HELLO!!!
Time to draw the winner of the Leaf Necklace Pendant giveaway!

There you are, all of you, ready to be picked!

Hmmmmm, which one should it be?

But first lets mix them up a little bit...

Is it time now?

Yes, this is the one!

Ooooooooh...

JENNIFER!
Congratulations Jennifer Hiles! You have won a Leaf Necklace pendant from This Growing Collection!
I will send you an email very soon.

And to all of you who entered this giveaway: Thank you!
As a token of my appreciation I'm offering you 15% off everything in the shop with coupon code JULY2014. The code is valid all through the month of july.

This Growing Collection will be released on august 11th and I'm sure there will be some favourable discounts for you lovely readers of lottalosten.com, so make sure to keep an eye out for that.

Thanks again, and talk to you soon!

Until then:

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

On midsummer's day David and I left Varberg for the island of Tjörn. It's an island in the Gothenburg arghipelago and it's beautiful!
We had booked a room at a hotel called Björholmens marina that was really wonderful.
In the evening we went to their restaurant just by the waterside.

The view from my seat at the restaurant.

Tough decisions to be made food wise. We went for the cod. It was delicious.

After we ate we went to the city of Skärhamn for an evening stroll.

But wait... what's that on the church over there...?

... A Smiley face! :-)

It was a cold evening so we went back to Björholmen early to snuggle up in the hotel bed, longing for the breakfast buffet already.

Breakfast view!
I wouldn't mind having it like this every day.

After we had checked out we went for a walk around Björholmen. The hotel is rather perfectly situated, isn't it?

After a while we went back to Skärhamn to visit the watercolour museum Nordiska Akvarellmuséet where they have a fantastic exhibit by the painter Lars Lerin. I have been wanting to see this for a really long time and was so glad when I found out it was shown there now!

Perfectly situated museum too.

I was quite overwhelmed by the paintings.

So was David.

When I had bought some postcards of a few of my favourite paintings (you just have to, right?!) we went to the café in the same building.

It was the weekend of gorgeous views while eating.

Those tiny houses are for rent, apparently. I love them!

Happiness induced by art, sunshine and pretty nature. And coffee.

Time to check out the cliffs!

David surrounded by nature.

Gaaaaah! The view! (And see, the smiling church again!)

The view! The cloud! The husband!

*happy sigh*

*another happy sigh*

Some mild rock climbing happening.

Some mild rock climbing finished.

David was a bit braver. I was more scared for the camera's sake than my own and protected it by taking photos of a climbing husband butt.

Rock posing.

Back on sea level again and really happy with the entire weekend. It was just what the doctor ordered!

Oh, hey! Don't forgot it's the last full day to enter the giveaway for a Leaf necklace pendant! Hop on over and Good luck!
I'll announce the winner tomorrow so make sure to pop by then.


Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Last friday was midsummer's eve and David and I had made plans for a nice relaxing weekend away. David's been battling a bad sinus infection for forever and was starting to get really restless and I had gotten some quite dissapointing news so we were desparate to get away from the sofa for a couple of days.
We booked a hotel in the seaside town of Varberg and looked at the hotel website to make sure they served a nice midsummer lunch for when we arrived. They did! Perfect!
We got there twenty minutes past two in the afternoon and found out the lunch buffet closed at two.
Well, bollocks.
Checked up some alternatives and they all closed their lunch at two o' clock.
Darn it.
Defeated, and oh so very hungry and cranky, we decided to just go to a nearby café for lunch and make new plans for the evening.

Discarded midsummer flower crown.

Tired husband with evil sinuses.

Tired wife with perfectly healthy and kind mannered sinuses and a glass of beer.

Food!

The fish soup I ate was really lovely!

After we had eaten David started looking up where to find the closest grocery store. Our new plan was to buy stuff to make a midsummer's picnic with.

After some food shopping we went back to the hotel.

We were so tired! Slept for a few hours in this fancy bed.

In the evening we went out in search of a nice spot for a seaside picnic.

Water!

This wonderful wooden building is the Cold bathhouse of Varberg, built in 1864.

We walked past the fortress.

Reached the water again.

And found the perfect spot!

Sadly we weren't alone in thinking this was a great picnic spot. The seagulls were unmerciful and circled above us as well as getting creepily close. We should have thought of this since a big part of swedish midsummer food is herring...
Let's blame our less than stellar thinking on stupid sinuses and foggy brains.

You can see the dissapointment in my face.

So we gave up. Again.
And went back to the hotel.

And turned our bed into a smörgåsbord!

All the necessities (except for the boiled summer potatoes- my absolute favourite of the classic midsummer foods!).

So that was the midsummer's eve when nothing turned out as planned but still happened to be really lovely and just what we needed.
The day after we went to the island Tjörn in the Gothenburg archipelago.
But that's for another blog post. Soon.

I'm off soon to work the weekend but before I go I thought I'd remind you to enter my giveaway to win a Leaf Necklace Pendant from my new collection. Click here to go directly to the giveaway.

Good luck and have a lovely weekend everybody!


Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Hi!
These past few weeks have been running away from me so quickly, so yesterday I was looking through my phone photos to kind of remind myself of what I have been up to that I thought worth documenting.
Not very much, it seems. But that's not true; I've been keeping busy with stuff I'll show you soon (next week is the birthday of lottalosten.com for an example!) but let's take a little peek at my life lately, shall we? All seen through the lens of my iPhone.

Wildflowers from a patch of grass no bigger than 2 square metres. A sure sign of summer. From the looks of it you might think I walked through a field in the picturesque countryside, but to tell the thruth it was right next to a highly trafficked road in an area where they are building new and ugly houses quite close to where we live.
Isn't it nice that even though humans stubbornly put up these horrible buildings all over the place, nature keeps spreading its flowers in between the construction sites?

Being all matchy matchy on a walk into town. Probably on my way to eat sushi.

Our scary hallway from Lights Out looks absolutely magical in the evening sun, don't you think?

After work one evening when I missed the bus home I walked to see if the ferry was coming soon. I had missed that one too, of course, but took the opportunity to snap some photos when Gothenburg clearly wanted to show itself from its best side.

And every evening the view from our balcony is something extra. This one was a misty, sunny story.

Lunch at our neighbourhood indian restaurant. Spot the husband in my shades.

Theatre rehearsals with Teater Esther. Here is our director Frida directing away.

Lena, Lisa and Hanna working on a scene from our freshly written play.

I've been riding the Coolevator.

(Yes yes, I know. Calling it "Coolevator" takes all the Cool out of it, but I just couldn't resist.)

Some days Gothenburg is covered by milky white fog and I find it impossible to resist raising my phone camera to snap a photo on my way to work.

I had a stupid cold and spent a week like this.

When the evening sun hits our apartment shadow dancing is an absolute must.

Proof that I am part troll, part human being.

A mirrored self portrait.

Nothing is as quiet and calm as a Gothenburg tram at 8.54 on a sunday morning. Five minutes later it was packed with people.

When I see a rose like this I don't think, I just stick my hand in and grab it, thorns and all, just to angle it to get a nice photo.
Freckled hand of yours truly in lower left corner.

And you now the Rhododendron I can't shut up about? They are confetti on the ground now.

It's the week of midsummer already and I just can't get my head around it.
I have been working the past three midsummer eve's but this year I'm delightfully off work and I've felt totally unprepared for it. Yesterday David and I made some plans though, and now I can't wait for the weekend to arrive!

See you soon again, dear readers of this site. I hope you have at least two things to look forward to this week (something big, something simple, doesn't matter).
Until next time:

Tjingeling!
/Lotta