Hot summer

Finally it's really summer! I've spent the whole sunday in the sun and every day after work I grab my book or my recipes and a blanket and go downstairs to the little park in our courtyard in order to spend as much time as possible outside. It's like charging all the inner batteries for the long winter and at the same time I look for new recipes which I can try. My favourite food these days is curry with Thai rice, I have it nearly everyday because for me it's the best food when it's a hot summer like it is now.

And of course all sorts of berries:

Have a good day!

Kram,

Isabell

Rings and rose petals Update

I promised to shown you some pics from the presents I got from the jeweler, which I've posted here. As the last days with all the wedding preparations and the wedding itself took all of my time, I finally time to post these pictures so that you can see them. On this picture you see the champagne glasses together with the rose petal bath confetti and the ornaments for the Christmas tree:

I know it's somehow strange to think about Christmas during summer, but it was such a nice idea of this lady to give us 2 ornaments for our first Christmas as a married couple:

Have a great day!

Kram,

Isabell

Happy Birthday Tim

It's Tim's birthday today and therefore a huge:

Picture: hellosplendor

from me!

We will celebrate it with Tim's best friend who has invited is for a barbecue tonight. So hear you tomorrow!

Kram,

Isabell

My wedding...

What a wonderful day! Already the evening before my wedding was so wonderful: I stayed at my parents home together with my sister my parents and my maid of honor and my parents had prepared a lot of nice food and we sat together laughing at chatting until late night sharing old memories. I'm so thankful for what the people that I love have done for me the last few days: my maid of honor has been there for me for weeks helping me with everything, my parents have decorated the entire house for my guests and I must say it really was one of the best days in my life.

Here you see Tim and me, I have 2 geranium flowers in my hair from the geranium which used to be in my Swedish grandmother's kitchen and I'm wearing the dress my mother-in-law has tailored for me:

My bridal bouquet in the middle of the table... and no, I didn't throw it :)

Here you see a part of the table decoration:

 

And how nice it was in the evening when it started to get dark :

I'm so happy about this day and to start a new part of my life as Tim's wife.

Kram,

Isabell

Bureau

I need to change some more things in our bedroom, because this is the room where I have most of my things and you can tell that it's my way to furnish a room by the ballet picture and the other feminine details. The room looks very cozy, but the desk I have right now is from my student time and very massive compared to the other furniture. It needs to be changed into something light and clear. I found this bureau in the internet and I think I'm going to buy it:

Picture: impressionen

It will fit perfectly to the rest of that room... Hope to be able to show you soon.

Kram,

Isabell

Sommar med Ernst 2013 Update

One of the things that gives me a relief is to watch Sommar med Ernst. With a full time job and all the wedding preparations I can get quite tired sometimes. But this series is filmed in such a calm way and I like the colours and of course the candles ;), that it also calms me down in a way. In the 2013 season Ernst decorates and renovates an old orangery and it's really worth watching: Sommer med Ernst:

picture: tv4

picture: tv4

picture: tv4

picture: tv4

Kram,

Isabell

Wedding hairstyle

I'm going to the hairdresser next Thursday to try some hairstyles for my wedding. It's really very difficult, I call tell you! On the one hand side I would like to have something like this with flowers and braided hair:

picture: weddbook

On the other hand side I like the way Kate moss has her hair and maybe just braid a small part?

picture: freundin

I like this hairstyle too, but it might be too classical together with my wedding dress:

picture: Brigitte

And of course a surfer/hippie style which would be a great contrast to my wedding dress. :)

picture: frisurundfigur

I'll show my hairdresser, maybe she can create a classical surfer-hippie elf style? :)

Kram,

Isabell

Rings and rose petals

We've finally got our wedding rings! I was a little bit nervous when I picked them up today and it felt very good at the same time. It was a very emotional moment when I saw my ring in that red velvet box with the engraved sentence that Tim and I have chosen in Swedish "Du och jag är vi för alltid"(You and I are we forever) . The shop assistant was very nice, she gave us the rings and 2 champagne glasses, 2 ornaments that are for the Christmas tree and should bring luck, and some rose petals that you can use for taking a bath:

Picture: decorbox

It's like waiting for Santa Clause, it's really only a few more days. until the great day..

Have a good evening!

Kram 

Isabell

ferm living summer 2013

This summer my favorite colors are pastel colors. It might be due to my wedding which will we be soon (and as all the wedding decorations are in pastel colors), but I really like ferm living's summer collection 2013. The mint green cup with the the diamond pattern is my favorite piece in this years collection:

dekorativ-wohnen

But I also like the bed linen with the diamond pattern, which looks very cozy:

dekorativ-wohnen

Maybe I get a chance to have a closer look this summer in August in Sweden or Denmark... you will see it in one of my pictures ;)


Have a good evening!

Isabell

Strawberry Jam

It's high time to make this year's strawberry jam, as the strawberry season will end soon. It's really very, very easy and tastes so much better than the one you can buy. (And you get a 100% natural, no preservatives, no pectin, no artificial flavors jam) 

All you need is:

•  strawberries
• preserving sugar
• jam funnel 
• clean jam jars

I used 2 kg of strawberries and 1 kg preserving sugar, the result is 8 jam jars filled with strawberry jam. Sterilize the cleaned jars by boiling them completely submerged in boiling water for 10 minutes (this will preserve the jam for a longer time). Keep the jars in the hot water until they are ready to be filled. Rinse the strawberries, gently pull off the leaves and cut into small pieces and weigh on a kitchen scale. After that put them into a large cooking pot (make sure that the pot is big enough to to allow for the foamy expansion that will occur) and add the preserving sugar, bring to cook while stirring. Skim off the foam with a spoon diligently and lower the heat to about medium, so that the jam is still bubbling but not boiling over. When the strawberries have turned soft, but still hold their shape, you have two choices as to how to proceed: One is, just leave the berries in there (I used this alternative, because I wanted some texture to the jam.) The other is to use a hand blender, to crush them if you want your jam to be smooth. Continue simmering until the syrup has thickened up and use the jam funnel to fill the jam jars. If you use jam jars with a rubber gasket and a side latch just close the lid immediately and it's fine, with a jam jar with a twisting lid make sure to close the lid immediately too, but to also turn them upside down for approx. 5 minutes.

I also found some really nice labels here for the various jams:

Time for a toast with my homemade jam... :)

Kram,

Isabell

Do sit under the apple tree...

We've been at the restaurant in our lunch break to discuss the menu and we've finally decided it! We will have a garden sorrel soup as starter, a rib- eye steak with redwine sauce and potatoes as main dish and a mousse au chocolate which they will serve from a copper bowl. Everytime I see the apple trees I feel that this is the right place to celebrate my wedding, I took a snapshot with my camera today so that you can see it:

Now imagine white tablecloth and napkins, paper lanterns in the trees... and of course my message in a bottle.

♥

Kram,

Isabell

Wedding name tents

I've been inspired by Martha Stewart's tips for wedding name tents or in my case a name hang tag:

I've bought some small bottles and added a little card that is foldable, so that our guests can write down their wishes for us and put them into the bottle, together with a pencil and the name tag, so that it can serve like that as well. And it looks nice, doesn't it?

For stamping all the names I will need the help of my maid of honour and my sister, I bought some rubber stamps and an ink pad:

Only 3 weeks left...

Kram,

Isabell

Løv Tea

One of the things I bought in Berlin was Løv Tea. I've seen the tin in a French furniture magazine, and they had a lot of different colors in their kitchen on a breakfast table (and of course the word "Løv" attracted my eyes as it means "leaves"in Danish and Norwegian). Looking forward to drinking it in autumn...

Here you can see the various colors of the tins, they had some testers and I choose the black tea with lemon. (But it was a hard decision :))

I'll let you know how it tastes. ;)

Kram,

Isabell

More from Berlin

It really felt good to have a few days off. And Berlin is so close to Scandinavia, that sometimes you have the Scandinavian influence even there. I had grilled fish and potatoes with dill and sour cream. Do you know the feeling you get when you smell or taste something that brings back memories? I had this feeling when eating the fish together with the dill potatoes. Already when I took the first bite, this was Swedish summer, sitting in the garden with my family and my grandma who comes with a carafe filled with elderflower juice and who prepared this fish for dinner. I really miss that and you can imagine how good it was:

After the dinner we just took our bicycles and cycled trough Berlin to Alexanderplatz and the sky had this light blue dark blue mix like on the picture and it was after 11:30 pm! This is what I like about summer and having vacation: being outside until it gets dark.

Have a good day!

Isabell

Monbijou Hotel Berlin

We just came back from Berlin and I'm really sorry that I haven't posted for a while, I needed a pause from computers and internet for a few days. So I simply left my computer back home in order not to be able to read emails, which unfortunately also meant that I wasn't able to blog. But now I'm back and it was a really nice trip to Berlin. This time we tried a different hotel: the Monbijou Hotel Berlin. It is a very welcoming and very cozy hotel, which you can see in the pictures I took, the only thing that was bad was the size of the room, it was really very small and the bed was 140 cm x 200 cm. But all in all I can recommend it, if the room size doesn't matter, as in our case, because we've spent most of the time outside. ( We even lent a bicycle this time which I can recommend too, because it made the sightseeing and stops at little cafés and all the shops very easy and your feet will thank you for it in the evening :))

The view from our room down to the inner court where you can have breakfast or dinner

The hotel lobby/part of the restaurant

hotel lobby

The hotel lobby was very cozy, with all the books and the fireplace they have. And the view from the hallway, you're really in the center of Berlin:

Kram,

Isabell

Old friends and Sushi

I've met one of my oldest friends today after at least 8 years. We've been 8 friends at high school, 4 couples and none of us is still a couple. We used to be together everyday after school, then we all finished high school and all went different ways. The only one left from that time in my life is my best friend who lives in Copenhagen. It's strange to see someone after all this time, someone you knew very well a long time ago, but you can't tell who he is nowadays. He has gotten quite old ( I guess he'd say the same thing about me :)) and he's been working for a consulting company the last 6 years, so I think that's why. It was a little bit strange in the beginning I didn't know where to start to tell him what has happened in the last 8 years. Such a long time and so much has happened... but after a while it felt somehow familiar. Why do we loose good friends on our way through life? He was really the one I could talk to when I was sad and he would always help me. He was the one who convinced me to eat sushi in high school so therefore we went to a sushi place today.

Photo: mux

I wonder how it will be in another 8 years, what will I be able to tell then?

Kram,

Isabell