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Making me happy

Veronique Christensen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:18:47 +0000

I’ve started making prettier food just so I could display it on this cake stand I got at Target right before Christmas. Even ugly food looks good on it.

More characters!

Veronique Christensen — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:54:32 +0000

I bought this print for Tomas’ birthday. Is it wrong that I love it so much & am so happy it will grace one of our walls?

Re-designing the livingroom {& daydreaming}

Veronique Christensen — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:15:54 +0000

This is our living-room. Well… at least it’s a paper representation of our living-room with possible paper furniture (yes, those are all Ikea names). Sometimes we do this with a room when we’ve grown tired of the layout & everything gets shifted around.

Right now we have a large L-shaped couch that takes up about two thirds of the room and forces TV watching, and discourages conversation or real together time. We’re hoping to figure out an affordable solution without crowding everything up too much.

Any suggestions?

A lazy winter Saturday…

Veronique Christensen — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:24:59 +0000

We’ve got a nice big storm that’s dumping some good sledding snow for us. As we waited for the blizzard today we got ready with cookies, and apple cider, and we set up our creche in the most inconvenient spot ever — right in front of a drawer that gets’ opened a zillion times a day. Today has been perfect for having good friends over and lazing about after (finally) putting up our tree.

It’s been a great day, and I’m hoping yours was, too.

I love paperwhites (and so do my kids)

Veronique Christensen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:22:32 +0000

Now that the weather has turned too cold & blustery to grow things in the garden, we’ve moved our efforts indoors. A couple weeks ago I bought a dozen paperwhite bulbs and had the kids help me plant them all in various sized bowls and two re-purposed clay yogurt containers.

Maggie has taken it upon herself to be the official waterer and they all delight in reporting on our flowers’ growth. Last night one of our plants blossomed and you would not believe the excitement!

This is such an easy way to bring a bit of green learning into the house and makes everything that much cheerier all around — even when it’s pouring rain outside as it is now.

I’m curious, how do you bring green into your home in winter?

From little kid to young hostess

Veronique Christensen — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:07:40 +0000

Tomas and I were playing around with iPhoto’s book-making tool & one of the pages it made from our photos jumped out at me. My daughter, Maggie is eleven now and has really glommed on to the social arts (I can’t think of any other term for it, so feel free to help my English).

One of her favorite things to do when we have guests or will be a big group for a meal, is to help set the table, she always comes up with the prettiest arrangements for flowers, simple, natural, and lovely. {yep. I’m her Mom – super proud- can you tell?}

The last picture in that row is of a desert she and Bjørn (9) invented: fruit salad in tartlettes, topped with home made whipped cream and a yummy chocolate.

Reclaiming ugly old lamps

Veronique Christensen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:30:06 +0000

{Heh… I probably shouldn’t have called it ugly, since my Mom reads my blog and the lamps were hers ages ago. Sorry, Mom}

Continuing with my quest to make Maggie’s room a prettier and more inviting space, I spray painted her two lamps. The tall one is made of wood, so I spray-painted it white and after a looong search found a white shade that’s still not what I’m looking for, but I haven’t found a large drum shade anywhere nearby, and trust me I’ve been to many, many stores in my quest.

I’m quite pleased with how the second lamp has come along. The base was a shiny faux-gold, which I spray-painted silver. I stripped the old shade & wrapped it with white ribbon, finishing it off with white bias tape around the top, and a pom-pom ribbon along the bottom.

Maggie greeted the latter ith an enthusiastic “O.M.G!” so I think she’s happy.

Here are the in-progress pics:

The original lampshade…

Wrapping the ribbon (rather painstaking business)…

I attached the pom-pom ribbon and bias tape with my handy-dandy hot glue gun…

and, finally, the tall lamp. Maggie’d also added purple pom-poms to her bookshelf, and I painted the white box on top of it. It currently houses a trio of paperwhite bulbs that should bloom in a few weeks if we’re lucky. Maggie’s room doesn’t get a lot of sunlight.

Maggie’s new {reclaimed} bookcase

Veronique Christensen — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:39:10 +0000

Poor Maggie has been living in a state of transition for many months now ever since we moved her into her own bedroom, far away from our rowdy boys. All her furniture is a mish-mosh of mis-matched pieces from other rooms and other times. We’re lucky that she’s such an all-around happy kid and has been thrilled to bits with her room as is.

One thing that’s been bugging me for a long while is that she hasn’t had any book-shelves. This is a kid who reads a lot — all the librarians in our community know her well — she loves her books (and the librarians) so much.

So, finally, I lugged out an ugly, beat up, black book case that had been collecting cobwebs (and a garmongous yellow spider) in the garage. Cleaned it top to bottom, and spray painted it all white. I’ve got to tell you I was glad for the cool breezy day we had yesterday because that stuff stinks!

Happily, Maggie was thrilled with the results, and thrilled to have some of her favorite books near at hand.

My mother-in-law is going to laugh

Veronique Christensen — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:44:26 +0000

With three kids between the ages of four and eleven, it can be somewhat of a challenge to make sure everyone actually has brushed teeth twice a day. Mine, in particular, have a talent for being sent to brush teeth, and yet somehow manage not have done it after emerging from the facilities. Mine also have a tendency to not always grab their own brushes. This drives me nuts. Really.

My solution? I picked up a multi-pack of tooth brushes in a variety of colors and had each member of the family choose theirs. Luckily for me, my kids all took this very seriously and even chased their Dad down to make sure he made his selection.

Not content to leave it at that (because knowing which color is theirs hasn’t always worked in the past), I lugged out the other love of my life: my Brother P-Touch, which my mother-in-law bought me for Christmas many years ago. She laughed when I requested it, she laughed when she saw the proof of my fanatic labeling of things, and I know she’ll get a good chuckle at seeing how I’ve labeled out toothbrushes.

Just know that my littlest, especially, is super proud to use his very own green toothbrush and will happily read out the letters of his name for you. T-O-R.

Also? No one but me has used my toothbrush since I did this. I consider my experiment a success!

We’ve re-done the craft room (again)

Veronique Christensen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:16:00 +0000

About a year ago we turned our guest room into a space just for creativity. It was wonderful those first weeks and we loved it very, very much. This past month decided to reconfigure it for a few good reasons:

We’d moved Maggie out of the kids’ room (with it’s cheery sun, rocket ship, and a guy in a tree), and into her own space — what used to serve as our guest room. It didn’t work so well for us to have guests sleeping on the couch.
Tomas and I both work from home & need space to spread out & space to file papers. We kept tripping over each other, & bumping into our huge table where it was before, and I felt too far removed working from my desk in my bedroom.
The craft table itself ended up being the place that everyone, and I mean everyone, dumped their papers & junk on, so there was never a clear space for work or crafting.

We’ve reconfigured the tables so they line a wall, and brought in the queen sized bed (covered by an amazing blanket my sister brought back from Afghanistan on one of her many trips there), and moved Tomas’ drafting table to the opposite corner. The bookshelves piled high with kids craft and activity books is still here, but by the door (not visible in this picture).

It is amazing what the reconfiguartion has done for us! Everyone ends up in this room for a good bit of every day, working, crafting, napping, chatting, listening to music. Who knew my craft room would turn out to be the new Family Room?