Hello friends, how was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? I had a great shopping weekend, I found some things for my new place simply by staying at home and shopping online -- we got a lot of snow so it was the perfect plan of action! I'm dying to pull in all of the key foundation pieces so that I can start decorating, sewing, and crafting together my new apartment from there. I ordered a new sofa last month, but it won't arrive until mid January, so until then I'm trying to pull things in piece-by-piece, as I bring together my crafty, eclectic, old-meets-new home. I will show you some of the pieces that I picked up over the weekend so you can get a sense of where I'm going with all of my decorating plans... To refresh your memory, my place looks like this: Click Here for my new apartment tour.

What's what: 1. Vintage chandelier won on the German eBay site. 2. Desk for my sewing machine "area" from Jantuma, 3. Vitra MedaPal chair in black/white purely purchased based on comfort, 4. Another vintage chandelier from eBay.de (I am only doing chandy's in two rooms, the rest of the rooms will have mid century classic modern lighting in mostly white, 5. Muuto all wood desk light, 6. Chevron-patterned 240 x 170 cm jute/wool rug from Impressionen for my eating nook located in the hallway outside of the kitchen (I haven't shown you photos of that space yet. 7. IKEA PS Sinka to organize things and 8. White table with birch trim from Danish brand HAY in the 250 x 92,5 cm size for my actual work desk - it will hold my iMac, MacBook and Epson color printer plus I can lay things out on it as I work.

Here's a little glimpse into my everyday world, a polite corner of my dresser --  "as is" in my bedroom. Here you can clearly see my very organic, natural way of putting things together. Which is also why I don't work on one room at a time but all of them together as part of this experimental composition of sorts. When I worked with clients in the past, I did the traditional room-by-room mood board. With my own home, I don't bother. I do pull together mood boards but end up referring to them only as loose ideas as I improvise constantly since my budget is so strict. Plus, I believe that your most authentic creative expression is the best to use in your home. I also learned after styling all of those homes that you'll soon see in my upcoming book -- what you see in books and magazines is not an exact image of how people really live. I think writing the book and working in so many homes this past year made me much more aware of that fact than ever before.

It also helped me to feel more comfortable in my own decorating skin now that the smoke and mirrors have lifted. You become quite hazy when you live so much of your life online and with beautiful books and magazines surrounding you each day. You start to develop this fantasy that all homes look like the ones you see in print, or online, and that no one ever stains their white sofa, that the dog doesn't occasionally pee on the patchwork rug and that your kid doesn't run wild with markers on your newly applied wallpaper. It happens, it's called life.

Above is some artwork and handmade things on a bookcase in my living room. Nothing is arranged with skill, in fact none of the art is staying there -- it will be hung in other rooms... but it's pretty just the same, because reality can be just as fantastic as the dream.

I hope that through decor8 I can somehow help you to feel safer in your decorating skin, too. I try to keep it real around here and I have some projects brewing for next year that I can't wait to share as I continue my journey forward into my 6th year of blogging. The more e-mags popping up, and lifestyle magazines, and cooking magazines... well they are all very beautiful and inspiring but it's very easy to feel as though that is how we each must live to be happy and it is not. If anything, we should pull ideas from these beautiful resources that we have and apply them in our own unique way. That is exactly how I decorate, from the heart, not to impress or pretend to be more than I am. What you see with me in real life is what you get, and online it is no different.

In fact, everyone who has met me, and you can comment to verify this if you have in fact met me in person, realizes right away that I am the same warm, friendly and down-to-earth Holly offline as I am here online. I don't play games, I don't gossip, I'm not negative but I love to point out stuff that irks me but always in a funny way, and I'm encouraging. But I also am real, I have bad days, I get down at times about myself, I often fear things, I worry for instance that if I do have a book signing that no one will show up, stuff like that. I take great pride in the fact though that I'm the real deal. And so does my home - what you see is definitely what you get here! And I'm proud of it.

I was starting to get in a decorating rut, you may remember this post (CLICK HERE if not), but I realized that the rut was one I'd dug myself. I was putting too much pressure on myself to be perfect. I was listening more to others than to my own heart. I was worrying that if I didn't create the perfect "decor8" house that no one would take me seriously as a writer, a book author, a human being. How stupid and petty this all is when you have people dying all over the world from hunger, aids, and cancer to name a few. Children are being abducted. Bad stuff is going on worldwide yet I was hung up over how well I decorated my house? What a bunch of rubbish, how self-centered of me --- and if you are a blog author and you worry about how you present your life online and get so caught up in it that family members get ignored, chores go undone, your stress level soars, or anything else negative is resulting from your own quest to please others and have some pretend amazing life then let me tell you it's absolutely nuts and a waste of time to bother. Just be yourself, show your friends and readers your real life and be proud of it and own it.

But we're all only human. An example of this: yesterday I won those two great chandeliers that you see above from eBay and one of my "anon" readers told me how kitschy and more-or-less terrible they were and how much I let her down because she relies on my style so much. Imagine being told that? But you know, I'm not calling anybody out or saying that it was wrong of them to hate my lighting. They have the right just as much as I have the right to like it. Thing is, when you put yourself out there like we bloggers do and share things from your heart, you often wonder why someone who doesn't know you would put the energy into commenting that your ideas are bad or have let them down. Like so many women out there (can you relate?), I am a people-pleaser so it actually bothered me for 3 seconds that I let someone down.

That single comment made me think about the expectations others have of me and it made me realize that the most important expectations to meet are those that I have of myself, then those from family, friends, business colleagues, customers and so on. But the first person is you, you have to live up to your own expectations, meet your goals and even exceed a few, and just be happy. If you have taken good care of yourself you have automatically taken care of others. That is why people love to be around those who have their act together. It's just the best feeling to be in the company of a really down-to-earth talented person who put themselves first in the most unselfish sense. And if people don't like your lights, well whatever man. You've got to let stuff like that go. The most impressive people are people who try not to be impressive, right?

Truth is, the decorating rut I was in is over. I've climbed out, readjusted my approach and for 2011 (I'm making advanced resolutions, gang) and I'm going to decorate my home and have a heck of a time doing it.

I'm digressing big time. Today I just felt like talking. I hope you do as well, I wonder what I've said here that you've thought about recently, or that you never thought about before, that resulted in some of your own food-for-thought? If so, and you feel like sharing, please do.

So those are some updates from my little world here in northern Germany where it is so cold, but with all of the Glühwein stands sprinkled on so many corners around the city, you barely notice the temps. Your outsides are freezing but your insides feel real nice. And speaking of nice, did you know that Nichole and Even from Little Brown Pen are flying to Paris next month to sneak away with my husband Thorsten and I? Oh yes, we are. And I promise to share some of the shops we find, but also I'll be attending for the first time Maison & Objet where I plan to meet up with Aphrochic who will be there, too. Can't wait!

(images: linked to their sources above)