#this is so cute i love dala horses

[kirsteninthesun]

Things I’d Like To See in Kirsten’s Collection

SINGING BIRD. Such a good missed opportunity for a best friend doll. There could have been a new face mold (Kaya’s isn’t a general Native American facemold, it’s very specific.) and a cool exploration of different styles of dress. This is how I picture her. Their friendship is so nice and important to the story, because it adds a critical perspective to what would otherwise be a “wow our lives are so much better and everything worked out”. Kirsten and Singing Bird also go through similar hardships with famine, culture clash, and language learning.

Singing Bird’s gifts. Singing Bird could come with accessories that included Kirsten’s gifts to her, and Kirsten could have a set that had Singing Bird’s gifts, too.

Baked goods. She has some bread but a bread in a basket would be cute. Some cookies would also be nice, specifically pepparkakkor.

Her cinnamon heart from the general store. That could have gone along with her winter woolens.

The family Bible. Those were so important to pioneer families and it ties into her story.

Winter boots with fur. Boots with the fur? Yes please. They’re pictured in her winter story.

Washboard and laundry. Sounds boring but so does a lot of stuff in AG, and kids would love it.

Maybe a Dala horse. I’m back and forth on those for her- in her time they would have been a little more confined to West/Central Sweden rather than far Southeastern Sweden, but taking some historical liberties would have given her a cool toy that Lars and Peter could carve.

I wish her dirndl had been more accurate but you take what you can get and I like it well enough.

Kirsten’s collection is really well done. She escaped BeForever, thank God, and her stuff is really accurate to her time and culture.

[lunatens]

on my mind & in my heart

word count: 952

genre: fluff

pairing: song mingi x gender neutral reader

summary: literally you just go on a drive w mingi

song rec: drive through summer - dala

a/n: wow i literally can’t remember the last time i wrote something that wasn't about stray kids HAH but anyways this is loosely based off of a dream i had about mingi the other day (the dream wasn’t as exciting as this ahasdkdhk but still) and uhh yeah pls enjoy i love mingi so much <3

tonight, you have a date with a bowl of chips, a couple of blankets, and your favourite netflix show. you’re curled up on the couch a couple episodes in when you hear a car pull into your driveway, and you furrow your brows in curiosity; your parents are away for the weekend, and your boyfriend mingi isn’t supposed to come over until tomorrow night. there’s a knock on the door, and you pause the show you’re watching. a moment of silence, then another knock sounds, this time more urgent. after deciding this person probably won’t go away, you slide off the couch and silently creep to the front door. cautiously, you peer through the window, pressing your forehead against the warped glass. the distortion makes the figure standing outside look kind of ambiguous, but you would recognize him anywhere. you roll your eyes, opening the door to cut off a third set of somehow even more aggressive knocking.

“hello min-“ you’re cut off as mingi pulls you into a quick hug and presses a small kiss to your cheek.

“it’s the summer solstice, and we’re going to celebrate,” he tells you rather matter of factly. you frown and look down at your pajama shorts and hoodie (that may or may not belong to mingi).

“i’m not ready to go out, i just got comfy,” you whine, and mingi blinks at you.

“y/n, i missed youuu, plus we aren’t going anywhere really, so it doesn’t matter. even though you look cute as always,” he says, winking and sticking out his tongue a little.

“it’s literally been like 5 hours since i saw you last,” you say, but you can’t hide the smile that’s creeping onto your face. “where are we going, anyways?” you ask as you lock the door to your house and slide into the passenger seat of mingi’s car.

“nowhere, we’re just...going,” he replies. he adjusts his hair and puts on his sunglasses, then flashes you a mischievous smile as he reverses out of your driveway.

~

20 minutes later and you’re racing down an old country road, windows down and volume cranked all the way up. the wind tousles your hair as it roars in through the window; it’ll be a nightmare to brush out later, but it’s worth it for the moment. the sun is beginning it’s slow descent in the sky, faint pinks and oranges slowly becoming more and more vibrant. vast fields fly by as you drive through the long, winding roads, and you admire the pretty little stone farmhouses in the distance. sometimes there’s cows or horses, which always prompts either you or mingi to scream excitedly and point at them.

the song you’re listening to comes to an end, and there’s a comfortable silence as you wait for the next song to come on. your heart is full of happiness; mingi’s made a playlist for you of “songs that make me think of you and your cute face,” (in his words) and the combination of the music, the beautiful summer night, and mingi makes you feel like the happiest person alive. you laugh and clap as “just wanna be with you” from high school musical three comes on, and mingi grins widely. you both sing as loud as you can, belting out words and not caring if you sound good or not.

the song slows down as it comes to an end, and as you sing the final harmonies (or, your best attempt at a harmony) of “i just wanna be with you,” mingi looks over and reaches out to gently caress your cheek, a big goofy smile on his face.

“hey, eyes on the road, mingi,” you say through a shy giggle. he turns to face the road, but takes your hand in his and brings it up to plant a kiss on your knuckles. you blush; even though you’ve been dating for a while, mingi never fails to make you fall in love with him over and over again.

“what’s this all for?” you ask, your eyes now on mingi rather than the views outside he car, admiring him as he seems to almost glow in the fading sunlight. you reach to turn down the volume a little so you can hear each other speak without having to yell.

“for you, duh,” he replies, one hand lazily gripping the wheel while he squeezes your hand with the other.

“yeah, but today isn’t anything special, is it?”

“every day i spend with you is special, babe, i don’t need a reason to make you a playlist or take you out or tell you i love you,” he says, stealing a glance at you. you thought you couldn’t love mingi any more than you already did, but his words fill you with a warm bubbly feeling as your affection for him grows ever stronger.

“it’s the longest day of the year, and i just wanted to spend it with you,” he finishes, giving your hand another affectionate squeeze. you don’t know what to say, so you just stare at him for a moment with major heart eyes.

“song mingi, i don’t know what i’d do without you, i love you so much,” you say eventually. mingi giggles shyly at your words and now it’s his turn to blush. another hype song comes on the playlist, and you crank it back up. you drive until your throats hurt from all the singing (and trying to scream i love you at each other over the sound of the wind and the stereo), cruising along the seemingly endless country roads until long past sunset and feeling like you need nothing more than good music and each other’s company.

[losnordiquitos]

ah .... if you ever find the drawing of sve as a dala horse i would love to see it ... that would be so nice ... and a really cute idea ...❤ (maybe he would kind of like a merry go round pony?)

i also thought of den having an axe, i also though of a viking-style boat ^_^

Glow in dark marks yes !!!!!!!!!!! I was thinking of nor having a starry pattern, maybe both ice n nor can have similar themed star patterns as a tie-in that they are siblings (i also like the volcano idea ... ♥) And fjord horsies !!! They look so cute .......

idk how i didnt think about fin not being a pony !!!!!!! i love the idea of fins cutiemark being a a sauna... i dont how it could be depicted in a easy way tho U_U (maybe a wooden bath?).... a gift box is a the most obvious choice but i thought to give it a fun twist, like with a explosion or something silly like that

this so much fun to think about !!!!!!!! i wanna draw the the funny horses more ...

what do yall think the nordics cutiemarks would be ...

i think swe would be some sort of toolbox~ something related to craftmanship ...

[interiorstarweb]

Living Room, 5 years In!

I’ve realized lately that I tend to blog about a room once it’s renovated, and then I kind of move on. I guess I feel like…how many times does anyone possibly want to look at the same room, just a little altered from last time we looked at the room? I never feel like a room is finished because I move stuff around ALL THE DAMN TIME for shits and giggles, and then posting about it feels so…self-indulgent? Unimportant? And then years go by and the room actually does look TOTALLY different than it did before, and then I feel a little regretful that entire iterations of the space have gone undocumented in the meantime. The public must know. For the purpose of…I don’t know, this is a blog and that is what we do here.

Which leads us to my living room, which regularly ends up as the victim of my late-night puttering. And the last time I felt inclined to write a blog post about it was OVER THREE YEARS AGO! Oopsie! We have some catching up to do!

Back when I bought the house, the living room looked like this!

A couple years later, it looked like this! Let’s take a moment to appreciate and mourn the extreme cuteness and specialness that was Linus. I miss that dog so fucking much.

Today, it’s more like this! I didn’t consult my old pictures before taking new pictures, so APOLOGIES for the inconsistent angles. I didn’t ask Mekko (or Linus, who did not take direction) to pose for pictures—she does that on her own free will—so, I don’t know, do we feel weirded out she chose the same spot? It’s like she…is trying to tell me…something. (She isn’t; she’s a dog.)

So some things have changed and some have not changed. My dumb little bench is still my coffee table, which really just goes to show how utterly impossible it is to find a good coffee table. I MEAN MY GOD. All the ones that are right in most ways are still so wrong in other ways I fear I will die before the culture at large figures this mess out.

I got that painting a couple weeks ago from a local consignment place. I had this idea that I’d paint the frame but instead I got home and immediately just put it up and so far have not addressed it further. It appears to be signed S. Eagle in the bottom right corner. Seagull?

Also, the sofa is new! And by new, I mean no longer really new, but I guess making its big blog debut? Just in time for me to WANT IT OUT OF MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW? Fancy that! So this is the IKEA NOCKEBY 3-seater, which I found in the As-Is section at IKEA around 3 years ago for something stupid, like $200. I didn’t like the legs so I swapped them for these Pretty Pegs, which this couch isn’t really made to do but I made it work. I’ll spare you the DIY tutorial but it involves extra screws and additional support and it’s just not that interesting. Anyway. The NOCKEBY is in most ways a good sofa, but I’m not allowed to own a sofa that isn’t going to also serve as a luxury dog bed. This sofa has a limited selection of slipcovers, and this one (which may now be discontinued?) is TERRIBLE when forced to interact with either dog hair or dog nails. TERRIBLE. Of course it can be taken off and washed, but with IKEA couches that’s actually kind of a production, and it doesn’t wash well, and I just do not like it at all.

This lead me to purchasing a SECOND, DIFFERENT slipcover, which had a tighter weave, and that was SOMEHOW EVEN WORSE. After trying every stain removal method I could imagine, I could never get the thing clean and I eventually threw it away.

SO now I’m at this dumb crossroads of either buying yet another slipcover ($$) for this so-so cheap sofa I performed some light hackery on, or getting this menace out of my life and buying a new leather sofa ($$$). I suppose I could also just put the original black/chrome sofa back, since I still have it, and it IS leather, but I didn’t like it in here either so I’m not sure that’s an improvement.

I think I just need a different sofa.

Let me think about it for another three to five years.

The rug is also new! But not new-new. I got it at auction and I like it! The colors and the pattern are so bright and bold and fun. Which is also me saying: I have not taken the time to learn anything about the origins of this rug, but it is a nice rug that was $300 and the main color is mustard and I’m into it.

2013! Those walls were wild, man.

2015.

So this looks like that now, you get it. More stuff on the mantel. Less big scary lady. Bertoia wire chair from yore still hangin out.

Ya know, I feel like I pulled this faux fireplace project off.

The arts above the fireplace are by Gregory Gummersall. On the mantel are stuff and things. We have vintage studio pottery. We have my dead dog’s collar. We have 2 Dala horses. We have my precious lamp. We have some antique crocks.

WE HAVE THIS BANANAS CRYSTAL I paid $5 for at a garage sale recently. I’m not, like, a ~crystal person~ but I’m totally a crystal person. Also, Dala horse butts are so cute.

This is 2015. This wall has always been tricky. I’ve since moved the piano. I have NO IDEA what to do with the piano. It’s HUGE and in reality, there are exactly 3 walls on the main floor that can fit it. I do not play piano. I do not have any desire to learn how to play the piano. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to know how to play the piano, but I do not see myself trying to learn that of all things in the foreseeable future. Shower/car singing is my only real musical passion. But I have this huge piano that came with my home, because the man who lived in it FROM AGE SEVEN TO NINETY-TWO was the lead organist at the Old Dutch Church and taught piano lessons out of this very house during the Depression and, like, the war and shit and who the hell am I to put his piano on fucking Facebook Marketplace?

It’s a real problem.

Also I got a nice bench that matches it pretty perfectly. And then I moved them both into the hoard room of doom.

So, in a fit of I-don’t-know-what, I made this situation all by myself and I call it Curiosity Corner because I don’t know what it does, it just is. It is my things assembled in a way that is just a way to look at a lot of things at once. Shiny objects I have acquired by various means.

The mirrors are nutso but I like it a little nutso.

I inherited these two really groovy lucite end tables from a recent exciting purge of my parents’ storage space, which came in a shipment including things like my old soccer trophies and these truly astonishingly long spools I made of my finger-knittings (not pictured). The tables originally came from my grandparents’ house! I don’t really have anywhere for large end tables like this right now, so to maximize Curiosity Corner I put them side-by-side and then put things all around them. Over! Under! Inside! More things!

That blanket folded up on the chair, yonder, I bought at a war reenactment with my friend Chandler in high school. The bud vase I got at a thrift store in Sweden. That little colorful container has a set of matching coasters in it, and once lived in my grandparents’ rec room (the other grandparents, not the lucite table grandparents). My friend Maya gave me that mirror above the lamp. The lamp is from IKEA and I love that thing. Maybe not as precious as some of the other stuff but I’d still TRY to save it in a fire.

Also on display are a few things I’ve found in the walls or swept into the corner of the attic, that kind of thing. I blogged about the one in the back a while ago!

Is this…doxxing? Forgive me Madame Jeanson.

That pillow in the background was part of the Marimekko for Target collection and the alpaca wool pillow on my safari chair was a thrift find a couple weeks ago! It was $20 with the down insert and is in PERFECT condition. It’s by Elvang Denmark and was…definitely more than $20 new. Look at me with a fancy throw pillow.

Does that about cover things? Mekko’s OVER. IT.

Living Room, 5 years In! published first on https://novaformmattressreview.tumblr.com/

[billydmacklin]

Living Room, 5 years In!

I’ve realized lately that I tend to blog about a room once it’s renovated, and then I kind of move on. I guess I feel like…how many times does anyone possibly want to look at the same room, just a little altered from last time we looked at the room? I never feel like a room is finished because I move stuff around ALL THE DAMN TIME for shits and giggles, and then posting about it feels so…self-indulgent? Unimportant? And then years go by and the room actually does look TOTALLY different than it did before, and then I feel a little regretful that entire iterations of the space have gone undocumented in the meantime. The public must know. For the purpose of…I don’t know, this is a blog and that is what we do here.

Which leads us to my living room, which regularly ends up as the victim of my late-night puttering. And the last time I felt inclined to write a blog post about it was OVER THREE YEARS AGO! Oopsie! We have some catching up to do!

Back when I bought the house, the living room looked like this!

A couple years later, it looked like this! Let’s take a moment to appreciate and mourn the extreme cuteness and specialness that was Linus. I miss that dog so fucking much.

Today, it’s more like this! I didn’t consult my old pictures before taking new pictures, so APOLOGIES for the inconsistent angles. I didn’t ask Mekko (or Linus, who did not take direction) to pose for pictures—she does that on her own free will—so, I don’t know, do we feel weirded out she chose the same spot? It’s like she…is trying to tell me…something. (She isn’t; she’s a dog.)

So some things have changed and some have not changed. My dumb little bench is still my coffee table, which really just goes to show how utterly impossible it is to find a good coffee table. I MEAN MY GOD. All the ones that are right in most ways are still so wrong in other ways I fear I will die before the culture at large figures this mess out.

I got that painting a couple weeks ago from a local consignment place. I had this idea that I’d paint the frame but instead I got home and immediately just put it up and so far have not addressed it further. It appears to be signed S. Eagle in the bottom right corner. Seagull?

Also, the sofa is new! And by new, I mean no longer really new, but I guess making its big blog debut? Just in time for me to WANT IT OUT OF MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW? Fancy that! So this is the IKEA NOCKEBY 3-seater, which I found in the As-Is section at IKEA around 3 years ago for something stupid, like $200. I didn’t like the legs so I swapped them for these Pretty Pegs, which this couch isn’t really made to do but I made it work. I’ll spare you the DIY tutorial but it involves extra screws and additional support and it’s just not that interesting. Anyway. The NOCKEBY is in most ways a good sofa, but I’m not allowed to own a sofa that isn’t going to also serve as a luxury dog bed. This sofa has a limited selection of slipcovers, and this one (which may now be discontinued?) is TERRIBLE when forced to interact with either dog hair or dog nails. TERRIBLE. Of course it can be taken off and washed, but with IKEA couches that’s actually kind of a production, and it doesn’t wash well, and I just do not like it at all.

This lead me to purchasing a SECOND, DIFFERENT slipcover, which had a tighter weave, and that was SOMEHOW EVEN WORSE. After trying every stain removal method I could imagine, I could never get the thing clean and I eventually threw it away.

SO now I’m at this dumb crossroads of either buying yet another slipcover ($$) for this so-so cheap sofa I performed some light hackery on, or getting this menace out of my life and buying a new leather sofa ($$$). I suppose I could also just put the original black/chrome sofa back, since I still have it, and it IS leather, but I didn’t like it in here either so I’m not sure that’s an improvement.

I think I just need a different sofa.

Let me think about it for another three to five years.

The rug is also new! But not new-new. I got it at auction and I like it! The colors and the pattern are so bright and bold and fun. Which is also me saying: I have not taken the time to learn anything about the origins of this rug, but it is a nice rug that was $300 and the main color is mustard and I’m into it.

2013! Those walls were wild, man.

2015.

So this looks like that now, you get it. More stuff on the mantel. Less big scary lady. Bertoia wire chair from yore still hangin out.

Ya know, I feel like I pulled this faux fireplace project off.

The arts above the fireplace are by Gregory Gummersall. On the mantel are stuff and things. We have vintage studio pottery. We have my dead dog’s collar. We have 2 Dala horses. We have my precious lamp. We have some antique crocks.

WE HAVE THIS BANANAS CRYSTAL I paid $5 for at a garage sale recently. I’m not, like, a ~crystal person~ but I’m totally a crystal person. Also, Dala horse butts are so cute.

This is 2015. This wall has always been tricky. I’ve since moved the piano. I have NO IDEA what to do with the piano. It’s HUGE and in reality, there are exactly 3 walls on the main floor that can fit it. I do not play piano. I do not have any desire to learn how to play the piano. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to know how to play the piano, but I do not see myself trying to learn that of all things in the foreseeable future. Shower/car singing is my only real musical passion. But I have this huge piano that came with my home, because the man who lived in it FROM AGE SEVEN TO NINETY-TWO was the lead organist at the Old Dutch Church and taught piano lessons out of this very house during the Depression and, like, the war and shit and who the hell am I to put his piano on fucking Facebook Marketplace?

It’s a real problem.

Also I got a nice bench that matches it pretty perfectly. And then I moved them both into the hoard room of doom.

So, in a fit of I-don’t-know-what, I made this situation all by myself and I call it Curiosity Corner because I don’t know what it does, it just is. It is my things assembled in a way that is just a way to look at a lot of things at once. Shiny objects I have acquired by various means.

The mirrors are nutso but I like it a little nutso.

I inherited these two really groovy lucite end tables from a recent exciting purge of my parents’ storage space, which came in a shipment including things like my old soccer trophies and these truly astonishingly long spools I made of my finger-knittings (not pictured). The tables originally came from my grandparents’ house! I don’t really have anywhere for large end tables like this right now, so to maximize Curiosity Corner I put them side-by-side and then put things all around them. Over! Under! Inside! More things!

That blanket folded up on the chair, yonder, I bought at a war reenactment with my friend Chandler in high school. The bud vase I got at a thrift store in Sweden. That little colorful container has a set of matching coasters in it, and once lived in my grandparents’ rec room (the other grandparents, not the lucite table grandparents). My friend Maya gave me that mirror above the lamp. The lamp is from IKEA and I love that thing. Maybe not as precious as some of the other stuff but I’d still TRY to save it in a fire.

Also on display are a few things I’ve found in the walls or swept into the corner of the attic, that kind of thing. I blogged about the one in the back a while ago!

Is this…doxxing? Forgive me Madame Jeanson.

That pillow in the background was part of the Marimekko for Target collection and the alpaca wool pillow on my safari chair was a thrift find a couple weeks ago! It was $20 with the down insert and is in PERFECT condition. It’s by Elvang Denmark and was…definitely more than $20 new. Look at me with a fancy throw pillow.

Does that about cover things? Mekko’s OVER. IT.

Living Room, 5 years In! published first on https://carpetgurus.tumblr.com/