January has started off with a blast for us - exactly one year after Mr. Floor and I met, we picked up the keys to our new apartment. This weekend and next, we will be painting, packing, scrubbing, and dragging our way into the new place, which we have yet to see by daylight (ah, Dutch winters are so awesome). 

But first! An overview of December!

Sinterklaas & Star Gazing

Sinterklaas presented itself (as documented here and here) and was kind of a big deal. Sinterklaas surprised us with a lot of very thoughtful gifts, like this awesome little windup creature, and an evening at the observatory!

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Office Awesome

My colleague and I flew out to London to attend the office Christmas party, which was amazing, especially since my very international team (1 Brit, 1 Kiwi, 1 Turk, 1 Dutchie) won the gingerbread house(boat) competition. Documented here. Booyah. 

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Fire & Friends

In the days leading up to Christmas, I hung out with friends and family, winding down from the year.  

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Festive Food

Christmas was full of food (of course) and very relaxed. We don't usually do gifts for Christmas, and not having to do any last minute shopping is... well, not awful. Both our families did a potluck style dinner and we baked a lemon meringue pie and a poached pear tarte tat in (no pics, unfortunately), and one appetizer (on the right). The awesome breakfast bread was made by my sister-in-law, who is pregnant and has started baking her own bread (I'm not saying there's a relation, I'm just saying, you know). 

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Israel 

Right after Christmas, we left for Israel, where we consumed shitloads of humus and pita, where I rekindled my love for Turkish coffee, and generally just had a very relaxing fun time - not in the least thanks to our lovely hosts (two of our friends from college) who proved excellent guides. 

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Hope you all are happy to be back at work and are looking forward to this new year. I sure am! 

© Anna Denise Floor

Happy New Year, folks! It's not too late, right?
I hope you all had an amazing holiday break (if you had one), and that the new year has been treating you well. 

We spent new year's eve in Israel, where we traveled around for little over a week (which was amazing, and more on that later). Today, exactly one year after my husband and I met, we're getting the keys to our new apartment, so 2014 is looking good already! I mean, the place has a garden (yes, I know my excitement is remarkable considering my track record of killing even the most robust of cacti, but wharves) and ROOM FOR A KITTEN! EEK!

Anyhow, 2013 has been the most life-changing year in my life so far, and I'm working on a longer comic to sort of digest it all, but with the traveling, moving, and baby-explosion (7 people I know produced a total 8 babies in Nov/Dec!), it's still in the works. I promise to get that done before my 30th birthday comes around, though!

I'm off to work - hope you all have a good time getting back into the daily grind as well! 

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© Anna Denise Floor

So then my colleague Ingrid and I had an epiphany and decided to wear matching sparkly tights to our office Christmas party and even though no one actually said so, everyone was of course very jealous. It is also probably the reason why my team won the gingerbread house making competition (we made a boat), and why our snow globe had dinosaurs in it and looked sparkly and badass. No, actually, I think that may have been my colleagues doing, as I was too busy laughing at my boss who glued his fingers together with superglue (he's alright, although he probably hasn't been able to access finger print protected iPhone for two weeks). 

Anyways, I included the snow globe making tutorial in my drawing as it was AWESOME and super easy to do - big thanks to my colleague Jane, who was the mastermind behind the amazing party and this tutorial!

Did you have an office party? Any good gossip?

As I mentioned before, Christmas comes early in Holland, and it's actually not Christmas, but Sinterklaas and despite the crazy and probably true things you've about it, it's actually an awesome tradition.

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© Anna Denise Floor

This year, we celebrated Sinterklaas a day late, as Mr. Floor was traveling for work, but actually that was fine as I think holidays should always just be on Friday evening, so the elderly amongst us (including myself these days) have at least two days to recover. 

Overwhelmed by all the awesome shoe action, I felt like I had to do better than just buy a book and be done with it, so I bought two books, a wintery sweater, and made a date night out of it. Snacks included. I drew a 'map' with numbers on the floor with washi tape, indicating the order of the gifts. It was awesome, and yes I am aware that I'm bragging so I'll stop now. I think the man enjoyed it. 

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© Anna Denise Floor

Times be crazy these days, in the run-up to Christmas and finishing up work before we head off to Israel, but I managed to squeeze in an Etsy crush post for the Oh Marie! blog.

We decorated our Christmas tree last weekend, so I was in an ornamental mood. Read all about it here. It's absolutely fascinating, honestly.

I've only JUST discovered her blog 'French Fries and Waffles', but I'm already hooked on Luchie's (or Lucie Bryon) blog. She's a French gal studying comics in Brussels (aaah, I miss you BXL...) and I think she can just stop studying. 

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Her comics and sketches are crisp and absolutely delicious. She has an English tumblr and a French page with roughly the same work, but for all you Frenchies out there - voilà! She also has a shop that desperately needs restocking (as I very much want to buy a copy of her 'Introversion' comic). 

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© Anna Denise Floor

Sinterklaas is here! And what a perfect night it is. Dark and stormy. I can just picture all kids all around the country are hopped up on adrenaline and sugar, tearing open their hard earned gifts as we speak.

Even though Sinterklaas was kind enough to move our share in the festivities to the weekend (he's such a flexible old man), my shoes have been doing some serious overtime these past few weeks. And by that, I mean, my mysterious Sinterklaas has been filling my shoes with the most amazing gifts, as illustrated above.

Hope you're all enjoying your Sinterklaas, Dutchies! I know I sure had enough speculaas for the year, already. Bweurgh. 

I ate, I ate some more, made another attempt at skiing, and am completely enthralled by the gorgeous book 'A Map of the World', Sinterklaas gave me.

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© Anna Denise Floor

Oh em gee, ef em es, it's December.

I can't even believe how fast this year has gone by, it's scary. 
So, in order to keep track of time at least a little bit, I decided to do one of those 'Picturing November' posts this time around. I am totally stealing this from my infinitely more talented photographer, artist, designer, super mother and blogger friend Sabra, but I'm sure she doesn't mind. 

Fall Came (& Went?)

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No comment. It's pretty, yes. But still. No comment. 

Breakfast

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I really did enjoy my breakfast this month, especially when traveling. Left: breakfast at Cornucopia in Dublin - most amazing vegan food, we ate there three times that week. On the right: breakfast at Bistrot Bruno Loubet in London. Very good croissants (for London), and just the prettiest menus and place mats. 

Hair Don't

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Then, I decided it was time for a hair cut. I decided wrong. Here's the before & after. I am not a fan.  I know everyone else in my tiny universe seems to love it or is kind enough to lie to me, but I am not a fan. Just can't get used to the bangs, man, you know? Ya feel me? I just can't handle it, dude.

Doodling

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There was a good amount of doodling this month. Left: my doodle. Right: my husband's more poetic doodle. Oh, just so you know: the man speaks perfect French and then does jokes. In French. Illustrated French jokes. I know. I love him, but I kind of hate him, too ;-). 

If this didn't satisfy your appetite, more Instagram pics can be found right over here. Enjoy!

This week, I was in London for work and I worked out. Oh, and I stole my husbands idea for a drawing. Happy weekend!

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© Anna Denise Floor

Just came across this on Doodlers Anonymous and I just HAD to share. A project by Tobias Gutmann, the Face-O-Mat is a portable drawing booth, simulating an analog drawing 'machine'. Gutmann dragged the beautifully designed booth around the globe with him, drawing over 700 portraits (and counting). Love, love, love. 

Last Saturday, between the science museum, dinner, and the sauna, we got in a good 15 minutes of thrifting. We rediscovered this little old store on the Oude Gracht (the main canal here in Utrecht) where they sell everything from old furniture and pictures of people long gone, to creepy old toys and dolls, and books. I was after the latter, as I was looking for a pretty book to take apart turn into a journal.

Unfortunately, we got in a bit late, and before I could even get  to the book section of the store (the picture frame section was very distracting), the shop owner politely asked us to get out, stat. Disobedient creature that I am, I ran to the book section on the other end of the basement, grabbed a little linen bound book on mushrooms, paid and left. After all, there goes nothing above a last minute impulse purchase.

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© Anna Denise Floor

And once again, I've managed to prove myself an excellent last minute impulse purchase maker, as this little book is a gem. It's an old mushroom guide, from somewhere between 1922 and 1945 (couldn't find this exact copy online, but based on the spelling, I think it's closer to 1945) complete with 128 colored prints of watercolor images of mushrooms (plus a description of whether you should eat it, classified as waardeloos (worthless), (waarschijnlijk) niet giftig (probably) not poisonous), eetbaar (edible), eetbaar en smakelijk (edible and tasty), twijfelachtig (dubious), ongenietbaar (unenjoyable), (zeer) giftig (very) poisonous), etc. 

Also - for you Dutchies out there, the first line of the introduction is pure gold. 

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© Anna Denise Floor

Unfortunately this also means I'll have to go back for a different old book to turn into a journal. So sad.

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© Anna Denise Floor

So quiet (but good quiet!) that I've got my drawing finished for the weekend already. So no one do anything crazy this evening, because it will NOT be recorded, y'all. I repeat: it will NOT be recorded. 0_o

PS: The mushroom book is really quite awesome. I'll post about it soon, as I tried taking pictures of it today, but the crappy lighting shat all over that marvelous idea. 

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Journal page © Anna Denise Floor

Learning new things really is one of my favorite things in life, but it also means my list of things I suck at is longer than most people's. 

Soccer? Disaster. Knitting? Ehm. Humbling? Tennis? A chapter in my life we will not speak of ever again. Walking? An ongoing battle. 

But mostly - learning new things is just great fun and good practice of cultivating your 'beginners mind'. Some things I learned this week: I relearned that I actually love skiing and am pretty unafraid (we even did some little jumps!), even though I'm an absolute beginner of course . I also learned that my husband is a great teacher when I allow him to teach me new things (heh. Not that I'm usually stubborn or anything...) and that ski pants don't have to make your butt look unattractive (I know right, this was totally holding me back as well). I found out (again), that I'm apparently quite attached to my old boring hairdo. Ah. Such important life lessons here. Next up: enlightenment.  BAM! 

Oh oh! 

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Impression of 'me' wearing 'The Knit Kid', for Oh Marie! © Anna Denise Floor

Oh, oh, oh hold on! Before we go there - I wrote/drew a post for the Oh Marie blog, where I discuss and illustrate my Etsy crushes. It'll be a monthly installment, and first up is my ongoing love for The Knit Kid. Read the post here!

Also, if you've never heard of Oh Marie!, go check it out. It's an amazing (free!) online magazine with tons of gorgeous photography, great articles, and DIY magic. Their last issue (#5) was just published and it's once again stunning. Check it out here.

I used to do a photo every year of the sh... I carry around in my bag, but neh. You get a drawing instead.

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 © Anna Denise Floor

This week, I've been carrying around a screenprinting kit as well, put together by Femke from Windstilte. I took a screenprinting course over at Urlaub this weekend, and it was great big fun (see a small snapshot of my castle scarf here on Instagram). 

Why is it still in my bag, you ask? Well, folks. Because I'm a pig. That's why. 

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Image by Li Chen

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Image by Kathy MacLeod

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Image by Marloes de Vries

Every morning before going to work or for hours on weekends (when I'm not being chased around the park in running gear by my husband) I go through my RSS feed (I use Feedly).  I particularly enjoy reading webcomics and some of them are really pretty fantastic, so I thought I'd share. Here are three of my favorites:

 Li Chen's drawings are carefully executed, often done in pencil, but occasionally she'll bust out an amazing semi-animated full color comic like this one. Often fantastical, the blog is an invitation into Li Chen's mind. 

 Kathy MacLeod's drawings have a very nonchalant vibe to them, but she often explores deep human emotions and isn't afraid to visualize issues like anxiety, heartache, and self-doubt in a very non-depressing way, oddly enough.  

Marloes de Vries' drawings I've featured before on this blog, but I really want to again, as they're just so pretty and I love how she's able to capture a mood or a thought in one single image. #Jealous.  

What are some of your favorite webcomics? Please do share in the comments below (I have no life and I already did my running for the day)!

Oh! I totally forgot to show you guys these beauties. They accompanied an article on the healing powers of parasites (read it here) in our UCAA alumni magazine Talking Post. Great fun (especially the research bit). 

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Just a simple 'how to' drawing I did for a friend, happy to share here as well! :-) 

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 © Anna Denise Floor

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 © Anna Denise Floor

Click on the image for a larger view. 

Don't you just luuurrrve the internet? I sure do, and not just because I get to connect with far-away friends and strangers, work and collaborate internationally, and have 24-hour access to information and inspiration (someone say kittehs?). No, actually it's because I get to update everyone on what I eat all day. Heck yes, Instagram, and heck yes, drawing my food. Because I know  you care. Deeply.

As I explained in my previous post, I got to go to the Amsterdam Film Week (for frizzles!) and draw my movie reviews for VERS magazine. After reviewing 'Argo', I went to see two more movies. 

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© Anna Denise Floor for VERS

'An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker' is beautifully filmed, but I found the film somewhat slow paced and the acting a little bland. The movie depicts the life of a Roma family. The mother cooks, cleans, and tends to their two hyperactive kids, while her husband picks up scrap metal from abandoned cars and junkyards. A hard life that gets worse when the wife falls ill and needs an expensive operation to survive. They can't afford the operation and a frantic search for money ensues. Dramatic, to say the least, but the non-professional actors re-enacting bits of their own life, seemed somewhat camera-shy and unable to conjure the emotions they must have felt going through the ordeal the first time. 

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© Anna Denise Floor for VERS

The third and final movie we got to see was 'The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet', by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also directed Amélie. Knowing this, I probably was biased before I even went to see this movie, but it did not disappoint. I laughed, I cried, I want to see it again. It's a story about a brilliant young boy, leaving his family to pick up a science award in Washington, DC. It's kind of Amélie meets Moonrise Kingdom. Full of beautiful colors, animations, jokes, and images. A feast for the eye. 

I want to thank VERS magazine for this awesome challenge, as well as the Amsterdam Film Week. Yay!