What do I love about my home?

Hi all!
Thanks for passing by and leaving me such lovely comments!
I'm still dry frameless. Somebody put in a 50 euro offer at the auctionhouse and grabbed my dry frame away, paying 70 euros including costs to the auctioneer. And yes the 'feeling sorry mode' already works at full speed. First I thougt that I was happy, 70 euros for a drying frame...But when I tried to find a picture to show you what I've missed, and could't find it, the first sorry feelings were entering my brain. I cruised the entire internet since then. Nope, I cannot find such a beautiful museumpiece, not even if I would be prepared to pay a million euros...

Today I was looking for some inspiration in blogland and visited Karla's Cottage ( http://karlascottage.typepad.com ). Karla has a very inspiring blog and I noticed that she hosted a party 'What do you love about your home', on september 25th. I simply missed it, because I was making my very first entry here on my own blog that very day. But you know the good thing of having your own blog is that I'm mistress of time here. So I'll buzz us back to the 25th now. blooooblelboooop:

September 25th having my own private Karla's cottage inspired party;

What do I love about my home?



Our home is a late 19th century townhouse, 4 stories high in the middle of a dutch town. As it's about 125 years old it has suffered many alterations, especially on the inside. We have done an awfull lot of work to bring it back to its former glory and are still working on it.

What I like about this house is that it's a spacious house. It has huge front doors.



It has a beautiful entrance hall, now that we have worked on it. The ceiling in the entrance hall is about 5 meters high. You have to go up a little staircase to enter our house. We don't have a ground floor actually. The 'ground floor' is about 1.50 meter above the ground and is called 'bel-etage'. The doors that are dividing the 'bel-etage' from the entrance hall are the crown jewels of our house. These are still the original 19th century panelled doors, the glass divided as it should be. There is stained, cut and etched glass in every door. However, I doubt that this is the original glass. I suspect that a former inhabitant of this house, a glass manufacturer called Bouvy, has changed the glass in those sliding doors into these beauties during the early twenties of the 20th century.



Our house seem to be so spacious because of its heigh ceilings; almost 4 meters high on the bel-etage and first floor. Some ceilings have lovely ornaments;



I also love the kitchen floor. These are old tiles cut out from a factory in Belgium. We have worked more than 3 days to put these tiles on our kitchenfloor, a hell of a job, but it's been so much worth it.


My favorite space is our bedroom. This is me. I have bought the cupboards in Belgium and painted them white. The mantlepiece looks like marble but is actually wood and is restored by me. There was no original mantle piece left in this house.


My husband prefers the study;



I like my little studio under construction very much. I have altered this printers' tray into a hiding place for little boxes, needles, little scissors and anything that runs away real easy just when you needed them most;



Ok. that's all for now folks, I hope you have enjoyed this party! Ooo wait a sec I have to beep us back into today!! :-))
LiLi M.

Counting down...

As I told you its my birthday in about 10 days. This week mrs. H., a close friend of mine, visited me and while she is not sure she can make it on my birthday, she took with her this basket full of lovely surprises.
Yes!! I love friends like mrs. H! We met in my Barbie collecting period. She was sellling and I was buying (of course). This year we will be celebrating our tenth anniversary being friends. Mentioning her in my blog will be a surprise, but I'm not sure she likes it or not. Just testing mrs. H.
Mrs. H. is always on the go and is famous for her good eye ahem nose for rare and amazing finds.

Let's take a closer look




((Yes I did it. I've managed to put a picture in the middle!! )))

Mrs. H. knows that I don't collect baseball cards, cars and militaria hahaha.
But her presents do fit in with my white enamelware collection, my 'stuff-with-violets on it'-collection, my collection of rhinestone and cut glass-brooches, my tailor's requisites collection and of course the collection of white on white embroidered linen. By the way, I was always thinking that those french women were embroidering those fat characters/initials themselves, but I now have the evidence there was this possibity of just sewing them on your pillow-case. Mmmmm I could have been french too.

Did you see those sheets? awesome!!!



There was an auction in town today and I made an absentee bid for an antique wooden brocante drying frame. Keep my fingers crossed that I will have it. This drying frame is exactly what I need right now. It would be perfect to hang these sheets somewhere in the bedroom ah...why was my bid that low? I never saw such a beautiful drying frame before and its getting better and better in my mind...That's the funny part with auctions including ebay, somehow you're always feeling sorry. Either your bid was too high, and now you are the proud owner of some paintless and shabby drying frame, or it was just one euro too low and now somebody else, probably a dealer who easily sells this frame for ten times the winning bid, is the owner of that drying frame that shows up in auction every ten years...

You will be hearing from me again...bonne nuit, LiLi M.

All new in blogland?

Hello again!!

What an excitement, I've been blogging all day long. First I was waiting for some reactions and waiting and waiting and checking and changing and waiting again. Just like when you have no job and you are sitting next to the phone, waiting for the job agency to ring...yes it rings!! And its your mother; 'just inquiring'...'In this case I was receiving mail from people telling me they wanted to react but a) did not know how b) were not succeeding. Mmm. Finally I decided to react myself. Yes! 1 reaction!! Again the phone...reablogging wasn't going to happen. How is that possible? It workes fine with me.

Ok folks: there's a small line (x) comments, that's the button, push that and you can leave whatever you have to say.

It works, if not, there is something wrong with your computer.

Now that you know that I'm the kind of person that gives a reaction to her own blog, (I used my own name LiLi M. if that makes you more comfortable) I might reveil one other secret too. I'm celebrating my 46th birthday in about 10 days and I'm going to make my own banners. I have already practised (see the pictures above). Today I searched for pictures first and then I started to write. In blogland you can see a lot of paper banners, all made by crafty women. I'll give some links someday, but I have to inquire first whether I just can put down links, or do I have to ask permission to the blogowner first. I think the last is the best, but that will take time.
Ok, about banners. When you're checking all kind of crafty blogs you will be inspired first, but after a short while you will notice there is a global fashion in designing (yes in designing banners too). Hot at this moment: Music paper, old fashioned pictures often with découpage (take a picture of your great grand mother as a child and glue a funny hat/crown on her head and glue some wings on her back too), pictures of birds, french pages and the list can be continued, but not here. After seeing hundreds of banners, I was in a banner-designing block. Everything I imagined to design was already there. I just took some paper and started to glue down. I haven't seen the russian paper before (perhaps its still illegal to import in the USA? hahaha). I decided to stop checking other blogs for a while, so if there is a russian banner, I have missed it anyhow.
You've already noticed that the labels are slightly (ahem) different in size. In the official LiLi M.'s birthday banner they will all be the same, which is very difficult to me. I'm the kind of person who uses a scissor by hand, using no patterns, just cutting and glueing and not knowing where this all will end. I'm an organic crafter.
Have an inspiring day, LiLi M.

Hello world

Ok -deep breath- here I am world, or should I say YES at least ONE visitor, has found me. Yes You!!! Welcome! This is my first blogmessage ever! I guess I just have to say now what I'm doing here and what you can expect from me...but I don't know exactly yet.
Life's a big adventure. So we just wait and see what happens. In the mean time I'll write down some things.

I'm a happy kind of person and I like other people to feel happy too. So I hope reading my blog and looking at my pictures will make you smile once in a while. I like to create/design all sorts of things and I will show some of my creations here.
I'm a collector ever since I could collect. I like all kinds of old stuff like dolls, handbags, wallpaper, hairpins mmmm I guess the list will be much shorter if I just tell you what I don't collect: baseball cards, cars, militaria and that's about it!
You will see some of my collections and fleamarket finds in this blog too. Writing in English isn't one of my routines but I'm doing the best I can. Hoping that these blogs will unite people all over the world.

Let's try to show some pictures!
Finally there was a picture and tjoooops it is gone again...
And oops I dit it again...
Well there is one picture now. I don't understand why it's above my text, but I'll find out someday.
It's the cupboard in my bedroom, painted and whitewashed by me.
Ok, that's all for now folks.
Have an inspiring day, LiLi M.