A while back I visited Friday Next in Amsterdam together with Nina from Paper Stories. What a lovely shop! You can drink coffee there and have something to eat as well. We ate lunch there and would have stayed the whole day if possible! The store is packed with design furniture, accessories and lifestyle things. Everything is carefully selected. I wanted to buy the whole lot! (they also have a webshop)
A little while back I did my very first Kindred Spirits interview with Nicole Blaak, the owner of the lovely and eco-friendly webshop Babongo. Then some weeks ago Nicole asked me if she could send me some products to review and of course I was thrilled because she sells only beautiful things. Of course I’m a fan of stationary products and Babongo is the only Dutch salespoint for the beautiful stationary products of Esme Winter. Esme Winter is a ‘modern English designer’ who makes eco-friendly paper products from recycled and responsible sourced papers. She has a background in textile design and is currently working on her first textile collection. I love the abstract patterns and since I’m a paper lover the notebooks and wrapping paper are just bliss to me. Nicole also send me one of her new products: a bamboo breakfast plate in the form of a mouse, so cute! Do make sure to check out Babongo for high quality eco-friendly products and if you see something you like you can get a 10% discount on your order if you apply for the Babongo newsletter!
{Photo’s were made by me and embellished with the help of the newly released and pretty rad app ABeautifulMess by Elsie and Emma. Love their blog too! }
I was totally smitten by the Charleston house of interior decorator Angie Hranowsky in the latest Lonny Magazine. Although some of the furniture pieces in the living room do not exactly coincide with my taste (lamp and side table), I love love love the couch (that couch takes guts) and colors she uses, the paintings and general feel of the place, the purple diner area and the wooden shelving. I can’t actually believe people really live like this! (You should take a peek at her portfolio!) Can you?
{I was supposed to post a blogpost on my London trip to Tate Modern, but due to a small creative emergency I didn’t find the time today. So, for now this previously prepared post will have to do..}
I have to admit I was somewhat worried about the London hotel we booked, since we got this recommendation via via, you never know do you… But I was definitely very happy when we arrived. CitizenM is trendy, functional and very well organized. You get to watch a free film every night, have a tablet with internet on your room (and Wifi in the hotel) and if you book breakfast you will be sure to wake up to a really nice one. I got a little bit carried away by the mood lights you can control in the room, it took up most of my room time. It was really close to Tate Modern which was nice and we were also close to Borough Market were you could find all kinds of fresh and organic foods. It is definitely on my list to visit again!
Drumrolls please! The winner of my TimeCapsule giveaway and all time lucky bastard is Mevrouw Knot! Congratulations! Please make sure to email me your address so you can receive the TimeCapsule.
When we moved here Mister wanted everything white. So when we in fact moved, we felt like we moved to the Apple store, it was so very white we needed some shades. Now white is a good basis, don’t get me wrong, but the thing is, white is so very white. My aunt, who is an artist, said once: “my eyes need hooks and crannies to cling to.” We try to maintain a delicate balance between the serenity my Mister comes to look for when he’s home and my natural curious gaze that needs little things to marvel and wonder about. My latest design challenge is the big white wall above our couch. It’s now ‘just white’ and since we have a high ceiling everything seems to be more empty because of it. That wall needs something, but we don’t want any stuff like shelves. I wanted something different. I had this vision of all sorts of little and big paintings, drawings and posters even before I knew this kind of thing had a name: a gallery wall. So there it is: I want a gallery wall and am now contemplating which pieces go together to create a serene but interesting combination. Since it’s quite the undertaking, looking for the perfect poster etc. is not that easy, I’ve decided to keep you updated on this wall to see it’s progress. For now some inspiration!
{1. brit.co / 2. Do you fancy this / 3. The design files}
I’ve been on cloud nine since I’ve installed a trial version of Adobe Illustrator. This has been exactly the thing I’ve been looking for! I’ve wanted to learn more about this program and other Adobe software since ages and Nina (bless her!) from Paper Stories has been so kind to act as my personal tutor for an evening. This is what I came up with after just one hour dabbling away. Now I have to find a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end so I can actually buy the program after the trial version ends… If you have any tips to spare on good books, tutorials online or on the before mentioned pot of gold. I would love to know! 
{ LOVE IS THE ONLY GOLD is a quote by Tennyson.}
Sometimes I get an email that makes me smile and when I saw the press release for the TimeCapsule my heart skipped a beat. I love the concept of keepsakes and really am somewhat of a nostalgic person. Do’t you just love it when you roam the attic and some old box pops up with trinkets and toys from your youth? Or when you read some old diaries and love letters? They take you away to another time and place. TimeCapsules is like that! It’s a collaboration between founder Anouk van der El, the award winning product designers of OfficeOriginair, creative collective Venour and graphic designers Mae Engelgeer and Marlous Sijm.
Inside your TimeCapsule you find a booklet that you can decorate with handy question stickers, your answers and personal messages from friends and family. You can stick photos, drawings and sketches onto the pages in the booklet with magic tape. Also included are a handy manual, some graphic wrapping paper, a shiny golden sticker for your #1 memory and funky tags that you can hang onto personal items you want to include. Finally, you find a super strength sealing-strip to close the TimeCapsule with and keep all your goodies safe from curious wanderers for years to come! You can keep the TimeCapsule and fill it with your personal items or you can make a present out of it (wouldn’t it make a really nice wedding present?)
{I’m very glad to have the chance to do a giveaway with this special product (giveaway only open to Dutch and Belgian readers). What do you have to do? Please tell me what you would like to place in your time capsule or make a photo of the content you would like to put in the capsule. You can send your entry to fairandsoftly(at)gmail.com or post it in the comment box below. This giveaway ends on the 1st of April and the winner will we announced on this blog. Let’s keep the good stuff and preserve a trip down memory lane!}
All I think about is birdies and spring. So here are some things I love.
{ 1. Birds by Kristian Verdel / 2. Little America bird backpack Herschel via Restored / 3. Dress with bird print via Etsy / 4. Bird necklace via Bird on the Wire }
Looking back I should have gone to the Art Academy or something like that. I don’t know if I would have been any good, but I’ve always felt that if I would have been challenged in a constructive way I could have surprised myself. Sometimes I reminisce and dream of the old forgotten days when you started as an apprentice and slowly but surely learned the trade in that way. I’ve always wanted to work with my hands but at the same time I’m really typically a thinker. This is why I so much respect artists and creatives. The work by Femmy Otten (1981) is really intriguing, I like her use of colors (soft pastel) and her three dimensional work. She makes murals and installations that are reminiscent of myths and has a definite connection to the classical fresco’s. She has an impressive art resume and has been making her mark in the international art world. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have such talent and to maybe someday hang in a museum with your work? To have your art as a legacy? So it can continue to speak after you yourself have gone.
The following text can be found on the website of the Royal Academy of Arts where she is an artist in residence, it explains something of her motives. I think it’s beautiful.
