It’s been a while since my last post, and I’ve been keeping busy and travelling quite a bit. Now that it’s spring I’ve settled into ordinary life again, and hope to share some of my trips with you soon. In Stockholm the sun has been shining and I’ve been taking advantage of that to every extent with daily walks or jogging sessions. Here are some snaps from the past few days of April.
Me and Greg have stayed with my parents while renting our apartment out (some change of plans meant we had guests staying while we were in the country) This means we’ve been able to soak up a more suburban lifestyle and the gorgeous nature in that neighbourhood.
Swans being graceful…
My favourite activity in spring is chasing hepaticas, a classic sign of spring in Sweden.
We’ve been finalising some parts of the apartment which now feels so perfect and complete. The only thing missing is a perfect mid-century coffee table, but until I find one our current one will more than do!
We moved all our furniture around the day we came back from Hong Kong, and the place feels so much better now.
My beloved “elefantöra” or elephant ear directly translated. This pilea peperomioides is a plant I wanted for ages and finally found in an extra large version at my favourite florist Ginkgo. It’s survived the winter and I’ve learnt it loved sunshine and not to be overwatered. It creates sprouts like crazy too, so I have a few of these around the apartment in smaller versions.
I picked up this vase in China, I love the soft melted effect. The table cloth is thrifted. It’s hand printed in the 70’s by a Swedish designer named Gocken Jobs.
Greg’s grandma got us some herbs to grow from seeds, and the spring sun has been kind on them. I’m looking forward to the basil most. Mozzarella, tomato and basil can’t be beat!
We finally got last year’s birthday gift up in the wall! It’s a print by Vee Speers, definitely a favourite photographer of mine. If you get a chance to see one of her shows you have to do it! The sofa looks nice and new thanks to a lighter cover. It really brightens up the room.
I’ve been enjoying some freer painting, less planned and with no sketching. You may be able to tell I am feeling the colour blue right now..
We visited my favourite second hand this Saturday and finally found some nice chairs to replace our old ones with. The old ones were pretty worn and although there was talk of refurbishing, we finally came to the conclusion that it was a lot of hard work that I was unsure would ever be completed. The table cloth is vintage and features different county flowers. On the, now wall-mounted (oh la la), TV you will find mostly Netflix. Currently I am going through the teenage roller coaster that is The O.C. All very fun as I was around the same age as the characters when I watched it the first time round.
We have a stack of my books for uni, some art crying out to be worked on, a collection of odd spirits, and my latest raspberry pink yarn find. At around £1 per skein and 100% cotton you can’t go wrong. I’ve been very good with my knitting lately. I’m working on a cardigan that I’ll show you soon. It’s going to be so lovely when it’s done!
This is the painting I have been working on. I wanted to try something a bit more details, and it has been a challenge painting more fiddly details that normal. I love the look of the tangling strawberry plants though and can definitely see myself making more art in this style.
I just completed this painting today, I’m pretty pleased with the result in the end, although it took me a long while to finish it.
Let me know what you think, and what you’ve been getting up to in April!
