The one with the things I liked this week (120)

Receiving mail from Diane, which came with this super-duper pineapple stamp!

Windowshopping and seeing these vases

Running into this guy on my way to work

definitely made having to get up early on a saturday morning more fun!

 Being a member of team dessert at this months cooking club

(strawberries marinated in lemon juice and sugar, yoghurt with

whipped cream and a basil dressing)

My favourite course was the one with seabass, asparagus and beurre blanc

Going on a city walk with the business club I'm a member of, and discovering this door

The one with the MuseumMarket

Back in April I received a phonecall all the way from Berlin, if I wanted to join DaWanda at the MuseumMarket on May 17th in Amsterdam. I've never attended a market as a seller, despite encouraging words from friends, telling me that my products would fit in well and that I should give it a shot. 

Reasons not to:

• What if no one would stop over at my booth? I had visions of myself sitting on a folding chair all day long, feeling miserable.
• What if no one likes the things I make? 
• I am a big 'ol introvert and pretty awkward, so getting out there is not my cup of tea. At all. 

Reasons to do give it a go this time:

• I don't really do New Years resolutions, but two of the things on my sort-of-resolution-list this year are: saying 'yes' more often, and trying out new things.
• My friend Eefje wanted to come with me. It's great to try out new things, and facing things that scare you with a good friend. At least we would have fun!
• DaWanda could arrange a bit of a discount (you know us Dutchies, we like our discounts!) on the booth, and they would take care of the social media part of the market. 
• The whole thing would take place in Amsterdam, that's on the other side of the country. The only person I know in Amsterdam is friend Nardje (Hi, Nardje!), and making a fool of yourself surrounded by people you don't know, sounds a lot better than doing so in a place where you are likely to run into people you actually know, right? 
• Never try, never know. Thanks Lieke ;-)

 

On our way! It was a last minute decision to do take some stools. We were traveling by train, so we couldn't take as much as we could have if we traveled by car. Most of saturday night was spent making a nifty little construction that would enable us to take them along. 

Everything's set up, Eefje snatched us up some coffee, and we are ready!

 I love those fabric packages Eefje made

 

 I've known Eefje since we were 6, but I don't have many pictures of us together, 

so I like having this one!

 

 The I Amsterdam sign, with the famous Rijksmuseum in the background

 

DaWanda's booth

Well how did it go? Great! I had a wonderful time, and was very happy I decided to go. I even want to go again during summer. We had loads of fun, and even made quite some sales. Especially the bags and postcards were a hit. It was pretty busy all day long!

Things I would do differently next time: 

• I expected things to go slow, but from the moment we started unpacking, people were coming over, asking questions and even making purchases already. I thought things would be slow, so I took pen and paper to make pricetags right there on the spot. Next time I would type and laminate them in advance, so I could use them from the getgo.
• Take an extra tablecloth for the front of the booth, so people wouldn't be able to see the mess going on underneath the table
• Take some more bags, some of them sold pretty fast, and I think I may have been able to sell more of those.  

Last but not least, to those of you who commented on the post friday before the market, those comments meant a lot to me. And thanks for all of the useful tips!

The one with the avocado and cilantro

I love dipping things in guacamole, and I love dishes with cilantro. I've never combined my love for these two favorite things, but I mixed them up together a while ago. Normally I don't use red pepper, but chopped cherry tomatoes. This is how I made this cilantro guacamole: 

What you'll need:

• 2 avocados
• 1 lime
• a big handful of fresh cilantro
• 1/3 red pepper
• salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

 

Destone the avocados, scoop the good stuff out of the skins and toss in a bowl.

Mash them with a fork.

Squeeze the limes

and add the juice to the avocado

Finely chop the cilantro

And add to the mixture

Finally, chop the pepper and stir through all the green stuff

I added a pinch of salt and pepper too.

I served the guacamole with nacho chips and fresh bread. 

Are you an avocado aficionado? 

And what's your favourite guacamole recipe?

The one with the things I liked this week (119)

Sunny day and flowers

 Something more I like about spring / summer

 Wonder if it's as good on the inside!

 Spending time at the thrift store and the library got me these

 Another pretty bike in the streets

 And receiving mail with good looking stamps

The one with pizza, popsicles and penguins

source

Added this print to my wishlist :-)

Yes to pizza

And these popsicles for dessert please! 

Made me smile, and the world needs more people like this 

And this

Mondriaan

Benedict Cumberbatch & Penguins

DIY origami gift boxes


The Summer over the City photo project
the photographer on Instagram

The one with the things I liked this week (118)

Starting this edition of 'things I liked' with three pictures of signs that summer is really on its way now! I can not wait to get rid of my winter coat for a while, and to enjoy reading and dinners on my balcony. Has the sun shown its face in your corner of the world? Are you looking forward to warmer weather? And what is it about summer that you are looking forward to most?

 Windowshopping

  One of my favourite things about summer

 Blue skies

 New stamps, the third one on the left is a bridge in my hometown :-)

 Enjoying a cherry beer and waiting for good food with my ex-roomie N.

Happy weekend! xo

The one with a visit to an old factory

A couple of weeks ago my mom and I had a little field trip to the former Honig factory in our hometown Nijmegen. It was my moms first visit and I went there last year. In case you're interested, I did a post about it here. Back in the days it was a factory where ingredients for soups were made and since the factory closed down, it became a 'cultural hotspot'.

Nowadays it houses lots of small (creative) businesses. There's an art gallery, a brewery, parties are being held, music is made and if all this makes you hungry, no problemo, there's food too! I love old industrials buildings like this, so I apologize for how picture heavy this post is. It's right up my alley, with cool details and pretty street art. And yes, I even managed to squeeze in a door ;-)

Still not quite sure how I feel about these bird printed leggings. I get them over three years ago, and I think this was the second time I wore them. But life is too short to wear boring clothes, right?

 Love these colours and textures!

And last but not least, a door!

We also had coffee (accompanied by something sweet) over at the factory, but I think I'll share those photo's in seperate post. If you made it this far, I hope you liked these photo's, I may have gone a bit wild with my camera...

The one with some tunes for your tuesday

How was your weekend? Mine was a busy one, working on saturday morning, lunch with mom in the afternoon and preparing for the market I wrote about last friday. It was all I could have hoped for, I had a blast! More about that, and some pictures from the booth will probably appear later here this week. You might have seen a pic floating around on Instagram on sunday. 

But for today I wanted to share some tunes that I've been listening to a lot lately. Except for these video's down below, Taylor Swift's new video has been playing (almost) non stop. Have you made any new discoveries, music-wise? 

Ayer - In my headphones

Noah Gundersen - David

Kat Dahlia - Crazy

Ella Eyre - Elastic Heart

The one with the things I liked this week (117)

 Spotted some cool vehicles, like this van

 

 And these colourful bikes

 Colourful flowers

 Homemade icecream :-)

 Participating in the annual popquiz marathon, we ended in 8th place (of 64 teams)

Seeing these pretty lamps at lunch with mom