Have a wonderful Christmas!
Speak to you in 2013!
Elodie
My fake christmas tree
Hello everyone, This year my family are coming to Hamburg to celebrate Christmas and we are going to buy a proper Christmas tree on 24th December. In the meantime, I made myself my own fake Christmas tree, with some white branches and home-made ornaments.I used some German polymer clay called Fimo, with some organza ribbons. To personalise them, I used a Love stamp from the German designer bastisRIKE and the letters are from Muji. I decided to have a Christmas decoration all in black & white this year. It's very much like Coco Chanel!
Next week I am on holiday and I am so looking forward to it! I will take some time to prepare the celebration with my family and spend more time on the blog, working on future projects for 2013. So there you go, here are a couple of pictures of my fake, temporary Christmas tree. You can see more photos on my Facebook page. Next week I will be doing some more ornaments, but this time in black.
What about you? Which colours are you using for your christmas decoration? Have you got a proper tree?
Speak to to you soon. xxx Elodie
a christmassy still life
Hello everyone, I hope you had a lovely week-end. We had dreadful weather in Hamburg today - we had a lot of snow and it has been raining on the snow, so it's all slushy now. Whatever! It is a good opportunity to finish my small Christmas decoration at home. This year I decided to use my little home-made table (made out of an old bathroom mirror) to display a little christmassy, wintery landscape and I am pretty happy about the result. I love the fact that the table reflects the scene, especially when the lantern is lit up.
I wish you a fantastic week. Only 15 days to go till Christmas! xxx Elodie
- The centre of this still life is a metallic candle holder in the shape of an old Dutch house that I bought in one of my favorite flower shops: Blumenküche.
- On the left, I made a little star bouquet using old bottles from the lovely interior shop Lieblingszimmer.
- The stars are hand-made glitter stars from the shop Nordlys and the paper ornament is from House Doctor. Around the neck of the bottle is an home-made star I made using the German polymer clay called Fimo. I stamped my name on it, with a lovely stamp from the German designer bastisRIKE.
- The plastic animal under the cloche is from a local toy store and I love the contrast with the big porcelain mushroom.
Here are a couple of close-ups of the still life.
the Speculoos stars - Post aus meiner Küche
Good morning dear readers, This week I took part for the third time in the German food swapping project, Post aus meiner Küche (mail from my kitchen) initiated by my fellow bloggers Clara, Jeanny and Rike. The theme this time was Christmas, and I must say it was a bit tricky for me. The concept of Post aus meiner Küche is that you cook or bake something in your kitchen, and send it by mail to your randomly picked swapping-partner.
In France, we don't have this tradition of baking small biscuits (Plätzchen) before Christmas, so I hope my wonderful partner in crime, the lovely Sabine from the blog azurweiss will forgive me for having only sent some simple home-made speculoos. I received on Wednesday an incredible delivery from the south of Germany: what was in the box can be seen here. I hope the star-shaped biscuits tasted good. I had the idea of making them after our trip to Belgium in October. They don't really look the same as the ones you find in France and Belgium because you have to use "Vergeoise" which is a very dark brown sugar that you find in the north of France and in Belgium, and it gives the biscuits a very dark golden colour.
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Receipe for the Speculoos dough:
for 40 to 50 pieces - preparation : 10 minutes
500g flour 180 g salted butter 300 g brown sugar (Vergoise) 1 egg 1 teaspoon yeast 2 g of salt 8 cl milk 2 soup spoons of speculoos spices
Preparation:
Mix the flour, brown sugar, spices, yeast and salt in a bowl. Add the egg and the (not cold) butter cut into small pieces. Mix the ingredients together gently. Start to add, bit by bit, the milk and continue mixing until a consistent dough is formed. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for at least two hours.
Remove the dough from the fridge and leave for one hour. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Flour the work surface. Use a rolling pin to achieve flat dough around 3-4 mm in height. Cut into shapes using your form of choice. Place on baking paper on a baking tray and place in the preheated oven for around 15 minutes. Ensure that the speculoos are golden before taking out of the oven.
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I wish you a nice Sunday afternoon.
xxx
Elodie
cone pine candle-light holder from the shop Nordlys in Hamburg (I don't remember the brand) wooden candle-light holder - Frau Sieben (soon available in the online shop), black plate - Habitat, little vase from Miss étoile, from the shop Rubios in Hamburg
smukkeStore in Hamburg
Good morning,My quest to find the loveliest interior shop in Hamburg continues. Last week when I was on my scooter, I stopped by at a shop on the Eppendorfer Weg and I really loved it:
It's called smukkeStore - home & fashion. Smukke means beautiful in Danish and you will only find Scandinavian brands in the shop
HOME: You will find some of the usual suspects of course, such as house doctor, Bloomingville from Denmark but also some less famous brands like or House of Rym from Sweden or Rie Elise Lasen & lb Laursen, also from Denmark. In the shop, you will also find some young designers from Hamburg and some old pieces of furniture that have been restored in the workshop at the back of the shop.
FASHION: Among the fashion brands, you will find Line of Oslo from Norway and Container & Ichi from Denmark. sameThe shop opened on June 15, 2012, and you should definitely pay a visit to the charming shopkeeper Miriam.
You can also find some LOVEly clothes in the shop:
And some antique furniture refurbished by Miriam:
A LOVEly reference to Sting in the changing room!
If you go there in the coming weeks, you will be able to shop some lovely and not kitsch at all Christmas decoration.
smukkeStore Facebook Fanpage Eppendorfer Weg 174 20253 Hamburg Mo. – Fr. : 10:30 – 19:00 Sat. : 10:30 – 16:00