Happy List V

Even though the weather isn’t perfect, there’s still so much to make you happy right? These are my moments..

1. A big pile of fine magazines and travel books (plus a comfy couch and lots of green tea!)
2. Having spaghetti with tomato sauce for lunch ánd dinner
3. My grandparents visiting me in Amsterdam (granddad wore his safari jacket, since Amsterdam is some sort of exciting jungle for them ha-ha)
4. Buying overpriced but totally delicious macarons in Paris
5. Still being absolutely in love
6. The combination of puff pastry, tomato and mozzarella out of the oven..  Need I say more?
7. The thought of our trip to China getting closer and closer (we’re leaving this Monday! Aah!)
8. Spending a couple of days in France, just drinking wine, eating cheese en doing nothing. Perfect!
9. The enormous fireworks next to the Eifel tower on Quatorze Juillet (oh, and the overload of man in uniforms in the streets because of the Défilé)
10. This might get boring, but: eating cupcakes! (hello.. they were pink with colored sprinkles..)

Did I already reached ten? Damn, there are so much more happy moments to share! Well.. next time then. There’s only one I’d still like to highlight, that makes me very very happy:

* My debut as an editor at P.C. Hoofstraat.nl! *

Hole in the wall

I recently read about this art project in Paris by Juliana Santacruz Herrera. And I think it’s great! She fills holes and cracks in the pavement with brightly colored knitted pieces. Sadly I haven’t run into one of these small street art patches yet, but it must be funny to accidentally 

walk over it.

Photos from Flickr

And you know what’s funny, while doing some research on this artist, I found about another artist called Jan Vormann and his ‘Dispatchwork’. This German man travelled through the whole world during 2007 until 2010, visiting cities like New York, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, St Petersburg and Rome. His mission was to rebuild the crumbling walls of monuments and buildings. With Lego. Yes, the toy you (probably) played with as a child. His colorful reparations attract a lot of attention from by passers. For instance, in Berlin, he filled the gun holes in the walls from the Second World War.

I like street art a lot (that is, if you don’t count ugly ‘I was here/kill this/fuck that/love you’- graffiti), mostly because it’s fun to just run into it. When you go to a museum, you expect to see art. When you’re just wandering around in a big city, you don’t.  

Cupcakes in Amsterdam #3

The Darling, Runstraat 4, Amsterdam

Yes, another favorite is born! This boutique located in the Nine Streets in Amsterdam is a little girl’s dream coming to life. The combination of vintage and new items in the shops looked great, but I must admit I had my mind set on just one thing: cupcakes and tea! So we sat down at a cute table upstairs and looked around. Even if you’re sad, down or grumpy, you can’t leave this place without a smile on your face (well.. maybe men can ha-ha). And we order tea and cupcakes, a vanilla- and a rose flavored one to be exactly. Not only did they taste amazing, they looked fabulous as well. The Darling gets her cupcakes from The Queens of Tarts, which have their own atelier in Amsterdam.
Don’t miss this spot when you’re shopping!

Photo: The Queen of Tarts.nl

Photo: Iphone.. Sadly forgot to bring my camera

Photo: The Darling.nl

The perfect giftshop

& Klevering, Haarlemmerstraat 8, Amsterdam

Close to the Central Station and just at the beginning of the atmospheric Haarlemmerstraat, you can find &Klevering, one of my favorite stores to buy gifts.

They sell a wide range of great cookbooks, pretty crockery and cooking utensils, my favorite tea (Mr. Jones), delicious soaps and other body treats from Marseille, really cute gifts for kids. And it’s the perfect place for contemporary design pieces for your interior. You can find all different renowned brands, but they sell their own collection as well. It’s funny, because only after we bought a &Klevering presse-papier in a small boutique in Paris, I found out about their store nearby my home.

There are two more shops located in Amsterdam, one at the Jacob Obrechtstraat 19a and the other on the Staalstraat 11. And they also have a webshop.  See some of my favorites below..

Today’s quote

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. 

- Theodore Roosevelt