The Argentinian architect Aldana Ferrer Garcia has designed this brilliant " fold-out " window MORE SKY which makes it possible to get more light and better view from streets and sky without getting in noise and smog while living in bigger cities. The window works as a gigantic street mirror. Aldana Ferrer Garcia designed the window while attending Pratt Institute i Brooklyn i New York and the window is exhibited at Dubai Design Weekend these days to find investors for the project.
Christmas wreath done by me !!!!
To say the least I really impressed myself this morning. I was invited to an amazing event at SØLYST by Rungstedgaard with a theme of Christmas. First everybody had a tasteful breakfast and the smooth TREVERI ROSE , which by the way is served at the Royal Palace. After lovely songs by NELLIE ETTISON , we were introduced to EDITION POSHETTE who quitely walked us through the making of a christmas wreath. I am not much of a DIY girl normally, but I did it sooo well today. I am very proud and happy :-)
You still got time, let me explain you how.
1. Start with a good glass of wine or Champagne ;-)
Then buy a " naked " straw wreath, green wire and different pine branches at your local flower shop.
2. Buy some lovely christmas decorations and candles of you like, WITH wire.
3. Fasten the wire to the wreath with a knot , and slowly fasten the different branches around the wreath, with the thinner branches on the inside, to not make it too full. And finish everything off with a knot.
4. Then use you creative side and fantasy, apply you decor and candles as you like.
And voila´ - You just saved yourself a fortune and had the best happy time and meditation you could wish for.
Merry Christmas, my favorit time of year !
Christina
Great Halloween at our house.
We had an amazing Halloween in the house. There were something for all. The boys were super creative and caved some cool pumpkins, Luca bought enough candy to last us until next year and I had put out soda and blood red wine shots for the poor parents who had walked the streets for hours and hours. This became a very popular attraction in our neighbour hood :-)
See you next year, Christina
Cool ways to use you space in small rooms.
SmartRooms is a danish company creating great solutions for smaller spaces. Compact living is about making you home effective without choosing between space and comfort. I am in love with this home office. Great and modern way of having your own space.
Trick ´r Treat.
For me Halloween has always been something frightening since, my best friend and I, went alone to see the movie ´Halloween` at the age of 10 in Vester Vov Vov ( if you have my age you remember Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis really well, ........because you won´t be able to forget ) and then 10 years later attending a Halloween party in London which also scared the living ....... out of me ( the English like the American´s go all in when it comes to Halloween !! )
These day´s it´s a different story and I know my own limits better, for which reason I only get involved with kids stuff during Halloween. Since we went back to Copenhagen we are all in 31th of October in our neighbourhood. I was surprised the first year to see how many kids turned up. I usually don´t buy too little of anything, but that night I stood up from the couch and answered the door close to 99 times, really !!!! In the end I had to give the rest of the kids small exclusive Olive Olie bottle samples because I has out of candy. I have now learned my lesson and buy plenty :-) Another super important thing during Halloween are the right tools and you will not be standing like I did the first year with you heart up your throat while trying to carve and decorate 10 pumpkin with 9 small boys with each their butcher knife :-/ I hope their mothers won´t read this newsletter. Here is a little inspiration for next week.
Decorations of the house is important. Some go all the way with gimmick´s and scary stuff others are more simple like me.
Cakes and Candy are the main ingredient for a good Halloween. Make scary cup cakes with bleeding scares, meringue ghost´s, blood-like alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks and to serve kids "dirty-finger-free" candy insert lollipop´s in a pumpkin.
Make cute decorations and maybe not all in orange, if you are not a big fan like me, ......unless it involves Hermes ;-)
As for costumes you can do whatever you like. Cute, smart , sexy, scary, even simply through a sheet over you head and make 2 holes to peep through.
This is how it ended up this year, with Olivers good friends, great pumpkins, red wine for the parents, a beautiful decorated house and a little sickness after all the candy.
Boooo and enjoy, Christina
Healthy again after a long vacation.
After a long and lovely vacation enjoying amazing food and wine in Italy and France, I thought it was a good idea to get a "jump start" to a more healthy living through a juice detox from Sundhedsværkstedet . I tried it ones before and I loved and felt good about it. Camilla who has Sundhedsværkstedet prepare these great juices, smoothies and soups of fruit and vegetables which cleans your system really well. The detox makes you less bloated and makes you feel better and ready to take on everyday life with much more energy. All you have to do is pay and pick up. You should really try it!
Enjoy, Christina
Turn up the volume in your bathroom.
Bathrooms are often overlooked in homes. But still each person uses 1-2 hours a day in there, wouldn't it be nice to be surrounded by something lovely. Have some fun re-doing you bathroom by filing it with colours, wall-paper, candlelights, lacquer, chandeliers, paintings, gold, fat cotton, lights and much more.
Enjoy, Christina
The effect of light is amazing.
Spice up a smaller and dull room with wall-paper and give it character.
Have fun with colours and create something completely different.
Make a "Wall of Fame" to spice things up.
Make a fantastic floor with lacquer and keep it clean and graphic at the same time.
Refine your bathroom with a chandelier and get that hotel mood.
Do it ALL wall-paper, gold, chandelier, stripes, paintings, lights .....go crazy.
Use candles to get the cozy and romantic feeling even in a very minimalistic styled bathroom.
Valentino 4 Cash&Rocket.
Valentino has in cooperation with Cash&Rocket designed a collection of shoes, clothes and bags with 20% going directly to charity. You can still make a different and help to donate money to 1 of the 3 charities chosen by Cash&Rocket, by purchasing some of the amazing things seen below. Cash & Rocket raised $1.7 so fare on C&Rtour2015 this year, well done Julie. xxx Stina
Julie Brangstrup and co-creative director of Valentino Pierpaolo Picciolo
No sugar, No coffee, No meat, No wine, it´s a new type of day for me.
There is no way around it, and I have tried to avoid it for tooooooo long !!!
In general I am fairly healthy, with a few bad habits. But since today I will try to do the right thing and quit some of the bad and introduce the good. A good friend of mine introduced me to "Sundhedsvaerkstedet" . Camilla the owner, takes care of everything, and delivers 2-day boxes strait to your doorstep. It´s so me to do it in this way. All you need to do is to keep away from everything else, and enjoy the amazing juices, smoothies and soups Camilla has prepared for you. It´s my first day, and I miss my coffee a lot. I even had a bad headache, but apart from this I feel absolutely fine. And the thought of what this detox will do for me makes it all much easier. I can´t wait to see how great I feel in a couples of day´s. Maybe it will make me do even healthier choices in the future. We will see.
It´s a family affair.
Yet again Julie Brangstrup made it happen. Cash&Rocket is on the road to raise money for charity. I think by now The Ladies must be driving into Milan the last stop before the finale.
Through a unique online fundraising platform, Cash & Rocket has been able to raise in excess of $1,850,000 over 2012, 2013 and 2014. Cash & Rocket are incredibly proud that 100% of donations go directly to our charity partners.
Each year 70 tour ladies form 35 individual online teams to create friendly competition amongst their ladies and brands. Their teams and brands report back to fans about their fundraising success via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as encouraging support and donations from friends and followers.
In addition to online and individual team fundraising, Cash & Rocket also holds an annual Charity Auction Gala Dinner as part of each tour. The Gala Dinner enables the charities to raise an incredible amount of funding through the sale of unique, limited edition items, donated by partners and friends of Cash & Rocket . The Auction Gala Dinner always attracts many high-profile, charitable celebrity figures. Past attendees have included Princess Reema Bint Bander Al Saud, Selita Ebanks, Lady Christina Green, Jasmine Guiness, Daisy Lowe, Yasmin le Bon and Franca Sozzani, to name but a few.
C&R´s three charity partners – OAfrica, Shine on Sierra Leone and Sumbandila – provide life-changing support to women and children in Africa, through education and through healthcare. They were chosen as organisations where we can play a hands-on role in their development and witness real change. Through the vital work of our charity partners, we are making a huge difference to the lives of hundreds of women and children in Africa.
When Julie makes it happen and Cash & Rocket is on the road our whole family supports her charity. If we are not able to do the tour we will make sure to be a the Galla Dinner for the auction. Luca and I flew to London Thursday night and took part in the amazing event at The Dorchester together with the 300 other people invited.
I drove 2012 and it was an amazing experience that I will never forget. All the Great Ladies and cars and a great teamwork to raise as much money as possible for the much needed charities. 2012 we raised money for ´ AIDS free Africa 2015´ Miss Lily and I had 4 amazing days together 24 hours a day. Absolutely the best co-driver I could have dreamt for. Lily speaks and I drive :-)))
Julie is really good in finding the right group of interesting girls to do the tour. Everybody has a common interest in doing good and having a fun trip at the same time. Follow them on @cash_and_rocket You will find all the greatest bloggers, models, fashion people, CEO´s, artist, mothers and many many more.
7 ideas of how to handle messy kid´s.
I know everything there is to know about mess in a child´s room. Oliver who turns 10 today, is still having difficulties cleaning up his room, and I have had to think through all kind of ways to make it practical and orderly in his room. I have used all my nicer shoe boxes, folders, containers, plastic boxes, draws, cupboards to get things out of the way.
Here I will show you a few extra good ideas to storage LEGO, Teddybears, toy cars, books and more. Buy some plain garden paper bags and draw or write what you will place in them, they cost nothing and they are very durable. Get some old wooden boxes, clean them well and paint them in all sort of colours which will go well with the room. The classic IKEA bookcase with storage paper boxes is always a great way to get things in order. Or take a trip to the local fleemarked and browse about to find cute older things, have fun restoring them and use them for book´s and toy´s.
Oliver has this amazing room with oblique or sloped wall´s which takes away some of the total area. To use as much space as possible in the lower area as "exhibition" and storage I have chosen a classic IKEA shelf, turned it around to use it horisontal.
A great idea is to take plain paper bags, decorate or write what´s inside.
Find wooden boxes, and have a nice time cleaning, painting and decorating them. Panduro has funny things to decorate with.
Most Flea Markets has great stuff you can use as storage, like here for books.
Great idea :-) Take out the bottom of at cupboard, create an office in there, when you want to clean up - just close the doors !
These boxes for bigger things like Teddybears and ball´s, can be made with a little concentration, of some wood and robe from the local Hardware store.
You need to be quit handy to build this folding table, but it´s a great idea, and when you close it you can place a picture on the back side of the table to make it look like a frame of a painting when closed against the wall.
I hope you liked some of the ideas, Christina
How to create more space in a smaller place.
I remember my first apartment which was 32m2. and the way I was using every corner available and still having space enough for a workstation, dining area, "walk-in closet", kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and living room and making parties for 35 people at the time, to great joy of my neighbors ;-/
I am often asked how to make more space in a house which has less square meters. You have to use the imagination and build up, build down, on the side and divide. Below I have illustrated ways to use you space in a good way which makes it possible to have room for everything.
If you have enough hight in the room, a great idea is to build up, and in that way make a 2nd. floor.
Divide your space into 2 in an easy and economic way by using a cute curtain to make one room into bedroom and living room at the same time.
A more permanent way to divide a room into two is to build a wall which you can use as a library and a divider at the same time.
If you don´t have a lot of space it´s obvious that you will have to buy more compact elements to get all you need into the space you have to work with.
A great way to get more space specially in the bedroom is to build up, because here you will usually not need at lot of hight in the bed area. In this way you will create a lot of extra storage.
Use folding bed or tables to save space.
I hope you can use some of these ideas, Christina
10 Great ideas for children ´s rooms.
There are so many funny way´s to decorate children´s rooms. You can make it playfull, creative, smart, intelligent and funny. Decorate with things that can help to keep their rooms in order, like penholders, small containers, shelfs and draws. Or decorate wall´s with wallpaper or metal boards to help their learning ability.
This is a picture of Oliver´s room from when he was 5 years old. I found him this beautiful map of the world at Tapet Cafeen. And we used it, as a way to play with names and places of all the cities and countries where we have been, or where we have relatives who lives. By the age of 6 he knew most of the world from this map.
Since we were living in Italy until recently, I made Oliver a "Wall of Fame ( Family )" with pictures of all our friends and family who he could not be surrounded with daily. We used to speak about everybody often and I know it ment a lot to him to "see" them everyday.
Make a decorative wall which at the same time is a creative corner, like this black board where they can draw new things all day long. The black boards ou can buy ready made or do it yourself by buying the special paint in stores. Create also a cozy corner for reading like this little Tipi, all children loves caves and small hiding places.
Are they 2 who have to share a space, divide it and give them some privacy, which will give them a possibility the concentrate even more, to do their studies. This is also a great way to creat something nice and pratical at the same time, by making space for their stuff to be put in containers and on shelf´s.
Fun, fun and pratical. Make a whole designer/leaning black board wall with pen holders, paper, containers for smaller things and shelfs. Attach black elastic with nails or glue to hold pens and use hooks for containers.
Learning should be fun. With this light metal board attach on the wall and a bucket of letter magnet´s you will accelerate your child´s reading and writing abilities.
Children create great things and a lot of it! You properly havn´t got space for all of it. Make these re-useable frames and put up new "art" from time to time.
In houses of all sizes, storage is a problem, use all corners available like behind this door where you can set up narrow shelf´s for books and paintings.
If hopscotch is the thing which is a favourite game, then use black tape to design on the floor, when it´s no fun anymore, you just remove the tape and no harm is done.
Create this wooden frame as a house for your kid. They will love it and it looks fantastic. Decorate with christmas lights. Most fathers can put together 15 lengths of wood.
Enjoy, Christina
Mirror mirror on the wall....
I love paintings, but must admit to be very ignorant when it comes to art, which means most of the time I go for mirrors, because I have such difficulties choosing which kind of art to invest in. I love mirrors. Not only to admire myself ;-) .....but to reflect other great things in the surroundings, in or out. Mirrors give you the illusion of larger space and more light. Enjoy yourself by searching through flee markets for funny or simple or elegant mirrors to decorate your wall. If you have a little extra to spend check out the beautiful danish designed mirror´s Reflection by Hugau/Larsson . Happy hunting.
Use a large mirror to reflect the light from other parts of the house into darker areas.
Customized mirrors set in wall.
Antique mirrors found on flee markets set as decoration.
Customized mirror in iron.
Christina
Easter is just around the corner.
It will be Easter very soon which to me means, great lunches, massive amount of chocolate, good weather, lots of children around and vacation. The traditional yellow is not really my colour, personally I go for something in soft blue or green colours. Create your own eggs by colouring or use glitter. Blow out the egg, let them dry and then decorate with glitter-dust, colour, cut-up paper in mixed colours or other things you like. Find branches in the woods or at your neighbour´s place, put them in big vases and hang your beautiful decorated egg´s. No Easter without an egg hunt in the forest, the garden or your apartment, kids loves it.
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Cute and elegant.
Rustic and simple.
Use pretty soft colours.
Happy easter
Christina
Spring is here, expand your home with cozy corners in you garden , balconies or windowsill´s.
When the sun is coming out like now, I can´t wait to buy flowers. There is nothing better that getting a little colour in the garden or balcony. I find everything I don´t use in the house anymore like old baskets, vases, pillows, blanket´s and Christmas decorations, and just change the colour of candles and bow´s to fit the Spring mood.
Here we go.......
Pillows which I don´t use inside anymore, are now great for outside.
My Christmas decorations can last a couple of week more. I just change bow colour, take away the candles and plant a few colorful flowers in the middel.
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Our Christmas candle gets a new life with change of colours of bow and candle.
More "old" pillows are being used outside and my old laundry basket is being put back to life as a flower vase.
Happy Spring,
Christina
Blakes London.
Blakes is still my favorite place to stay when in London. Room # 106 has been booked already for next month when going to visit and celebrate with family.
So many great details and ideas you can use in your own home. The dark colors and big vases with green plants.
Layers and layers of decorative pillows and covers in silk and velour, we stayed here last time.
Amazing mix of colours and materials.
Beautiful white and clean and fresh, love it..love it..love. We are staying in #106 again this time. Jubilee !
The infamous bar at Blakes, great ambiance and cocktails.
Lovely to sit out here and enjoy a drink and good food for lunch or dinner.
Valentines Day is over but Valentine is not.
I love gadgets for my iphone and Mac. I swear to Apple, but I don´t really like the feel of the metal and to protect the object I always find covers for both my Mac and phone. Lately I am going crazy for Valentine Goods a NY based company, who in cooperation with 3M has developed these cover and back sticks, to protect and decorate you most needed carry around device.
When it comes to knives, I am a total chicken.
Probably because I had several serious surgical operations in my time. Not to say that I am against cosmetic surgery. Whatever makes you happy..........I am all for it! Nothing is more important than happiness :-) And I would probably have something done in the future anyway, but for now I will try something els. I love a natural, fresh and soft face. And in my age, having grown up with a bit too much sun, a few bad habits and an inherit of a delicate skin, obviously it does not sit like it used to do......gravity is starting to show. After the holidays where I may have overdone it a bit, I´ll try to get slowly back into shape and maybe even visit that famous gym I enrolled in last year :-/ But I will start at the top and work my way down. I will massage my way to a fresher face with this mineral infused Slim Cera beauty roller, I just bought. I will use it twice a day to revitalize skin quality with it´s five diamond-cut mesh rollers that stimulate my facial muscles to roll out dirt, cleanse pores and tighten the skin.
Then I apply Sisley morning and night. Unfortunately I didn´t understand the importance of a toner before 14 days ago, when I was explained that toner removes the lime ( kalk ) of all the water I splash on my face, which makes the skin super dry. And apart from the toner I use my HYDRA-GLOBAL during the day and Black rose olie for the night and let my skin work a little on its own, instead of putting heavy cremes like I used to and then the mask 1 time a week to energise the skin. Pretty simple.......just the way I like it.
Christina
I have always been a sucker for soft colours and soft materials.
Just as an inspiration.
Soft colours and soft materials are great, whether it´s for summer or winter. In these day´s which are grey and sad, it helps to use other than black. The big sweathers, boot´s, scarf´s or even fur in soft colours can definitely brighten up your day and help you along in this dark time of the year. If you need help please contact me at CASA CHRISTINA.