norway

Bold and Bright Baby + The Nursery

It’s so hard to believe little P (aka Hazelnut, aka The Nut, aka our good friends’ Jon + Audrey Camp‘s lovely daughter) is nearly one year old (this shot is from back when she was a little squish of just two months old). If you’re curious about how her life is unfolding, Audrey has written some beautiful essays on motherhood and life with P here, here and here and you know what, here, too. Actually better just take a look at all these posts on parenthood. They are all amazing.

As for P’s first room, I think it turned out quite well! Audrey sent over these shots from back when we had just finished and she was still pregnant all those days ago. Since then, well, P’s shown up, but the Camps have also bought an apartment in the super cool Grünerløkka borough of Oslo. So now we have first hand proof that Ferm Living’s wall stickers really do re-stick!

Check out the Mood Board and Product Board for this room. And don’t miss the post on P’s Camp Baby Shower also in the same theme of Bold, Bright and Adventurous!

Have an adventure loving week, everyone!

Happy Weekend + Language

I was totally taken by Maschmanns Matmarked in Oslo, Norway last week. Their display of groceries is so simply and yet so beautiful. We stopped in for lunch on a Sunday (yep, they are open on Sundays) and had amazingly yummy pizza. They also had scrumptious looking pastries that I will definitely be taking part in next time.

Next week I start intensive Swedish language classes with the state run SFI. I have been waiting four months to be placed in a school and I am so excited to finally get down to business! I’ve got some basic knowledge from our time at Folkuniversitetet but I’m not conversational or anything. The class will meet every day for five hours a day and, when I feel ready, I can test up to the next level until I complete the school. The whole process should take 6-8 months for me to complete.

One of our New Year’s resolutions this year was to really dig into Swedish life here in Malmö. For me that means becoming full fluent in Swedish is a huge priority. I’ll be dropping my posts here on the blog down to three per week so I will have enough time to focus on my fluency goal. Please check in on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays for new posts and wish me lycka till (good luck)!

// what to do this weekend

read the news in very basic Swedish

freshen up your desktop backgrounds

whip up some yummy desserts

elevate your instagram feed

craft up some woven wall hangings

Crafted + Camp Baby Shower

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This past Saturday was The Hazelnut‘s baby shower in Oslo. I was so lucky to work with two lovely, talented co-hosts, Audrey‘s good friends Zoë and Chelsea. Together we coordinated decorations, games and refreshments across international boarders (well, one boarder, Sweden to Norway) and to great success. Our theme started with The Hazelnut nursery mood board and shifted to be an even more camp-y feel. Thus Camp Baby was created.

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I modified a few crafts from around the web to fit our theme, including these great animal face pins as our guest’s favors. Chelsea pulled together a full yogurt bar, complete with hand lettered spoon labels and Camp Yogurt Bar sign (No Boys Allowed!).

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photos by Chelsea Ranger

I crafted up a little mountain + forest table-scape with orange tent (inspired by Pink Stripey Stocks) cut from cardboard and painted. And Zoë had the amazing idea to add a tiny campfire and mini marshmallows for roasting using toothpicks. So cute!

We also played a few literary themed quiz style games using Kahoot (which worked great). Zoë crafted up 20 paper birthday cards with simple, graphic fabric numbers and each guest wrote a a note to The Hazelnut for her to read on her first through 18th birthdays. I’m not sure how I missed getting a pic of these. They were really great and I know The Hazelnut and Audrey will look forward to opening them every year.

Chelsea did capture a shot of us reading Audrey’s “Telegrams” from friends and family in the States. There is always a few key people missing from parties like these because we are expats. To make everyone feel a bit more connected, I hosted a virtual baby shower (with Audrey’s mom and our best friend Amy) on Facebook for a couple weeks leading up to the party in Oslo. Everyone wrote in with welcome telegrams for the new baby and advice for the new mom. I printed all the messages onto 4×6 cards with a cute little fox logo. We passed them out at the party and had the guests (mostly literary folk) read them aloud. The idea worked beautifully and there were more than a few chuckles to go along with a couple tears.

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// Party Crafts

Woodland Creature Favors

Mountain + Forest Table-scape inspiration

Scalloped Orange, Blue, White + Gray Streamers

Clear balloons filled with 1″ confetti in orange + blue (1″ punch)

Polka Dotted + Scalloped Paper Tablecloth

Yogurt Bar + Sign

Years one to 18 birthday cards

Telegrams on 4×6 index cards

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Pick Of The Week + Lovedales Studio

I know I must have seen Hanne Løvdal‘s work before but it re-caught my eye this weekend. Audrey and I did a design shop tour through Oslo (using the Oslo City Guide from Design Sponge). We hit 7 shops in 5 hours, which is pretty good for a pregnant lady and her design obsessed friend. Lots of interesting things were posted on my Instagram and Twitter and even more little ideas ended up in my sketch book. Design shops are so inspiring. Get ready for some awesome DIYs this month!

Our last stop of the day was the House of Oslo shopping mall. But this is better than any shopping mall I could have imagined. This shopping mall only has design shops! The anchor shop is Illiums Bolighus (four floors of it!), which is always lovely, but I wanted to see shops I can’t browse at home. So we popped into the Raun Concept Shop which had the lovely Lovedales Studio work on display.

Hanne Løvdal mixes digital coloring with pencil and watercolor sketches to create compelling illustrations. She quit her job as a magazine art director in 2013 to pursue her art full time. This print “Jomfruen/Virgo” is one of my favs from her 12 zodiac signs series, each sign represented with beautifully intricate hair. Check out her online print shop which ships worldwide. Oh! And, Løvdal is available for commission work, “if you think [her] pen can suit your project”. So sweet.

Bold And Bright Baby + Product Board

You guys remember the Bold and Bright Baby + Mood Board, right? I’m helping Audrey Camp outfit her nursery in preparation for her daughter, whom we are calling The Hazelnut. Today I’m sharing the product board for this design with you guys. This is a selection of all the things (or pretty close alternates) we’re really getting for the littlest Camp.

things // camping mobile + striped rug + white crib + patterned sheets (similar style) + solid sheets + crochet blanket made by Audrey’s mother (find similar yarn here) + mini triangle wallstickers + pendent light + orange drawer pull + mountain pillow + fox pillow + blue cart + vintage Wagner rocker + camping prints in custom colors + bookshelf + dresser

I love this part of the design process. Everything gets really real. Remember we had already decided on these lovely prints, so the next big thing was rug selection. The Camps live in the top floor space of their apartment building so they have lots of interestingly angled walls and skylight-esque windows, think nearly triangular prism-shaped rooms. All this interest makes for limited space to hang artwork and no way to hang traditional curtains. We also knew we would’t be painting any walls because of strict rental rules. Which means that the rug is the major focal point in the room and makes or breaks the whole concept.

We spent weeks searching for the perfect rug and scoured web sites and shops, both here in Scandinavia and in the US. We had to account for design, quality of materials, softness for baby faces and price + import fees. Finally, Audrey found this great resource for rugs in Scandinavia. She pinned everything with a bold pattern and we narrowed down the results together. I love the final selection of the Gabbeh Indian Blanket in hand loomed 20mm wool. I think it’s got the right amount of boldness and camping feel that’s slightly reminiscent of a Hudson’s Bay Point Blanket. It was worth the long search. It’s perfect.

Vinyl wall stickers are a great way to add pattern to a room without committing to something more permanent like wallpaper. I love Ferm Living’s Mini Triangles, I think they look like tiny tents! We’re going to apply them randomly and all over of one of the two flat walls in The Nut’s new room. The other flat wall will hold a wardrobe and IKEA KALLAX storage shelves along with this super cute (and cheap) IKEA RÅSKOG cart, which will be a mobile diaper changing station.

Probably one of my most favorite things that will be going into the new baby room is something I didn’t even help pick out! This beautiful vintage Hans Wegner rocking chair was a Christmas present from Jon to Audrey. So sweet! It fits just perfectly into the room, lending a bit of gravity and history.

So, there you have it. We still have a couple months to go before everything (including The Nut) has arrived but I’ll be sure to share some snap shots when it’s all ready!

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