Apple bowl

Bought this tiny wooden apple shaped bowl in the second hand store yesterday. In fact: I bought 5 of them. After washing them I found out that they stayed a bit sticky. So, we are not going to use them for food, unfortunately! I think it's the old 70's varnish. Anyone a good idea (exept for sanding and varnishing again) to get rid of that sticky feeling?

Highline NY

A very special urban park, called the Highline, was opened in New York last month.

An ancient elevated railway was transformed into one long city-garden in the sky. This kind of projects - nature reclaiming its place in the city - make me feel so happy. The video tells the Higline story. 'Our' Dutch landscape architect Piet Oudolf was involved designing the plan.

Heroes

This morning I spent some hours in the machine room of the printing office, checking colours and having fun. Drukkerij Drukkracht produces all of my Paperwork. These guys are my heroes. Printing is a real craft, which they obviously understand, but they are also good in communicating, having an open mind and staying positive, even when things go wrong. With their open mind they started using eco-ink next to the eco-friendly paper they already had in stock.
Today we checked on the colours for the reprint of the lanterns.

They store all the offset plates, for re-use!




Vega-fast ink, based on vegetable oils.


The machines...


Misprints are soooo beautiful!


And this is what I came for: checking the colours.

Etsy treasures: cut out wood

Who: Gypsy and Twink
What: cut out wood, painted and collaged.
Why: What a great combination of shape, patterns and colours. Those are things that make me smile!

Etsy treasures: clocks

Who: And furthermore,
What: Doily clocks, made of soft plastic reclamed doily's, cork and acrylic paint
Why: Because of the great idea and the lovely nostalgic style!

Reprint

Had not much time left for the blog. I am preparing a lantern reprint next week. That means that this is the moment that I can check and change the design of the last version and change the colours a little, since I was not completely satisfied...I am a perfectionist!. Besides I'll have to change the Dutch headercard on the package in both Dutch and English, because of my growing one-woman-mini-multinational!

Arnhem Fashion Biënnale 2009

Went to the Arnhem Fashion Biënnale yesterday, together with Ellen and Annemieke. Two very inspiring, authentic and honest women. Annemiek works as a designer for HEMA, Ellen used to be my boss at IKEA's styling department and she has just bought this incredible embroidery computer-machine-thing...will this Biënnale be the last little push she needed to just get going and produce piles of beautiful, ugly, normal, silly, horrible, boring and sweet embroidered textiles? Hope so.
Theme of the exhibition is 'Shape'. For me as a pattern-designer (decoration, no shape) a bit threatening, but it woke me up as well!
My number one were, of course, the paper lightobjects by Paula Arntzen, couldn't stop taking pictures!





And there was this work by Mattijs van Bergen, blue ballpoint lines (the ones you draw during long telephone conversations) following the superbe shape of a dress!



Other things that struck me: