I think the title and pics pretty much speak for themselves, so i'll let them do so.
If you want to know all about it, visit Jinhyun Jeon's website.
All images courtesy of Jinhyun Jeon
spotted on Trendtablet
28.2.13
Tableware as Sensorial Stimuli by Jinhyun Jeon
Love these.
I think the title and pics pretty much speak for themselves, so i'll let them do so.
If you want to know all about it, visit Jinhyun Jeon's website.
I think the title and pics pretty much speak for themselves, so i'll let them do so.
If you want to know all about it, visit Jinhyun Jeon's website.
27.2.13
The ordinary done pretty: HAY Matchboxes
These matches would create little moments of pure joy every time you need to light a candle (or the stove) (or the fireplace) (or the outdoor grill) (or a lantern) (or if you don't actually need to light anything, but you just have them stacked nicely in your cupboard).
Have no clue about where to get them though.
Anyone there who has an idea? (in the Netherlands, preferably)
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| Photograph courtesy of HAY |
Anyone there who has an idea? (in the Netherlands, preferably)
26.2.13
Cacti crazy
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| Photograph by Jacinta Moore (bawkbawk) spotted here |
I remember we used to have a large cactus in our window-sill when i was little, which i didn't particularly like because i accidentally brushed into it on several occasions while playing hide and seek. (i know, hiding behind the curtains is no expression of a great deal of creativity, but hey... i was six)
Fast forward to a whole lotta years later, and i seem to have finally dealt with my cactus-needle-trauma. Since my track record when it comes to keeping leafy plants alive is not ermm... great, i think it might be a good idea to get me some cacti. Also, T loves them.
Plenty of inspiring pics to be found on the web:
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| Styling Cleo Scheulderman - Photograph Jeroen van der Spek for vtwonen |
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| Photograph by Renilde Depeuter (at swim-to-birds) spotted here |
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| from The poetry of material things |
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| Spotted on The Shiny Squirrel original source unknown |
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| Photograph by the Designhoarder pots by Kim Jaeger + Andy Hutson for Mr Kitly originally spotted here |
I can already feel the post fully dedicated to those ceramic beauties starting to bubble...
25.2.13
A bit of geometric Monday inspiration
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| Victoria Haven - Untitled (second) Ink and pencil on gampi paper spotted here |
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| Paper cutouts of crystal formations by Bramble Workshop spotted here in the Apartment Therapy office tour of Atwater Village (workspace of Designlovefest's Bri Emery amongst others) |
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| ohdiamonddiamondthoulittleknowestthemischiefthouhastdone by Connor Hoskings (Crusades) found here |
23.2.13
Winter beach
Just a few snapshots of the beach last Friday...
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| Setting things up for summer |
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| Iced seafoam |
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| Lantern |
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| Three wheels |
22.2.13
Again: not exactly down to the last few things...
The Move is less than a week ago, and although i spent all the short time i had beforehand frantically trying to get everything sorted and organized, the actual move is best described as CHAOTIC.
Luckily we had a lot of help from a lot of dear friends and family members, (who i cannot thank enough - thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!) and we managed to move the entire contents of our house in one go (don't be fooled: we used a truck, a large van, a smaller van and several large cars, all of which were packed to their full capacity).
Since late last night we're virtually connected to the wide world again -finally!-, and slowly the new house is starting to feel like a home: Little corners and nooks are finished, i have full access to my wardrobe again, and we've been able to find most kitchen utensils (except for the can opener, which led to a short moment of panic yesterday evening, luckily the couscous turned out fine without the tomato purée i had planned to use).
On our walks X and i are getting to know our lovely new village. We try to greet the sea everyday, despite of the icy cold.
I'll leave you with a pic from last Sunday, when the winds didn't carry the freezing temperatures of the east, but it felt like spring was right around the corner. Add the subtle smell of sunscreen and the sound of shrieking seagulls and waves rolling on the beach and you can imagine T and i felt pretty happy about moving here.
Don't worry, i'll be blogging about art and design soon. Let me settle in for a bit, will ya?
15.2.13
Down to the last few things (not really...)
We're almost ready to move. Ehm... kind of almost... I really wanted to be able to write down 'i'm packing up the last few things', but that would be lying. In fact there's still a lot of packing to do, and we're nowhere near 'the last few things'.
I better get back to it.
14.2.13
Sweets for my sweet
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| Click here for the full tutorial |
T and i are not really into the Valentines-thing, and with The Move planned this Saturday...
-pause to allow myself to stress out for a bit...
...
Strangely this doesn't make me feel any better.-
...Anyway, with the move in TWO days, we can't really focus on anything else anyway.
I had planned to bake Valentines-day cookies, because i made some last year that i liked but were a bit too sweet for my sweet T. Also, i thought the baking of cookies could make a nice new tradition.
But alas. No time.
Here you'll find a tutorial for the very sugary treat i made for
Oh right, and i hope you'll receive a letter from a secret love today.
13.2.13
12.2.13
11.2.13
Dutch Design Love: HEMA
I'm just gonna come straight out and say it: i Love the HEMA.
Which is kind of weird, i guess. The HEMA is a department store you could compare with Marks&Spencer in the UK, or maybe K-mart in the US. I don't expect a lot of people to come out and say 'I Love M&S' anytime soon.
But HEMA is different. It has a certain style.
In fact a better comparison might be MUJI.
And i have yet to meet the designer who doesn't love MUJI.
A bit of background information:
The letters HEMA stand for 'Hollandsche Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam', which could be translated to 'Dutch Uniform price Company Amsterdam'.
They opened their first two stores in Amsterdam in 1926. The HEMA concept was to sell everything for uniform prices: 25 or 50 cents. A Euro/Pound/Dollarshop avant-la-lettre.
Obviously their approach took off: the HEMA now has over 600 stores and is branching out to Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and France (but they don't do the uniform pricing thing anymore).
Right. That's not the point.
The point is: they just sell good stuff for good prices.
Here goes...
Which is kind of weird, i guess. The HEMA is a department store you could compare with Marks&Spencer in the UK, or maybe K-mart in the US. I don't expect a lot of people to come out and say 'I Love M&S' anytime soon.
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| source |
But HEMA is different. It has a certain style.
In fact a better comparison might be MUJI.
And i have yet to meet the designer who doesn't love MUJI.
A bit of background information:
The letters HEMA stand for 'Hollandsche Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam', which could be translated to 'Dutch Uniform price Company Amsterdam'.
They opened their first two stores in Amsterdam in 1926. The HEMA concept was to sell everything for uniform prices: 25 or 50 cents. A Euro/Pound/Dollarshop avant-la-lettre.
Obviously their approach took off: the HEMA now has over 600 stores and is branching out to Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and France (but they don't do the uniform pricing thing anymore).
Right. That's not the point.
The point is: they just sell good stuff for good prices.
Here goes...
All images courtesy of HEMA.nl
HEMA has an online shop, which at the moment only ships within the Netherlands.
Not that I'll be needing to rely on the mailman for my HEMA-fix, there's a store 50 meters from our new house. (It's kinda sad how happy that makes me...)
8.2.13
Getting ready to move / Paperman
So... We found a house.
Great!
And now we're in the process of getting ready to move.
In one week.
IN ONE WEEK!
Since we're downsizing i need to throw out a lot of stuff. Which i hate. Can't help thinking about all the ways items might turn out to be useful one day, and that when that day comes, we'll be so sorry that we got rid of it.
But T might have a point when he says i could do with a little less stuff. There are in fact boxes that have not been opened since the last time we moved. By now i've forgotten what's in them, i doubt i'll seriously be missing any of it.
Anyway, loads to do.
But boy, am i glad i took a bit of time off to watch this short (oscar-nominated) film from Disney.
I'm still smiling.
Have a lovely weekend!
Great!
And now we're in the process of getting ready to move.
In one week.
IN ONE WEEK!
Since we're downsizing i need to throw out a lot of stuff. Which i hate. Can't help thinking about all the ways items might turn out to be useful one day, and that when that day comes, we'll be so sorry that we got rid of it.
But T might have a point when he says i could do with a little less stuff. There are in fact boxes that have not been opened since the last time we moved. By now i've forgotten what's in them, i doubt i'll seriously be missing any of it.
Anyway, loads to do.
But boy, am i glad i took a bit of time off to watch this short (oscar-nominated) film from Disney.
I'm still smiling.
Have a lovely weekend!
7.2.13
Work place
Depending on where T and i are moving i might have or don't have room for a work place in my house.
Not that i need a lot of space to work, one table would do just fine. Right?
Hmmm... i might be romanticizing the way i work.
Not that i need a lot of space to work, one table would do just fine. Right?
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| Styling Pella Hedeby & Marie Ramse (hitta-hem) - Photograph by Christopher Johnson spotted here |
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| 'Le Scriban' by Margaux Keller for La Redoute |
Who am i kidding?? There's no way there'll be enough room for all my clutter and materials on one desk.
It's going to have to be a room.
A room with a door i can close, so T doesn't have to see my mess.
Oh well.
I can still put one of these desks in that room.
Edited: i prepared this post a week ago, a lot has changed since then...
Now we know where we're going to live, i know there's definitely no spare room available for me to work in. Even worse: there is not even a proper place to put a desk.
But i thought up something: we'll make a hinged desk in a build-in closet. We have just the perfect nook for something like that in our new living room.
That way my work station won't be taking in too much space ánd any clutter can be hidden behind doors.
Better still: I'll be forced to clean up my desk every day, to make it possible for it to be hinged back into the cupboard.
Right.
Now i've come up with this amazing idea, all i have to do is gather inspiration on-line. Oh... and make it, of course.
We'll figure it out.
Edited: i prepared this post a week ago, a lot has changed since then...
Now we know where we're going to live, i know there's definitely no spare room available for me to work in. Even worse: there is not even a proper place to put a desk.
But i thought up something: we'll make a hinged desk in a build-in closet. We have just the perfect nook for something like that in our new living room.
That way my work station won't be taking in too much space ánd any clutter can be hidden behind doors.
Better still: I'll be forced to clean up my desk every day, to make it possible for it to be hinged back into the cupboard.
Right.
Now i've come up with this amazing idea, all i have to do is gather inspiration on-line. Oh... and make it, of course.
We'll figure it out.
6.2.13
Happy Wrapping by Happy F&B
Alright, gift-giving season is long gone, but that doesn't mean there are no more gifts that need to be wrapped.
There's still birthdays, babyshowers, weddings... plenty of reasons go crazy with cool wrapping paper and stylish techniques.
That said, i usually end up not having enough time to wrap a present in plain old craft-paper, let alone do something special with it.
Now if only i could get my hands on these 'Happy Wrapping'-sets:
Houses:
Faces:
Fruits:
This lovely concept of combining wrapping paper and well-designed stickers was thought up by advertising agency HAPPY F&B (stands for Happy Forsman & Bodenfors) from Sweden. Back in 2009 they commissioned several young designers to come up with the designs.
With the sets any boring package can be turned into a house / fruit / face.
(that way, if someone doesn't like the present you got them, they can at least praise the way the gift was wrapped)
Apparently, the fruit wrapping paper (noticed the colors on the inside?) even came with a scent.
Yes.
Came.
Past tense.
Sadly, it seems these wrapping sets were made for the 2009/2010 Holiday season, and are not available to the general public (anymore?).
Also part of the Happy Wrapping series were these gift boxes...
...which i also love, and i also can't find anywhere.
If anyone can tell me more or knows of places/websites where i can buy the sets, please get in touch!
There's still birthdays, babyshowers, weddings... plenty of reasons go crazy with cool wrapping paper and stylish techniques.
That said, i usually end up not having enough time to wrap a present in plain old craft-paper, let alone do something special with it.
Now if only i could get my hands on these 'Happy Wrapping'-sets:
Houses:
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| By Viktor Waldas and Erik Dolk for Happy F&B image courtesy of Happy F&B |
Faces:
 |
| By Emma Hässel and Lina Salén for Happy F&B image courtesy of Happy F&B |
Fruits:
 |
| Image courtesy of Happy F&B |
This lovely concept of combining wrapping paper and well-designed stickers was thought up by advertising agency HAPPY F&B (stands for Happy Forsman & Bodenfors) from Sweden. Back in 2009 they commissioned several young designers to come up with the designs.
With the sets any boring package can be turned into a house / fruit / face.
(that way, if someone doesn't like the present you got them, they can at least praise the way the gift was wrapped)
Apparently, the fruit wrapping paper (noticed the colors on the inside?) even came with a scent.
Yes.
Came.
Past tense.
Sadly, it seems these wrapping sets were made for the 2009/2010 Holiday season, and are not available to the general public (anymore?).
Also part of the Happy Wrapping series were these gift boxes...
 |
| Image courtesy of Happy F&B |
...which i also love, and i also can't find anywhere.
If anyone can tell me more or knows of places/websites where i can buy the sets, please get in touch!
5.2.13
Househunt: succeeded
Yes!
Our quest paid of: we now have a new place to call home.
Well... not yet, we still have to move our stuff and get settled.
But at least we can start arranging all that right away: we signed the contract last week and are already renting this lovely early twentieth century ground floor apartment near the seaside since February 1st.
A little recap:
T and i lived in an apartment in Amsterdam that we knew was going to be demolished one day, however, all large city-planning projects around the country were put on hold, so we expected we'd be 'safe' for a while. We did up the temporary place in September to make room for BBboy Xam, who was born in November, and in December we heard that the revamp of our neighborhood was in fact going to happen soon and we'd have to leave our house in March.
Panic!!!
We launched a social media campaign trying to find an affordable and BB-suitable place to live, either in Amsterdam or in proximity of the city, for which we (ab)used our very photogenic son Xam (this post).
We posted the photo we took of him on our facebook-accounts and a lot of our friends shared it on to their friends who in turn shared it with their friends. All in all, we had a Lot of people keeping their eyes open for us, and got a Lot of good advice.
Also, we sent e-mails and letters (with the photograph) to all large housing corporations in Amsterdam, asking for help. We received a few 'we're sorry, we can't help you.' e-mails in return. Which was fine, we'd kind of expected that. A lot of corporations didn't get back to us at all.
One organization actually came up with a plan to help us if we would set up a community art project in return. We liked the idea, but the corporation couldn't guarantee us a house before March, and we eventually decided to instead go for a place outside of the city. By that time we already had several rental options outside Amsterdam and early last week we fell in love with a small house in Zandvoort, near the sea.
It all went pretty quick from there: we couldn't believe we would seriously move to the seaside. Our new landlord speeded up our decision making process by letting us know we could rent the house, but only if we'd sign the contract that same week. We saw a few other houses and went back to the place in Zandvoort one last time to be absolutely certain this would be the house we'd move out of the city for.
Last Wednesday we decided to go for it and rent the house.
T and i still can't really get our heads around it.
We'll be moving in less than two weeks, so we better start believing it... And start packing!
For all of you who helped us, either by sharing our photograph, talking to people, giving tips or just letting us know you were thinking about us: THANK YOU SO MUCH! It made us feel a lot less alone in our stressful quest.
Our quest paid of: we now have a new place to call home.
Well... not yet, we still have to move our stuff and get settled.
But at least we can start arranging all that right away: we signed the contract last week and are already renting this lovely early twentieth century ground floor apartment near the seaside since February 1st.
A little recap:
T and i lived in an apartment in Amsterdam that we knew was going to be demolished one day, however, all large city-planning projects around the country were put on hold, so we expected we'd be 'safe' for a while. We did up the temporary place in September to make room for BBboy Xam, who was born in November, and in December we heard that the revamp of our neighborhood was in fact going to happen soon and we'd have to leave our house in March.
Panic!!!
We launched a social media campaign trying to find an affordable and BB-suitable place to live, either in Amsterdam or in proximity of the city, for which we (ab)used our very photogenic son Xam (this post).
We posted the photo we took of him on our facebook-accounts and a lot of our friends shared it on to their friends who in turn shared it with their friends. All in all, we had a Lot of people keeping their eyes open for us, and got a Lot of good advice.
Also, we sent e-mails and letters (with the photograph) to all large housing corporations in Amsterdam, asking for help. We received a few 'we're sorry, we can't help you.' e-mails in return. Which was fine, we'd kind of expected that. A lot of corporations didn't get back to us at all.
One organization actually came up with a plan to help us if we would set up a community art project in return. We liked the idea, but the corporation couldn't guarantee us a house before March, and we eventually decided to instead go for a place outside of the city. By that time we already had several rental options outside Amsterdam and early last week we fell in love with a small house in Zandvoort, near the sea.
It all went pretty quick from there: we couldn't believe we would seriously move to the seaside. Our new landlord speeded up our decision making process by letting us know we could rent the house, but only if we'd sign the contract that same week. We saw a few other houses and went back to the place in Zandvoort one last time to be absolutely certain this would be the house we'd move out of the city for.
Last Wednesday we decided to go for it and rent the house.
T and i still can't really get our heads around it.
We'll be moving in less than two weeks, so we better start believing it... And start packing!
For all of you who helped us, either by sharing our photograph, talking to people, giving tips or just letting us know you were thinking about us: THANK YOU SO MUCH! It made us feel a lot less alone in our stressful quest.