Feeling Purple

I fell in love with a purple sofa at Ikea today, and made this moodboard to see if the colour would work in our new Summerhouse (I think it will). Afterwards I discovered that the colours were almost the same as my pattern colours for the scarf project - from which the pattern above is a "leftover" - so it´s for sale!

The patchwork pattern in the middle is by Andrea Larsson - gotta love it!

Boy!

I just found this picture from back in may at my cellphone - showing Nanna and her cousins at the Aros Art Museum here in Århus. It seems like every child here in Århus is truly fasinated by BOY - by Ron Mueck - and I can understand why. So here they are all cute and wellbehaved
- a little after they got bored and looked like this...

Blogday on Friday

Did you know about Blogday? It´s on Friday the 31th of August.
BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors. With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs. Read more here.

Signorinah

I´m not sure how I found Signorinah - Rinah Langs homepage - but I´m glad I did! She is a very talented illustrator based in Berlin, with an impressive portfolio, including clients like German Newspapers and Italian Fornarina Fashion.

to do

I have a great project on my to-do-list this week which is to finish my swap-thing with Sia, for the Freepeople Travel Swap. I almost finished it before the summerholidays - and now 2 months after I feel like doing something completly different which involves the pile of paper shown above. Maybe it will be a combination of the old idea and the new idea - but it would be so much easier if I could just stick with the old idea - but I know I would never be satisfied with the result now that this new idea has popped up - do you know what what I mean?

Pattern design

I´m happy to tell you that I now can add pattern designer to my job title. I´ve been working on a big project for the Danish Cancer Society over the last year, which I will share with you next month - so stay tuned! But a smaller project was to design a pattern for a silk scarf for their members. It ended up looking like this, and it has been really exciting to enter the world of pattern design and to see the final result printed on silk instead of paper + to be able to actually wear one of my designs. The target audience was woman age 35 -65, and I used my Global Dreamer trendboard as inspiration.

Have a great weekend!

A collage a day

I wrote about Randel Plowman last week - and in the meantime I´ve discovered to my surprise that Randel is a man - for a foreign person it can sometimes be hard to know if a name is female or male... and I´ve also become the very happy owner of these 2 beautiful collages by him. I will hang them in our new summerhouse, where I plan to withdraw and do a lot of bird watching! Make sure to check out his blog - a collage a day which is an ongoing project that involves creating and posting a new 4" x 4" collage to his site every day.

Islandic Blanket

How cool is this blanket! - The Regional Blanket, is inspired by the largest glaciers in Iceland. Under the icemass sleeps one of the most active volcanos of the island, Katla, who wakes up once in a century.
I just had to pair it with one of my photos from Iceland, because I recognized the landscape immediately - and I have some lovely Icelandic readers here.
The blanket is one of the results of a Islandic collaboration between the Vík Prjónsdóttir and a knitwear producer. The project was meant to revaluate the image of the Icelandic wool industry through unconventional product development. The new designs - woolen blankets and caps - make subtle reference to local myths, customs, and needs. Seen here.

I feel rich!

I know the most wonderful place - a blueberry farm, where you can pick the best organic blueberries ever... it has become a tradition for my sister and I to go there every year, and while we pick, chat and enjoy the august colours we also connect with our inner cave women - and agree that there´s something so fullfilling about picking berries and stocking up ones reserves... I´m not sure this is the right expression in English?! - but if you´ve ever picked berries as a woman I think you´ll know what I mean... I picked 8 kilo´s in 1 hour - my peronal record :)
The bowl on top is by Susan Liebe

Our new Summerhouse

We actually own a Summerhouse and a little piece of land now - we will get the keys on Friday and I just can´t wait. We just love the spot already and eventhough the house is still decorated with other peoples stuff - and doesn´t look like our house - it already feels like ours. We drove by there this Friday afternoon to do some measurements and was greeted by a deer outside the house - isn´t that a great sign.! The place has such a good karma and I just wished to stay there for the rest of the weekend. I´ve started a new blog about our process of creating our perfect summerhouse - it will be our scrapbook and our place to keep track of the process.

Power of Flower

Picked up these beauties the other day - arranged them into a lovely bouquet and couldn´t resist photographing them. I´m actually convinced that macro lenses were created with the purpose of taking close-ups of flowers and faces and I´m not the only one... a quick search on Flickr says:

We found 280,934 results for photos matching flower+macro.

selfportrait challenge - Patterns

This months challenge at Selfportrait challenge is Patterns. This shot is from Tivoli in Copenhagen where we spent a very cold and wet summer afternoon last month with our friends.

Odd Story

I discovered ceramic designer Tina Marie Bentsen at The Craft Fair website and instantly fell in love with her work and the project Odd Story shown above which is made by cast wall pieces with transfer drawings - and I want them all! Tina Marie´s website is not up yet - but you can see more of her work under her profile at coroflot -portfolios & jobs for creative work - a new website to me that needs to be explored...

Crafts Fair Copenhagen

If you happen to be anywhere near Copenhagen between 23-25 of August make sure to visit the Crafts Fair 2007 at Frue Plads. 140 members of the Danish Arts and Crafts Association will participate. There´s also a lot of great stuff to be found if you check out the website and look under Deltagere/members. Shown here are a only a few of my favorites, fabrics by Signe Lybeck, melanin rings inspired by cup handles by Karen Fly, and ceramics by Jane Holmberg Andersen. I´m sorry I can´t link to them directly because it seems like very few Danish crafters have webpages that look as good as their products! - on the postitive side the product shots have improved a lot since last year.

2 x 3 years old

Happiness is having a cousin at the same age - and this weekend Nanna´s cousin Olivia turned 3 years old. So here they are showing of their age, their summerdresses and their new bike and scooter. Just had to share them with you :)

Sunny summerdays

2 talented collage artists Stephanie Levy and Randel Plowman really inspired me today - so here´s a little collage inspired by the weather in DK right now.

Etsy - treasury

Etsy has just ended a fun contest where you could create a poster with product´s from Etsy sellers. The results can be seen here - and the posters are such a great way to discover new sellers and new finds on Etsy. - I loved this poster and all the sellers shown on it. Have a lovely weekend.

The Room Project

I´m really looking forward to seeing this exhibition, The Room Project, by Anette Merrild when it comes to Århus later this year - right now it´s showing in Copenhagen.

"Do you want to get to know the world? Then start with your neighbor"
Inspired by this proverb Annette Merrild has visited strangers’ living rooms with her camera for the past four years. The idea for her international project started out from a neighborly perspective – in Hamburg, New York and Copenhagen, the artist photographed the living rooms of the other residents in her house. Inspired by the effect the photo series had on others, Merrild developed THE ROOM. Within two years, she traveled to Warsaw, Barcelona, Tallin, Lyon, Manchester and Istanbul. She tracked down high-rises where the apartments had uniform layouts - and in this way she offers you a great change to see how "real people " live and how much interior design can change a room. Visit the website here

Alfredo Haberli: Nemea Sideboard

This Nemea Sideboard by Alfredo Haberli is also on my wishlist - but it costs $8,950.00 - so it will just stay on my wishlist forever. But it´s so sleek and the two slide-out side elements allow for setting up the sideboard in individual widths, so it´s kind of 3 sideboards in one - but still it´s ridiculously expensive.

3-d textured wall tiles

These handmade 3-dimensional decorative wall tiles made by Heather Knight are high om my wishlist now - theres no doubt they can make a space really POP! (from left to right, Oyster, Turf and Barnacle.) Visit her Etsy Shop here.

Collages for wedding commision

I made this 2 collages for a wedding commision - for a wedding this weekend. I call them His & Hers, the top is for her and the next is for him - and since they love Elvis I used part of "love me tender" to connect the two collages. Below you can see some details. I really enjoy making these wedding commisions - and I put a lot of thoughts and well wishes into them and it´s almost as if I´m part of their wedding party :)

Blues

I just can´t stop making inspiration boards now, and this is the first one for "our new summerhouse" if we get it. All pictures are from BoBedre´s website. I love the white round table/componibile from Kartell - we have 2 and they look so good everywhere. Have a great weekend!

Tagged

I´ve been tagged by Joanna. The rules of tagging are that I have to reveal 8 personal things and tag 8 other people ...I´m not tagging anyone - but feel free to grab it from here and let me know if you do - because it´s always fun to get to know people better!

1. I stopped smoking 6 months ago
   - It´s been so easy to stop and I´ll never go back to smoking again.


2. I was 34 years old when I got my drivers license and my first car
   - I´m an O.K driver - but I hate to drive. I prefer to go by foot, bike, train and taxi if possible, and I dream of getting a private chauffeur one day.


3. I always wear some kind of jewellery
   - mostly gold or in ceramic.


4. I love toasted bread with butter - and a good cup of tea
   - and I prefer salty stuff to sweet.


5. I love flowers and gardening
   - and I dream of getting an old garden full of flowers one day.


6. I can play the clarinet and saxophone
   - and I love all kinds of music.


7. I´m a B-person and night owl
   - and I´m really grumpy in the morning.


8. As a child I was really tall, skinny and sporty - now I´m small, not skinny and creative
   - but I´ve just started running and enjoy getting fit again.

And I have a soft spot for face transformers so.... this is what I look like with a Cowboy Moustache, As a Simpson Character and after a Hair Makeover.

Rooms for Fabulous Stationary contest.

Decor8 is running a super-fun contest (using cards as inspiration for rooms). I had so much fun doing these cards and just couldn´t stop. It was perfect timing because I have so many private decorating projects to do - and I dream about decorating most nights right now -since we are very close to buying a summerhouse - I´ll let you know more soon. Anyway it was so helpfull doing these cards - see all entries here.


This card is clean, warm and cosy - just like I would love my home to be. The photos are all from a house in Hamburg, found at photographer Janne Peters website, and it´s pretty much what my dreamhouse looks like.


If we get the summerhouse, this is how I would like to decorate the kitchen there. Photo´s are from www.andrealarsson.dk and www.boligmagasinet.dk.


I´m about to redecorate Nanna´s room, because she needs a bigger bed. Her room is tiny and with 3 doors - so it needs to be a combo of clean lines and small spots of colour and fun.

Andreas Samuelsson

I really like these patterns by Andreas Samuelsson, an Illustrator/Designer based in Stockholm, Sweden. It´s so nice to see patterns with a masculine touch - and I was very dissappointed when I saw that his print at TinyShowcase was already sold out this morning - I guess I better find out what the time is in DK when it´s 7:30 PM EST in the States - since it´s not the first time it happens to me that a print gets sold out while I sleep!

Mui Ne

The last stop in Vietnam was in Mui Ne, a perfect place to relax and "digest" all the images of Vietnam and all the miles we´ve travelled. We loved Vietnam and will surely go back again.

I plan to upload a lot more photos at my Flickr when I get around to buy a pro account... and I hope you´ve enjoyed this little trip here.