For my birthday John surprised me with this artist piece by UK designer Kathleen Hills. Milkii is a double-spouted jug made of gorgeous bone china that can be used for milk, or when it’s off duty, as a vase.

The red tops are for when you want to reseal the jug when it’s in use. The foil tops are for changing up the display.

Continuing with our milk theme…some adorable Japanese milk bottles that we picked up during our layover in Narita. We quickly realized that spending 8 hours in the airport was a bad idea, so we headed over to Narita town, about 2 trains stops before the airport. It’s definitely worth a visit if you have a long layover! We fell for these  bottles–the green is milk, the black was for a really thick yogurt.

Moo.

What’s this! At Kitanosumai Sekkeisha, located out in the countryside of Hokkaido, we found this bag. The shop was clearly Scandinavian inspired and I quickly grabbed this bag as soon as I saw it. Our shop name is actually inspired by the Arla Swedish milk packaging, which has won design awards, so whenever we see it, we think of our shop. Funny that another shop has used it for inspiration too!

This post needs some kitkas to go with the milk. Our friends over at Upside Dive gave us a lovely wedding gift – an awesome vintage cat tea towel and beautiful Dansk flamestone  pot, perfect for heating up hot chocolate. Thanks guys!

This post is a bit late. Like we’re into a whole new year late. But we felt the need to share our Christmas stocking bounty since we managed to actually find some great items! We weren’t going to do presents this year but a few days before Christmas, we decided to do stockings and for the most part, we shopped local (yay Junction!).

John’s stocking for Juli (above): MOR candle from Russet & Empire, Happy Socks, Aunt Lolo’s DIY Cookies and airplane comfort kit (in grey bag) from Drake General Store and the Kay Bojesen monkey was a lucky find from World Headquarters.

Juli’s stocking for John: washi tape from The Paper Place, socks and letterpress cards from Drake General Store, Kay Bojesen soldier from World Headquarters and Panasonic Toot-a-Loop bracelet radio from Mrs. Huizenga (Junction location).

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

We finally got our vintage fireplace sprayed white and lugged up to the apartment (I’m very proud of Juli). The burnt orange was pretty cool, but I’m happy that we got it sprayed a simple white.

Tim from Beresford Inc. did an amazing job keeping all the details intact, including this retro “Log” logo.

We picked up an extension flue at Home Depot and the little tin cap which finishes off the top, but also has an open vent for the fan.

The faux logs are pretty quirky, but they do set the mood. I’m still toying with painting the brass handles black, just for simplicity sake.