free downloadable prints for danish paper stars!

 

 

 

It is already two years ago that I blogged about my 'conquest': learning to fold Danish (or German/Moravian) paper stars! I had found a great TUTORIAL and after hours of practicing, trying (and swearing) I knew I had learned something I would never forget.
Since then, as soon as I have my hands free in December (when finally my business goes down a bit after the 20st of December) I start folding stars to get my head empty and my heart cheerful!

Of course I always design my own paper star prints (see stars above). And this year I would love to share those prints with you. You can download the prints HERE (5 Mb)


If you are having a hard time folding the stars: you can use my prints as A4-size wrapping paper as well!

Merry Christmas to you all!

give away - Bloesem/Jurianne - Christmas box!

Bloesem Kids has organised the last pinterest give-away of this year, featuring 5 of my designs.
Just go to Bloesem's Give-away Pinterest board repin and react (question is: what's your favorite Christmas song?).
A random name will be drawn by Bloesem on December 21st and a box filled with the designs above - Sing Angels, Classic Lanterns, Shine Lanterns, Circles and Little Tree (ok, ánd some stars, handmade by me) - could be yours!

winter pop-up shop Madrid

For my blog readers living in Spain: don't forget to visit Mamblona's Christmas pop-up shop in Madrid. It opens today! And please say 'hi' to owner Sofia from me!

winter wonderland

 

Holland was a fairy tale for a couple of days, we had lots of snow! Totally in the mood for Christmas I created a little Pinterest Winter Wonderland for you...
All of the above photo's can be tracked back via my Pinterest Christmas board. The wood veneer garland is a great Christmas DIY project!

unstationary

What a privileged life I live! Yesterday I recieved a large envelope with the brandnew and brilliant 'Unstationary' collection by my friends from Ontwerpduo. On all of this soft coloured stationery there is a print of graph paper, pulled open like curtains, with a fascinating effect.

Bijzondermooi is selling Unstationary in the Netherlands. I hope a lot of international shops will fill their shelves with these paper cases, note pads, writing paper, envelopes, tags and little cards as well!

By the way, it is all ecofriendly produced by 'my' printer (the man who produces my work already for almost 5 years!).

The orange 'house' is a mini-block of page-markers by Suck UK, I bought in London (V&A) last week. The wooden bird-shaped tape holder has been on my blog before, you can buy it here.

my magazine angel

Buitenleven is a lovely dutch magazine (one of the few I actually READ), a hip lifestyle & nature magazine. The editors and I have always been working great together and every time they publish one of my new designs it looks wonderful. Some months ago they asked me to design a Christmas give-away for all their readers, you can imagine how honoured I felt!
When I came home from London last Thursday, the Christmas issue with the angel fell on my doormat.
So here she is: my Buitenleven ("Bowtenlivven") angel!

ps. Sorry: available in Holland (maybe Belgium?) only!

secret mission London

London map by StudioKMO

Anthropologie on Kings Road

Orla's store in Covent garden

The Boxpark in Shoreditch

Tea at Peyton and Byrne?

Tomorrow I'll leave on a businesstrip to London. I will have a meeting with people from a large UK department store for a lovely project. If the outcome is positive you'll be the first to know what it is!

Next to that this trip will be special because my friend and German distributor Sabine Wittig (from online shop La Mesa and Blog Azurweiss) and me are going to meet each other at Heathrow airport and we will spend most of the days in London together. We haven't seen each other for 8 years. And of course my English distributors, Saskia & Sofie will be there too...I am really looking forward to it!

I hope to find time for visiting Uniqlo (to buy some Orla Kiely stoles for only a few pounds), to show Sabine the Anthropologie store on Kings Road and the Orla store in Covent Garden.
And I would love to go back to the Shoreditch area, there seems so much to be going on. There's this new Boxpark, worlds first pop-up mall, housed in simple sea containers and there seem to be several new shops since I was there 1,5 years ago.

If we find time: of course we'll visit the V & A-museum and Tate Modern...

My special wish for this time: a real British Afternoon Tea, I must admit I never had a Tea in London before! Would you happen to know a good (meaning new/hip/organic or completely traditional - fine with me!) London Tearoom? Thanks for any good ideas!

missed

How could I have missed Wies Preijde on the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven last week? Guess I was sleeping somehow!
With colourfull yarns strung up to the walls this textile and fashion artist creates a somewhat unreal but certainly warm world. It must feel strange to walk through it, I guess, like entering a textile comic strip. What an inspriration!

dutch design week 2012

I am sure we have only seen the tip of a beautiful iceberg during the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven a few days ago...
Here you can find a few of the things that caught my eye alongside our path:

Steven Banken

studio Elke van den Berg

Mandalight Made by Chou

recycled bottle-tealight holders by Riikka Jefremof from Finland (email) 

colour porcelain by Scholten en Baijings

And this is my 'wall of work': 1000 Circles on a high wall in the ART Hotel

dutch design freak

Next Thursday I'll be sticking a couple of hundred Circles to a huge wall in the Art Hotel in Eindhoven. I am going to attend an exhibition called Dutch Design Freak which is part of the Dutch Design Week.

The Dutch Design Week is my favorite time of the year (ok, apart from Christmas): in this week the industrial monuments in Eindhoven (Philips city) open their doors. Young, but also established, designers (mostly from the Design Academy) show their new designs and ideas.

If you are hungry for inspiration: plan a trip to Eindhoven!

dienke's baskets

 

Dienke Dekker was scouted as promising talent by Lidewij Edelkoort on Trendtablet this week. 
Dienke is a 4th year student at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands who has a love for craftmanship. She 'reinvented' basket weaving by silkscreening bamboostructures on textiles. I love the shapes and the beautiful details. Can't wait to see (feel!) her objects live one day...

tidy up art

 

There's a trend going on: designers try to get hold of life by mapping social behaviour, everyday life or even emotions in graphic statistics.
Swiss artist Ursus Wehrly is doing the same with daily materials and scenes. I am intrigued by this concept: simplifiying the world, making it well-ordered like a Swiss watch. Must be my Matterhorn roots!

pinterest pill

Recovering from a nasty flu I gave myself a Pinterest-treatment today. Hadn't been on Pinterest since July and I must say: it works seeing beautiful photo's, I feel much better today!
Since I stayed in bed practically the whole week, I was very much focussed on photo's of bedrooms ;-)

You can find these pics (and track down the source) on my Pinterest boards. Have a lovely Sunday!

off to Paris

this is the april/paris page from the lovely new 2013 calender by Rifle paper

Tomorrow morning I'll leave for Paris for a couple of days - Maison & Objet trade fair -  together with my collegue/friend Gemma Broekhuis from Milestone Babycards. Promoting my Circles (which means folding and talking at the same time - both of my 'talents' combined!!), looking at the latest trends, meeting business associates and hoping to find a distributor for the USA!
I am looking for a good (matching!) distributor that represents my work in the US, that attends fairs and takes care of the logistics etc. I would be so happy with that. There's a pile of US-orders waiting for them already...If you have any ideas/advice concerning this, please do contact me!

Planning to go to Paris too? I would love to meet you! I'll be mostly at the booth of  
&K Amsterdam - hal 6, L86, who is my distributor for Europe.
Au revoir!

Life's a Circle

Here they are: my new Circles! Hope you like them...

 

 

Round paper ornaments with geometric print designs in pastel colours and earth tints. The Circles are partly inspired by Indian motifs, but are also unmistakably Nordic.  

This new paper product falls under the category of ‘DIY-light’. In just a few minutes, you can turn the flat pack into your very own 3D work of art! Hang the Circles in the Christmas tree, thread them on long springtime bunting or use them to decorate gifts. With a couple of sets, you can make your own wall art by folding out the circles and affixing them flat to the wall in the arrangement of your choice.

One set of Circles contains 3 different cards each with 3 different pop-out circles (9 circles in total per set). The circles are different sizes (5-8 cm). A 60 cm-length cotton thread (eco quality) is attached to each card by a ‘dragonfly’. 

Are you in the Netherlands and would you like me to fold you a couple of Circles? Please visit me at the Autumn Trade Fair in Utrecht on booth C 341. Would love to see you!

report: New York

Back from a rollercoaster week in New York.
Irene (Bloesem) and I had an amazing week in many different regards.

Main goal was the New York International Gift Fair that I was attending.
Because of my work in the booth I didn't have time to see the city, walk around on the huge gift fair, or take any photo's.
The response on my work was overwhelming. The new Circles I launched in NYC caused a lot of American 'wooooows' which made me smile all day long!

Irene took this photo on our first day on the Show. I look exhausted and nervous

My neighbour on the booth Reineke Otten, with a very special customer

View from our apartment (skyscraper, 40st floor!) on Queensborough bridge

View from our apartment - this was such an everyday treat!

We had many visitors on the booth! Small boutiques, huge (museum)stores, press and collegues like...yes: Lotta Jansdotter! Want to know how she is in real life? She is just very S W E E T ! With capital letters.

Lotta Jansdotter - photo Laura Fenon

Irene and I did some sample shopping - a usual phenomenon during the last hours of trade shows -  at my neighbours Fog Linen (trays) and at Rifle paper (gift tags). I have a serious weakness for gift tags...bought some nice ones from Darrell from Sukie, who's booth was a couple of meters away.

The temporary tattoos (on the Sukie box) were a present from Tina Roth Eisenberg, from the well known blog Swiss-Miss. She launched her cool and funny Tattly's on the Gift Fair.

Our last hours in NYC were a kind of a 'surprise icing on the NY-cake': we attended the US-bloggers event of the year called Alt Summit which was held in the offices of Martha Stewart on 26th street!

It was so fantastic to finally meet Sweet Paul in person and Rachel Faucett from Handmade Charlotte who has been on my little bloglist here since the very begining. Tina from Swiss Miss held an impressive and powerfull keynote about entrepreneurship, balancing familylife-work and living life to the fullest. She's an amazing speaker and I think her words truly can make a difference!

This passed week in NY has been very important to me, not only businesswise, but also personally.

And therefore I thank you, Irene. Thanks big time for assisting me on the booth, for keeping an eye on the clock, for the fun we had together, for opening my eyes on certain issues, for connecting the dots and for your friendship. XXX

T H A N K S!