Cake Making: Skylander’s Style

I mean, how often do you get to celebrate your firstborns becoming six years old? Am I right?

Almost ready

Reykjavík Blues

Really looking forward to this, I love going out on small concerts and share some beautiful music and a drink or two with good friends.

Also this is a pretty cool poster. I really like the design as should be evident when compared to my own.

 

Viking Sushi

Stykkishólmur is a small town about two hours drive from Reykjavík. It’s my husband’s hometown. It is absolutely beautiful, with many old houses that have recently been renovated, a small church and two or three restaurants and/or cafés that are definitely worth a visit.

The harbor is filled with small boats and on the dock there a restaurant that offers fish soup and catch of the day. It’s so nice to sit there on the terrace and enjoy a meal or drinks. A tiny island rises tall in the background, giving the scenery a spectacular twist.

There is also a travel agency, Seatours, that offers rides in the sea, and something they call Viking Sushi. Behold:

Viking sushi goes really well with a glass of white wine. Or two.

The crabs were just set loose into the ocean again. There’s not a tradition for eating them raw, I don’t think. That’s me holding one of those cute little squirmy lovelies.

The starfish are also just dunked back to the sea. This one seems to be regrowing one of it’s limbs. They do that you know.

 

I was like, uber pregnant, so, no alcohol or raw fish for me. Bad timing on my part. The trip was fantastic though.

The scenery out in the ocean is something to write a blog about.

 

 

Repurposing Toys and Tools

The shelves at the entrance of my home have now been reorganized and prettified by yours truly. It’s makes coming home a more pleasant experience when chaos doesn’t greet you when you walk in.

The masks are part of costumes from Halloween and Öskudagurinn (the Ash Day in straight translation, an Icelandic holiday where children dress up and sing to get candy).

My boys’ toys now multitask by being toys as well as decorative. It’s nice to give them a new purpose, and it’s made the boys rediscover them and now want to play with them again.

I love using unconventional things for decor.

Our friends wedding invitation. This gives me serious invitation design envy.

Two of my most prized cards we got when we got married. The writing is my ideal blend, humor and love.

Our globe and a meat axe I saved from getting binned. I was cleaning in the storage room and came across some really old tools at my old work. I was told to chuck everything but I couldn’t. I took most of it to one of our national museums but they didn’t want the meat axe, or something. So it ended up with me. A pretty cool item.

They’re standing on a wooden box I purchased at Reykjavík’s flea market, Kolaportið.

Icelandic Alcohol: Spirits Edition

Meet Reyka. According to their website, this Icelandic vodka is the winner of the 2011 Vodka Trophy at the International Wine and Spirit Competition. It is made from Icelandic spring water by hand in small bathes and filtered through lava, to lend it the purest finish. According to the judges in said competition, it’s: “beautifully textured and perfectly balanced”.

Sounds good to me. But I won’t be tasting it pure. Well maybe a little, just so I can say I have. But I intend to infuse it wich orange and lemon peel, I recently got introduced to infusion of spirits and I’m so into it right now.

More on that later.

By design

Here is a copy of mine and my husbands wedding invitation, we designed on our lonesome. I am very proud of it. The invitation says:

Berglind and Benedikt are celebrating their marriage with a

huge party!

Saturday, the 13th of August

Garðaholt, samkomuhúsi Garðabæjar, 210 Garðabæ

Starts at 19:00

Show up hungry, thirsty and ready to dance!

Houseband Mars

will be supplying the music and the actresss

Erla Steinþórsdóttir will be hosting the event

This was so much fun to make and in fact, it was through this process that I began to realize that I secretly wanted to be a designer. I don’t even care if I ever “make it” professionally. I would rather be poor and doing what I love than unhappy, working a nine-to-five just so I can have a bigger house/more expensive cars/whatever other things I don’t  really need. Or as they say: YOLO!

Now Isn’t That Lovely

My own wine bar. I will be collecting the plethora of Icelandic wines that have made their debut over the last few years (none of which are pictured above).
Related to this, I will be covering and picturing all the Icelandic beers, of which there are many, courtesy of all the quaint little breweries that have started in this our little isle of Ice.

They’re pretty awesome, the beers. One company has even made mead, a carbonated wine brewed out of honey. Which was a pretty common drink in Iceland, for hundreds and hundreds of years and up until like circa 1850, if I’m remembering correctly.

Mammút

Meet Mammút: one of the best Icelandic Indie rock Bands.

 

A few ‘facts’ (using the term loosely) about them :

They’ve been a band for like ten years already, and are only like, sixteen years old or whatever.

They won Músíktilraunir, a music competition for young bands (the age limit is somewhere in the teens) in I think 2003.

I believe they recently got the honor of having their newest album voted Record of the Year, by… someone.

 

Obviously, this is not the most extensive or thorough report, I realize. But for more (and perhaps, more accurate) information, there are always resources, somewhere.

Anyway, this song is one of my favorites with them. It’s called Salt and it is so worth the listen, enjoy!

Reykjavík, Remnants of Occupation During WW2

First Bath