Happy 2014!

Dear friends,
before we say goodbye to 2013, I wanted to thank YOU ALL so much for your support these past months. Thanks to all of the emails, the comments, the tweets, the FB-likes, the pinning and most of all, for being here to read my little notebook. You all made the difference each single day!
And now, I wish you all a very happy holiday and a SPARKling 2014!

see you back here in 2014! L+L

My Favorites to Welcome the New Year

Are you getting ready for the New Year? These are my favorites to
- DIY Grace's New Years Eve confetti fortune POCKETS and Melanie's celebration BOX

- PARTY with Mandy's Chocolate and Peppermint Bark Martini, Victoria's Smirnoff’s Gingerbread Martini with marshmallow stars and Black Tie Sprinkle Cake
More drinks? Check this list of New Year’s Eve Party Drink Recipes

- GET THE MOOD looking at my SPARKling Pinboard and reading famous QUOTES like these

- PRINT and mark your next year dates on my freely downloadable 2014 Calendar!

Merry, Merry Christmas!

Last minute freebies and DIY GIFTs for KIDs

Do you need some last minute ideas for your kids? These are five free printable and/or easy diy suggestions: 01: DIY Christmas Tree Doll House | 02: Sykort - Sewing cards | 03: Molly's sketchbook: Diy Felt baby shoes | 04: Dominoes for Kids free Printable | 05: DIY memory game

06: If you can't buy it now, loan a book. How the Grinch stole Christmas by Dr Seuss is one of my favourite book to read on Christmas Eve | 07:  Free printable Dr. Seuss quotation “eye chart”  | 08 : Have a look at SeussVille for printables, prints and online games (click here for Color in the Grinch)

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! “Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store. “Maybe Christmas…perhaps… means a little bit more!”

Lastminute Ideas for your Christmas table

01: Mountains and Moon cake topper | 02: Trees centerpiece | 03: Christmas Forest cake topper | 04: Christmas Table | 05: Vintage centerpiece | 06: La forêt de sapins | 07: Christmas cake decoration.

01: Use cookie cutters on the cheese (and use restes for a fondue) from Pinterest | 02: Apple-spice-cocktails | 03: Minty pomegranate spritzer | 04: Write on sugar | 05: Santa Strawberries | 06: Ikea Snokul | 07: Orange garland | 08: Vegan earl grey + chocolate shakes | 09: Veganogg.

Christmas 2013 Veg Recipes

01: Salade fruitée & "Super-sauce" à l'acérola | 02: Avocado & Pomegranate Crostini | 03: Christmas Tree Salad | 04: The Bojon Gourmet: Cauliflower and Yellow Split Pea Soup with Turmeric and Curried Ghee | 05: Wareniki or vegan ravioli Slavic type | 06: Feuilletés potimarron & patate douce aux épices | 07: Christmas Burger | 08: Truffle Salted Purple Potato Kale Cakes.

MORE? If you're looking for Christmas Morning Recipes check this post of Love and Lemons.
UPDATE:  Santa Claus and Snowman Pancakes! (Vegan), absolutely lovely!

9 Free Christmas Printables

01: ‘Shake it’ confetti wrap - Christmas edition | 02: Free Printable Christmas wrapping paper | 03: Printable Holiday tags and wrap | 04: Let It Snow Gift Wrap | 05: Jessica Nielsen wrapping paper special Xmas edition for Bloesem 2013 | 06: Christmas candy box freebie | 07: Jessica Nielsen printable wrapping paper | 08: Reindeer Printable Holiday Card | 09: Zu-galerie wrapping paper and tags.

Christmas 2013 Cakes and Sweets

01: Sugar Cookie Christmas Trees | 02: A Forest of Fudge | 03: Christmas coconut cake | 04: Christmas chocolate | 05: No Sugar, No Bake, Labneh Tart | 06: Red velvet cake with crushed candy cones | 07: Yogurt & Lemon Curd Parfait | 08: Christmas Panna Cotta | 09: Truffes coco-citron vert (toutes crues !)

My Italian Christmas Food (short) List

I enjoy going shopping to the mall before Christmas. This year I found the beautiful gifts above: Bedetti Brick-Like Torrone and Stainer chocolate pralines. WOW!
As every Christmas in Italy, I also bought: handmade Panettone (to be a real Panettone, it has to follow these severe rules), Pandoro, Panforte and Spumante (I bought a special offer of the magnificent Rotari but here is a more extensive list).

Jérémie Koempgen Architecture + FUGA design: Villa Solaire

Villa Solaire was completed in January 2012 by the Paris based firms Jérémie Koempgen Architecture and FUGA. The project is a conversion of a historical farmhouse from 1840

Christmas - Inspiration and DIY - 8: Stars

Easy DIY Stars : 01 Tridimensional Star | 02 Folded Star tutorial | 03 Angled Starbust tutorial.

Christmas - Inspiration and DIY - 7: Ornaments

01: Ribbon Candy Felt Ornaments | 02: Personnage Pomme de Pin | 03: Restyled biowaste bag | 04: Recycled cardboard Houses | 05: Paper Trees allover | 06: Origami diamond ornaments.

Christmas still life with Eve

Maybe it's a little insane, but I admit that I had a lot of fun making this Christmas still life with EVE robots. I love robots, dinosaurs, car models, that's it. This is my Christmas confession (for this year)(I'm not ready to admit more!).

Carousel suspension lamp by Mambo Unlimited

Mambo Unlimited Ideas introduces new Carousel suspension lamp, a 5 lampshade lamp made with a lacquered iron structure and cotton abatjours. The new piece designed by Cláudia Melo, has been presented in 2 color combinations - white+yellow and cooper+black - and with a diameter of 100cm but - as other pieces of Mambo collection - can be ordered in other sizes and finishings’ combinations. Have a look here for more details.

Winter Must-Do: Wild Bird Food

Winter is the perfect season for helping wild birds with food. If you have a quiet outdoor space, you can hang or plant a 'little seeds bar'. Surely you can buy wild bird food, but there are hundreds of homemade recipes you can easily find on the web and make on your own. These are 4 between my favs websites talking about bird food:
- 4 ways to Feed Wild Birds from wikiHow
- Winter Bird Food Recipes from Mother Earth News
- Make a speedy bird cake from RSPB
- Make Your Own Pine Cone feeder from Make Your Own Bird Food

You can contribute to Make Your Own Bird Food library: if you have an old family favorite bird food recipe, and you do not see it already listed, read here.

Christmas - Inspiration and DIY - 6: Paper Christmas Trees

Make your Christmas tree using recycled paper. Follow one of the upper projects via Lia Griffith and Kodin Kuvalehti or fold a 'traditional' Origami tree as following via Krokotak 

L :-)

Emerick Architects - Division Street

This unique home is the poster child of adaptive reuse. Starting with a building that intermingled three structures from different periods over the last century, Emerick Architects crafted a strategy to reuse the structure, adding a penthouse and a roof garden creating an urban oasis and a highly energy-efficient home. With almost 2000 square feet of solar arrays, this project is practically off-the-grid. Marrying practicality with craftsmanship, almost everything for this project was handmade locally from raw materials by Portland artisans including cabinetry, steel work, railings, doors stairs, lighting fixtures, stucco & plaster.

Christmas - Inspiration and DIY - 5: Laura's Christmas Paper Bags

This is a nice and easy way to pack your gifts. I followed WikiHow's tutorial to make my paper bag. It's very easy. I started with a piece of brown paper of cm 42 x 24, and I got a bag large cm 15 x cm 5,5 side x cm 18,5 height. You can make different sizes bags ready to use also at the last minute.
You will need:
- Brown paper
- Black cardboard (I recycled black pieces of pages from old catalogs)
- A colored stripe (I used Snomys from Ikea)
- Scissors and/or cutter, glue/tape, a ruler, a pencil, a puncher.
- A silver or gold marker pen to write your wishes on the black paper tag.

To make my tree tag, I cut a rectangle of black cardboard (choosing a piece of the catalog page that was black on both sides). I folded the rectangle in two and I started to cut out my tree starting from the edge that has to be on the folded side of the black cardboard. Take care of not making a too pointed hedge but leave 1 cm at least on the fold (to keep the two shapes together). Then punch it!

 ....and, with left pieces of my old catalogs' pages, I cut other decorations for my Christmas wrapping. I like to cut them without following a model so I can get more irregular shapes.

Christmas - Inspiration and DIY - 4: Easy DIY 2D Christmas Trees

If you haven't much space in your home, these are six suggestions to make an easy DIY flat trees on your wall. Sources 01: String of Stars from BijzonderMOOI | 02: Inspiration from Ikea - Strala garland | 03: Inspiration from 101woonideeen | 04: Minimal Christmas tree from Handmade Charlotte | 05: Inspiration from nurin-kurin | 06: Danish Christmas inspiration from Nordic Design.

Christmas - Inspiration and DIY - 3: Easy DIY 3D Christmas Trees

Easy diy ideas for a 3D Christmas Tree. You can take inspiration and change dimensions to have a big or small tree.
Sources: 01 : How to: Make a Stylish Hanging Christmas Tree Mobile from Curbly | 02 : No room for a tree? This is a pretty alternative from Enjoy your Home | 03 : Easy DIY Cardboard Christmas Trees from Julep. |
04 : Kim Van Rossenberg's house from 101 woonideeën | 05 : Easy DIY Plywood tree from Varpunen | 06 : Printable silhouette Christmas trees in DIY branch holders from Shift Ctrl Art

La Maison au bord de l’eau | Perriand + Vuitton

La Maison au bord de l’eau  - the house on the water - was originally designed by Charlotte Perriand in 1934 for a competition sponsored by L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui magazine. The plans for the house were recently uncovered by Louis Vuitton Women’s Creative Director Julie de Libran, when

The Louis Vuitton Icons Collection s/s 2014, inspired by Charlotte Perriand

Julie de Libran, Louis Vuitton womenswear director, has created a collection - the S/S 2014 Icons Collection - inspired by modernist legendary designer and architect Charlotte Perriand. Colourful, classic, functional but stylish pieces designed to be interchanged. Charlotte loved to make her own bijoux and dresses (as you can read in her autobiography), she surely had her Style. I think she would have love this homage.

Have a look to my preferred photos of Charlotte Perriand here.

Photos 1 - 2 - 3 from OPOS

Photos 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 from Louis Vuitton

Charlotte Perriand, A Life of Creation

A Life of Creation - Une vie de création - is the title of the autobiography of Charlotte Perriand (24 October 1903 – 27 October 1999), the absolutely unique French architect and designer. Published in France in 1998,

La Rinascente Shopwindows: Watch The Music, Listen to Design

Watch The Music, Listen to Design: seven shopwindows - at La Rinascente store - dedicated to music and projected by seven Italian visual artists. Curated by Sergio Colantuoni, 29 november - 10 january.
Waiting for Holidays and Rock Me Pitti.
More here.

Christmas - Inspiration and DIY - 2: Neon Decor (again!)

Sources: 01: Essimar | 02-03: By Bak.

04: KronPrinsessene | 05: Cecilies Lykke | 06-07: Fantas-Tisch |