My Creative Blog:
flowers

Such a fabulous idea! Planting herbs in old tea boxes.

Source: husligheter.se

I want this in our guestroom!

Have a nice Tuesday, all! I'm

heading for Gothenburg for a

couple of days.

Hugs, Bettina.

Happy Sunday!

Hugs, Bettina.

Source: Vakre Hjem & Interi'r

(Although a very cold one.)

It's one of those twilight days. Still summer but fall is catching in. The green couldn't be greener from the sunshine but when you stick your head out the door it's cold as h***. I'm not sure I'm amused.

Here life goes on, whether it's summer or fall. We're happy and enjoying life and each other. My Black Panther (cat) is running around calling for attention, wanting to go out all the time, which is making me a bit suspicious so today I'm booking her for a vet. 'Snip snap'

A happy day to you all. Enjoy fall, soon the winter is here.

Happy Monday, everyone! We are working our tails off this week on lots of Fall projects and fun blog stuff, so to help us out, we've asked a few of our bloggy pals to share some of their projects with you. But get ready, because next week, we'll be back in full force!: ) We're so pleased to introduce you to Rebecca from My Girlish Whims. We've been communicating the past several months through email and were fortunate enough to share our top wedding planning tips with her readers in February when Rebecca was busy getting married and going on her honeymoon. Rebecca is a really talented jewelry designer (make sure you check out her anthro jewelry knockoffs!), but we're in love with this Paper Fan Banner she made. Isn't it darling?

Ok, take it away, Rebecca!

Hello East Coast Creative Readers!

My name is Rebecca and I blog over at My Girlish Whims

My blog is all about beading, crafting, and general life as a girl!

I'm so excited to be guest posting over here today, because I live very close to Jess & Monica! We haven't met in"real life" yet but I'm sure one day we will: )

I just got married in February and have been trying to repurpose a few of the items I DIYed for my big day so I don't waste them! I had a ton of these fabric flowers left over:

Which I had made to hang off the pews in the church.

My hubby and I recently bought our first house and so I've been working on collecting/making some home decor accents. I thought I could use the silver flowers from the pew cones for up in our bedroom, which is eventually getting a grey/silver color scheme.

I got this bucket from the"as-is" section of IKEA for $1.50. There was nothing wrong with it…I think they just aren't selling them anymore!

I spray painted it silver with leftover spray paint from another wedding project

I poured in some glass marbles (that were actually left-overs from my bridal shower!) and then stuck in my fabric flowers (this post has a full tutorial on how to make them if you are interested)

Here's the finished product:

Yay! I think it turned out so cute, and all it cost me was the $1.50 for the bucket!
I put my little flower bucket up in our bedroom on our IKEA TV-holder-thing-a-ma-whatsit. Yes, that is the technical term.

Other side has a picture of us from our big day: )

And there are the flowers!

Slowly our house is becoming more decorated…and slowly I'm using up some of my wedding decor too: )

Thanks so much to Jess and Monica for letting me guest post! Please stop by my blog sometime to say hi, I'd love to meet you!: )

Thank YOU, Rebecca! You can't beat a cute project with that price tag!

More enjoyable photos from South-Norway.

Hugs, Bettina.

Pretty bridesmaids in blue, with different bouquets. Makes you take a second look.

In less than two weeks, one of my best friends is getting married. It happens to be on the same day as the Swedish Crown Princess Victoria is tying the knot and I'm a little frustrated with that, actually.

I would have really liked to see the chaos live (on TV) but of course my friend is a thousand times more important! Besides, I suppose they will show reruns for months and months to come so it's cool.

Anyhow, in the spirit of weddings, here's some beautiful pictures for you.

Hugs, Bettina.

This curtain situation in my kitchen stumped me for the last month or so. I showed you the brownish-gray drapes I bought from Ikea first:

And after living with them a day or two, (and asking for your advice. Thanks, BTW!) I decided to take them back because they made the room look dark. Then I bought navy drapes, also from Ikea, that made the room look even darker, so back they went. And so, it's like I always say, when all else fails, go for the DIY! Well, maybe I never said that, but I'm going to start. Here's what I ended up with:

I loooooooove them. Color-blocked drapes for only 25 bucks! DIYing it lets you do your own thing and create something totally custom. Now for the break down:

The curtains came from…Ikea! Surprise.: ) These things are so awesome because they cost $25, and that's for 2 panels. Woohoo! The panels are 96 inches long, but come with fusible webbing to hem them without sewing. (Another plus in my book!)

It's a good thing they provide the stuff to hem them because they were way too long when I hung them up. I also felt like they were just a little too uninteresting and, since this is a high-traffic area (we let the dog in and out through the slider, go out to the deck to play, and close the drapes at night), I knew that white would get soooo dirty really quickly.

Then the idea of color-blocking them popped into my mind and I knew that that was the solution! It would hide the dirt on the bottom of the curtains, while still allowing the room to feel airy, bright and clean. Yesss!!! I ironed, measured, hemmed, ironed some more, measured some more and then got to work painting them using this method. It worked like an absolute charm.

While painting curtains might just be the bane of my existance- don't ask me why, I really don't have an answer- I am so happy with the results and the fact that it was so inexpensive. I already had the paint on hand from our first Nate Show episode, which was super convenient, and so it really was only 25 dollars for a pair of custom drapes!

They totally compliment my fabric-colored pendant light and bring a little more color to this side of the room.

And now, I think, I'm taking a break from kitchen stuff. We'll see how long that lasts…

Oh yeah, I added a picture of my hubs and me eating souvlakis from our favorite place in Athens, Greece (which is where we met!) right next to my"People who love to eat are always the Best People" quote. Makes me smile every time I see it.

And did you know that if you put a penny in the water with your tulips they will *supposedly* stand up straight instead of drooping? Just a little tip I picked up from Emily that I thought I would pass on to you. You're welcome. I'll let you know if it works.; )

One last thing: lest you think my kitchen is darn near perfect, here's the other side of it: one of the doors to our laundry area, that never actually fit properly, ripped off the doorframe last week. Sadly, it is always that disorganized. *Sigh*

My daughter told me today that she does not appreciate me painting everything (she's four!), but man, I sure appreciate how you really can paint everything!
What unusual things have you painted?
*Monica once spray-painted a pillar candle. Hilarious!*
P.S. Did you hear about the awesome new Pinboard we've started with five other amazing bloggers? You'll definitely want to check it out for loads of home decor and crafting inspiration.

The pretty little wood anemone is doing some serious work this spring. It is simply all over the place. Even in the blogosphere, and so, I thought to myself, for once I'll let my computer get infected (with the anemone, that is).

I have a few (!) Tulip photos I'd like to share. I couldn't chose which ones to publish, so here's a bunch for you.

Have a nice Tuesday!

Source: Internet

The Spring came, and then it went away. Typical. Just when you get a taste of it. That's called mocking! Instead, we'll have to enjoy these photo's instead.

Sofiero Palace and Gardens in Helsingborg has been named 'Europe's Best Park 2010', becoming the first Swedish park to receive the prestigious award. And by looking at these beautiful pictures it's not hard to understand the choice.

In 1865, Swedish Crown Prince and Princess Oscar and Sophia built the summer castle Sophie-Ro. In 1905 the newlywed Gustaf Adolf and Margareta was given the castle as a wedding gift and Margareta created with great pleasure the garden. Her parents, who owned the castle Bagshot, in England were both interested in gardening and her father who several times visited Japan brought back plants and inspiration, which affected Margareta's gardening interest.

When Gustaf Adolf died in 1973, he left Sofiero to Helsingborg city and today the garden is a blossoming oasis, with exhibitions, activities and arrangements. In the garden there are approximately 10 000 Rhododendron bushes of 300 different sorts and equal many hybrids. Sofiero has northern Europe's largest collection of Rhododendron.

The first photo shows our area only three weeks ago, all white. The others I took today, all green. Amazing ' it has exploded. One day it was winter and two days later, the summer is nearly here. Yesterday it was 30 degrees (Celsius) in the sun and I have a nice red colour already.

I hope you had a happy Easter, we certainly did!

Still Winter:

Three weeks later.

The bee's are buzzing loudly in this tree.

Food cellar. We're not using it, though.: )

Viking grave.

View from garden.

Garden.

Swedish flag. I would have preferred the Norwegian, but when in France' We're getting the red-white-blue for May 17th, though.

Easter Tulips. Bloomed for a week. I'm getting good at this. ;)

So pretty!

My proud and joy. It's been blooming for months now. I'm in awe over myself.

Maja enjoying Spring.

R's darling veteran motorcycle.

Newly bought veteran Volkswagen. Extremely ugly but I've been promised it will look better soon.

Our 'Falu red' country home.

@ beautifulism