Simply White

we treated ourselves to a few days in Niagara-on-the-Lake

a lovely town close to ~ indeed ~ the Niagara Falls

we had a wonderful stay while enjoying the Holiday cheer, wineries and delicious food

~

on our way back home we stopped in St. Catharines

and I am so glad we did because I found this amazingly pretty shop...

Simply White is located in St. Catherines

but their home decorating advice takes the team everywhere

in store you will find home decorations, pretty table ware in white and vintage furniture

produced by carefully selected brands from all over the world

I was lucky to meet Bren, the lovely shop owner

she redecorates this beautiful shop a few times a year

and even makes her own matching mural art... how inspiring!

thank you so much Bren, for allowing me to take pictures and feature you on creJJtion!

I will definitely visit again

and follow their blog from now on

but in the meantime I enjoy the pretty and wintery items I got this first visit

wool yarn spun around an iron thread to make it go the way you like

so much fun to work with in my January after-Christmas-white-home-make-over

I learned a new English word ~ icicles ~

with the snow that just arrived here after Christmas

I think they are the perfect winter~feel addition to our windows

and our dressed up card holder robin is no longer alone

due to his two new white friends

aren't they cute together?

Lucky me

we enjoyed Christmas at home

at the fire place with delicious food and a few precious gifts

and I wore the give away Christmas brooch I won over at Tracey's

I love the idea that it is made of the old traditional Christmas sweater

together with some scraps and of course, glitter

the wooden hearts I found lately and fell in love with them

but, my luck was not over by then... I also won the Mollie Makes ~ ByFryd 2012 calendar

over at Carina's!

I was busy decorating my craft room in our home

when I got a lovely e-mail from her, saying I won the calendar

the perfect addition to my wall!

so sweet and the perfect start to a new and fresh year

~ Thank You Tracey and Carina ~

you are the best



Carrot Cake

you might have had enough food this Christmas

but if you by any chance feel like baking a cake for new year's eve...

I love to share my favorite and easy cake recipe with you

~ Carrot Cake ~

happy Holiday week to all of you!

Carrot Cake

for the cake

500 gr grated carrots

250 gr brown sugar

200 gr flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

4 eggs

250 ml mild olive oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

100 gr chopped walnuts

50 gr grated unsweetened coconut

100 gr raisins

3 table spoons apricot jam

for the frosting

200 gr cream cheese (Philadelphia, or monchou in Dutch)

50 gr salted butter

2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

450 gr icing sugar (about 2 cups)

preheat the oven to 180C - 356F. With a spoon, stir the first six ingredients for the cake. Add the eggs, olive oil, vanilla extract and stir again with the spoon. Add the walnuts, coconut, raisins and stir again. Separate the mixture into two round baking tins, put them in the oven for about 30 minutes. Let the cakes cool down.

Spread the apricot jam over one of the cakes, put the other cake on top.

~ sometimes I prefer 2 smaller sized cakes instead of 1 large one. I then use a smaller tin and bake 4 little cakes, spread the apricot jam over 2 of them, place the other 2 on top and voila: 2 cakes. Consider a shorter baking time (25 minutes instead of 30) and it works well to make 2 at a time, instead of buying 4 tins ~

For the icing mix at medium speed the cream cheese and butter to a soft cream. Add the lemon juice and vanilla extract, mix well. Add the icing sugar slowly and mix at low speed, to avoid a dusty kitchen. Mix well into a smooth icing cream. Spread the icing over the cake(s) and keep in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving.

yummy!!

Handmade Guestroom

wow, it is really Christmas in two days from now

so exciting!

I was out shopping today and yesterday and I was not the only one, haha

I am still busy getting used to shopping by car, in malls, with lots of deals and offers everywhere...

welcome to North America!

we are just with the two of us this Christmas, meeting family and friends over Skype and the phone

it is good for now, but I must admit I dream of having family a little closer next year...

~

well, back to here and now

we already had our first sweet friends visiting in our new home!

and I totally forgot to tell you

so here is a little tour around our brand new, home and hand made guestroom that I proudly present

a mix of pillows on the bed

both the dark blue jeans pillow with wooden buttons and the dotted pillow are store bought

the one with the applique hearts is indeed... made from a shirt from the husband, again haha

his shirts are slightly short to fit a 50x50 cm pillow

therefore I added the little border of Ikea fabric on the bottom to make it fit

the WELKOM sign is, you guessed it, welcome in Dutch

made from scraps of the same shirt, the back of the pillow, old jeans and a few others that matched

and of course you noticed the little pillow in the front, on the other picture

well, that came all the way with me from Amsterdam, but was made in England by dear Jill!

I won it in her give away this Spring and it matches the set perfectly I think

thank you again Jill, I enjoy it so much

~ and your blog header is sooo pretty and prefectly Christmas styled these days... I love it! ~

to finish the styling of the guestroom I took the little Amsterdam stool upstairs as a bed table

some more fabric scraps on the wall... and we are done with another room!

~

happy day to you with the last Christmas preperations or just relaxing because you are done...

oh and one more thing: Mabibilou did answer the winning of the HO HO HO give away happily
so no redraw is needed and Santa will fly happily over the ocean to Belgium

Christmas in our Home

how far did you go with Christmas-fying your house?

I went as far as changing the cushion covers on our new couch

100 % Ikea and JJ

~ smile ~

stripes and gingham in Christmas red

just easily joined with ribbons

grey winter hearts motifs on one side

and Santa's crawling up from the couch on the other

together with the warm fire place

we are getting totally ready for our Christmas-for-two

the third in Canada

the first in our home in Canada!

where are you going for Christmas this year?



p i ' l o and the City of Craft

for those of you who wonder:

creJJtion will not be only collages from now on

but, I like to give the pictures I took with my iPhone a different look

because I take most of them 'on the go'

and some are also filtered through Instagram

any one of you familiar with Instagram? - I am addicted at the moment I am afraid...

creJJtion is my profile name and I would love to meet you there too!

~

Heather from p i ' l o and I first met at the One of a Kind Show ~ I featured her in this post

last weekend she invited me to her open house in Toronto

and it was so wonderful

well, what else would I have expected...

the open space, large crafting table in the middle, natural light coming through the ceiling

natural materials, lovely displays and a very inspirational mood board...

visit Heather's website p i ' l o to find out more!

~

afterwards I went to the City of Craft, shortly introduced on their website as

"both an alliance of community arts organizers that present and support local crafty activities and Toronto's largest independently run juried craft sale featuring craft-based installations, free workshops, and craft-related programming in local businesses and galleries"

I enjoyed the atmosphere a lot

crafty people behind and in front of every booth, exchanging inspirations, ideas and goodies

I would like to mention a few of the booths to you that caught my attention

Needle Book ~ a blog about sweet makes from yarn and fabric, I love these sweet mini birds

Kid Icarus ~ stationary, cards... all screen printed in pretty designs, I like the greeting cards a lot

Gezellig ~ Victoria is a Dutch lady and makes comfy pillows, hand screen printed as well, her Etsy shop is not finished yet, but well, I guess she is working on that

~

that is it for today

and we are already approaching Christmas with the speed of light!

six more days... I wish you a very merry 'week before'

and hope you were able to keep the stress out of the preparations this year!

I will be back here soon with pictures of my own preparations and decorations in our home...

sending you love from Canada

Around Toronto

let me take you on a visual tour around Toronto ~ a lovely day trip I had two weeks ago

it started with a second visit to the One of a Kind Show

with sweet Ana from the ultimate babyblog Bluebird Kisses

we found two more lovely booths that I like to share with you

both of them use recycled material for their products

~

cate & levi was born out of a lack of one of a kind,

responsibly made and beautifully designed products for children

read more about their wonderful products and story behind them on their About page

I love how they combine neutral colors with knitted sweater prints to spice up their animals

you can shop directly from their website!

the second shop is filled with sweet pillows

the squirrels and owls are my favorites! look at them so sweet

Hilary Cosgrove owns a blog and Etsy shop

~

after the show I went for a delicious lunch at the Toronto Liberty Market

and bumped into the pretty store West Elm ~ I never heard about before

which makes sense, since they only have stores in the USA ~ except for this one in Toronto!

unfortunately they don't ship to the Netherlands, but it won't surprise me if that changes soon

two display ideas that I really like are the top right star

I can think of many holiday shapes that will look great filled up with ornaments on the wall or table

and the glitter ornament is of course a lot of fun to make as well!

~

afterwards I took the tram to Toronto's Distillery District

a village in the city of brick-lined streets and pretty restored Victorian Industrial buildings

to the Dutch ladies among you; it reminds me a lot of the Westergas Fabriek terrein in Amsterdam

there are nice little shops where creative people sell their makes

alongside nice cafes with delicious coffees

these days totally decorated for the holidays, very pretty indeed!

one shop I like to mention is the Distill Gallery

it shows the individual handmade works by over 100 emerging Canadians

I liked the winter pillows by Identity, gloves by Isak Inger, and flower hair clips Clever Fawn

well... that was another great day in Toronto!

~

about the HO HO HO give away

Mabibilou I haven't heard from you yet!

send me an e-mail with your address in order for me to mail you your santa

if I haven't heard from you by next Tuesday, I have to do a redraw...

~ love ~



Give Away Winner

yes!

thank you all for participating in the HO - HO - HO Give Away

and for posting it on your lovely blogs

unfortunately only one can win...

this time 46 is the lucky number

and that happens to be Mabibilou

which means one of the santa's will soon fly over the ocean!

Mabibilou, please send me an e-mail with your address and santa of preference

~ love ~

Update

wow

I can hardly believe it has been a week since I posted!

sometimes I get distracted by life so much, I forget about the computer

so here is a little update about the past week

I have been painting: a chair, cabinet, pinboards and more little items

the chair looks better with a little seat cover I made for it ~ a super fast easy and fun project

I decorated a corner of my craftroom with a hearts wall of fame ~ hearts I got from dear (blog)friends

during a thriftstore adventure with Andrea from the lovely blog silence and noise

I found this kitsch but fun lamp ~ it makes me laugh every time I look at it

the shade came plain with the lamp, I added the layers of ribbon with a glue gun to spice it up

and make it more kitsch ~ who could not use some double kitsch some times?

not the latest version but well, a lovely issue of Mollie Makes in my M(ail)

and a screenprint from a Carl Larsson drawing I once found in Sweden

it all matches the wedding bunting I made last minute this June for our own wedding

and as we are in Canada now

we decorated our Christmas tree even before December 5th

I shipped some of our ornaments to Canada

and I am very happy to see some familiar and beloved glass ones back

including the shoe boxes I have decorated over the years to store the ornaments

~

and... you all reacted so positively to the HO HO HO give away

thank you so much for that and for posting your give away on your blogs too

today is the last chance to enter

tomorrow my random number generator ~ aka the husband ~ will pick a winner!

see you then