Paradisverkstan always make beautiful things and I went to their website to see whether they had any news this Spring. When we're on Öland in the summertime we never miss the opportunity to browse their shop just south of the bridge and I often find a thing or two to bring with us home. We might not be able to be there that often when we move away from where we now live, but perhaps we can continue to go there at least once a year. Öland is a beautiful island, and the "paradise workshop" and their shop is a wonderful place to visit.

I've been working really hard today, but I've managed to finish what I set out to do and it feels great. Now it's Friday evening and a nice, relaxing weekend lies ahead of us. To top it all off, Arkitektens fritidshus ("The Architect's summer house"), written by Kenneth Kauppi, was delivered by mail today and I really look forward to relaxing on the couch slowly leafing through this huge, beautiful book with its amazing photos.

I had a hard time finding the perfect bag, so I decided to buy the stuff needed and instead stitch together one myself. I'm actually rather pleased with the result — a tote bag and a small pouch in a purple fabric that feels really rustic and nice. The flower is a practical retroreflector which I found at Cosas. This will hopefully work well on my Big Day.

We've made candles today by using the leftover stearin from our Christmas candles, melting it down, and pouring it into these tealight holders, Galej, from IKEA. It all turned out pretty good actually. Next time we'll probably experiment some more with colours, for instance.

I've received so many wonderful Christmas gifts, and I will try to show you a few of them later on. One thing that has been on my wishing list for a long time, is Georg Jensen's Season candleholder designed by Maria Berntsen. My mother-in-law has a beautiful one in gold, and my own favourite is the silver version. This Christmas I did not get one though, but, since I did receive some money from my parents, I decided to buy one today instead and now the candles flicker wonderfully on the living room dinner table.

Somehow I don't think the jewellery designed by Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe will be as easily attainable. They are quite expensive, but, just like many of Georg Jensen's products, also very, very beautiful. Using the space beside the Season candleholder, I just wanted to point to Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe's work, especially her famous Vivianna 326 watch.

I had some money left on my work account, which had to be used by the end of the year, so I decided to let them order a new iPad for me (and a few more books). At the end of next week it will be here and I'm so looking forward to it.

It's rather chilly even inside our apartment, and we're wrapped in basically all the blankets we own. Being outdoors does not seem that tempting, and we haven't built any real snowmen yet this year, but I thought it was kind of cool to find this snow people font.

The first snow... It began yesterday evening and left a thin layer of snow on the ground this morning. It's just below zero right now but it feels pretty okay.

Today was the first day I decided to switch on the Advent stars in the windows as well. It has felt as if it has been too early before, but, since we won't be home over the weekend, I really wanted to have that Christmas feel before we're leaving.

The snow ornaments above have been designed by Malin Lindahl for Orrefors. They can be found at ArtGlassVista.

I really like the humour in Therese Sennerholt's posters... and yes, I tend to view chocolate as one of life's true necessities.

It feels more like Autumn today than it has been previously. It's very windy. The temperature has fallen slightly, but not enough to warrant any drastic changes in my clothing, but we do need to make sure that our jackets are on etc. The leaves on the trees are still predominantly green.

As I walked to work today my hair was virtually all over the place, but I somehow like that, and I laughed when I saw Christine Marie Larsen's drawing of the woman caught in a storm. That's probably what I looked like too. :)

Politically it's a bit windy still as well, although the worst tremors have subsided after the election. People are still talking about it, however, and everyone is wondering what the new government will look like.

I've checked out Anders Lundberg's work at Personlig almanacka now and then for a while now and I've always felt like creating my "own" calendar, but somehow I haven't got around to do it until now. What is different this time is that I am now able to upload my own image as a background, which enables me to make it even more personal.

The one in beige with straws in the middle is my own creation. I'm quite happy with it and look forward to receiving it. Now I will be able to keep tab of everything.

The summer holiday is over and it's time to start waking up early again. The problem is that we really need a new clock radio since our old one barely shows what time it is anymore and gives of scratchy sounds at best.

When searching for a new one I became rather sad to see all the boring or outright ugly ones out there and it took quite some time to find a handful that looked a bit nicer. These can be found in the following places: Kjell, iphonebutiken, Gifts with style, Sony, Teknikmagasinet, and Ljudmakarn. The question remains, however, why do clock radios have to be so ugly?

On television we managed to catch a glimpse of the work of sculptor Tom Otterness and his team, and I really fell in love with the humour with which they have created the sculptures that can be found on Manhattan and other places in NYC. More about their work can be found here.

With one eye on the ice hockey world championships, I decided to use the second one to browse for news at the Carlsson Interiör webshop. T. and I have talked about the tray for the sofa before and it might be time to get one or two of those soon. The rest of the stuff is basically just a bunch of fun things that have caught my eye. The heart-shaped frying pan would be really cool!

I really like the Change series from Cult Design and I was happy to see the outdoor version of it. Too bad we don't have a garden! Yet. I'll just have to keep it in mind for later.

Images from Carlsson Interior.

We've had a pretty busy day today. I have a deadline on Friday which means that I've been working hard the whole day. We did the laundry in the morning as well and in the evening we have assembled our youngest son's new bed. For dinner we made some homemade pizzas and now I'm kind of busted. I certainly wouldn't mind crawling into bed with bedlinen such as these. The pattern Moln (Clouds), designed by Gunilla Axén, is more than 40 years old, but it is definitely one of my favourites. A classic.

Sorry for the bad joke, but lately we have begun to use more and more real butter, because a) it tastes good and b) not much of it is needed on a sandwich really. A packet of butter tends to last far longer than a packet of the usual margerine-based kind, at least for us. Sadly the butter is often wrapped in paper which can get quite messy, and I've been on the lookout for a plain, but nice, butter box, which we can use instead. I really liked the butter box from Mia Blanche Keramik, but it lacks a lid, and when I found this one from Eva Trio I decided this was the one for us. Ordered from Royal Design.

The Danish jewellery company, Pilgrim, has designed a new necklace for longtime partner Médecins Sans Frontières and I think it looks really good. The fact that ten Euros are donated to the organization for every necklace sold is a bonus.

Ellos also has a collection, Go red benefitting women heart disease research through the non-profit organization, Hjärt-lungfonden, the heart-lung foundation. The campaign continues until the end of March.

For a while I have been on the lookout for a nice and simple silver necklace on which I would want to have T.'s and my sons' names ingraved, and I think I've found the right one at M925, where I also found the images that I have tweaked. I really like Magdalena Johne's work.

UPDATE: Yesterday I received the necklace and it is absolutely perfect. A classic.

Architect Christian de Portzamparc has been trusted with a large number of prestigious builds and, having seen how Le Philharmonie in Luxemburg turned out, he seems to be amazingly talented. The rows of pillars that walls off the leaf-shaped building provide a versatile and ever-changing architectural performance, especially at night when light in all colours of the spectrum flows between them. The concert hall in the middle is equally beautiful and it is also extremely well suited to its purpose. An amazing build. I wish I can view it from the inside at some point.

Image from Wikipedia Commons.