Nursery

With our baby due in a mere 11 days here is a peek at our nursery, which is pretty much ready and waiting for the patter of tiny feet.

This room used to be our bedroom and in order to get to where we are now, we've had to make a number of changes to our home. P has worked so hard for months and I really couldn't be happier with how he has prepared for the arrival of the new addition to our little family.

Our cradle is suitable for the first five months. P installed a ceiling hook in our bedroom as well so that the baby can sleep with us at night. We'll then move on to the Brio sleep cot bed.

I still need to get fabric for the blind and we should receive the white Tolix toy box at the end of September which will be very useful additional storage.

All that's left now is for the rascal to arrive...

Dick Bruna Black Bear & the Gingerbread Couple

I was over the moon to find these Black Bear prints by Dick Bruna in Habitat recently.

And while there, I picked up a frame which I wanted to use for three of our four wedding invitation cards.

A lovely trip...

We're home... we had a wonderful break in Amsterdam and were thrilled with the Cook suite at The Flying Pancake. It was a great place to stay and the proprietor, Claudia Veldkamp, donates a small portion of the room charge to charity. How great is that!

Lunch at De Kas on Friday afternoon was AMAZING. They serve a four course set menu at lunchtime -- actually you have three starters at the same time followed by the main course (we had grey mullet with a white bean cassoulet and blood orange). The restaurant, which is housed in a greenhouse dated 1926, harvest much of it's own produce on site, and also on it's own land in the north of Holland. The food was so good we couldn't resists ordering one dessert to share as well...

It was great to spend time with our friends, and on Saturday we enjoyed a lovely afternoon visiting the Dick Bruna Huis together in Utrecht, something I have wanted to do for quite some time. Despite having sold more than 85 million books worldwide, Dick Bruna continues to live in the same house in Utrecht he always has, and follows the same routine, cycling to his studio, every day.

We couldn't resist, this little fella had to come home with us from the museum shop... meet little black bear.

Dick Bruna :: More Than Miffy

I don't know a great deal about the Dick Bruna Paperback Series, and searching the internet hasn't proven to be that fruitful.

I do know that I very much like the range of stationery and t-shirts which I saw in the Smith Delfonics design store at Venusfort, Tokyo, a few years ago. Here are my purchases; a photograph album and some note books, along with the 2005 product catalogue:

If you have any information to share on the Dick Bruna Paperback series, I'd love to hear from you.

A nod to Miffy, my signed copy of "Miffy at the Gallery" is a favorite in my children's illustrated book collection. Maybe more on this topic soon...