Moline

Hello Sunshine!

Another bright and crisp day ahead here in Seoul. It is sunny and 6 degrees Celsius. Freezing cold for me but a down jacket in the morning helps when I am taking the children to school. And the sun just makes averything bright and happy :-)

I've been roaming some blogs lately - newly discovered or re-discovered. They are mostly around paper stuff and creating things with paper like mini albums and so on. But from time to time I stumble over other blogs like "Another day UP". She takes wonderful photographs of her children and everyday life and she shared also a cool music video that really lifted my spirits today with its sound:

 

And I am thankful to her for letting me know...

And some days before I found this song via Kate from diary of a renegade scrapbooker:

 

And another one I love love love AND downloaded. So sorry I did not discover them back in 2004... But maybe I was too busy exploring Istanbul, taking care of two toddlers and being pregnant again. So I am enjoying them immensly right now and will also watch the film:

 

Enjoy if you will! (I am hoping that you don't get the Korean commercials when you click on the links to YouTube like me all the time...)

I'll leave you with that for the time being. I need to get some more photo paper to have photos printed out so I can get some more mini-albums done. I am currently producing an autumn-album and some smaller chidren-themed-ones. Oh how I do love paper!!!

Yvonne

 

 

Good Morning and Hello Autumn!

Even though we are enjoying our fall vacation and I don't have to get up early to drive the children to school I love getting up early, preparing breakfast for my husband and me and enjoy the few moments of only us together before the day takes us in a whirlwind. 

I love my tea in very thin china mugs and a hot toast with melted butter and strawberry jam. Hot Toast it has to be because the first morning bite should be warm and smooth and not crispy and cold for me, please! So my family got used to my habit of having the toaster close to the morning table on a chair or so for my toast to get from toaster to plate ASAP!

And then, after my husband left I spread out on the couch, book in hand and enjoy the luxury of a quite house and sleeping children for at least an hour.

During the vacation time the children join me sometimes in my reading nook. This time it was Moritz who rediscovered his old Richard Scarry ABC books now that his younger brother is learning the ABC. 

So when I am not flipping through interior magazines with our eldest on the sofa you might also find me in the tub, staring into the sunny sky, daydreaming...

...or reading a new novel on Korea : The Calligrapher's daughter by Eugenia Kim

If I am very lucky, Pauline and Jakob even might invite me to their restaurant:

But on other mornings you are having a quick email exchange with your internet friend who lives round the corner of your house (but you nevertheless met via Internet) and you hop in your car for an adult hour in one of the cute cafes in the neighbourhood down the hill.

So Ilze took me to Retrona Pie in Samcheong-dong this time and it was so cute. 

I loved the cakes and pies on offer, of course, but also these cool bicycles they are so en Vogue here in Seoul. They are so colorful and you can chose so many different looks!

The interior was also very retro and typical for this part of the city.

And yes, we had cheesecake - how could we resist. and we chatted about Seoul, children, blogging and about our various projects .

She also introduced me to Ree's blog Pioneer Woman and her multiple talents. My goodness - this woman has a lot of energy!!!

And she has a dog like our George: needy, smelly, sobbering, lazy: Charlie. So I read a bit about Charlie and then thought also George might need some blog love and I am sharing some recent pictures of his energetic self in the morning:

He is an old guy now but he wasn't much more active when he was young - believe me!

And about Autumn: I think this is one of the nicest autumn I had for year's now: so sunny and it was still  warm (over 20 degrees Celsius) until last week. It did not make me want to redecorate in fall colors or take out the warmer clothes. So my first Autumn mosaic for this year is still light and flowery for you to enjoy:

1. fall is here, 2. Untitled, 3. flaurs-roses, 4. A Little Spring In The Fall, 5. rainy day reading, 6. Untitled, 7.{M}, 8. Untitled, 9. Yellow, 10. orangechevy3_6583, 11. Rose Hips, 12. Untitled, 13. Keep Calm, 14. The Petting Zoo girl 1 gets an apron, 15. autumnal arrangement :: step 2, 16. My Favorite Time of Day!

But there is a chill in the air now and I took out some of the sheepskins for the chairs already and some warmer sweaters. Next I will chair some Pinterest inspiration for this season with you!

Hang on, please!

Yvonne

 

Summer in the City

The new habits are coming along nicely. We had a row of 3 Sundays writing letters and postcards and spend some time during the week thinking of who to write to and what to send. Postage is low here so one can send some goodies along. And this country is full of cute things - especially when it comes to stationary and everything concerning paper...

And we also managed to try out new recipes. Well, not exactly recipes but also some new ways of presenting food. I tried out the roughly cut zucchini as a side dish from my Pinterest

And we also had the tiny bite size caprese in between:

The pictures are from my Pinterest pinboard of yummy treats again. I keep on adding to these!

And after a lovg period of rain which I did not witness because I was in germany at that time the sun came back again and we are now in the middle of a hot summer with over 30 degrees. And although we are living in one of the megacities of the world we try and find some spaces to have a green surrounding. And that is easy here in Seoul with a lot of parks, temple gardens and green spaces and all the beautiful mountains around the city. 

Last week we were taken to Seoul Dream Forest. it is near where we live and easy to reach so we could theoretically go there on a daily basis. It is a wonderful plot of Green with a meandering little water stream floating through, a lake, waterfalls, deer , playgrounds, a huge forest and a piazza with water fountains where the children can have endless fun fighting with the water.

I am really tempted to take an extra set of clothes myself...

And yes, school started for the children and especially for Jakob who had his first day of school. I took a lot of pictures and we had a little party but I still have to sort some photos out and upload it later. I am already working on his school album because with the chird child I am more organized. I collected things during the last years for our other two children but just finished a few pages. And now I want to be more diligent from the beginning. So I prepared paper, ephemera and ordered divider sheets to complete/start the album - just wait and see...

My craftroom is full of stacks of precut paper -color coordinated of course and is waiting to be played with!

See you soon here in the middle of summer, at school or in my craftroom amongst the paper (painting walls in the house will be a pasttime for colder weather I think)

Yvonne

 

New habits

It is not the beginning of the year but summer might also be a good time to establish a new habit. In fact, come to think of it ANY time is a good time. I have to admit that I tried to install a new habit several times a year (for instance: drink more water!) but I failed. The only habits I tend to keep are: declutter your surfaces and shine your sink (thank you a lot fly lady and Aby!!!)

So off to new habits: Last week I was reminded by an email from Jessica that reminded me of sending more letters. And with letters I mean rel ones. Remeber snail mail? So on Saturday I announced to my family that Sunday would be our new day for letter writing. We sat down after tea and everybody wrote at least one letter or postcard. They don't have to be long and elaborated (that would be too much for the children). Sometimes a nice card or a sweet ephemera and some nice words will do the same. It is just a way of giving something very valuable: time. 

We tend to write a lot of emails, we twitter, send SMS's, comment on blogs. But remember how it feels to have not only bills in the mailbox but colorful envelopes and picture postcards? I love it! And I remeber all the wonderful postcards my uncle sent to my grandma when I was a child. He travelled the world and sent a postcard from all the places he has been. Sometimes he just sent "Greetings" and his name but my grandma who never travelled could have a piece of the world flying into her kitchen via a picture postcard. And when I was a child I set down on the floor with the box full of cards and sorted them by continent and country and decided where to go as an adult. And when I travelled as a student to Brazil to learn the language and to finally see the Corcovado my grandmother told me that this was my favourite postcard: the one from Rio and as a child I kept asking me and her: "How does uncle Hans find his way from the airport to the Corcovado without knowing the way and without speaking the language?" And you see: I did not travel a lot as a child then... My uncle died some months ago and so did my aunt. And now my cousin is trying to find the boxes with all the old postcards because my grandma gave it to him before she died so he could see where he has been during his business life.  And now I would love to see the postcards again I played with as a child and which had such an enormous impact on my way of seing the world!

Because I remebered this so vividly I started buying postcard for the children whenever we went to another city or country. I just wrote the date and with whom we have been there and what we roughly did. So they can see where they have been later in their life.

But now back to the new habit: We managed to write 14 postcards and letters this Sunday (the five of us - jakob only "dictating" his, of course). Wow! That was an outcome. And seeing this pile on the window sill to be posted makes them want to write again this Sunday:

The other habit is this: Try a new recipe every week! And again I started Sunday. I have so many yummy treats pinned on my Pinterest that I had to try some. And me, being a breakfast person tried out this: Bacon, egg and toast cups (by Martha, of course).

(Image by Marths Stewart Living)

It was delicious  and I will have to prepare it for guests. So you can make large quantities of bacon and eggs without standing in front of the pan and get rooked. There is even time to have a morning shower in between frying the bacon and taking the cups out of the oven: perfect I'd say!

I don't know what I will try out this week but I will keep you informed about the outcome!

And you? Are you already thinking to whom you could write a few lines or how happy you were last time you got some nice snail mail?

Hugs to you!

Yvonne

 

Ps: Talking about postcards: I just found a lovely postcard download on Kellie's blog 74 Lime Lane:

Isn't it just lovely? You can find the download here.

Yvonne

 

Projects

Can you believe it- I am crafty again! Do you remember the beginning of the year when I started "A page a day" . Wow, what a plan for somebody like me. I even made it to February and then it somehow drowned in daily life. Let's blame it on the moving that had to be prepared back then, ok.?

But I really did some work: I prepared a color scheme for each month, collected all the paper and ephemera and cut the pages and even assembled them. But I really did not make a page a day... I am still loving the idea and do not want to give up that easily! So I decided to keep the cutouts and the prepared color themes and just make a monthly album out of them and add some extras. I even prepared some scrap packs for the shop. My idea was to provide the same paper I used in my monthly projects for some craftiness to be purchased on Etsy. 

Be it as it is, you find me daily sitting in my new craftroom, going through my paper stash and prepare all these things. And that makes me so happy. Paper really is an old love of mine!

So here you can see some of the inspiration I gathered for the July theme: Red, White and Blue:

1. "Vivitar" and a nice camera bag from Korea, 2. my little version of a royal delight, 3. Blues, 4. White Lanterns, 5. Untitled, 6. Seoul, Jun 1965, 7. Blue Above, 8. red and blue, 9. Blue shade over red, 10.Untitled, 11. Valentine, 12. Untitled, 13. Hyehwa station, 14. Untitled, 15. Untitled, 16. red and blue symmetry, 17. Untitled, 18. Red, White and Blue, 19. IMG_5194, 20. snowy day

 

1. Old pic (just for reference), 2. .0559, 3. perfect for tea, 4. blue red in sketchpad, 5. Red White and Blue, 6. RED WHITE AND BLUE, 7. How much more red could this be?, 8. red | white | blue, 9. supplies, 10. beautiful security machin GB 2nd blue press cut stamp Queen Elizabeth stamp Great Britain England QEII Queen Elisabeth United Kingdom UK timbre Grande-Bretagne postage porto francobolli Elizabeth Gran Bretagna bollo sellos selo Gran Bretaña franco timbres, 11. red, white & blue, 12.Buttons, 13. handwriting tape, 14. Untitled, 15. Red spool, 16. Blue and white dishes, 17. Untitled, 18.kasa, 19. Savor Summer ~, 20. detail of marine theme

Maybe I am into the marine theme because of my recent travels to Northern Germany and Hamburg - one cannot escape these colors there.

I hope I can finished some pages and packages until next weekend to show you my progress! Be prepared! Have a great Wednesday wherever you may be!

Yvonne

 

 

Hello Yellow

Dear readers! We've been away for a while to settle down, have a vacation back to Germany and to our old house, visiting Istanbul because the children wanted to see the city the were born in, meeting friends and enjoying the Turkish food. 

I am happy some of you asked about us because you haven't heard from us for a while. We are still here and enjoying our new country. The heavy rainfalls did not affect us or any people connected to us so far and we are happy to have rented a very sturdy old brick house where heavy rain like the last one here seemingly can do no harm. 

The rain is continuing, but on a lighter basis. So we are enjoying our time at home, crafting again, playing board games, reading, writing letters and just spending time together as long as the school holiday will be over.

Today I would like to greet you with some Yellow I just posted here.

These pictures are part of one of my boards on Pinterest: Yellow Love. Needless to say I love Pintertest. It is addictive but a perfect way to gather all these things you don't want to forget and you may need for inspiration or for a quick cheering up. And I can sort by colour there - one of my favourite pasttimes... But although I love Pinterest I won't forget my first and old love: flickr.

During our holiday my old laptop broke down and a very young guy at the Apple store told me five years is too much for a powerbook the way I am using it. So no photo posting during our vacation (except from the phone) and no hours of lingering around with flickr-friends. And there is so much to share and to tell. That will have to wait for another day. I am slowly getting back on track here with a daily routine.

I am glad I am back at the computer again to share my love for colour be it via Pinterest of flickr like this beauty: 

I hope you are well and you are having a wonderful time of year ( be it winter or summer- wherever you are located) - I missed you!

Yvonne

Children's Day preparations

The preparations for the upcoming Children's Day tomorrow are going on. the children learned from their friends at school that there will be presents involved but I could convince them that this only applies to Korean children here! 

As I already mentioned before, we like to visit the city's canal 'round the corner of our appartment. Over there they are also preparing everything for the big day tomorrow and the festivities for Buddha's Birthday on the 10th.

To complement all the lovaly lanterns suspended over the stream they added a reddish-pinkish ribbon curtain to one of the bridges. it looks so amazing from afar and it is great to walk through this shower of organza in Pink, Red, Yellow and Orange and Blue:

After our stroll we stopped in a cafe for a sandwich, a game of cards and fresh lemonade. Jakob loves to play cards, or pokerface. And I love all these sweet little drawings on the paper items, on shop windows (another good post for show and tell!). I even collected the papers and packaging of some of our purchases to compile a little scrapbok made of our first encounters with Korean paper.

After we arrived in the appartment, the children took their pencils and were drawing what they had seen. And this made me really happy! I put a lot of effort into bringing them to express themselves with paper and pencil over the years and they are really doing it. When they could not write they were just scribbling things with pen, pencil or watercolours after they experienced something. And they are still doing it without being encouraged. These are the moments when you know all your efforts are leading to something good - and that in itself is good for me to see because we all need this encouragements from time to time, don't we mothers out there?

So no presents tomorrow but a bit of Korean children's day and a bit of Cinco de Mayo! Maybe homemade fajitas and Tortillas with some ribbon garlands or so! 

Enjoy your day!

Yvonne

 

 

 

 

Show and tell - but where shall I begin

Just to state this: I already fell in love with this city! You might have guessed this but now it is stated! I fell like a child at "show and tell" that cannot decide what to bring to class next because there are so many things to show and so many stories to tell!

But maybe I can start today with one of my addictions: Cafes! It is not that I am a coffe drinker. I prefer tea over coffee but love to have a good Cappuchino or Macchiato ( no Latte please!) from time to time. What I love about cafes is the atmosphere AND the menue. Raised in Northern Germany no day during my childhood would pass without having coffee or tea in the afternoon. And if there was no homemade cake available we had some biquits instead or brought some cake from the bakery around the corner. And it was this sitting and pausing in the middle of the afternoon what I really loved and what I miss if I am not able to do it. It really ins't necessary to have a cafe at hand but these days when people don't meet for a daily cup of tea or coffee and a treat that often (for various reasons!) I love to create this at home with visitors, with my family or even outside home in a cafe. And I also did it when I still worked: having a break in between and escape into a leisurely world of idleness, good smells and good tastes... 

So lucky me being in Seoul now with a lot of time at my hands and such an enormous tea and coffee scene all over town. The Seoulites seem to love their coffe corners and tearooms and I love them to. So the theme for today will be introducing you to cafe life here. And a lot of entries on that theme will follow! 

Somehow my husband manages to find great places. it seems he has an eye for that. When we walked through Samcheong-dong a while ago he spotted this gem: 

It does not look spectacular from the outside - just an old brick building with a veranda. But the inside was so great! it had such a vintage vibe and looked almost like a film setting for an indie film!

Reclaimed materials, vintage designer chairs, cool lamps like industrial ones and kitschy auntyish chandeliers and thrift store finds.

The walls upstairs immediately reminded me of wood & wool stool.

And of course I loved looking at the guestst in there: Young and older women, a lot of couples, families, people of all ages apparently!

The fireplace room on the first floor seemed also to have a lovely atmosphere with the fire on and young lovers hanging around for the afternoon. I can imagine this place in heavy snow during wintertime and I will definitely check it out as it is only five minutes by car or a long winter walk away  from our house!!!

Before I stop here I really want to say something important about all the encouragement I got since I announced we would move to Seoul. Miracuously people emerged from Flickr, the net, from blogs etc. to support me. They were either Koreans, part Koreans, people living in Korea or having close connections. I will talk about them at a later time. I just wanted to thank everybody who encouraged us and opened a new world for us through their pictures and their emails and links they sent!

I am receiving a lot of emails from people who have some connection to Seoul or Korea and who like it that I am so enthusiastic about their country and share so many positive things. It is a pleasure I can only say and when I am not travelling the world, armchair travelling is one of my preferred pasttime as well - anyhow!

Sending you spring greetings from here!

Cheers, Yvonne

 

 

Easter in the East

First of all I am wishing you a wonderful Easter this year! And because it is Mosaic Monday today I am greeting you with a mosaic in all its Easter Pastelness...

1. Pastel Colors Week 2 { Easter }, 2. Speckled, 3. Macarons, 4. Untitled, 5. peep, 6. an itty bitty garland..., 7. Old pic (just for reference), 8. Mini Eggs, 9. bunny & bunny, 10. Place Setting, 11. Spring Pastels, 12. Eggs, 13. ready for Easter, 14. Pastel Colors Week 3 { Easter }, 15. eggs, 16. Happy Easter!

Here in Seoul you don't see chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs like in Germany but they also show festive decoration in preparation of Buddha's Birthday on the 10th of May by displayig colourful lanterns all over town and especially in front of Buddhist shrines and temples.

I have been admiring these Asian lanterns since I was a child and I am extremely happy now to have the opportunity to live amongst them. We arrived here at the perfect time with nature getting ready to show al its beauty with the bloming of the trees all over town and with the preparation for the Birthday. 

And can you see the side by side of the traditional and the new? That is what amazes me here and amazed me back in Istanbul when we lived there: Tradition and modernity, history and future all in one road.

When you are looking over the rooftops of the old Hanok buildings in Bukchon in Seoul you see the skyline of Insadong and Myendong right behind. And this is the area where we are right now and trotting along every day with three children and a slow dog.

You really would be amazed how walkable everything is here around town!

And the cleanliness! You seldom find litter on the floor - and that really makes me wonder because I can rarely find a litterbox to get rid of something. So where do they keep their rubbish? I think they are carrying it with them all the time and dispose of it at home because that is exactly what I am doing now because I cannot find these rubbish bins in this town!

On Saturday we showed the new house to the children and took measurements and made furnishing plans. They immediately took over the empty house and their new room. We are lucky that our container will arrive by the end of this week so we can move in the beginning of May!

It was great to see how the landscape had changed from last week: The hills on the other side looked greyish than because of all the blossoms. And now that they were mixed with Green and some Pink they looked just lovely! And I bet it will look as beautiful in autumn with the changing foliage in different tones.

After so many new impressions we needed food and drinks. So we haeded downhill to Seoungbuk-dong to get to a nice cafe where they not only had delicious snacks but also a nice display of books very much to my liking:

And when it comes to food and especially sandwiches even moritz is interested in flipping through a Korean book...

Easter Sunday was sunny and so we prepared a picknick because we a=wanted to go into the forest/park on the foot of Mount Bukhasan. This is the area you can see to from our house and we wnated to see what was on the other side...

We took off from the hotel after some egg hunting in the appartment. There was not so much Easter decoration in our appartment. I love to do that at home but here we only had two garlands and some handmade improvised Ester nests. But the children liked it a lot and that was all that counted even if I did not have it in my perfect colour way!

The walk up to the hills of Mount Bukhansan was beautiful! 

We walked by the old fortress wall and were so happy that this would be a spot we could reach easily within 10 minutes from our house. This national park is huge and there is so much to see and clinb and explore!

Further up the hill we were able to see our house from the opposite side. So now we are standing at the place we are seing from our garden.

And further to the right you can see the skyscraper skyline of Seoul downtown

 

And I am leaving you here to wonder how you have never thought that Seoul could be so pretty! I did not know until I searched Flickr  a year ago to find some pictures from our new destination!

Hope you enjoyed our little trip uphill! Jakob is sending a kiss!

Yvonne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now for something completely different...

Away from sightseeing, straight into planning. There is Easter around the door and there is no Easter decoration whatoever in sight because it does not exist here in Seoul and there won"t be chocolate bunnies, but I have to get into the mood to produce something. I brought some paper 9of course), some punches and ephemera and the next few days will be reserved for (at least some) crafting with the children to make the appartment look more like Easter and Spring. 

So I made a mosaic to get the colours: Blue and Yellow because I like it, never use the combination, in makes me feel like Spring and just because!

1. Selina Lake - Tea Cup, 2. 21 april. 2 pm., 3. Little Clothesline Kit, 4. Romy & Charlie, 5. I ♥ my retro radio, 6. unexpected..., 7. Untitled, 8. vintage bedhead, 9. Bird No.5, 2008

If this is not juicing my creative sources, then what? I put quite an effort into Easter and Spring decoration over the last years but being in a new place, exploring, learning and planning - that takes up so much creativity!

But here is  some good news: our container will be here next week and then when custom is survived we can move in. So off I am at the week end taking measurements in the new house to see how to place the furniture - how exiting!

Wishing you a good night now!

Yvonne