SHE DID IT!!! or The New and Improved Miss Amanda.

After seeing the absolutely sensational WILDFOX Swimwear campaign shoot by the Cobrasnake (above, click on the link to see all the awesome photos) last week, and falling in love with the hairstyle of stuuunning Anja Konstantinova, my little sister Amanda decided it was time for a change. A pretty dramatic change, I might add, for a girl who's had the same long, un-dyed locks her enitre life.

She's been obsessing about how much she'd love to cut and bleach her hair for six days straight - it might not sound like a long time, but when I say she's been obsessed I truly mean she been O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D! - and today, she just went and had it done!

When she called me and said "check your Facebook!", I couldn't stop screaming. Seriously! I screamed and screamed for ten minutes straight!

Before:

After:

These are just crappy webcam photos (as you can see), but there was no way I could wait until I see Amanda on Thursday to show you guys the transformation. I mean, how incredibly amazing does this look?! I'm so proud that she actually went through with it, and I just know it's going to do a lot for her confidence and self-esteem. Oh, you think confidence and self-esteem does not come with a hairstyle? Well, my own experiences say that you're mistaken! Of course it doesn't change who you are, but it sure can go a long way.

And just in time, too - my dear sister has an interview for an art school tomorrow, and she really could use a confidence boost. Feeling like a new, improved version of yourself when you go into that room to see the people who will determine your future is not such a bad start!

What I really mean: Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen.

If I ever find myself a single woman again, I'll have to stock up on these!

Flirtatious versus professional, vain versus competent, fashionable versus respected.

Dark grey, wide, high waisted skirt and black shoes, H&M. Cropped flower print tie-up shirt, Asos.com. 

White lace trim socks, Lindex.

Didn't I tell you I was going to wear a Mad Men-inspired outfit to the office yesterday? Didn't I? I do think I did! :)

As always when I'm inspired by a particular look, I don't see it as if I'm going to a costume party dressed as someone else - I try my best to pick out elements from that look and then put my own spin on it. If I don't feel like myself, I've done something wrong.

Here, I suppose I was going for a groomed, put-together, proper yet sassy vibe. The paradox of the 1960's working woman: flirtatious versus professional, vain versus competent, fashionable versus respected. I'm not sure how well I succeeded at that, but I did feel extremely swell all day long! And that was the main goal. So, I dare say: mission accomplished.

The American Woman says HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USA!

Yeah, yeah. So it might be twenty past midnight here. But who cares? It's still 4th of July in A-H-M-E-R-I-C-A-H. And today, that's all that matters!

Since I'm such a bad American citizen, I didn't celebrate our Independence Day at all. I could at least have watched the movie Independence Day. Or maybe Team America: World Police. Anything with the United States saving the world, really.
But I didn't.
In my defence, I'm only half American. If my Mom had not been Swedish, I would have worn the outfit above all day long, I promise!

Oh, yeah. My American Woman. Isn't she lovely? I'm very proud of her. I started making just a regular outfit collage, but it was boring me to tears, so I thought: Okay, I need a pretty lady to wear these fabulous American flag print items. So, I drew her, and she turned out to be a terrific model! I'm going to call her Lucy.

Lucy is wearing stars-and-stripes litas from Jeffrey Campbell/Solestruck.com, tank top from Romwe.com, bowtie as hair bow from wildties.com, Runwaydreamz vintage denim shorts from singer22.com, heart-shaped sunglasses from Topshop and socks from an unknown brand. I'm pretty certain both her parents are Americans. She is, that's for sure!

Hope all you yankees out there had a fabulous 4th of July!

The Spontaneous Almost-Dream Bathroom.

Moving into my new office, it hit me that it's been way too long since we went into a new room of my house! It's definitely time to continue the husesyn.*

*I'm copy-pasting from the first part of the husesyn: In Sweden, when you go visit someone for the first time, you always say "let's go for a 'husesyn'!". I don't know exactly how you would translate that, looked it up in an online dictionary and it said "house inspection" - which is exactly what it is, but "inspection" sounds so harsh and unpleasant. When you go on a husesyn, you're all like "ooooh", "aaaaah", "I love what you've done with the place!". (In case you're an asshole, you could of course say that you hate it and you don't know how people could live like that but you probably won't get a second invitation.)

In January, when we found out our hallway, laundry-room and bathroom had to be thrown out and rebuilt because of a terrible water leak, my mom immediately said "oh, but then you can take the opportunity to make a much bigger and nicer bathroom!". Since we had been told our insurance would only cover a third of the cost - because our house is so old - I wasn't exactly in the mood to get excited over the fact that our perfectly decent bathroom could now become "bigger and nicer". We had absolutely not been planning on renovating it, and I was horrified over the fact that we would somehow have to come up with 45 000 dollars. (In the end, we had to take out another mortgage on the house.) But sure, I agreed that now that we had to redo it anyway, why not make the new bathroom a great one!

Then, two weeks later, I ended up having an emergency surgery that led to an infection and had to stay in the hospital for weeks. When I came back home, on a Sunday, we got a call from the builders: "Umm, yeah, we're gonna start working on Tuesday and we need to know exactly what interior you want us to put in." I couldn't believe it - "but you didn't even tear down the old bathroom yet, why on Earth do you need to know what the new one is going to look like, already?!". 

He mumbled something about needing to know where the pipes should go, and, well - me and Ronnie went straight to work. We googled the night away, looking for inspiration, praying that our taste in bathrooms should be somewhat similar. Luckily, it was. So the next day, we both took a day off work, drove around to different bathroom warehouses where we just ran through the buildings yelling "this one?" "Sure!" "OK, good." "How about that one?" "Why not!". On Tuesday, we presented a list of every single thing we wanted in our bathroom - and now, six months later, it's all done. All except that there's a leak in our new shower, that is. It's been "fixed" twice, and we've come to the conclusion that instead of being upset about it, it's better to just accept that our floor will be a bit wet every time we shower. Oh well.

And I must say, for a bathroom that was extremely hastily and spontaneously designed by two people who knows nothing about interior design, I simply adore it. The result might not be my dream bathroom in every detail, but it's pretty close! (And the cats love sleeping in there - especially in the tub - so it must be a good one.)

All we knew when we were running around looking for the right shower, taps, toilet, sink cabinet, bath tub, wall- and floor tiles and so on, was that we wanted the bathroom to feel homey, friendly, and fit the style of the rest of the house: a little bit retro, a little bit Swedish archipelago style, and very country-style.

These are some of the inspirational photos we found while researching the kind of bathrooms we liked:

And while some of these might be a lot prettier than our bathroom, they all have a huge problem: they're not located in our house. So I'd rather take our new bathroom than all of these, 10 times out of 10.

(You can check out our hallway here and our "piano room" here.)

You'll never believe what's on Gossip Girl!

So, noone can say that I don't take requests from you lovely people seriously! I really did my very best at putting together a "Gossip Girl party outfit" last night, and if I may say so myself, I think I came pretty close. But maybe I shouldn't be saying so myself - after all, that's up to you to decide.

I know the backdrop should probably have been the Upper East Side and not my usual garden, and I promise I'll work on that for the future, but for now I had to work with what I've got. So, all together now: your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite, here we go!

Black dress, Sans Noblesse. Hat, Iguana Vintage Clothing. Over knee socks, Asos. 

Black pony hair litas, Jeffrey Campbell.

Well, what can I say about this outfit? Maybe that I certainly was the only one at my dinner (party!) wearing a veiled hat. Or maybe that more than one person asked me if I came straight from a funeral - and, yes, someone actually asked if perhaps I was a burlesque dancer. I was so pleased and started telling him about the episode where Blair and Nate break up and Blair goes to see Chuck at Victrola, does her impromptu burlesque number on stage and ends up losing her virginity to Chuck in the back of his limo. For some reason, he didn't seem all that interested in my story. Strange, huh?

Anyway, I had a good time last night, and I must say my funeral/burlesque/Blair Waldorf look definitely made it even better! In fact, I'd say that this is probably my favorite outfit in... months, or even more. Amazing what a little inspiration can do (thanks again, Nastassja)! I absolutely want to do this more often - trying to interpret a specific style "on demand" - so whenever you have an idea, hit me with it.

And please, let me know what you think!