Designer's time out - a camp story

Much has happened during the time I neglected my blog. These pictures are from a camping trip Nora, Helmer, Polly Line and Jean-Marie du Bédauré made this spring. Polly Line had just bought a new car and Nora thought it would be nice if Polly Line could join her and Helmer on a camping trip to the sea.

Nora hadn't given up on her matchmaking and asked newcomer in town Jean-Marie du Bédauré, who teaches French at her school, to join them as well and suggested he could ride with Polly Line. But Polly Line wasn't very keen on the idea (to put it mildly) and discretely manoeuvered him into Helmer's jeep "since she just had to show Nora her new car".

The road to the camp site was quite bumpy, but they all arrived safely.

Nora had of course prepared the trip for days and brought enough food for a legion.



While the guys raised the tent, Polly Line lit a fire and made warm lunch and Nora fetched the plates and cups from the picnic basket.





Helmer's twin brother Henrik joined them at the campsite after hiking from town, having had yesterday off.



After lunch they all went for a walk. Helmer and Henrik were faster than the others and soon far ahead. Jean-Marie preferred the company of the girls.







Jean-Marie tried to give Polly Line a helping hand up a steep hill, but this wasn't at all appreciated by Polly Line who thought it was rude male chauvenistic behaviour to grab her tushy.



When they got to the top of the hill, they were surprised to discover a blue box. Nora and Jean-Marie were flabbergasted and wondered why on earth there was a telephone box in the middle of nowhere, but Polly Line immediately recognized SARDIS (Scale And Relative Dimension In Style), and with a beating heart she looked around for the owner.



And there he is!!!



In a heartbeat she runs as fast as she can towards him and into his open arms, leaving the others quite confused and (someone) disappointed.



They soon recognized the tall handsome stranger (also known as Dr Whatson, since noone seems to know his real name and he has a habit of showing up whenever something out of the ordinary is happening). But their confusion grew even more when Polly Line followed him into the tiny blue box.



They closed the door, the box started to blink and make lots of noise, and suddenly it was gone!

Back in business and ready to party!

Yeah! Finally my computer is fixed and I also have some time to blog again. This last month has been very busy, travelling twice to my hometown to celebrate birthdays and the national day with my family. In the spring the garden needs much work as well and we have painted the exterior of our house, so not much time left to spend at the computer.. I will thank you all who have sent me nice messages and comments in my absence, I so appreciate it!

And what better way to celebrate the "comeback" than with a party?
After Alexander Rybak's big win last year, this year's Eurovision Song Contest is held here in Norway, so Karl Edo just had to throw another Eurovision party this year. He has prepared the room all week, he has even put up special wallpapers for the occasion! He was a bit low when the Lithuanian boys didn't get to to the final, but he taped their performance and is playing it over and over again while waiting for the guests to arrive.

The Euro bar with French champagne, Spanish wine and German beer.



Sushi, finger food and snacks for the guests.

And now the guests have arrived. Nora, Helmer, Polly Line, Dolly Barton and Fiolett paa Traaden are of course invited, and on Nora's request, the newcomer in town, Jean Marie du Bedauré, as well. Jean Marie hasn't forgotten Polly Line from the carnival and has taken the seat next to her, hoping to get some time with her. But since he's not really very into the song contest and talks about everything but the show, he's not able to catch Polly Line's interest, so he turns to Nora instead.





They are all cheering for Didrik's "my hard is yours"

The Serbian singer makes even Karl Edo raise his eyebrows.

The Belarus butterflies are a big success. Great outfits always trumphs great songs.



Karl Edo is strangely disappointed over this year's Greek contribution, it seems even Mediterranean gigolosity can be taken too far.



The Icelandic song got the party swinging, but the Ukrainian song wasn't exactly made for dancing. Great song though! But Jessy the Matador from France got them all back on their feet again.

The Rumenian song was also popular, especially since the male singer lives in Norway.

The rugged Russian made all the girl swoon, Helmer enjoyed the song, but would have preferred it in Russian.

Lena and Germany's song was this year's favourite of most of the party, Arne Vaa prefers tuxedos, ballads and Didrik. But the Israeli singer fits the aquirements as well.

And now the result is ready and they picked the winner!
Congratulations Germany, Lena, Oese and Nicola!


Credits: Marshmallow sofa by Reac, bar chairs by re-ment. The bar is a Fisher Price sofa (thanks to callsmall for the idea), decorated with glitter foam, the table is from Lundby, also decorated with glitter foam. The wallpapers are also glitter foam and a placemat. The cubes are altered place card holders. The floor vases are by Jonathan Adler for Barbie. The food is by re-ment and real popcorn.

Computer chrash

Sorry for not posting this month but our computer crashed just before Easter, so now I just borrow my husbands work laptop now and then.
I can't edit photos on it and it has a very slow internet connection, so no posting and less commenting before it's fixed I'm afraid. I should of course have posted about it as soon as it happened, but I never thought it would take this long to get the computer fixed. Hopefully we'll get it back soon!
Thanks Dale for saying you miss me, it got me around to finally post this explanation and I miss you too :-)

Polly Line's new kitchen

After a year with lots of stress at work, my head has been completely blank these last few weeks, so I have hardly been able to post, or even comment on your blogs. Instead I helped Polly Line finish her new kitchen. That is, she did most of the decorating, but she needed some chairs and a table, so I found some used ones for her. And you're all most welcome to come inside and have a look!

View from the living room

She also found a little spot in the corner of the kitchen for her computer.

A lent lily is blossoming on the windowsill next to a little glass ladybird. Where did she borrow it?

Salad for one.

Wall art by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of Polly Line's favourite architects.

Full view of the kitchen.

Credits: The kitchen is the newest Lundby type. The chairs are vintage Lundby and the table is vintage Barton. The tabletop was originally red, but I painted it black with watercolours that'll easily come off should I/she change my/her mind. The computer table is vintage Triang. The ceiling lamp is Lundby, originally the colour was brass, but I painted it. Shopping bag by Cocco. Metal artwork on wall by Frank Lloyd Wright. Accessories are Lundby, re-ment, Polly Pocket, beads, self made and ebay finds. Most of the flowers are from Sans.

One year blog anniversary

Seems like many of us started blogging about a year ago :-) One year ago today, or more correct yesterday, since it's already past midnight now, I posted my first post on this blog. When I started I wasn't sure how long I could keep on blogging, I counted the rooms in my doll's houses and thought it would be difficult to continue when I had shown all of them, but I'm still here, and with even more rooms and houses as well :-)

For this occasion I would have liked to prepare a big scene for you all. I also thought of showing you all my houses, but instead of finishing any of the projects I'm working on, I have moved most of my houses into our guestroom/my workroom-to-be. So now there's a total mayhem inside all of them. Instead I thought I should go back to "the roots" and show you old photos of Nora and Helmer's house. Until a few years ago, it was the only house I had, with the exception of the old wrecked house I had from my childhood. I didn't even have Nora and Helmer!

These photos are from 1995, and I had just replaced my childhood standard Lundby house with this Lundby Stockholm house which I found in a flee market. It had damaged wallpapers in the livingroom and floor in the kitchen, so the first thing I did was to put paint the livingroom and put wallpaper and lists in the corner of it and paint a linoleum look-alike kitchen floor. New curtains and plants, and the rocking chair is a gift received a few years earlier from very nice classmates, the rest is my old furniture.

I hadn't discovered ebay yet, so almost everything in these pictures is furniture from my childhood. But I bought a new kitchen, since there was almost no doors left on the old one. In a craft shop I found a plastic sheet of blue tiles, which I put over the kitchen bench. The cookie tins and the casseroles on top of the shelves are also new. These pictures are photos of photos taken with my old camera, so I'm sorry they are a bit blurry.

The dining room. The original colour of the chairs was white, but I painted them so they would fit the colour of the other furniture. The floor urn I bought in Crete when I was 16.

This is my first doll, Osvald, in the bathroom, all the furniture and the washing machine is from my childhood. I later replaced it with a green bathroom set, bought on a trip to Stockholm in 1997. After I bought the wooden paneled bathroom, I gave both sets to my daugther.

The basement is the only part of the house which has survived my childhood. Earlier I had the sewingroom there and the blue living room, the blue livingroom is still there. But I can't remember when I first painted it blue. The only original items here is the blue shelf, the frames and the fireplace accessories.

Here are the bedroom and Helmer's study to be. The only new furniture is the low shelf with turquoise sliding doors on the right, which was bought at the same flee market as the house.

Some years later I made a garden as well, the bicycle and the little red chair are the only new items here. And lego of course :-)



I hope you have enjoyed this little tour :-)

Thank you very much to all of you for making this year so much fun and cheers to another year of blogging!