too drunk from the nectar. It’s sad, but also kinda nice. I would like to believe they die happy.









I got myself a new dress to celebrate the season (well, obviously I will make up any excuse to get a new dress), and also add some colour to my wardrobe. I love it! I found it at Myrorna (Salvation Army) for 125 kronor, thank you very much.



Look how lovely the evening sun looks in our little park by the church around the corner where we live!

spring me a new dress

I’m very much in love with this dress I got this week. It’s one of those dresses that you put on and just feel so good in, and you feel it’s making you look good, almost effortlessly. I like those kinds of dresses. Yes, I like this dress lots and lots. I got it at Humana for 159 kronor. I like that too. I think it looks very 50’s, but I couldn’t say for sure. As always, just hanging on a hanger doesn’t make it justice, take my word for it.



What caught my eye in the store was the lovely flowery print, and I got so happy in the dressing room when the fit was absolutely perfect. Today it was a bit chilly again, so I wore it for the first time, and I’ve felt so good the whole day. Thank you, new black flower dress, for making me feel good.



We’ve got pink trees outside the house, just wanted to show you. They’re ridiculously pretty. If it stays windy next week, the whole street will look like it’s covered in pink snow. I love it!









Spring and new dresses are a good combination, if you ask me.

magnificent magnolia

I think the magnolia tree is one of the most beautiful things in the world this time of year.

fantastic flowers and birds

A few weeks ago I got two lovely belated birthday gifts from a dear friend that I hadn't seen for a while. This is one of the gifts, an adorable cup and saucer, here with a midmorning cup of coffee and some gingerbread bisquits, a must this time of year.



Just look at these little birdies sitting in a tree full of flowers! Too cute! Right now I'm having Five Roses Rooibos & Honey in it, which is my favorite evening tea, and some Riviera Chocolate Luvbites, that we just got in a care package from my mother-in-law in Durban. Delish!



We just came back from a small holiday down south in Sweden, and later I'll show some pretty pictures from an incredible place we visited. But for now I'm just gonna brag about this beautiful piece of art that my husband got for me: a Chinese wood carving. When I saw it I just knew I had to have it! It's not only beautiful, it smells wonderful too, don't know what wood it's made of though. Something nice smelling. Cedar Maybe?



I love these phoenix birds. They make me think of getting a phoenix tattoo, that I've considered on many occasions before.



And how about these roses? Oh, how I just adore Chinese arts and crafts. Now comes the delicate question of finding the perfect place for it in our flat, where I can see it the most. Will have to get back on that.

Enjoy your own evening cup of tea! And get yourselves ready for another giveaway coming up in a little bit!

fireworks for fall

I finally wore my lovely Asian looking 60's fireworks/trees polyester dress that I got earlier this summer from Humana. I truly love it! To match I also wore my tree earrings from Durban, that I got for my birthday last year. Dressed up this nicely I spent the entire day doing loads of laundry, getting some stuff from the basement storage, like a few coats and knitted scarves and hats, and organised two closets, making space for my husbands clothes, storing away some summery items, and so on.



To accompany a big collection of dresses in a cold climate are the essential tights, a wear and tear piece of clothing I really like. Well, I don't really like the tearing part of course, I wish all tights were untearable, or maybe that I was just more careful. Or both. Either way, seeing all these colours laid out like this makes me quite happy about the arrival of autumn.



Moving some summer tops I suddenly got a little extra space in my small cabinet, but on the other hand I didn't get all my knitwear from the storage yet, the really big and warm things. They need to stay somewhere too. Not for a while though, as I hope it won't be that cold until December at least.



I needed to go to Åhléns to get some more hangers, and thought I could reward myself for all the hard work I'd been doing all day. So I got this cute belt I saw the other week, and have been thinking about since. It cost 99 kronor, and I love the leaves and vintage look, and it will go great with a lot of my dresses.



Since the tearing thing mentioned above is quite common, I also got two pairs of new tights in some really lovely autumn colours, both matching my dress perfectly. Which means I will wear this dress a whole lot from now on, maybe even to the rather big book release party I'm going to this Thursday with work. I mean what could be more festive than fireworks to a release party?

vacation, or shopping elsewhere

In case anyone's wondering, I'm on vacation, taking a little tour to family and friends in the southern parts of Sweden. So far it's been both busy and relaxing, and to tell you the truth I'm not really a lying-around-in-a-hammock-doing-nothing kind of girl anyway. I like visiting, seeing people I don't get to see that often, and other than that pretty much do the same things I would normally do. Right now I'm on the southern tip of Sweden, in Ystad, where my father lives with his wife and my youngest brother. I've mentioned the party I'm going to, and that will take place tonight in this beautiful old water tower, that's now rebuilt into apartments. Very much looking forward to it, and since it starts in two and a half hour, I'm gonna start getting dolled up in a little bit. I've taken loads of pictures, suddenly developed an obsession with nice old wooden doors the other day, you'll find them here eventually, and might think I've gone a bit mad. Could be. Also made some excellent finds, that I didn't have time to take pictures of yet, since I was busy photographing doors. But I'm particularly happy about most things actually, as it should be.

under the trumpet tree

As we are blessed with some cloudy skies for the first time in weeks and weeks, I thought I'd take the opportunity to stay inside without a guilty conscience, and show some pics I took recently in the lovely backyard outside my office. People that visit our office often remark at how quaint it is, and it really is, but quaint doesn't always go hand in hand with practicality. The office is in a beautiful house from 1757, called Monteliuska huset (The Montelius house), and it gets freezing cold in the winter and hot like a sauna in the summer. Fall and spring are usually okay, so at least we've got that. But from May until September we've got the great advantage of being able to use the backyard, which outweighs a few of the other downsides.



Cobblestones cover the entire yard, which makes the chairs a bit wobbly, but of course looks very nice. All the buildings are beautiful, with really old wooden doors. This detached house is the garbage room to the left, and a storage room to the right. On top of our office, and some other businesses on the ground floor, there are a few apartments that some very enviable persons live in.



In the corner next to a very small office, is the old stable, that's used as another storage area. But the pièce de résistance, the thing that brings the whole backyard together, and gives us excellent shade in the summer, is of course the amazing tree. It's called a trumpet tree in Swedish, as far as I can find out Catalpa in English. Indian bean tree seems to be another name for it. Funnily we've always called it an African trumpet tree, but trying to find out the English name just now, I find out it doesn't grow in Africa at all. You can find it in North America, the Carribean, and east Asia, and in a backyard in Stockholm.



Outside another small office, that used to be an art gallery, some lovely vines are climbing the walls. I love these so much, and for some reason they cut down some equally gorgeous vines just outside my window earlier this spring. The official reason was that the vines were hurting the house, but there is no trace of that whatsoever, it just looks naked now. They didn't even touch the windows, just grew right up to the roof, looking very majestic. Oh, well, vines tend to grow pretty fast, so let's hope they'll make a comeback halfway come next summer.



This is the door that leads to our offices. Yes, we have two actually, one on each side of the hallway. Behind the tiny window is a very cramped storage space next to my room. The nice black iron door leads down to a basement, that I don't think is being used at all, but for the main electricity central for the house.




This door hides the laundry room, kinda nice place to do your laundry, huh? One of my favorite details is the small roof window on the second floor, I would love to see the apartment behind it.




The tree usually blooms a bit later in the summer, towards the end of July, but since it's been such a tropical heat lately, the flowers just sort of exploded over night a couple of weeks ago, and they smell amazing. Just like honey, like The Jesus and Marychain would've put it. The gigantic leaves become a natural umbrella which is good for both sun and rain. At the moment a magpie has a nest in the tree, and she's got some babies that make very cute chirping noises every time the mum gets back with food.

So, that concludes the little tour of my work oasis here in Stockholm. Feel free to stop by if you happen to be in the neighbourhood, S:t Paulsgatan 11.

old hometown looking older

Even though the greenery outside right now is luscious, and beautiful, I wanted to post some pics I "made" the other night. Read in another blog about this cool Japanese site where you can transform your pictures into vintage looking ones, and it was so much fun. These are all pictures from my hometown, Nyköping, a small town about an hour south of Stockholm. There are a lot of cute places there, and it's very nice for long walks, but I wouldn't want to live there again. The above picture is taken just down the small street where I lived the last three years before I moved away from home.


I love the stream, and the little walks by it's sides, and there are some adorable wooden bridges. Or maybe it's just the one, I honestly don't remember. Here it is anyway. It's also very beautiful in the winter, with lots of snow everywhere. There are some gorgeous sweeping weeping willows along the stream, it's one of my favorite trees.



I usually go by train when I go back, and this is the pretty little old station house. I've loved this station ever since I was little, maybe cos it also meant I was going somewhere else. But mainly cos I really love old station houses in red brick, although there aren't that many left nowadays I guess. There was a time when I dreamed about living in one, but I'm not too sure about that anymore. Trains are definitely my favorite mode of traveling, there's nothing like it. Well, it's not always great, it can be horrible, but when it's good it's the best.



Here's the most famous building in Nyköping: the castle. Terrible things happened there in 1317, during the dark middle ages, and every summer we get to relive it in the courtyard if we want. I've seen it enough times. One of the weirdest and most daring things I've ever done was climbing around the main part of the castle with a friend. She was always very daring and loved climbing, the complete opposite of me who've always been terribly afraid of heights. But for some reason, one night with a full moon, I just went for it, and nothing bad happened. It was incredibly scary at one point, but my friend encouraged me to jump and I made it. Crazy moon.



Also very close to the stream next to our old house, you'll find the old brewery, which is one of my favorite buildings. My dad used to have his office on the third floor, and there were some terrifyingly huge spiders outside the windows, one night I was even scared to walk home alone cos I imagined they would attack me. As is so often the case of course, attacking giant spiders are quite common in Sweden. The picture is taken from a bridge, and just below that bridge a heron called Harry usually stands on one leg looking very statuesque. For real. I wonder if he ever eats the spiders.



Here are the sweeping weeping willows, looking amazing as always. The house is another part of the old brewery, very classic redpainted wood with white window frames. In the Swedish countryside it's the most common house you'll see, well maybe except for the southern parts where a very low one storey white stone house is more common. As far as the weeping willows go, I've got one outside my building here in Stockholm, but I have no idea how common they are anywhere.



Finally a picture of another house that at least got a very famous architect, Ferdinand Boberg, and thereby should be famous. But is seems not even that many people from Nyköping know about the architect and the story behind the house, they might just think it looks a bit odd opposite the castle, with it's national romantic Swiss look. I'm not gonna give a lecture about it either, cos it's not that I'm an expert, but it's from 1906 and called NK-villan, that much I'll say. I'm not sure what I should say about the ghost standing in front of the house ... Let's leave it alone. Maybe it's just Harry flying by.

saturday and sunday shopping sins

No excuses this time, just confessions. Spent quite a few hours yesterday walking around the eastern parts of Söder ("the south", my part of Stockholm) with a friend who was in a shopping spree mood. I tried my best to cheer him on, but in the end he had a hard time finding the perfect things he was really looking for. We found a few stores I've never been to before, so that was fun. I have been to Monki before though, just popped in to check out their sale, and got a bunch of black and white accessories for 120 kronor in total, which I was pretty happy with.



I've checked out Flying A once before, very briefly, and in Copenhagen it's one of my musts so I suggested to my friend that we'd go there. You'll find the store on Svartensgatan, very close to Mosebacke. It's not a very big place, and the store itself looks great with lots of vintage decorations to look at. They sell both vintage pieces and new stuff, and the vintage dresses they had were very cute, and very small, and not very cheap, so not for me. But I could not resist these rose hairpins, even though they weren't exactly cheap either, 100 kronor for two. So I better not loose them. I also love how cute that little plastic bag is.



One of the new stores we found actually opened about a year ago, but this was the first time I saw it. It's called 6-5-4 and you'll find it on Nytorgsgatan 27, a couple of blocks from Nytorget. It's a combined surf and clothing shop with an espresso bar, and I just loved the look of the place. Their website also looks great, check it out here. I fell in love with this t-shirt from Penguin clothing, and just had to buy it for my husband.



I actually think I like the tags as much as the t-shirt itself. I checked their website too, and they had some really nice pieces of retro looking clothes, that I guess might be made from old patterns since this company has been around since the 50's, as I understand it. The sizes were a bit ridiculous though, some of the dresses were only available in size 0, which is a joke if you ask me. How can a size be nothing? Ridiculous. Still, check out the website and take a look at some very nice things I'll never be able to wear.



Ended up walking around the western part of Söder today, with the same friend. First we walked to Hornstull, had coffee at Copacabana, and checked out the two vintage stores at the end of Hornsgatan. One's called Less is more, and they've certainly got lots of nice stuff, but since most of it is never used vintage stuff from the 50's to the 70's, they're a bit pricey. I do think it's worth it, but couldn't find anything I fell in love with. I really wanted a little 60's supercute top, but it was too small. The other store has furniture and stuff too, and I think the prices are quite good. I'm gonna go back later and checks out their lamps properly, cos I saw some good potential.



As we were walking back towards Mariatorget my feet were hurting so bad I almost wanted to cry. I have serious issues with my feet all year around, but it's usually worst in the summer. It doesn't matter what kind of shoes or sandals I wear, they'll start to bleed or chafe or just generally ache no matter what. So when we walked past Humana's newly opened store on the corner of S:t Paulsgatan and Timmermansgatan, I really felt I had to find something nice to make up for the pain. And I sure did! The cute little red and white scarf I got there for 39 kronor, and then I found two perfect dresses.



I'm so in love with this print, I can't stop looking at it. It's a bit crazy, but since the colours are quite dark I don't think it feels too busy. It's like fireworks and the ocean and trees and meadows! What's not to love? The cut of the dress is very nice too, a little bit japanese looking in my eyes, and the fit is just about perfect, I only need to take it in a little bit on the sides, or wear it with a belt. The cost was a fair 149 kronor. Over all, the prices were quite reasonable, and they had a good selection of stuff. There were a lot of 50's and 60's chiffon pastel nightwear, that I decided not to get any of this time, but I'm pretty sure I'll go back just for that.



This lovely green-turquoise creation I just grabbed without looking at it properly, cos I loved the colour and print, and was just hoping it would fit me. In the dressing room I wanted to jump up and down when I put it on, cos it fit so perfectly, and looked so great, and I really noticed the nice little details on the front. It's such a great feeling.



The colour looks very different in the shots, but it does alternate quite a lot depending on the light. I really like simple embellishments like this, to me it's very 60's. It's in great condition, and in another store it would probably cost a lot more than the 159 kronor I paid for it. Oh, and it's not polyester! It's actually jersey, so not a perfect summer's dress, but still perfect.

As I limped back home my feet were still hurting like hell, but I felt very happy about my purchases and that's always worth a bit of pain.