Crafty Children

Johan -5 years

Olivia, 3 years.

My sisters children aged 3 and 5 made these wonderful cards - after a walk in the forest.

I plan to make something inspired by these appleprints with Nanna soon - and I wish that I had designed this pattern.

I svampskogen, designed by Canadian: David Van Berckel for Almedahls.

Breast Cancer T-shirts for sale

The Breast Cancer Awareness T-shirt 2007 - will hit the shops here in Denmark this sunday. A lot of people from outside DK have asked how to get hold of it and I´m thinking that the easiest way is if I go shopping on Sunday and buy a small stock and then sell them through my Etsy-shop.

So if you would like to order a T-shirt please leave a comment or email me your name and adress, size and which colour you prefer - preferably before Sunday 30th of September.

The price is $ 20. per T-shirt - 50% of all t-shirts purchases will be donated to the Danish Cancer Society. + $ 10. for shipping worldwide per T-shirt.

Dame t-shirt - kun i Netto. T-shirten fås i to farver og koster 99 kr. pr. stk., hvoraf 50 kr. går til Kræftens Bekæmpelse. T-shirten sælges kun i Netto fra søndag den 30.9, og så længe lager haves.

Things I love...

Things I love... is this colour combination, and all the stuff show in it, flowers, vases, fashion, jewellery, colours, textures, harvest time, apples and pears, this song - and the fact that my Breast Cancer Pattern has been featured around the blogs and that Julia Rotman whose patterns I admire so much left this comment .)

- Thank You All!

Next Travel

I just can´t believe how fast the year has passed by - September is almost over and people have started to sell 2008 calenders and to plan Christmas parties - it´s crazy! and then again - we have already booked tickets for Hong Kong this Christmas and plan to combine it with some Island/beach life somewhere in Asia. If you have some great tips about Hong Kong - please write me a email or post a link - so far Orla Kiely´s flagshipstore in Hong Kong is the only thing on my to do list.
The photos are from our Summerholiday in Vietnam in July 07.

Have a Happy Weekend

The Breast Cancer Campaign

This is the pattern - based on the fact that 1 out of 9 women suffer from breastcancer. I made 9 pair of breasts in different shapes and colours- with one breast missing in the last pair.


Here´s the pattern on some of the products that will be sold in different shops in DK in October.

So this is the special project I wanted to tell you about. Last year I wrote this post about how October is the Breast Cancer Awareness month - and why breast cancer is an issue close to my heart, since both my mother and grandmother has suffered from it and survived it! - and since my aunt on my fathers side died from it a few years ago. Well this year I designed the logo & patterns for this years Breast Cancer Campaign for The Danish Cancer Society. I´ve been working on this project during the last year - and it´s so nice to be able to share it now- and to see my design on t-shirts, silk scarfes, rubberboots etc.

It´s been a great project not only because it´s an issue close to my heart but also because it´s been a great introduction to pattern design for me - it´s been learning by doing - and I have grown a big passion for pattern design. Another great thing is that it all happend because of my blog - because last year I contacted The Danish Cancer Society to ask the name of the designer behind the pattern - so I could blog about it - and after the phonecall I sent the person I´d talked to some of my postcards - she showed them to the right persons who then contacted me to ask if I would enter a design for next years campaign. I did and the rest is history...

To inspire others to support the fight against breastcancer I´ve now also started a fundraising campaign at the campaign website, where people can easily support or start their own fundraising campaign. My plan is to fundraise 10.000 dkr. aprox. 1850 dollars and it´s going really well so far :) You can support it here - or even better - spread the word about this project on your blog, please. My hope is to inspire others to use their creativity and talents to support an issue close to their heart.

Happy Birthday Mum

Today is my mothers birthday - she´s 65 now and will retire from work this Friday. I meant to write a post about what a wonderful and strong woman she is - but I get too emotional. But the special project I´m about to tell you about soon - is something I´ve done to honour her - since she has suffered from breastcancer twice - and have beaten it twice! She´s tougher than the rest - and I´m so happy she is mine. Tillykke Ninnamor.

New week - new boots

Here´s a picture of my new rubber boots - they were very good for picking blackberries this weekend. But what I like most about them is that the print is my design - and this print is part of a much bigger project which I´ve been working on for the last year and have been dying to share with you. Today is busy and tomorrow I´m in Copenhagen - so on wensday I´ll give you the full story and more pictures and prints to fill you in on this very special project.

More vases

Had to share these beauties- from photographer Janne Peters portfolio - such equistite colours and great styling by Maria Grossmann.

ceramic vases

I have a soft spot for vases - especially ceramic ones - and on my wishlist is Fiducia, by Louise Campbell, which combines vases and candlesticks with small magnets - I love the styling too.

Another vase on my wishlist is Grass by Claydies, now distributed by Normann Copenhagen.
Please check out Claydies webpage, they have made some pretty cool stuff all in all - and make sure to visit the Normann Store if you visit Copenhagen.

Wall paper Owl collage

I made this collage last week at my friends place, using her great wallpaper samples! We try to get together on a regular basis, to do crafty & creative projects together. I made this owl for Nanna´s room in the summerhouse, but discovered this weekend that it doesn´t really fit - and I´m not sure it´s completely finished yet - so for now it will just hang here on my blog. What do you think? It´s based on my other owl, and inspired by the Kindergallery.

First day of Autumn ?

Today looked like this - pretty pattern on my new raincoat by Numph - and rain on my window - and now I wish they would make raincoats like mine for children! There a so many mums around town wearing Danefæ raincoats - and I hope I´ll just stand out a little eventhough I´m fully aware that with this new raincoat I now fit into the MPBSP-category "Mum with Pram or Bicycle trying to be Stylish yet Practical". But I really really like the pattern and colours.

Last Day of Summer?

I think yesterday was the last summerday here in DK - but it was a good one - I even got a sunburn!

Vibeke Vinther - collages

Discovered Vibeke Vinthers collages today - and liked this one called Room - because it looks like my little family ready for a relaxing weekend. Have a good one!

Squirrel hunt at Etsy

I did a little research on squirrels yesterday at Etsy, because I had to draw one, and look what autumn goodies I found. Felt Squirrels by sugarsquirrels. acorn earrings by Maryandjane, button set by KungFuCowgirl, japanese fabric by luckykaerufabric, and knit woodland patterns by AmyGaines. Hunting Squirrels is great fun!

Elasticco - Elodie Blanchard

I fell in love with this scarf at etsy - and the profile name rang a bell, and to my delight I revisited Elodie Blanchard´s homepage. How can you not love someone who creates great stuff out of rubberbands and wonderfull textile projects. Here´s a new Etsy interview with her.

Movement

It´s time for the annual Aarhus Festival, and the theme this year is movement - my personal movement this week will be getting out of town as much as possible, since our flat is located in the center close to a tent with live music all day... - and since we know all the cover songs by heart from last year and the year before - getting away seems like the only sane thing to do! Well there are some good things going on as well, like a red tour around the city, top picture, and theframe shown below, which I´m one of the sponsors behind, since it´s an old friend who came up with the idea. And here´s a little inside information for my readers... if you like/love this local performer - come by the frame wensday at 4 o´clock - I´ll see you there .)

Print & patterns for children

To brigthen up this monday -here´s some prints and clothes by Småfolk - which makes great clothes for children. I often wish I could wear the same amount of colours and prints as Nanna, but I´m not sure I can pull it off :)

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.