merry christmas

Jurianne and her angels wish you a wonderful Christmas!
Photo by Ingrid from Ing-things

my very own christmas child

While everyone is 'decking the hall with boughs of holly', I light the birthday- candles for my eldest son Eise. He was born on Christmas-eve 13 years ago. Born at home (which is very common in Holland), by candlelight, while church bells were ringing.

This baby is...well, thirteen now: cooler than cool, taller than me, suffering from moods, developing a new kind of humor and having new friends in his new school. Underneath all these changes he still is my very own christmas child...

By the way, my mom bought these wooden candleholders 48 years ago in Prague (Czech Republic). We use and treasure them.

irresisteballs

Japanese Temari balls by Suzik look fab in your Christmas tree, or even better: in the snow-covered branches I saw in my garden today!

DIY - tangerine lights

Holland turned into a winter fairy tale yesterday. This is a road behind my house....
For the lovely lights you only need some tangerines, a knife, some sunflower oil and matches. Tangerines have their very own wick, you don't need any tealights, the oil will do!
If you are interested to make them yourself I could post a little tutorial tomorrow or the day after, just let me know...
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Sunday - afternoon: TANGERINE TUTORIAL!
Well, thank you all for your sweet reactions! To challenge myself I just tried to draw a 'sketch tutorial' for you in stead of taking pictures. Hope it's clear enough like this?


Cut the peel around with a sharp knife.



Remove the peel from the fruit carefully with one finger, watch out that the peel doesn’t break. Now you have a bottom and a top.


Tangerines have one part with a natural wick in the middle. Pour sunflower oil over and around this wick.


Cut a chimney hole out of the other part (which is the part without wick).




Please take safety precautions when your tangerines are lit, the garden is the best place for them. I did use them sometimes at Christmas dinners and put one tangerine lantern on every plate on the table...so fairylike!
Oh yeah, not to forget: these are the kind of crafts I learned from my mother back in the seventies! Thanks mum!

getting in the christmas mood with

Joel Henriques and Happy Doodle Land

Orla Kiely

Pingvina and Xmoonbloom

DIY- danish paper stars

Watch out: once you have learned to make these Danish (or German or Moravian) paper stars, folding them is highly addictive. Since I have to work a lot - I am in the busiest month of the year - I had to put myself on a paper star diet!

Folding them is hard to learn. And this is an understatement. It took me some weeks, surfing the net for tutorials, trying again and again. Maybe I miss an important origami gene?
Next to a lot of paper strips and the perseverance of a pitbull dog, several You Tube tuts and this website helped me a lot.

winter-pop-up-shop in my village

Sorry for all you people living abroad, but there is finally something blog-worthy going on in my rather sleepy village, so here is some regional news...
It is about 3 sisters in a lovely - yet empty - new built house in Bussum. For years they have collected the best furniture and accessoires from the thrift shops, designed lovely (baby)T-shirts, crafted toys and cushions, made jam in beautiful jars etc. And now they are having this wonderful wintersale in the empty building. Everything they show is for sale, even the house is!

The weather is cold and sunny and the pop-up shop is open today so take your bikes for a little winter shopping tour! (landstraat 223)

The flat (waterproof) wall-vases are designed by Carolien Brusse and the terracotta lampshades are sold (to me!).

DIY- free downloadable paper trees!

Before you start downloading...I would like to show you this.
This wonderful little winter give-away (see cover below) comes with the new fab December issue of our Dutch Interior Magazine 101 - Woonideeën.


A booklet full of gorgeous, easy DIY projects from dutch designers, creaters and crafters. If you live in Holland or Belgium: Don't miss it!!

And these are the little paper trees I designed for this 101-craftbooklet and that I designed - tadaaaaa... - for you! Here is my free downloadable link to the prints with easy instructions. Download the English version.

It's my early Christmas present for you. Hope you enjoy it!

children - where are you now?

My products are my paper children. And like other grown up children, they tend to leave home and go on long trips. And like every other worried mum I don't want to loose track, so I google them every once in a while.
It fills me with pride to find photo's of them taken by their new friends in Sweden, Germany, in the UK, Japan or in the US... They are obviously well taken care of and they feel at home!
From above left: Sing angels in Sweden staying at the blog of Emelie and Kicki from Havtorn, two pictures at Anneli's 'house' called Cosas in Sweden and one photo at Sabine's place called La Mesa, in Germany!
To be continued...

sustainability day

Today it is sustainability day.
I think I can say, I do my best. It is often a matter of balancing between bad and worse. For example: the production of LED-lights seems to be very bad for the environment, whereas the use of LED-lights saves the world masses of energy!
Same balance-problem with these gorgeous Envirosax reusable bags I allways carry around. I save a pile of plastic bags offered in shops, but I wondered if the production (polyester) of the bags is that ecofriendly. Fortunately Envirosax has a good and honest answer to that on their website.

Oh, I almost forgot: of course my own products (paper, ink and bags) are ecofriendly as well!

early morning etsy

The bracelet of hollow green glassbeads I found in Alisha White's etsy-shop. I love the shape of this orange bag by Bayan Hippo. Well and on this one I actually should spend a whole post: J Clay's pottery, it is awesome! Check out Sheepish to keep you warm this winter, beautiful knit/crochetwork!

DDW

On our way home from France we paid a flying visit at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. Our Dutch pride, designer Piet Hein Eek (first two images), opened his new huge factory/showroom/office/studio/restaurant in one of the old industrial Philips buildings - called Strijp R. The photo's above are taken at that location. We went (by free Design Taxi's) to other locations too, but it was apparently só overwhelming that I forgot to take any pictures at all.

The enourmous tent lamp and the 'suitcase-cupboard' are designed by Lotty Lindeman, the black and white wallpaper is by Melissa Peen. But those great glass lamps... sorry, I know they are famous, seen them before, but I don't remember the designers name! Anyone?

autumn leave between the autumn leaves

We took a few days off, just to be away from everyday life. We are blessed with very dear friends having a lovely country-house in France, only a five hours drive from here. We had 3 great, cosy days outside and inside, with fires, wine, board games, crochet work and 10 kilo's of pears to be peeled.

sunday joy

Joy today: My new vintage treasure vase. The paper animals are instant art that my youngest son Brecht made in 2 minutes this morning.
If you look at it you wouldn't think he's an 11 year old... let's be honest. The fact is: he can not draw precisely and he has no patience whatsoever. But he turned this limitation into a strong talent in making simple things even more simple (graphic). And yes, he does remind me of...me!
By the way: The 'parrot' and the 'croc' fit into each other, they are one piece of paper, isn't that lovely?

crochet therapy

It is my own fault that I worked too hard - 70 hours a week - for over a month. My problem: Enthusiasm! Can't say 'no' to great design projects for other companies, allthough I have a fulltime business to run.
Last week I finished the last one. Sorry that I can't post anything on these projects right now, they are still in progress (meaning: being produced), but you'll be the first to know when they see the daylight!

Anyway, I was exhausted last week, but in the same time couldn't keep my hands still. I saw Linda and Ingrid crocheting their way through the week and I thought: yeahhh, I want that too. Thanks so much to both of you for the inspiration!

It is 36 years ago that I last crocheted a potholder...and here you see: my first therapy scarf! I assure you this is the best thing to do after such a period of non-stop hard (digital)labour. I have got my energy back, I feel happy and relaxed! It is going to be a long, long scarf!

october mood

Tried to cling to summer (see beach life post last week) but wind, cold and rain made me surrender this week...it's autumn. After an Etsy-visit this morning I must say: the beautiful October-stuff I found there makes the season-switch more than bearable!
From top left: Earrings by Jillian Mackowiak. Ceramic pendant by Nifty by nature. Woolfelted pincushion Made in Lowell (by Liz Smith). And - there she is again - a crotcheted cushion cover by Emma Lamb

sunny sunday

Like last week on Sunday, we've spent a long afternoon at the Henschotermeer today. It's only a 25 minutes drive, there's a wide beach, water, trees and... not too many people in October. The boys have been kiting and building sand castles, I read some magazines and I was even seduced to play a sand-soccer match. I amazed every one including myself: scored 4 times, on my bare feet. Not bad, huh?

gift from germany

I have these great distributors abroad that I work closely with. One of them is Sabine Wittig from La Mesa, my German representative. Not only do we share the love for paperwork, we also share beautiful memories of a mutual very special friend that died almost 6 years ago.
It's a thin line between doing business and being friends sometimes... not always easy, but I still like it.
Yesterday a gift package from Germany was delivered with beautiful greeting cards from her assortment and this apple-teatowel from Koloni, that I simply had to photograph in the early morning sun.
On the gift tag it said: 'Dear Jurianne, thanks for the great cooperation, Sabine.' Isn't that super sweet?

pink

Pink? It will never become my favorite colour. For this occasion I made an exception though. With all my heart.
I designed a special pink wishboat with a ribbon-pattern for Pink Ribbon, the yearly magazine of the Breast Cancer Organisation. I must say: what a surprisingly fantastic mag!
Great interviews (a small one with me...), beautiful subjects, couragious women and a fab styling and photografy. The paper of the magazine is thick and matt, the typografy and graphics beautiful.
In other words: buy this present for yourself, read, look, fold a boat (collectors item: PINK!!) and support the Breastcancer Organisation for only € 5,95.

interior living show

I had a busy Amsterdam-day last Thursday so I only popped in for a very quick visit at the 'Woonbeurs'. I avoided the men in grey suits selling Quookers and gel-fireplaces and went straight on to the 'houses'(huge stands with several rooms) of our Dutch interior magazines. VT-Wonen and 101-Woonideeën were certainly worth a visit. 101 Woonideeën was very 'tactile', with a beautiful colour palette and a very fresh Asian feel.
VT-Wonen made a statement: colourful, masculin, no nonsense, crafty, with deep dark colours! Actually, their house was so dark (and crowded) I couldn't take a proper picture!
So above you see a tiny bit of the 101-house. The ceiling was covered with lovely laundry lines with hanging patches in these great Asian pastels...loved it!

style cookie

Style Cookie, a new stylish shopping 'e-zine', is online! Style cookie guides you - with great, inspirational photographs - directly to the shops that offer the presented products.
I've seen many great pictures taken with my Bloms but this one is the cutest of 'em all! Blom and I feel honoured.
Thank you Sanne (photographer) and Anke (stylist) for doing such a great job.

oh my Lloyd!

We 've spent our Sunday in Amsterdam, on the Elle Inside Design Show in the fab Lloyd Hotel.
My 12 year old son Eise insisted on coming with me and that made it very special.


He took great pictures overthere and I really think he has 'the eye' (but then again: I am his mother...) ! Some photo's you can see here, others are only to be found on his cute own photo-blog called My View.

The settings in my camera were somehow wrong (or do I need glasses for taking pictures?) so lots of pictures were kind of soft focuss. But - together with the ones my son took - they are still nice, I think.



Anyway, we had a great day! We saw beautifull things and every step I took I met an old friend or a new acquaintance. Besides I ended up having a lovely dinner with Karin, Sabien and Sandra! My cool son went home by himself, by train, from Amsterdam to Bussum. To be honest: that was harder for me (let go, let go) than it was for him!

premiere

Today I roll out the red carpet for my latest edition of paper angels called Sing! They are available at my wholesale company right now and at my stockists very soon!


As soon as I have time I'll unite them with their older sisters - who are still available - on my website!
So, dear angels, spread your wings, fly away and sing!