Saturday, January 30, 2010

EARLY SPRING



Middle of the January I promised some flowers in the middle of the winter. It took bit longer to realise the frames, because the electrical stapler that I bought didn't work so I had to return back to the shop and get a new one. I bought some artist canvas frames and with my fabrics I covered them. Easy to do, just make sure that your fabric is well ironed before you attach it to the frame.

MY FRIDGE IS COOL

I had some fun with stickers

Friday, January 29, 2010

MORE STORAGE SPACE

In Andorra, we have just this small space for the washing machine and tumble drier... And a narrow space, 40cm wide to make some storage to all the house cleaning products etc... Not very handy with this shelve...

So when I took a trip from here to Barcelona to the kindom of storage, Ikea. I bought this shelve, nothing fancy but much more storage space and I also bought very handy plastic containers that keeps everything in the right place. The problem with this narrow and hight space is that part of the shelve had to be mounted inside of this small area. But now I have some more storage space for my tools... Simply, easy and handy...

A HOLE IN THE WALL

As you can see I have been busy again... But this time I did something really useful for the up stairs...Notice the hole on the wall... It will bring heat from down stairs when the fireplace is on.

In our lounge we have a fireplace that works really well, the only problem was that the heat normally goes up but not up stairs due to the high sealing in the lounge area and much lower sealing in the kitchen area, so the heat stays in the high area of the lounge 4-4,5m. The only solution to this problem was to brake a hole from our guest room up stairs to the lounge area, notice the hole high up on the wall. It did not take too long to get through the wall, brick wall and a empty space between and an other brick wall, just needed long tools to do that from our room up stairs. I used a long drill and some other longer tools and hammer to brake the wall.  I tried to make the hole just the size of a aluminium pipe that I added in the hole.




Wet newspaper keeping the pipe, I had to brake the hole a little bit higher than I first planned, because I could not brake through the concrete between the bricks, really hard, the red hollow brick was really easy...
To fix the wall after adding that pipe, I used a tip from a TV program in France "Coté Maison". The plaster wont stay if the space is too big, so in the program they were using wet newspaper to stuff the wall, that what I did around the pipe and this also help to keep to pipe in the right place, ones the newspaper was dry...

I needed to wait for next day... I ruffly put plaster on the top of that dried newspaper that has become hard, so it was easy to add the plaster. Ones this plaster had dried I sanded it down smoothening it to the level of the wall... then added some more plaster to small areas that still needed to fill in. Then the last sanding and cleaning after the plaster had dried and few coats of paint... And Voilà it was ready... when we heating downstair I measured that we can get up to 30 degrees Celcius of heat through that hole and we don't need to use the gas heater so much... The other side has to wait for a while that I have somebody with me here to help, because it is really high...

Sunday, January 24, 2010

MORE OPEN SHELVE SPACE IN MY KITCHEN




Look at this kitchen cupboard, huge space inside but narrow door and so stupidly planned, ok I didn't do that. So we really never use this space, I used to store things in that I didn't need. So I really needed to something to turn in a nice space of storage, which would look good too...

























So this is the result after taking off the doors and adjusting the shelves in the right hight. And what was the nices now I can expose my ceramic that I made in South Africa.

Friday, January 22, 2010

CUSHION COVERS



We got 4 cushions with our coach when we bought it a year ago. The covers are dark brown velvet fabric and they didn't fit to the black, white and red lounge so I use to keep them on our guest bed. They just looked too plain. So with a help a glass, plastic cover and some metallic paint I changed them in 30 minutes. This is so easy to apply just get some paint for fabric or my paint was just a decoration paint for any type of painting. Pore some paint on a piece of cardboard and press your glass or what ever you want to use in the paint and then apply it on you fabric. For some fabric you might to need apply the paint several times to get the wanted effect.You can use any type of item that can print a pattern on your cushion covers. If you are not sure about the result try it first on some peace of fabric. Use your imagination and have fun!!!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

ZEBRAS

AFRICAN ELEPHANT

Some of my photos taken in Kruger Park, South Africa

Friday, January 15, 2010

NOSTALGIA


Family photos from Finland
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FLOWERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WINTER

Today I had a lovely walk in the near by forest from our house. After yesterdays snow storm and cloudy weather, todays sun felt so nice. Luckily days are getting little bit longer day by day and today the birds were singing, it almost felt like a start of a spring in the middle of winter. Lately I have been reading on several blogs that people seem to miss spring and summer. I love winter with snow but I must say summer is my favorite. Then while thinking about the green of the spring I remembered the fabrics that I bought in Finland last year. I have an idea already what to do with but need to go to do some shopping first and see what I can find. So the result in few days...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

SNOW FLAKES....

In winter wonderland... last night it snowed again... This time with big snow flakes...So peaceful and soft... This is my winter garden, the big container with light looks like huge ice cube.

FLOWER POWER


On the cold winter days it is nice to get some flowers to brighten up the decoration.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

BIO IS BIG....


I have a friend in Paris who started Mademoiselle Bio about ten years ago. It is an online shop selling lots of different bio products. Go and have a look of the website, it is in french and english. Madoiselle Bio also have a blog www.

I don't know about you but I by more and more organic products for my food, beauty and household cleaning producs also.
How much organic and what type of products you use?? Tell me by a comment...

Monday, January 11, 2010

ICE STATUE


These few days have been hectic. My husband left this morning for his cycling race to Africa. From Cairo to Cape Town in four month and 12000km. See the blog http://www.africanride.blogspot.com/  or click on the photo on the right side bar.

So from now on I will have plenty time of my own and I will do some nice things for this blog...

This is a statue I past  today on my way to the shops. It was -5 degrees Celsius in down town Andorra la Vella so the water has frozen on the second part of the statue... It is a different every year, depending of the weather conditions.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

SKIING IN ANDORRA

We are just so lucky to be 15min. from the Vallnord ski slopes. 7 min. down to Massana from home and from the parking we can catch the funicular that takes us up the ski centre in 7 minutes.