Nov
23

Mermaid pool party

by Sofia   -   in Party planning

Cotton Candy´s 8th birthday for her school friends was on Monday. She had a flamingo pool party the year before last and it was a huge success so she wanted to do another pool party. She is very in to mermaids at the moment so she picked that as her theme. As we have the sauna & pool area in our building we just rented it out. I had smoothie bottles & straws for the girls for the pool but this time I set up the snacks upstairs for them.

We had ice-cream instead of a cake and Cotton Candy made mermaid bark ( from candy melts & sprinkles) for her guests. She was in charge of the menu so we also served some candy, potato chips, gold fish, cookies and regular sodas. On top of making the bark she also crafted the mermaid tales, from scratch and by her very own idea, for the straws. I only helped with the names. I found the perfect party favours in New York from Sugarfina. Fish & shell shaped ” fruits de mer” candies. I also bought a little bag for each girl with matching tissue paper from there as they were the right colour & the illustration looks like mermaid tale or waves.

All in all it was an easy and super fun party. The girls are so much older now they just take care of themselves. No pre-planned party games needed. They even arranged a spin the bottle for opening the presents. I think next year the party planner is ready to spread her wings and do everything by herself. I will however still be in charge of the family birthday parties for a s long as I can as I love the planning so much.

For the mermaid tales Cotton candy painted an aquarelle paper with the watercolours in the shades she wanted. The she cut them. I wrote on them with a glue pen and added glitter. we attached the tales on the straws with double sided tape. They were even prettier in real life.

Cotton Candy made the mermaid bark from 3 different candy melts and mixed srinkles & sugar pearls. It tasted as good as it looks! Here is the super easy how to.

Nov
22

Xmas tree pasta

by Sofia   -   in Cooking  Party planning

Kun mies on matkoilla ja viikkoon kuuluu mm. lasten synttärikutsut ja yhden lapsen yökyläily sekä tietenkin myös töitä niin tämä rakas harrastus jää vähän jalkoihin. Ajattelin kuitenkin jakaa kanssanne tämän, mielestäni tosi kivan ja helpon idean viime viikonlopulta, kun vietimme lasten pikkujouluja kummitädin kanssa. Kuvien laatu tulee taas lähiakoina olemaan vähän heikkoa, mutta pimeät illat ja minun kuvaustaitoni eivät vaan kulje käsi kädessä. Mutta päätin nyt niin, että mieluummin edes jotain sisältöä blogiin vaikka en itse kuviin olekaan lainkaan tyytyvinen. Toivottavasti olette samaa mieltä…

I´m sorry I have been absent all week. I´m being a single mom this week and have so many things to do like birthday parties and sleepovers (…and work) so I´m happy to get a second to attend to my favourite hobby! Last weekend we had Bubblegum´s godmother here for a pyjamaparty and it was a little pre-Christmas party at the same time. We baked our first gingerbread cookies and decorated them. We watched “Miracle On The 34th Street” ( such a great and cozy Christmas time classic to watch with your kids, you can find it on Netflix). We made gingerbread waffles for breakfast and we shaped our food into Christmas trees. Here is the pasta I made for dinner… the dessert I will share on the blog soon too.

I just made pesto and red pesto ( toasted pine nuts, garlic, parmegiano, olive oil and semi sun dried tomatoes). Simple and yummy. I shaped the pasta in to trees and stuck star shaped decorations on top. I found the inspiration on Pinterest, where else. Sorry about  the not so great photos but this is the time of year when you kind of have to look through your fingers as it´s either no photos or my poor photos taken in the dark house. But you know the drill from previous years. So bear with me! Anyway I thought it was such a fun and easy idea you might want to try it out so I´m sharing regardless of the photos…

Nov
16

The en suite

by Sofia   -   in Interior design

As we had the plumbing renovation we re-did the smaller bathroom attached to our bedroom. It was nice before but we had an idea how to make it even better. Plus we had skimped on the materials on the previous renovation as our budget was blowing over so widely. This time we wanted it to match the rest of the house in it´s materials.

The bathroom is mostly used by my husband ( he also has the walk in closet attached to our bedroom… because the other one is bigger as is the other bathroom). So we wanted the bathroom to have a bit of a masculine edge to it but so that it could just as well be for a lady. We are still looking to add an old fashioned shaving set for him there and to be honest he is not usually keeping flowers in there unless we have guests coming and I put them there.

We decided on the grey colour scheme when we found this tile in the most amazing shade ( with a lot of help from my brother who is our architect and drew the whole thing too). But in my opinion it is the sink, the shower & the little details that truly make the room. Those were all found in one of our favourite sources for home improvement, Domus Classica. They have an amazing collection for anyone doing a renovation or building a house. We also often visit their store for things for the island. They have everything from kitchens to Moroccan style floor tiles, from fire places to radiators and light fixtures & switches to door handles to match the period of your house. The sink, the fixtures, the shower, the hand towel ring & toilet roll holder are all from there.

The white Burlington sink is perfect with the grey tiles and we had the mirror made for the wall with the cut edges. We are exteremely happy with the results! If you want to know about anything in the bathroom in more detail, please ask in the commentary and I will try to find the answer for you.