SEVENTEENTH

From 8^th December here in Barcelona there is a interesting & different christmas tradition apart from the caganer I had mentioned to you last year.
Children (and adults!) look after a Tió de Nadal or Caga Tió. This hollow log, often with a smiley face is cared for until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day when it is then brutally beaten or thrown on the fire while children sing to it asking for presents to appear!

SIXTEENTH

A very lovely online advent countdown by illustartor Hanna Konola

FIFTEENTH

its getting colder and darker outside as Christmas approaches
We couldn't think of a better way to get through this is a merrier way then
with a good hot chocolate
At cookie they have the perfect recipe for you to make at home
or come by vonblum and enjoy one made by us.

FOURTEENTH

Today I will tell you about a Scandinavian Christmas tradition,
seeing that yesterday was Santa Lucia day.
There is another common symbol to the scandinavian christmas and it is that of a straw goat.
They have a tradition of making goats out of straw and using them to decorate
the house at Christmas time.

Some believe that it comes originally from Norse mythology, in which Thor’s chariot was drawn by two goats Tannginost and Tanngrisnir

Nowadays, it is customary for one of the adults to dress up as a Christmas gnome (tomte) and deal out the presents, but apparently, before this became the custom,
someone would dress up as a goat to do so.

There are other stories told about Christmas goats; one says that there was a game played, whereby people would make a large straw goat and attempt to hide it in their neighbors’ house, who, upon discovering it, were obligated to hide it in another house without being discovered, and so on.

THIRTEENTH

Follow the link to maya's blog and look what a lovely family tradition.... Leon will have something to look forward to the following Christmases ;)

"It's such a surprise every time you unfold a snowflake, but the magic of opening one that my grandfather had drawn just for my delight cannot be described in words."

TWELFTH

spread the christmas joy with these lovely angels by Jurianne Matter
more about her and her lovely work at this blog

ELEVENTH

Today we thought everyone should get a chance to make a gingerbread house.
Get a ready made one as Blavish suggests or
for the traditional way and then for the architects around, go to bake for a change.
There you can show all your cooking and environmental skills in one!
If you dont have time to make a real one, have some fun with this online version by Jenny b. Harris from allsorts blog.

TENTH

Found via FRYD+DESIGN these lovely vintages posters
to celebrate xmas in style
look for them at all posters

NINTH

We love this creative Christmas card idea
follow cheeky magpies template
and do one yourself
If you dont want to send it off....keep it as a Christmas ornament

EIGHTH

Lovely gocco gift tags, will make any christmas present special
Go check this at SAmantha's and Owen's Etsy Store
desTroy

SEVENTH

Today apart from our brunch at vonblum, we also celebrate the second advent.
I found out that many people didnt now what it was about so....

Advent (from the Latin word adventus, meaning "coming"), the period of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus; in other words, the period immediately before Christmas.

So join us light up the second candle on your wreath, if you dont have one improvise with two candles in the house and sing some carols or read a nice christmas story.

SIXTH

Widely celebrated in Europe, St. Nicholas' feast day, December 6th, kept alive the stories of his goodness and generosity.

In Germany and Poland on the evening before children put letters to the good saint along with carrots or other food for his white horse or donkey on a plate or in their shoes. These are left outside, under the bed, beside a radiator, or on a windowsill in hopes of finding goodies from St. Nicholas the next morning. During the night Sankt Nikolaus goes from house to house carrying a book in which all the children's deeds are written. If they have been good, he fills their plate, shoe or boot with delicious fruits, nuts and candies. If not, they may find potatoes, coal, or twigs.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, St. Nicholas arrived on a steamship from Spain to ride a white horse on his gift-giving rounds. Dutch television broadcasts the official arrival of St. Nicholas and his helper Zwarte Piet live to the nation.

During the next weeks children put out their shoes with wish-lists and a carrot or hay, or maybe a saucer of water, for the horse. When St. Nicholas happens by, the next morning children may find chocolate coins or initial letter, candy treats, pepernoten, and little gifts in their shoes. Everyone hopes for sweets, not coal or a little bag of salt. In the Netherlands, unlike other places, adults as well as children join in the fun. As the Dutch like an element of surprise, a small gift may be wrapped in a huge box, or it may be hidden and require following clues to discover where it is.

St. Nicholas, is a popular saint in Spain, has many churches dedicated to him. As a special devotion people make a Caminata in honor of Saint Nicolas of Bari.

To find out some more about how to celebrate the day like other countries...follow this lovely link.

P.S Tomorrow we have our Christmas Brunch in vonblum

so if you are in Barcelona, come see us

FIFTH

did you know....

St Francis of Assisi introduced Christmas Carols to formal church services.

The word comes from the ancient Greek choros, which means "dancing in a circle," and from the Old French word carole, meaning "a song to accompany dancing."

The first instrument on which the carol "Silent Night" was played was a guitar.

The popular Christmas song "Jingle Bells" was composed in 1857 by James Pierpont, and was originally called "One-Horse Open Sleigh." It was actually written for Thanksgiving, not Christmas.

FOURTH

Christmas pudding anyone?
Head to ouissi's lovely etsy store and find out some more about the one you see in the picture
plus some great pudding knowledge

THIRD

Today we found a different and lovely way to decorate your gifts this year,
with Creature comforts beautifully recycled pompom.
Will be seen under our christmas tree ;)
Follow the link for the step by step instructions.

SECOND

Make your own advents calendar at home or even at work
with this lovely idea found on design sponge by dsharp, Just download the numbers or do as loobylu did in a hurry, and then with more time this one

FIRST

Lets start the countdown to christmas eve in a numerical fashion:

12 Days of Christmas: The popular Christmas song involving leaping lords, milk maids, pipers and partridges. The European song dates back to the 16th century.

8: The number of Santa's original reindeer, according to the 1823 poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Their names were: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. Rudolph --the star of a 20th century American song -- came later.

$848,600: The cost (100 million yen) of a Japanese Christmas cake -- a 35-centimeter (14-inch) chocolate cake -- decorated with 100 diamonds.

200: The number of mince pies eaten by Gus the camel after he broke out of his pen at an Irish riding school's Christmas party. The camel also drank several cans of Guinness -- which he opened with his teeth.

50,000: The typical number of letters the post office at Nuuk, Greenland, receives each year addressed to Santa Claus, or Father Christmas. Santa's helpers at the post office pledge to reply to every letter.

2 million: The number of visitors expected to visit Nuremberg's Christkindlesmarkt, one of the largest and most famous of Germany's traditional Christmas markets.

1434: The date when Dresden's Striezelmarkt began, considered the oldest Christmas market in Germany.

31 million: The number of real Christmas trees Americans will buy this year, according to Forbes.com.

$795.86: The average amount Americans will spend on Christmas this year, according to Forbes.com, with total Christmas spending estimated to reach $154 billion.

50 million: The number of copies sold of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," the best-selling single of all time. Crosby first performed Irving Berlin's classic song on a U.S. radio show in 1941.

38 meters: The height of the world's tallest Christmas tree in Stockholm, Sweden, which features 5,000 festive lights.

via CNN

The stickers are from etsy shop heyjenrenee

Christmas is just around the corner

We will soon start our christmas advent countdown....

and along with the countdown we will also be hosting Christmas events.

If you want something different for your office this year - contact us as well.

inspiring images

We are oh so lucky to have people around us who go to places and take inspiring pictures.
One of them as many of you might already know is my aunt who lives in Eindhoven.
In October they had the Dutch Design week, which I went to last year and really inspired me while putting vonblum together.
This year I couldnt go......the little guy kept me in town and very busy.
So, my aunts this year brought tons of pictures of the week and it felt like being there myself.

Here are some of the very inspiring work and images they took.

From top to bottom: Numbered plated moths, Sugar spoons imagery cut and welded on to spoon, threaded pebbles...inspiring colours, lovely office cubicle - little house and my favourite by far old book wall

P.S. if anyone has more info on the pictures below please let us know :)

FUNday

just great - ENJOY!

photos

We have some cool new ideas at vonblum...in which you guys will participate.
Just like this lovely wallpaper from Lisa Bengtsson, we want to make a wall with pictures
of the lovely children that come and use our downstairs space.
So next time you come and see us be prepared for your portrait, or bring a pic along with you.

Tenemos algunas ideas nuevas en vonblum ... en la cual tambien estáis invitados a participar !
Tal como este bonito tapiz de Lisa Bengtsson , queremos hacer una pared con fotos
de todos los niños que vienen a utilizar nuestro espacio de abajo.
Por lo tanto, de la próxima vez que vengáis, prepare para su retrato, o lleva una foto junto contigo.

Sunday Brunch

The rainy weather conditions here in Barcelona didn't stop us from having our monthly brunch.
As the swedes say...
there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
Croissants and umbrellas mixed well.

from other blogs.....

We have been mentioned in two blogs :)

One is a lovely recipe blog cozinha quente who passed us the golden blog award.


If I understood correctly, no we have to nominate another 15 blogs so here we go:
housemartin,monix, cuca, emma, madeinnorthlondon, bloesem, smosch, finelittleday, hollymaus, papeisportodolado, husmusen, siagrafica, sofiabarao, spagat, mamasita

and we have been mentioned in a basque blog! blomst

Thank you to both of you.

send in the clowns

The expression send in the clowns comes from the circus where, if there was an accident or some other problem, e.g. performers or animals not yet ready to go on, the clowns were sent out into the circus ring to entertain the audience...on that account, thank you all for waiting with out the clowns to entertain!

We are back with a new team of people working to keep vonblum going

See you there and here of course!

Welcome Leon

It has been a fairly long time since we kept you updated with all that has and is happening at vonblum....
For those of you who didnt know, we have a new member in our family!
Leon has arrived and even delayed the opening of he space as we had predicted.
As we get used to each other, we will take a small pause from the blog!
See you guys soon

bloesem world tour

for all you world travelers out there
...go check out bloesem blog

lots of tips from us and another great little gem in Barcelona called Duduá
Thanks Irene!

Talking about world tours, today we can all go look at the Olympic opening ceremonies in China

Enjoy the summer

We had our last brunch on Sunday the 3rd of August before strutting off for our summer holidays.

We will still be around online with some news and info we would have loved to share with you before, but as we were busy busy busy inside vonblum...we had very little time for the blog world.

So this month we will update with some fun things that happened the past weeks, some news of what will be coming in September and as always some fun links :)

So stay tuned........

Ohh check out our music section on the side, lykke li is a great swedish musician, cant stop hearing her! Thanks Nicole for the tip

Coluored paper umbrellas just like in our window display now
from www.colourlovers.com - very inspiring web page go see for yourself!

Congratulations ink&peat

We are really happy as Pam from housemartin - has opened her shop in Portland!

We have been following her from across the ocean and can't wait for more picture updates on the blog.

All the best for Ink& Peat

rebajas

Summer frenzie has arrived!
While most of us are getting ready for our summer vacations packing, organizing our tickets and places to stay very very last minute .....the sales hit the town!
In Barcelona they actually started on the 1st of July and the whole town was jam packed with people, we are following a bit later behind and have some of our lovely items on sale now as well. The cool supermarket trollies - only 2 left - candle holders, flower vases and some of the bijoux.
If you can come see for yourself......for those of you further afield we will be updating our big cartel shop soon.

its sunday again

It has been a while since our last post. For those of you who are following us through the internet - much has happened in this time.

Apart from our second brunch today....
we are not melting in vonblum anymore as we have a super super potent new ufo like aircondition installed and
we have new people working with us ..... Welcome Nuria and Fernanda!

Bruna is now also giving on site instructions at vonblum how to fold those little lucky stars we have close to the till - can you find our jar in the photo above? ;)

Today, tough I came across the best origami site via swissmiss, for those who just don't seem to get all that little folding right, enjoy instant origami!!