I saw this funny photo this morning on Nest Egg….
And then I remembered this idea from Abbey Goes Design Scouting…
I think that”s a great solution to the spielautomaten online mid-winter blues! Febgiving! Count me in.
(Although I don”t want to rub it in, but the daffodils on my way to work are about a week from popping! We”re nearly there!)
The winner of the Designbirdie print is……Naomi Cleary Graham who said:
Congrats, Naomi!
Please send me an email at emily@fromchinavillage.com with your address and I’ll send it off to you!
Want to know one of my favorite things about Dublin? Just when you think it’s like any other city – modern, fast, impersonal – it sneaks right up on you with its quaintness.
Dublin still has milkmen. The guys who drive around on Sunday evenings and drop off your milk for the next day. I’ve only seen them in action a few times – the one in our north side neighborhood drives a big blue van, door open out the back, the van filled with a very modern selection of milk. Slimline, low fat – probably a little more variety than the olden days!
I wish I had a photo to post for you from my neighborhood – one of these nights I”ll see if I can catch him in action!
But what I do have for you today is another, perhaps slightly more modern and polished, milkman. This one only operates on the south side for the moment, but Mr. Milkman himself told me yesterday he thinks the north side will be up and running next month! Yeah!
Check out the way it all arrives on your doorstep:
Don’t they have a cute website? Looking forward to when he expands and can deliver our bread, milk and Sunday paper every weekend. Doesn’t that sound like a lovely way to start a Sunday?
Now, I wonder would the fancy Dublin Milkman have any interest in adding some sweet baked treats to his selection? Perhaps some China Village whoopie pies or chocolate chip cookies? If you see him, southside friends, put in a good word!
We’re having some space issues with our Mac. It’s four years old and is still running mostly great. The only problem is that we’ve got too much stuff on it. We have an external drive, and have nearly everything backed up, but I’m having problems deleting things. Every time I delete something, it pops up somewhere else. So the Mac is still full, no matter what I delete.
I’m sure the 4000 photos that I can’t delete without screwing up the iPhoto aren’t helping matters . Does anyone have tips?
Anyway, I was going through some of my idea and image files and found this photo.
I love this room and I’d love to live in it. I’d move in today and it would save me cleaning our living room! Ha!
I’m not sure where it’s from; I saved it well before I started the blog. It’s just such a great living room because it’s stylish and colorful but it looks like you could live in it. And I love the mix of fancy and rustic, and that color green on the walls. So peaceful.
I love design blogs but I find I really like the spaces I can imagine living in. And sometimes rooms look great but seem like you could never find all the pieces to make it come together. But I think I could do this room.
And wouldn’t it fit in great with one of my dream kitchens?
***
Don’t forget – last day to enter the Designbirdie giveaway! You have until 5pm Dublin time today to enter – winner announced tomorrow!!
I’d like to preface this post by saying I love my new (real) job. Absolutely love it. Every day, I’m excited to get to work because I never know what it’s going to be like. It’s interesting and the people are SO nice. And the time always flies. How can you not love that?
But.
But. There are still some small adjustments to be made. when I got home on Friday, I was not a happy camper. I had gotten so excited for the weekend to be here so I could do lots of Exciting Weekend Things, but I didn’t really plan any Exciting Weekend Things, so the weekend was a bit of a let down.
(And on Friday afternoon it felt like a let down made even worse by someone’s surprise basketball both Friday night (8:15pm) and right smack in the middle of Saturday (1pm). Not family friendly. And it didn’t help that it was rainy and wildly windy all weekend long. Grrr.)
But back to the point. I’ve come up with a solution. I am going to plan Exciting Weekend Things so I won’t have such huge Friday let down. Best defense is a good offense.
My solution? These awesome art classes!
(And sorry, this is really mostly for Dubliners, unless you want to come VISIT!)
Have you heard of these classes at Trinity College Dublin that are open to the public and really pretty cheap? They have life drawing, painting, and lots of pottery classes. Has anyone tried them? What did you think?
I’m planning to take this jewelry making course on February 24th, and I really want to do one of these lino print courses soon – like this weekend? Who’s with me?
And quick question for all the crafty Irish readers, anyone know where I could take a letterpress class? I think that would be a great Exciting Weekend Thing.
These courses at the National Print Museum sound awesome – I’m waiting on their new 2011 list of courses and I’ll share those as soon as they come in. Now wouldn’t they be a fun thing to plan a visit to Dublin for?
***
Don’t forget today and tomorrow are your last days to enter the Designbirdie giveaway – if you haven’t left a happy comment on this post, go to it! The giveaway will end at 5pm Dublin time tomorrow (12pm EST), so quick quick, leave a comment! The winner will be randomly selected and announced on Wednesday.
Guess what? We’ve got photos! Phew! Now I feel like I can really make myself at home in this new site.
So off we go!
A few weeks ago, I was asked by a dear friend if I would be willing to make her wedding cake. Holy moly!
Now, she’s had the chance to sample lots of the goodies I’ve baked, so I’m pretty sure she knew what she was in for. I’m not worried about the cake tasting yummy, but I’m a little nervous it’s not going to look like a Wedding cake, capital W.
But I found this post on the lovely I Am Baker last week and it made me feel like perhaps I might be able to pull this off.
I promise I won’t color it pink, but Ms. Baker even shares her recipe for the perfect buttercream icing.
THE BEST BUTTERCREAM
2 cups shortening
8 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon clear imitation vanilla extract
6 fluid ounces heavy cream
In a large bowl, cream shortening with mixer until fluffy. Add confectioners sugar (2 cups at a time) until well blended. If the frosting gets to thick at any time you can add some of your heavy cream.
Add salt, vanilla, and heavy cream and blend until combined, then blend on high until frosting is light and fluffy. If you need to add additional cream you can. (up to 2 tablespoons)
And she makes it look so easy! Very, very classy and wedding-y.
{I’m thinking the beautiful cake stands make all the difference, no?}
I think we may have found a winner. At least I’ve got 4 months to practice!
***
Now don’t forget to go here to enter the Designbirdie giveaway! And since we now have photos – here’s the prize!
Teacups and Friendship
I’m still having major issues trying to upload images into the site, which is driving me bonkers! Whenever I attempt to add an image, a little box comes up and says, “Are you sure you want to do this?” Well, yeah, I want to do that! But it still won’t let me. Grrrrrr….technology.
But I’m not going to let it get me down. Instead, I thought I’d do a little intro to subscription readers like Google Reader, which is my personal fave, for those of you who aren’t total blog fiends yet.
See that little button on the side under Facebook and Twitter? The one that says Subscribe? If you click that, it brings you to a page where you can click on the drop down menu and choose a reader. Once you get yourself all set up with a reader, you just subscribe to From China Village and it will alert you when there’s a new post.
There are several different readers you can choose from. I use Google Reader because I have Gmail, and I like the way it looks and functions. But you could use any other reader and it would do basically the same thing.
My favorite parts about using a reader is that you never forget which blogs you like! When I first started reading blogs more seriously about a year ago, I would find one I liked and then forget about it as soon as I clicked out of the window. The genius of Google Reader is that I can subscribe to blogs and it keeps a nice, neat list of them for me!
Would you think I was a huge nerd if I told you it’s one of my favorite things to do when I come home from work? I especially love when there are a whole lot of new posts I can look at while I have a cup of coffee and relax for a few minutes.
Now, if you click on the Lovely Links page on this site, up there in the menu bar, you’ll find a whole bunch of the blogs I subscribe to in my reader. But beware, they’re so lovely they can suck you in and before you know it, your house is a mess, the cat hasn’t been fed, and the husband has no clean underwear! Eek!
Don’t forget to enter our Designbirdie giveaway by leaving a comment on this post!
Hello, everyone!
Some of you may have noticed there was a technological glitch on the site yesterday afternoon. Just about everything is ironed out, but I”m still working on a couple small problems.
The major problem? It”s not letting me upload any photos at the moment, and I”d wait for my web guru to help me figure it out, but I”m a little impatient and really want to get this giveaway going! By tomorrow, I hope I”ll be back in action, but in the meantime, we”ll work with what we”ve got!
So, our awesome giveaway today is from our new sponsor, Designbirdie. You”ve heard me talk about Designbirdie before and the lovely Mandi Cromer. She”s a talented illustrator and has the coolest Etsy shop with great prints with a little something for everyone. She”s got prints that would be perfect for a nursery, or your craft room, or your living room.
Or, you could order a – the paper anniversary!
Designbirdie even has really cute mini-activities for your kids on a rainy day!
So today, we have a giveaway from the lovely Designbirdie and it”s this print! It”s A4, which is roughly 8×10 inches, and I”ll ship it anywhere (did you know I”ve got mystery readers in Slovenia, Ecuador and Malaysia?!), all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. It can say anything – even just hello!
The commenting will close on Tuesday at 5pm Dublin time. And I”ll announce the winner on Wednesday and send the print on its way.
And I”ll be back tomorrow with pretty pictures for your Thursday!
***The contest is now closed. Thanks for entering!
Welcome, welcome!
What do you think? The new digs are neat, huh?
It wasn’t long after I picked up my blog last fall that I realized I’d need to make a move over to WordPress at some point. Luckily, the awesome Andy of Box 31 web design came to my rescue. I owe him a huge, huge thank you for making this new site a reality!
And enormous thanks to the lovely and talented Sebastian Rasch and Viktoria Panik for lending their photography skills so you can see me over there on the right, smiling in my dear Dublin!
My favorite thing about the new site other than the pretty look? You should have absolutely zero complications when you go to comment on a post! So talk to me – you’ve got no excuses now!
I’ve got lovely new sponsors, and I’ll give them each a proper introduction in the near future. And check out the other pages – so fancy!
I’ve got lots of plans for this site in the coming months, but there may be kinks I have yet to work out. If you see anything that’s a little wonky, don’t hesitate to let me know. But most of all, make yourself at home, bring your friends, and spread the word!
And check back right over here tomorrow for a long overdue giveaway from one of our new sponsors! It’s a little Irish, and a lot cute!
Did you see that title and think I went away to Brussels for the weekend? No, no, but we’re starting this Monday morning by pretending we’re in Brussels. Almost as fun, right?
I can’t tell you how long I’ve been asking Michael can we go to Brussels. I have no idea why, but it has always seemed like such a neat city to me. And when I went searching for a few photos I kept coming to this one:
Once every two years, Brussels shuts down its main square and makes a flower carpet. This image is from 2010, when a 23 year old designer came up with this pattern, that includes St. Michael striking down the dragon as well as a symbol to honor Belgium’s EU presidency. All out of flowers!
So I guess I was right in thinking it was a pretty neat city.
Right, beyond the dreamy flower carpet (coming up next in August 2012, and I’m penciling that in now!), I think Brussels and I think chic, structured, stylish clothing, everyone effortlessly riding bicycles down beautiful streets, and chocolate.
We’ll pretend we’re friends with this adorable lady:
{Image from here}
And we’ll rent a bike from the city’s Cyclocity programme to explore the city.
But it might be a little chilly, so we’ll grab this coat from Comptoir de Cotonniers – a beautiful clothing shop that’s been featured in just about every style magazine imaginable.
Or maybe this one, because I’ve been really wishing lately that I could pull off a capelet.
Then we’d ever-so-stylishly dismount for a quick sampling at Pierre Marcolini Chocolatier. Just click there, explore the decadence and come back to me. We’ve a little more daydreaming to do!
We’ll zoom by this bizarro structure, the Atomium. So odd, and reminds me a little of the bean in Chicago.
{Image from here}
And linger on these beautiful streets.
{Image from here}
{Image from here}
And then at the end of the day, we’d retire to the chic, boutique hotel be Manos. Would you check out the serious headboard and unbelievable bathroom?
There, just a little (slightly random) taste of Brussels to start your day!
Did everyone have a nice weekend? Bake anything yummy?
Don’t forget…BIG BIG news coming tomorrow!
