Easter Decorations & Lounge Update

I hope you are all having a nice week? I just wanted to let you know how happy I am to have you stop by and how grateful I am for every single comment. 

I managed to find my Easter decorations (or should I say my husband did, after he spent an hour in the garage looking through unopened boxes) I was keen to bring a little Easter feeling into the home. In the northern hemisphere Easter is associated with springtime yet here we are heading into autumn - it does feel a little strange. I don't know too many people that decorate their homes for Easter in New Zealand but I am determined to keep a little Germany tradition going in my home - mostly for the boys. 

We used to go for a long walk on Easter Sunday with the whole family and my grandfather would drop little chocolate eggs along the way without us noticing. I still remember the excitement as a little girl discovering the treats amongst freshly sprung flowers. Do you have any easter traditions that you are keen to pass on?

This cute little pair of ceramic bunnies was a gift from my mother. She has always been a keen decorator and she celebrated the change of season by updating our home.

I received some new cushions from H&M last week - my mother sent them to me along with some 

Haribo - Mmmmhhhh :-) The pot plant was a recent project I did. I noticed them in many scandinavian interiors and never found one ready made - so I used a circular wire and twisted ivy around it. Easy!

Tschüss...

Container Art in Christchurch

Thank you for stopping by today. It is a beautiful late summer day and I am lapping up every bit of sun knowing we are heading into autumn. 

Christchurch as you may know has been devastated by many earthquakes over the last 18 months and although life has returned to normality for most people there are constant reminders of mother natures forces - one being shipping containers. This might seems strange to people but shipping containers have been used around the city for many purposes. 

The city mall which was almost entirely destroyed has been turned into the first container mall in the world.

You can read more about it here.

  

Containers are also used to temporarily hold up historic buildings and protect roads agains rock fall. 

Obviously containers aren't a pretty sight so a clever initiative was started by local artists to turn them into giant art canvases. Below are just a few of the banners that are gracing containers around the city. I absolutely love them and hope to see many more being put up over the next coming months.

I really love how Christchurch people are quick to turn tragedy into an opportunity to start something new and different . Art in any shape or form brightens our lives - and even more so in this case. 

The first two and the last image are curtesy of Becker Fraser photos - for more of their official Christchurch EQ images you can visit their gallery here.

I hope you all have a very relaxing weekend. I will be going on a big hunt for my easter decorations box which somehow seems to have gone missing after our big move. 

Tschüss...

 

Coconut Lemon Cake

Thanks for stopping by today. The boys and I decided to make a welcome home cake for their daddy who's been away for two weeks. We had great fun measuring and mixing everything together and once the cake came out of the oven the boys were so impatient about eating it we didn't end up decorate it.

This is what you'll need:
115g soft butter
175g fine sugar
3 eggs
175g desiccated coconut
115g self-raising flour
85ml sour cream
2 tsp grated lemon rind

Cream butter and sugar, slowly add the eggs one at a time. Mix in all other ingredients and mix well.
Bake at 180 degree celsius for about 1 hour until the top is golden (this depends on the type of baking dish you use and how deep the cake is)

You can eat is as it is or drizzle the hot cake with lemon syrup (heat 30ml lemon juice with 100g sugar and 85ml water in a pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 2-3 min before drizzling the syrup over the warm cake)

Tschüss...

IKEA live Magazine

I am sitting all wrapped up with a cup of coffee enjoying a lazy Sunday morning. It's been really quite cold and I am struggling a little with the lack of central heating. Germany has made me soft. At least I can dig out my nice Merino jerseys which were too warm to wear inside our old place in Koblenz.

Talking about our old apartment. Two days ago I received a little surprise package containing two copies of the latest IKEA live magazine. I was asked to submit some photos months ago and hadn't really thought about the feature for some time. It's nice to have a reminder of our old apartment "officially" printed and forever treasured in my growing pile of interior magazines.

I have been all consumed with trying to sort this place out a little more. The windows here are huge and the first thing I did when we moved in was take down all the horrible curtains - which now leaves me with blank windows everywhere. I have started buying fabric to make roman blinds for some of the windows and am waiting on an order of curtains from Germany. I know that seems a bit crazy but I just couldn't find what I wanted over here so back to good old IKEA. New Zealand doesn't have one :-(

I do feel like we are settling in very well though. My oldest boy started kindergarten and my youngest has two mornings in daycare which he is enjoying very much and gives me some time to myself - which is something I haven't had since they were born.

Tschüss...