Nan Lawson

Although it was quite a while ago that I last moved house, I still have lots of framed pictures resting on furniture or on the floor, patiently awaiting their turn in the limelight :). One of them is by illustrator Nan Lawson, whose work I am fascinated by and have been following for many years. This illustrator from Los Angeles has a very unique style. It's melancholic, unpretentious and transmits a great sense of calm.

She has also produced some work inspired by a few of my favourite films like The Royal Tenenbaums or Where the Wild Things Are, and on top of all that she makes some great customised portraits.

I  won't let another week go by without hanging up my little sailor girl :)

Olga

DIY woven chain necklace

 Honestly WTF

Christmas might have been and gone but let's hope 2013 holds plenty more excuses to get your glad rags on. Fancy outfits require fancy jewels, which are not always affordable or easy to find so let's start the year as we mean to go on with a bit of DIY action.

This is another great tutorial from HonestlyWTF that shows you how to make a woven chain necklace step by step. You can adapt it to add as many or as few chains and threads or beads as you like. The same idea could even be used for bracelets if you want double the bling.

To begin, you will need:

Honestly WTF

• 1 foot of large rhinestone chain
• 3 feet of curb chain cut into three pieces (two 12" pieces and one 10" piece)
• 3 skeins of embroidery thread
• scissors

For the full how-to, descriptive photos included, go to Honestly WTF

Honestly WTF

 Here are some other alternatives from different blogs and websites to help inspire you.

Thank Fifi

Fab

Stripes and Sequins

Have you tried making one of these before? We would love to see it if you have.

Carla

Merry Christmas

PolkaDot Lighthouse would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas!

We hope the New Year will bring you health, happiness and lots of love!

Manos

Karin Eriksson is the artist behind Manos, the ceramics shop and workshop we managed to visit, almost by chance, on our trip to Stockholm.

We had already come across the video showing her work a few months before that. The video exquisitely shows the delicate creative process as well as the effort and dedication that Karin invests in each of her pieces. We were so lucky to see her wonderful creations up-close.

We'll leave you with the video, worth dedicating six minutes of your time to watch it :)

Manos, Pottery Studio

When you're passionate about your work, you can see it in the results and in the smile you start each working day with.

Have a nice week!

Olga

DIY coasters

You might remember around this time last year we wrote a post about how to sew your own beautiful apple-shaped coasters. If sewing isn't your bag, maybe painting and spray-painting are. We recently stumbled across this lovely DIY on Penelope & Pip which shows you how to make colour-blocked coasters.

Penelope & Pip

Basic wooden coasters seem quite easy to find in the shops or even charity shops and this is the perfect way to jazz them up for your own home or even to give as a gift. There's some big event coming up at the end of December, might be handy for that.

You can find the How-To for this over on Poppytalk where it was featured in a very nice Zine. We recommend taking a flick through it for other interesting ideas.

Penelope & Pip

You will need:

wooden coasters

paint suitable for wood (in several or just one colour)

gold spraypaint

clear varnish

masking tape

a brush 

some paint containers

Method (see the Zine for pictures to go with these instructions):

1. Place masking tape diagonally across each coaster then paint one half of the coaster with the colour of your choice.

2. Once dry, paint on a second layer to make it more durable.

3. Once the second layer is dry, place the masking tape over the part you just painted so that you can spray the other half of the coaster gold. Make sure the first half is completely dry otherwise the paint will come off with the masking tape.

4. Spray away! You can also spray the underside of the coaster.

5. Once dry, cover the coasters with some clear varnish to make them nice and hardy.

Penelope & Pip

They don't seem too tricky or time-consuming and look great. Will you be giving these a go?

Carla

Easy peasy chocolate cake

We were in birthday celebration mode not too long ago and as we all know a good birthday isn't complete without a cake. This time we decided to forget about calorie-counting and treated ourselves to a chocolate feast, mmm.

This cake is extremely easy to prepare and turns out really nice, moist and has finger-licking icing to boot. Let's just say it's one of those recipes that has to be shared for the good of humanity :)

Easy peasy chocolate cake

I based the recipe on this one from Rachel Manley:

For the cake:

225g/8oz plain flour (sifted)
350g/12½oz golden caster sugar
85g/3oz cocoa powder
1½ tsp baking powder
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 free-range eggs
250ml/9fl oz whole milk
125ml/4½fl oz sunflower oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
250ml/9fl oz boiling water

For the chocolate icing:

200g/7oz dark chocolate* (or dark chocolate with orange for an irresistible flavour combo, although it affects the texture a bit)
200ml/7fl oz double cream

To make the icing, heat the chocolate and cream in a saucepan. Stir it over a low heat until the chocolate melts. Then leave it to cool for 1 hour, or until thick enough to spread over the cake.

Now it's time to start on the cake. Place all of the cake ingredients, except the boiling water, into a large mixing bowl and mix or beat the mixture until smooth and well combined. Add the boiling water to the mixture, a little at a time, until smooth (the cake mixture will now be very liquid). Pour the cake batter into the greased cake tin and bake in the oven at 180ºC for 25-35 minutes, or until the top is firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool completely, still in its tin, before icing (and please use all of the icing, try to resist the temptation to eat it before the cake is ready...).

The original recipe divides the batter into two sandwich tins so you can put icing in the middle too. It might require a little more effort but would make the cake very tasty.

Et voilà! All you have to do now is enjoy it!

Olga

Taking stock of Stockholm

In our last post we mentioned that we were going to Stockholm, well...we’re back and we had a great time! There was plenty to see and do - some of you might have caught a few snippets of our trip on Instagram here and here.

We went to the Royal Palace, Fotografiska (a really nice photography museum), the modern art museum - Moderna Museet (spent a lot of time in the shop making tricky decisions about the Andy Warhol posters), Vasa Museet (museum about a huge warship that sank in 1628 and was salvaged in 1961 almost fully intact) and we also went to the Skansen museum and zoo (to learn about life in Sweden through the ages, and to see moose :) at the same time).

Skansen museum and zoo

Of course no trip to Stockholm would be complete without visiting a few shops so when we weren't being culture vultures, we were perusing Monki, Cheap Monday, Urban Outfitters, DesignTorget and other more independent and second-hand shops.

We ate kanelbulle (a kind of cinnamon bun), meatballs, pickled herring (surprisingly tasty), smoked salmon, and had a few drinks too...but not too many because we might have broken the budget otherwise.

We also went to Urban Deli (nice for drinks and food) and a very nice place nearby called Parlans for the most delicious handmade caramels in lovely 40's style surroundings.

Urban Deli

Parlans

We walked along Södermalm, listened to live music, went on a boat trip and all in all we had a ball.

Thank you Stockholm!


Carla and Olga