Exciting News!

"And suddenly you know... It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings."

I have some very exciting news to share! Finally I can tell you that very soon I'll be launching my new website including a webshop! I've been working on this for quite some time and with a lot of help from Casper (Zilverblauw) my new website is almost finished... I can't wait for you to see it!

For a while I've been having this dream to open my own online shop with vintage furniture and accessories that I've collected and often updated as well. I had a lot of doubts and insecurities before I found the courage to just take this step. Collecting vintage treasures is really something that I'm passionate about and it makes me very happy! So why not share it with the rest of the world?! Well let's just start with Holland and Belgium...

To give you an impression of the products I will be selling, here are some pictures to hopefully get you excited! Off course I'm hoping that you will keep following me on my new website because I'll keep on blogging like before, just with a new look! I'll keep you posted about my new website so stay tuned!!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

A splash of Palm Green!

Last week I decided to give our guestroom / my workspace an update. When we moved into our home, we used a lot of simple white wallpaper on the walls upstairs. Now there's almost nothing left of the wallpaper, I rather paint my walls white or give them a nice splash of colour! For this room I had a dark green in mind. I thought it would go well with the plants & furniture in that room because I used a lot of mint, light blue, green and grey. On the website of Flexa, I looked at all the options in dark green and teal. I chose the colour "100% Palmboom". To paint the complete wall in this colour could be a little too much so I decided to make a graphic shape on the wall and paint it in the palm green colour. 

I wanted to combine the palm green with another fresh colour, only couldn't decide which colour would go well with it... A great way to decide which colour to use for your walls are the Flexa Creations Testers. You can buy them at the construction market for less than two Euro's and you can choose from 35 different colours. I decided to test out the colours "Stylish Pink", "Fresh Linen" and "Early Dew". The testers are really easy to use because there's a mini roller integrated into the tester so you can use it directly onto your walls or you could use them on a piece of paper. I used them on my wall right next to the palm green so I would get a good impression of the colours in daylight and artificial light.

After testing the three colours on my wall I eliminated the "Stylish Pink". I do like the combination of pink and green but in this room it wouldn't be great. When I looked at the furniture and accessories in this room I decided to go for the "Fresh Linen". There's already a lot going on in this room and with the colour "Early Dew" there would be too much different shades of green. So I got myself a can of the Fresh Linen and painted the rest of the wall with it. As you can see this colour is very close to white but it's just a tat more greyish and I think it's very fresh with the Palm Green!

This was also a great moment to hang my new String Plex Pocket that I got at the Imm Cologne tour, such a generous gift! This is a new version with wall panels of clear perspex which gives it an original and modern twist. I love my new wall and the Palm Green got me thinking of a nice tropical wallpaper, maybe, somewhere? We'll see!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

DIY Postcard Art

As you may know, every month I make a diy for the Dutch magazine Fashionista. For this issue I made an artwork with used postcards. I love to receive nice postcards from friends and family for my birthday or just spontaneously (those are the best)! When it's a nice looking postcard I often keep it on a pinboard or on my refrigerator. But after a while you might get bored with them and throw them away, such a waste! Especially when you received it from someone you love. With this diy, you can keep those lovey postcards as an artwork on your wall!

This is what you do:

- Collect a couple of postcards and make a nice (colour coordinated) selection.

- Use a ruler and a pencil to draw triangles on the back of the postcards & cut them out. I made triangles of 4x5 cm and 10x15 cm. Cut some of them in halve so you can make a rectangle with them later on.

- Create a nice pattern with the triangles and make a rectangle. When you're satisfied you can glue the artwork onto a piece of paper. 

- When it's dry, cut out your artwork and put it into a frame. I used a frame with double glass so it looks a little bit like it's floating.

Give the artwork a nice place in your home so every time you look at it, it will remind you of some great moments and great people!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

A Happy Home: Pink Wall

Sometimes you have those very impulsive moments when you want to paint something... Last week I had such a moment when I decided to paint the wall in our dressing room pink! I still had some paint left from the Flexa workshop I gave at the Meet The Blogger conference in Amsterdam. For this wall I used the pink/peach colour by Flexa with the code D5.13.72 It's a beautiful colour that really warms up the whole room! 

I didn't have to change a lot in this room because the items that were already there were matching great with the new pink wall... I think the different shades of wood blend in perfectly with this colour. On the wall there are pieces by Housedoctor, Marieke Veere and Roxanne Dekker. On my Ikea drawer there's the Trash Lamp, some boxes from Sostrene Grene & a small mirror by Ikea PS. The big mirror & the leather bag I found at the thrift store.

On the other side of the room you can see out vintage closet that we found on Marktplaats. On top of it there are some thrifted vintage vases that I love! On the floor there's a kelim that we bought at the Dutch festival Pinkpop at the Kiboots stand. The green magazine rack I bought a while ago at Urban Outfitters. The cute cacti illustrations are made by the talented Inge from Teken-ing and the calendar is from the lovely Darling Clementine. 

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Jungle Animals

It's that time of the month again! It's still so much fun to join the monthly Urban Jungle Bloggers themes that Igor and Judith come up with! This time it's all about Jungle Animals... With this theme I immediately thought of the inspiring Justina Blakeney and her amazing Jungalow style that I absolutely love!! Just browsing through her images for a couple of minutes inspired me to get going. Actually I don't have a lot of animalistic things in my home (except for my two cats) so I decided to give the thrift store a go (any excuse will do). I was positively surprised by the cool things that I found! First I stumbled upon some wooden elephant figurines and later on a wooden and a marble (!) rhino. You can imagine how excited I was when I found the hanging monkeys that were just perfect for this theme! It's funny when you have a certain theme in mind, how different you look at things. Otherwise I probably wouldn't even have noticed these fun jungle animals!

Oh and congratulations Igor and Judith with your upcoming Urban Jungle Book!! Very well deserved and I can't wait for the result!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Thrift Shop

Yep, I did it again... While visiting a couple of thrift stores with a friend I came across this colourful piece of embroidery (I have a thing for embroideries lately). It really makes me long for spring with all those lovely flowers. Can you imagine how much patience it must have cost to make something like this? Because of the soft pastel tones it looks perfect above our couch next to my thrifted vase, wooden candlesticks and the round mirror I bought at a flea market.

I also found the cup and saucer which I instantly loved because of the green dots! The marble coaster and teapot are the result of an earlier thrift hunt. Can't wait for my next trip... Have a great week!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Kitchen Greens

This month's Urban Jungle Bloggers theme is "Kitchen Greens". The kitchen is a place that I like to spend time in... I actually really love to cook when I have some time on my hands. Right now I'm in a healthy phase again (with me it comes with phases) so I try to use as much fresh ingredients as possible. Fresh herbs are the perfect example of kitchen greens but at the moment I didn't have any. I do have a couple of cute small plants to spice up my kitchen! Recently I found this little cacti family at the gardening centre. I had to take them home because of their little yellow flowers, did not see those before!

That other little plant, I don't know the name of, I have for a long time now and this one keeps doing so well! It doesn't need a lot of attention so it's a keeper. If you're curious about the rest of my kitchen? There's a reason you're not seeing it! There's still a lot that I would love to change but maybe it would be better to get a complete new kitchen! Oh well... Maybe one day... But for now I'm just showing you some details ;)

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Give Away I Love My Type!

I was very thrilled that the young & Danish brand I Love My Type contacted me to see if I was interested in a collaboration. They offered me to pick out my favourite framed poster from their beautiful collection... It was a difficult decision but I thought the Wild At Heart poster would be perfect for our home because of the colours and the combination of flowers and graphics. I think it looks great above our couch together with my new thrifted ochre blanket! Take a look at the complete ILMT collection here, it's very fresh!

Give Away

Great news... You can now win a framed poster of your choice from the I Love My Type collection! You can even choose the size you want. Sounds good right? Just leave a comment underneath this post and I'll choose a winner on January 15. You can follow ILMT on Instagram here and on Facebook here.

Good luck!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Happy New Year!

When I think of New Years Eve, I think of gold! For my weekly post on vtwonen I bought myself some beautiful branches with a golden coating at the gardening centre. Because the colour of 2016 is Ochre Gold I used our bedroom wall as a backdrop which gives the gold an extra boost!

If you have planned a New Years Eve dinner or brunch you can use some golden twigs to decorate the table. I used my golden cutlery that was in my goodiebag at the Bolia.com opening event in Amsterdam (yay!). As you can see, with a little touch of gold, everything becomes more festive and NYE proof! 

Have a great party and I'll see you next year!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Bye bye 2015!

The end of 2015 is very close so it's time to look back at some of my favourite moments of this year! It really has been a good year full of creativity, nice collaborations and great events. I have a lot of reasons to be thankful! It also has been a busy year and I have a feeling that 2016 will be pretty busy as well... But I'm ready to work hard, follow my dreams and have some fun while doing it! I hope 2015 was a great year for you as well! If you have had some setbacks, I hope you have family and friends to fall back on and cheer you up. I like to think that a new year comes with a clean slate and with a positive attitude, you can achieve anything!

These are some of my favourite moments of 2015...

FLEXA

It was great to collaborate with a brand like Flexa. At the Meet The Blogger event, I had the opportunity to host a Flexa workhop which was so much fun! Later on I used the Colour Of The Year "Ochre Gold" in our bedroom and I'm still in love with it.

MOLLIEMAKES CHRISTMAS SHOOT

This year, Christmas came early for me because in August we did a Christmas shoot for Mollie Makes magazine at our home. It was pretty difficult to get a real Christmas tree at that time of the year but in the end it worked out and I was a little sad when it had to go back to the owner once we were done shooting! The pictures were made by Henny van Belkom.

VTWONEN

I'm very happy that vtwonen decided to work with bloggers more and more because we can do some great things together! In August, the "vtwonen loves blogs" magazine came out where I was featured in together with a group of inspiring bloggers. We were all invited for a lovely lunch at the vtwonen headquarters to celebrate our collaboration. Since November, I'm also blogging weekly for vtwonen about my love for greens!

SNOR FESTIVAL

In 2015 there were a lot of great events that I went to and met up with fellow bloggers. This is always very inspiring but more important, a lot of fun! It's great to meat up with people that have the same interests & eye for detail (and don't bother me taking pictures of everything because we all do it!!). The event that stuck with me the most was the lovely "Snor Festival". The location was amazing, the weather was good, the people were nice, food was delicious and we got to see Anki & Casper from Zilverblauw launch their book "Shoot!"

NYC

I love traveling (who doesn't?) and a great plus of my job at Costes is that I get to travel to amazing places on a regular basis! The best trip of 2015 definitely was New York City... I love the atmosphere and the people. You can feel at home very easily here because this city makes you feel very welcome! This place, Tiny's and the Bar Upstairs, is where we had breakfast a couple of times, isn't it cute?

Pictures by Marij Hessel