A feary tale

It 's a dark, moonless Halloween night and Annika is dressed up as a witch, ready to trick or treat.

"Hi Tomy, you look great as a ghost!"

But then the real Tomy enters the room, dressed up as a vampire.
"You're not Tomy, aaaah!"

Tomy and Annika run out and away from the ghost as soon as they can.

But when they run through the park they see Arne Vaa hanging from a lightpost!

There are grinning skeletons everywhere!

They have nowhere to turn for safety but to Polly Line's house.

When they get there they see the man known as dr Whatson leaving the house with an axe in his hand. "There has always been something fishy about that man", she thinks. Relieved, they go inside

only to discover a beheaded Polly Line lying in a large puddle of blood on her kitchen floor!

There's a sudden noise. They turn around and see the doctor coming towards them with dead eyes and the axe still in his hand!!
Annika screams



and wakes up in her own bed, her heart beating, but relieved that it was all a nightmare!
She calls "Tomy, do you know what I dreamt tonight? Tomy, Tomy?"

She leaves the bed to wake up Tomy.



"Tomy? Aaaah!"

Credit: Annika's witch hat was made by Bendik and he helped me with the ideas for this story too.
No pumpkins were harmed during the making of this post.

Nuart, Nuart

Polly Line and dr Whatson made a stop in Stavanger on their way home from New York.
There were quite a few tall buildings there as well.

And some not that tall.



"How on earth did we end up here?"

Getting the bigger picture.



Credits: These buildings are part of this years Street art project in the Nuart festival in Stavanger and are power boxes in Pedersgate (Peder's street) painted by the German street artist Evol.

Breakfast epiphanies

Polly Line is also back home again, and with lots of gifts too!
All the wonderful ceramics and re-ment table and kitchenware on these pictures was a gift from Callsmall.

The black and white ceramics are vintage and handmade by Barbara Schuckman.

Callsmall gave her even more re-ment presents, but Polly Line thought some of the things suited her friend Cocco Flanell better, and gave it to her when she visited her just after the transatlantic journey.

Here you can see everything displayed on the kitchen shelves, and also in use at the breakfast table. Polly Line didn't decide whether to buy the Emerson House or not, but she bought a lovely ceiling lamp Callsmall showed her.

She also found a Broadway poster that matches her kitchen accessories neatly.

Polly Line's enjoying her breakfast croissants and tea from her new tableware while reading the New York Times. Too bad it's not the Callsmall edition.



Credits: The kitchen is the newest Lundby Småland type. The chairs are vintage Lundby and the table is vintage Barton. The computer table is vintage Triang. The ceiling lamp is vintage Lundby. Accessories are Lundby, Sylvanian family, re-ment, by Barb, beads, self made and ebay finds. Broadway poster is a fridge magnet bought at MoMA. Most of the flowers are from Sans.

New York, New York

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, it's been over a month since my last blogpost, but what a month it has been! I have had a hard and longlasting cold, attended two weddings, travelled to Bergen, Oslo, Stavanger and ... New York!!! I have picked a few from the hundreds of photos I took when I was there. The one on top is the Manhattan skyline, the short version seen from Brooklyn. After a delicious lunch in a restaurant close to the Brooklyn bridge, we walked over the bridge back to Manhattan. A great experience along with so many others. New York is a fantastic city and even though I have been half asleep from jetlag the week since I came home, it was absolutely worth it!

A little section of the spectacular view from "Top of the rocks" on the Rockefeller Center.

The Empire state building and the Chrysler building

The Flat Iron and the Chrysler building

A shop with a Norwegian name. Cool-looking too!



The Guggenheim museum by Frank Lloyd Wright was a must.
Some of you may remember that Son from the building company Helene & Son built the lego version of it a while ago. Of course I had to use the chance to get Son the lego versions of Fallingwater and the Empire State building as well since I have to get them from the net if I want to buy them in Norway. I will post about them later.



I went to New York with 25 other people from my office, and we stayed at the Paramount Hotel in the Theater District, near Times square. The hotel was designed by Philippe Starck, and here are some photos from the lobby. I forgot of course to take photos until just before we should leave, so unfortunately the lobby is packed with Norwegians on these photos.

Very elegant stairs.

Even in real life accessories can be out of scale.

All of you who read callsmall's wonderful blog know already that I spent a perfect day with her in New York, with lots of talking and shopping (mostly paper and-no surprise-miniatures). I'm usually a bit reserved towards people I've never met, but it soon felt as we had known each other forever, and like her, I really wish we lived closer! She gave me some very nice gifts too which I will blog about soon. (I promise!)

Callsmall and me in the hotel lobby (I'm to the left, taking the photo)



A beautifully detailed house pointed out to me by callsmall when we were out shopping.



Polly Line and dr Whatson had taken the trip to New York as well.
Someone in New York must have known they were coming...

When callsmall and I were at the doll's house section of FAO Schwartz, they tagged along and used the opportunity to check out the Emerson House on display there.

Whose find is it anyway?

I have been busy this week working on a new mini project which I hope I will be able to show you soon, but first I promised to show you my finds from last weekend's street market.

It's two statues of the Hindu gods Vishnu and Ganesha. But Polly Line says I'm talking gibberish, since these statues are her souvenirs from a trip to India with dr Whatson in the SARDIS. And according to her the Bonsai mudmen figurine on the left is also hers, bought in a little Bonsai tree shop when they were in Paris. I guess my memory is not what it once was, maybe I'm getting old...

UPDATE: The wonderful Rebecca made me aware that the Vishnu statue may be a statue of his wife Lakshmi instead! Thanks Rebecca!

The Vishnu/Lakshmi statue is 4cm tall, the Ganesha is 2.5 cm and the bonsai mudmen are just 1.4cm tall.
And the latter was infact bought in a bonsai tree shop in Paris, for just 1.5€ :-)

Snipetorpmarken

On the last Sunday of August each year, there's a large street market taking place called "Snipetorpmarken" just a few minutes walk from where we live, in the street down towards the town centre.

This year there were as many as 120 market stalls and almost 15. 000 people visiting during the four hours the market was open. Not bad for a town with a population of about 50. 000. Here are some photos I took to show you, I also bought two miniatures that I will show you in a later post. Because of the moving crowd it was hard to get good photos, but if you google Snipetorpmarken I'm sure you will find many other photos and much better ones too :-)

This house with a pottery shop on the ground floor won a prize for restoration this year.

In a basement by the street there is a tiny art exhibition which is open just this one Sunday each year.

But some are more interested in babies than art.

At the market you can buy all kinds of crafts, local food, old books and other second hand items. Here's some nice pottery.

Some of the visitors were slightly taller than the others
..

And some were dressed up in period clothes from Ibsen's time. The house to the right has a plaque commemorating that Henrik Ibsen lived there for three adolescent months. (I think it's a bit too short to make a fuzz about..)

More tall ladies.

A sudden shower, but it seems almost everyone was prepared.

UPDATE: A comment from Sans reminded me I forgot to tell you that the Snipetorp area was the only part of town that survived the great town fire in 1886 and it contains many 17th and 18th century buildings. The profit from the street market goes back to the area and has made it possible to pay for old style street lamps and trashbins and stone pavement.