City seeing: seaside shopping

What better way is there to spend your day off than getting on the road and just visit another city than the usual?
Especially with the amazing weather we've had here the past days.

My day off, Wednesday, was spend in lovely Middelburg.
Some highlights:

HoneyPie

Cute, fun, delicious, making-me-jealous.

We went here for some tea, cake and ofcourse sightseeing. The teashop has pretty wallpaper, only the prettiest floral teacups, the most famous Dutch mushroom (red with white dots) in almost everything and a display like a candyshop.

 An all time favorite, a familiar friend. Dille & Kamille, who could ignore you?

From an old friend to a new friend, Beadle.

As soon as you enter the shop you'll want to buy everything, trust me. I was able to controle myself and bought the thing I loved most, a gorgeous necklace to which the owner (really nice and so creative) added a few pretty things for me.

She sells jewelry she designed and made herself but also tons of different beadles and beads to make something yourself, so very tempting.

As there is a time for shopping, there is one for a break with some lunch. Outside in the sun.

Apart from these highlights, the city has many more things to offer such as well known names in fashion, shoes, electronics and others included in bigger city centers.

A thing not every center is able to share is the iconic sight of the town, especially looking like this at the start of spring.

It was the perfect day off, away from the daily routine and surroundings. The first day being able to wear sunglasses all day long, stroling around town and not thinking about time.

Middelburg, you are lovely.

Love,

Noes

Springtime improvements

I've been reading a whole lot of interior magazines lately and had (and still have) some projects up my sleeve.
Now that the sun showed its face again, I got new energy to turn these ideas into actual plans.

First of all I bought a small table to replace the Ikea model beside my bed, its a 'brocante' varnished wooden table with a second shelf besides the table top. The legs are vaulted, gracious which gives it a classic look.
I bought some colored varnish (a light taupe) to redo the whole table but after some consideration I decided to stay with the original color and use this varnish on a cabinet that actually did need some attention.

The dark varnish of this 3 drawer cabinet wasn't quite a match with the other colors in the room in the first place, but the model is so beautiful that I decided to used it as it was until I had a better idea. Which I did have now.
So I started taken of the ironwork, sanding the surface and prepping it for the new varnish. I knew it would need two layers of varnish because the new color is much lighter than the original, but I must say that for a first time solo furniture make over... the result is amazing. Isn't it a beauty?

While I was at it anyway, I also provided the frame of my moodboard with a bit of this pretty color and rearranged the room. I'm really happy with the result and the make over skills I seem to have!

Here some pictures of the current look of the room.

My desk with the Mexican cabinet which does not look that Mexican anymore.

The wardrobe and my renewed cabinet.

My newest acquisition, the bedside table with moodboard and pretty ranunculus.

Now that I've started I'm considering new projects in everything. The contents of the bookcase have already become a victim of rearrangement but it's not a drastic enough change for me yet. Luckely I still have some more magazines to read so who knows, maybe there will be a new project post soon...

Love,
Noes

Che cosa mi può consigliare?

That's a good question.
A while back I decided I wanted to learn Italien. Speak, write, the lifestyle... dolce far niente.
Unfortunately I haven't started a course yet but I do have this guide that I use to learn a few new words or little sentences everytime.
Tiny sentences like 'la mia pasticceria'. Yes, so far I am able to tell an Italien guy that I own a pastry shop. Next stop? Making it true.

So reading the title of this blog in my guide I was inspired to write. So what do I recommend?
Ristorante 'De Markt' in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

My sister took me to this restaurant a while back and yes, the food is amazing but that's not all.

The open kitchen with all the fresh vegetables on display, the pizza oven on full speed, the pretty tiles...

The restaurant itself is charmed by beautifull and truly huge chandeliers but above all my favorite thing, the walls.

Several parts of the walls are decorated with all kinds of pictures that remind you of Italy. Scenery, wine, Italien people, little cars, olives, oranges, the sun, the market. I could go on forever. The result of it wants you to book a ticket right away and escape to Bella Italia.

My sister and I ordered Antipasti Mercato to try a bit of everything and a delicious tiramisu to top it off.
I'm already saving up every pretty picture I see to be able to create such a wall myself one day, until then we will still have 'De Markt'. If you are ever near Utrecht, you should really go there and 'prova'.

Arrivederci x,
Noes

All pictures used are property of restaurant 'De Markt'.

The right mood

Since you simply can't have everything, because you should always have dreams and wishes and because some things are just so pretty or cute the way they are... I love making mood boards.

Right now the weather is grey-ish and rainy but my current mood board makes me think of my favorite spring flowers, cool festival outfits and pretty interior ideas.

Feeling down? Looking forward to the new season? Or is there anything you want so bad but can't have it?
Follow my lead and pin everything onto an old school board of cork.

Guaranteed that it puts a smile on your face every time you look at it!
Have fun

Love,
Noes

Jeez Louise

Well jeez Louise a love roulette
Yeah we got good times rolling in a red corvette
You and me in silhouette
We're gonna hip shake escape
Do the things we never dared





Turn it on, volume up and dance!

They're awesome :)

Love,
Noes

Paper city

While surfing around the internet I found the cutest hand made toy!
Joel, father and artist, drew his children beautifull Paris but wait... this isn't just a drawing.

This paper Paris is supposed to be cut out, folded on the right rim and tataa your buildings are standees!
The best thing about it, aside from the fact that it's just super cute, is that everyone who likes it can download it for free from his website.

Visit Made by Joel for Paper Paris, other printouts and just plain inspiration. Even if you don't have kids yourself, what's not to love?

Enjoy!

Love,
Noes

Pretty in purple

For my latest cupcake project, due today, I accepted the challenge of making marzipan decorations. I made small flowers and christmas decorations of it before but I never decorated the entire cupcake with it.
But even though I was a little scared at first, I think I did pretty good with these birthday cupcakes.

Love,
Noes

Happy New Year!

Here's to a brand new year full of happiness, health, good times, amazing food and great things yet to be discovered.

Let's make it a great one!

Love,
Noes

Let them know it's Christmas time!

For every special occasion and holiday there is a cupcake.
At least... I think there should be.

So to celebrate the Christmas spirit I made a whole bunch of holiday inspired cupcakes for my family and colleagues.

Remember, you still have time to make some yourself!

Have a very merry cupcake christmas!

Love,
Noes

Birthday Girls

This week, two of my colleagues wanted to celebrate their birthdays at work and as a treat they asked me to make the cupcakes if I wanted to.
Do I ever not want to make cupcakes?

Happy Birthday Jolanda & Merit!

Love and cupcakes,
Noes

My cupcakes bring all the boys to the yard

And I brought the yard to the cupcakes!

At the Wilton decorating course I took, we practiced several decorating methods with buttercream frosting. Unfortunately the last lesson of the course, were we would make a rose out of buttercream, was at the same time as my trip to London so I had to miss that one.
Since I was still curious about the outcome, I studied the example for a minute and put it to the test.

I still had some very cute cupcake wrappers looking like a white picket fence, so some other cupcakes became a field of green grass with little dropflowers.

Love and cupcakes,
Noes

London part 2: Omigod you guys!

Day two in London was shopping day!
You can shop around all day in Oxford and Regent street so that's exactly what we did. First stop was Primark which was a good idea because already a few minutes after we arrived, the store started to fill up with customers, a little to packed for us.
So after finding some fun, cheap things we moved on to Topshop, Forever 21, New Look, French Connection, Jane Norman, Aldo, Next, Zara, River Island, Uniqlo and many, many more.

These are just a few cute things we bought.

In between we went to Leicester Square to see if we could get tickets for a musical for the same night, there were still several musicals available but the choice wasn't too hard: Legally Blonde!
After getting our tickets we realised it was also time to begin looking for a place to lunch, we ended up at The Long Acre where I had a beef burger and my sister a BLT sandwich.

After lunch we got back to Oxford street to shop where later we took a short break at Joe & The Juice

We continued shopping until we had to carry on towards the Savoy Theatre for Legally Blonde.
The musical was a great spin-off of the orginal first movie, just as fun a version but with more music and dance but still with our little friends Bruiser and Rufus (Paulette's dog).
Unfortunately I couldn't find any good quality videos of the musical with the cast we had, but still OMIGOD you guys!



The next day we had lunch planned at Jamie's Italian at Convent Garden, so after a goodbye visit to Hummingbird Bakery we took the underground there.

This time I chose a black bottom cupcake and coffee to go and since it was still a quiet morning, we could still make some pictures of the bakery and talk to the staff. I miss you already Hummingbird!

Naturally we did some more shopping around Covent Garden since it wasn't by far time for lunch yet, but then we ran into a dear friend.

If you suddenly see this kind of friend you can't just pass by and ignore, so we had some tea and macarons (praline and caramel).

After a while we headed to the location of the restaurant and luckily, there's no way to miss it.

We had a table in the corner of the restaurant, at the window, so there's always something to see and the style of the restaurant was exactly right for Jamie Oliver.
We started with some anipasta followed by panzerotti and risotto, sooo good!

Basically these meals would be more than enough for lunch but there is just no way you can leave Jamie's Italian or even London itself without having a taste of one of the deserts.
Good thing we chose to share a tiramisu because never in my life have I seen such a enormous piece, but it was certainly delicious. Almost like Pim's (small cookies with chocolate and orange) because of the orange zest on top!

After our amazing lunch we had to be on our way to catch a train back to the Airport to be in time. Time went by way to fast so I was sad to leave but since I love London even more now, I'll be back soon.

Love x,
Noes