Before and after

A quick post about my basket before and after the paint job.

After.

Have a great weekend!!!!!!!!!

Monday, My Day.

Monday is my day off. After everybody left to go of to school or work I went for my Beach walk. Try to do this every day. I'm in love with the beach.

Some people are lucky to life on the beach.

When I came home I enjoyed a great cup of coffee on the veranda in the sun. I think Autumn is the best season in New Zealand.

My goal is to paint every Monday a door from the hallway. There are 12 doors so this will keep me busy over the winter.

But this looks already great, don't you think so.

While I had my paint brush in my hand I gave this basket a make over. Will show you the result soon.

Time for some lunch with some blogging. We are lucky, the girls have a weekend job at a local cafe/lunchroom and sometimes they bring the leftovers home for us.

For lunch I'm having a feta/pesto/pine nut scone. Normally I have just brown bread with cheese so this was more than delicious.

Happy Mothers day !!

This is how I wrap the presents. I make the bags myself by sewing 2 nice pages of a magazine together. With a sticker from the shop and a ribbon made out of a piece of material it looks great.
All the customers love it and the come back because they love the wrapping!!
Great marketing.

Here are some great mothers day ideas from my shop.

The bath and body range from Cath Kidston.

Greengate.

Wish you all a nice weekend!!

Welcome in my shop, Lovely Living

Here are some pictures from my shop.

A little impression.

I was planning to open my shop in September 2009, but I went back to The Netherlands because my mum was really sick. She still is very sick.

Going back to The Netherlands was the best I did and it gave me a lot of energy to do what you really want because life is to short not to enjoy it.

I opened my shop in October and from the beginning it went very well. I enjoy every minute. It is a lot of work because I work 6 days a week but it is great.

My wish came true!

I make a lot of things myself but buy a lot as well.

I organize craft classes as well, some evenings and sometimes a Saturday afternoon, we call that the crafternoons. I provide every thing they need and coffee/tea and cake and it is always a lot of fun!

Here some pictures from the cushions that I make out of old blankets,they flying out. Sometimes I make them custom made with the name they want on there.

When you are in the area, you are more than welcome to pop in.

Back from my blog-break

After a long break I'm back.

It was not a real break only a blog break, I worked really hard, but I love what I'm doing at the moment.

My own shop, my dream came true !!!

Everything goes well and I'll show you soon where I am and what I'm doing the whole day. Have a great weekend all.

Ups and downs

Unbelievable what a long time ago that I wrote a nice post on my blog.
I was planning to tell you all about my more than exiting news and then we got sad news as well. To start with the exiting news, I'm going to open my own gift shop in the small shopping mall in Waikanae. Lovely living in real life !!
3 months ago I saw the shop for lease and it was always my wish to own my little shop. I went to the real estate agent and after a lot of thinking I made my decision. Lovely Living was born on paper.
I went to Christchurch to the winter gift fair where all the retailers can buy there stock. And after a few days the orders came in. It looks like Christmas, unwrapping all the boxes.

A little note from the girls when I came back from 3 days Christchurch, so sweet!

We started to collect furniture for the shop for display and I bought a till. Lieke was more than happy to make her own little shop at home and play with the till.

Boxes of stock coming in and I want all the furniture white for the shop. André is busy painting them all and I'm busy sewing stock as much as I can.

But on the day that I signed my lease contract we've got the terrible phone call that my mum was really sick, I can tell you all my dreams fell apart and I didn't know what to do. I'm here in New-Zealand and she is in The Netherlands.

My plan was to open the shop in September,but we have to delay it till October. I'm off to my mum tomorrow. I stay with her for 5 weeks and hope we will have a good time together.

It was really hard to focus on the shop when you know there is something terrible wrong at home, so I hope I made the wright decision to delay my shop.

I'm off for a few weeks and hope to show you my new shop soon.

All the furniture is painted white and is waiting in the garage to put in the shop.

Beach walk

Sorry for my long absence but my life is like a little roller coaster at the moment. I'm still really busy with what I'm doing and nothing is really sure so I can't tell much at the moment. But my fingers are crossed (for weeks already).

The girls have a winter break at the moment and we went for a great beach walk. We live close to the beach but is was a long time ago that I was there. In summer time I normally go every day. It's the best place at the world I think. Specially when you have the whole beach for yourself. And wintertime in New Zealand is nothing comparing to Holland. I don't have a winter jacket and most of the time we don't wear long pants. Of course you can have some cold days but when the sun comes out you can sit outside and enjoy coffee in the winter garden. Great life
style!


Hope to be back soon and show you all my activities!
For everyone who is having summer holiday enjoy it and make the most of it.
We are still waiting for our kitchen door handles, they have to come from Australie. We have a kitchen without doors and I can tell you it is messy but handy!