I like this

I love how those lanterns add a splash of color to this room (via Design*Sponge).

Paul Davies

Such great work by Sydney artist Paul Davies (via Inside Out blog). It reminds me a bit of Danish artist Ann Sophie Stærk's work. Read more about Paul Davies here.

upcoming + other things

I had a very sweet visitor at my office yesterday - Ingvild. It's always fun to meet people from the online world in real life. Don't you think?

Ingvild's visit has to something to do with this.

A few other things:

- Jenifer's beautiful polaroid series la dolce luce reminds me of how much I love Italy. She also has a collection of lovely polaroid note cards ready to pre-order these days. The polaroids comes from the lovely for the love of light book.

- Molly of Orangette has been to Italy too, and is posting the most inspiring shots over at Flickr.

- Brian of the blue hour has made a new mix for June. Such good tunes!

- Jennifer of simply photo has started posting her breakfast shots again. Yum!

- Jeanette of fryd + design has opened a webshop filled with beauty.

- I just discovered a new photographer that I really like; Lorena Arance. She shots film in such a wonderful way! She's on Flickr too.

That's all for now folks! I'm off to my hometown Sandnes for the weekend for a wedding. Happy weekend!

that table cloth

Such lovely atmosphere in this photo (via the style files).

I never use table cloths for our dining table. I don't even have a table cloth for it, but I do sometimes use placemats though. If the table hadn't been white, I might have used white table cloths, which I like for its elegance and simplicity. But for our garden table (which by the way was built by my handyman Sølve) I would like a table cloth just like the one in the photo above. It makes me think of French bistros and Mediterranean al fresco meals.

Does anyone know where (in Bergen) I can get a table cloth like that?

Table cloth inspiration from Greece + a simple yet delicious lunch.

See more photos from my garden here.

PS: I'm a big fan of the Australian interior deco magazine InsideOut. I just discovered that the staff have a blog. Fun!

PS2: I just uploaded the last of my film shots from my early May trip to Parma. Here they are.

I like this

Via Malo blogg (PS: Click on the photo to see it bigger.)

We saw a lovely feel good film last night - Son of Rambow. You should see it too!

Made in Norway Now

I like this blog: Made in Norway Now (via Norsk stil)

The photos are from my friend's family's seaside cabin.

See more photos from inside other people's houses in my Flickr set here and in this Flickr group here. My friend the 10 cent designer started it all. Take a look at her fabulous photos here. She has a beautiful home and makes beautiful interiors.

a Paris apartment

This beautiful and romantic Paris apartment belongs to Janne, Norwegian stylist Marte's sister. See more photos from this apartment on Marte's inspiring blog, marte meee.

cupcakes!

On my list of 29 things to do before I turn 30 I wrote: learn to make cupcakes with a really yummy frosting. I did just that yesterday.

I cheated with the base, using a chocolate cupcake mix. But for the frosting I went all in; chocolate buttercream frosting, adapted from this. It's really creamy and rich, and really, really yummy. Next time I make it I think I'll add a little more chocolate, and maybe a bit less sugar and butter.

Unrealted to the cupcakes; I like this: the uniform project (via Ink on my fingers

GC Bergen: the cooking class

The third and last article I wrote for GC Bergen was about the cooking class at Potetkjelleren restaurant. Excellent restaurant, fun and yum cooking class. The recipes are in the magazine, so you can cook it all in your own kitchen.

Most of the photos in the printed article are taken by photographer Ole Kristian Olsen, but I did take a few myself. See them here.

My first article for GC Bergen: the designers
My secon article for GC Bergen: the tannery

GC Bergen: the tannery

My second article for GC Bergen is about a local tannery, ca 40 minutes drive from the city centre of Bergen.

Borge Garveri exports 98 % of their production, and 60-70 % of this is made into beautiful women's bags and purses for brands like Gucci, Alviero Martini, Calvin Klein, J. Crew, Coach and Tusting. Leather from Borge is also made into shoes for brands like Prada, Footjoy, De Niro Boot Co, Duckfeet and George Esquivel.

The contrast between these luxury high fashion brands and this down to earth local industry situated in a lovely landscape by a fjord on the west coast of Norway is quite striking.

See the photos from my visit to Borge Garveri here.

My first article for GC Bergen: the designers

GC Bergen: the designers

Remember I told you about this new magazine that is out in Bergen? I promised to tell you a little more about the articles I wrote. I'm not going to say much, because you should rather get the magazine and read the articles (in Norwegian) ;-) I might upload the article to my work website at some point - I'll let you know when I do. Those of you who don't read Norwegian can at least have a look at the photos.

The first article is about the design duo Tveit & Tornøe. I have written about them before, in this guest blog post over at Bloesem, and in this post. See the photos from the interview here.

window envy

Those windows! Wow! (via Ellmania)

a love story

Notte Sento (English subtitles) from napdan on Vimeo.

This is so beautiful! (via the always romantic le love image)

calling all Bergen bloggers!

I'll write this in Norwegian:

Hei, hei dere! Tror faktisk det er først gang jeg skriver norsk her. Ikke verst! Jeg er i gang med en ny artikkel (detaljer kommer senere), og i den forbindelse prøver jeg å få oversikt over bloggere som bor eller kommer fra Bergen. Alle typer bloggere. Jeg vet allerede at noen av dere som er innom her bor i Bergen, men jeg er nysgjerrig på dere andre - alle sammen! Blogger du og bor eller kommer fra Bergen? Kjenner du andre bloggere som bor eller kommer fra Bergen? Gi lyd fra deg i en kommentar til dette innlegget.

Sorry you non-Norwegian readers. I just wrote that I want to get in contact with bloggers in Bergen. That's all ;-)

cute cups and other words

These are the cutest cups I've seen in a while! Bird in the Bush Stackable Cups by Dutch designer Chris Koens, available in the online shop Dutch by Design.

I saw the cups in the current issue of Norwegian Elle Interiør - my favorite of the Norwegian interior design magazines. In this issue there is also a feature on design blogging, including interviews with Emma of Emmas designblogg (she blogged about it here), Irene of Bloesem (she blogged about it here) and Siw (from Bergen) of Design Shimmer (she blogged about it here). It was so great seeing these familiar names and faces in my favorite decor mag!

If that wasn't enough, the editor also picked Pia's lovely book - Paris: Made By Hand - as one of her favorite finds of the month (as seen here). I only recently discovered Pia's work and blog (via Design For Mankind Dialogue) and I very glad I did. I love her style! I'm off to order her book right after I finish writing this. We are planning a trip to Paris in the autumn, so I need to do a little research. (Here are my Paris photos from our first visit in December 2007.)

Happy Tuesday peeps!

PS: I love these cups too:

Recycled Coffee Beaker by Dutch designer Rob Brandt, also available at Dutch by Design.

the table

A comment from Briggs lekehus saying she envis our big dining table, reminded me that I haven't told you the story about our table.

Before we moved to this apartment, we lived 3 years in a 30 m2 (ca 322 ft2) apartment. It worked very well because it was a very functional space, but there was one thing we missed: A big table so we could host dinner parties. We love entertaining!

The first thing on our list of new furniture to buy for the new apartment was, of course, a big dining table. We pictured a big, soild one in oak, but we soon found out that it was way out of our budget. So Sølve, the handyman, said: "Let's just build the table!" He didn't just want to build it, he wanted to build it using really cheap material. In Norwegian we just call it "to tom to", at least that's what Sølve calls it. I have no idea what's it's called in English, but you can see the material in the photos; thin wooden sticks. A couple of our friends, who knows what they are talking about, doupted the project, saying the material would not work for something like this. That just made Sølve more eager to build it with these sticks.

With a whole lot of glue and screws we made the table top. It only took us a few hours. Altogether I think we only used about a day to make the table. And it was really cheap; ca 1000 kr (ca €113 / $96).



We didn't sand the surface much. We wanted to keep it rough, so you can see that it is made of several pieces of wooden sticks (or whatever they are called).

The table is painted with a semi glossy oil based white piant. Nothing fancy, just something we had left from the renovation.

The table is 113 cm wide (90 cm is the standard for dining tables) and 280 cm long. It seats 14 people comfortably. It's so big that it can't be moved out of the livingroom. If we ever sell this apartment, we have to sell it with the table. PS: We proved our friends wrong, the material was perfect for our table!

banana muffins

Normally I'm not a big fan of banana flavored food, except bananas. But now I have become totally hocked on these banana muffins (adapted from this). Whenever I have 2 or 3 well ripe bananas lying around, I'll make these muffins.

50 g butter
3 bananas
100 g sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp baking powder
250 g flour

For the best flavor, use well ripe bananas. Mash the bananas, add sugar, vanilla sugar, melted butter and egg. Stir. Add flour and baking powder. Stir until you get a smooth batter. Put the batter in muffin paper cups and bake for ca 13 minutes at 200°C.

What do you do with your well ripe (brown) bananas?

my style

I found a fun style test via the lovely Briggs lekehus. Here is my result. Take the test here.

More from my home on Flickr.

In other news, I just realized that hei Astrid turned 2 years old on Thursday. I wrote my first post on June 11, 2007 after encouraging comments from my Flickr friends who said I should start a blog. (At that time I had already been on Flickr for 2 years.) So I did, and here I am. I have fumbled a bit, because I didn't really know what I wanted with this blog. In many ways I already used Flickr as a blog. But now I feel that I have found my voice, and thanks to all of you visitors, I feel like I'm talking to someone. I have mentioned before that I sometimes consider deleting my accounts. But again, you guys make it worth keeping on.

Thank you so much for stopping by and making this a fun place to be.

One really good and inspiring thing: Design for Mankind Dialogue. I know many of you already know Dialogue, but for those of you how don't know it - go check it out, it's so good. These are my favorite episodes so far: Episode 1: How Do You Balance It All? and episode 4: Self-Discipline - Eek!

Norway Says no more

Photo: Mette Møller/Dagbladet

If you know just a little bit about Norwegian design, I'm sure you have heard the name Norway Says. Norway Says is the design studio that has been named the most successful in Norway ever, and they have had the honour of putting Norwegian design on the world map. So, it's sad to read the news that the trio - Andreas Engesvik, Espen Voll and Torbjørn Anderssen - are now finishing their fruitful collaboration.

Here are a few news stories about this (in Norwegian):
Prisbelønnet norsk designtrio oppløses (read the comments below the article too) / Designstjerne slukkes

View the slideshow of Norway Says' work over at D2: Ten years with Norway Says

I have mentioned Norway Says a couple of times before; here and here. I've also done a mini interview with them for an article about Scandinavian design in NO magazine.

here's to love!

My Flickr friend Monique has the best boyfriend. For their 3 years anniversary he made her this video. It's so romantic, it actually brought tears to my eyes the first time I saw it. Also, I just love that song; Neopolitan Dreams by Lisa Mitchell.

I like this

Such inspiring interior! Via the always inspiring Emma, where you can see more photos from this home.

her morning elegance

What's not to love about this song and video?!

Her morning elegance by Oren Lavie

Øyeblikk - the book

You might remember I mentioned a little while ago that I made a new Blurb book. It arrived today, and I'm very happy with it. For most of my Blurb books I have ordered soft cover, but this time I chose premium paper and imagewrap cover - and it looks really good!

This is what I wrote in the introduction:

Øyeblikk

is Norwegian for moments

Moments where I paused, watched and pressed the release button. It might have been the light or the colors that caught my eye, or maybe I just wanted to capture the feeling of that mundane yet beautiful moment. And remember it forever.

This collection of moments are from various places; my home, our holiday home and mountain cabin, places in Norway and places abroad. All photos are shot with 35 mm film.

Feel free to preview (and even buy) the book here at Blurb, and see more photos from the book in this set on Flickr.