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

Today's Crush: Cool Plant Styling by Victoria Ling

Today I want to share with you these amazing photo's taken by still life photographer Victoria Ling. Often together with a stylist or set designer, Victoria creates still life compositions for various clients such as Elle Decoration, Wallpaper, Clarks, Marie Claire and many more. She also makes beautiful personal work like this series of patterned botanics called "Plant Cells", it's so cool! The patterns on the plants are created with lots of stickers, it seems like a lot of work but the result is stunning, especially combined with the printed wallpaper! For more of Victoria's work go to her website.

Photography: Victoria Ling

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

DIY Cacti for Fashionista magazine

This month the restyled Fashionista magazine is out with a complete new look! I'm very proud to be featured in this issue with a fun and easy DIY! Even though cacti are plants very easy to maintain, sometimes we're just too busy to take care of our green friends and they might end up dried out or neglected. If that is the case with you, this might be the solution: fake cacti! They will live forever and don't need any attention at all!

This is what you need:

- foamboard or cardboard

- Green and white paint

- A black marker

- Rice

- Flowerpots ( I got these at Ikea)

- Utility knife

- Cutting mat

- Pencil 

Step 1:

Print out some cacti templates ( you can find one on my DIY Pinterest board: https://nl.pinterest.com/myattic/diy/), cut out the shapes & trace them onto the foamboard with a pencil.

Step 2:

Cut out the cacti shapes from the foamboard with a utility knife.

Step 3:

Paint them in different shades of green. Use the white paint to create the different shades of green. Leave them to dry.

Step 4:

Use the black marker to draw some spines onto the cacti and put the pieces together to create a cactus. 

Step 5:

Fill up the flowerpots with rice and put the cacti into the rice.

All done!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Tropical plants for vtwonen

As you may know I'm blogging about the possibilities of greens every week for vtwonen. If you are a plant addict like myself, you know that the possibilities are endless so it's a great topic to blog about! I wanted to share these pictures with you that I made of tropical plants in my living room. I used the bottom part of our pink sideboard (it comes in two separate parts which is very handy) for this setting because it combines beautifully with the tropical plants! For the plants I used some vintage pottery, you can never have too much flower pots right?

Tropical plants are very easy to maintain and they don't need a lot of water. You do have to make sure that the soil is always a little moist and the best place to keep them is in a light, warm space but not in direct sunlight. Unfortunately, these beautiful plants only bloom once so make sure you put them in a prominent place to enjoy the flowers while you can!

Read more about my love for green on vtwonen or follow this Botanic Pinterest board!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

DIY Flowerpots for Vtwonen

I made these diy flowerpots for my latest Vtwonen blog after being inspired by a couple of similar ideas on Pinterest. I still had some paint left from the Flexa workshop that I gave in October at the Meet The Blogger event and I decided to use it for this project. The terracotta flowerpots I bought at Ikea some time ago because I loved the design and shape, they were perfect for this diy!

With tape I created a graphic pattern on two of the three flowerpots and filled it in with yellow and mint green. For the best result I did the painting part twice but it didn't take too much time because the (wall) paint dried up quickly! For the third pot I made a template of half a circle and used it to draw the pattern on the pot with a pencil. After that I used a small paintbrush to fill in the pattern. I'm very happy with these updated flowerpots that are now on one of my favourite thrifted drawers!

As you can see, my cat Def, was not that excited as I was! He still wanted to be in the picture though...

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Plantshelfie

I joined the UJB community about one year ago. The first blogpost I wrote for Urban Jungle Bloggers was about a Plantshelfie as well and now Igor and Judith decided to bring this classic back! This time I used my workspace to create a green setting. Evert and I made this little wall cabinet from OSB boards which I wrote about here. In the meantime, my workspace has changed a bit but the cabinet is still there. I collected some of my plants and made a little hanging garden above my desk. It's always nice to have some greens around when you're working right?!

The desk I found at the thrift shop an painted it in a mint green. I'm still not sure what to do with the top so if you have any suggestions, they are more then welcome!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Make Your Plant Pop!

Plantcolorpop, again a fun and original theme Igor & Judith came up with for this month! This theme also made me realize that I hardly have any colored walls at home... A bit strange for a color lover like myself! Does this mean that our interior is in need for some changes? It's always good to have an excuse right? For now I used some colored paper in my favorite colors pink, mint & yellow. I love the way these beautiful plants pop combined with a colored background! I want to wish all the Urban Jungle Bloggers a nice summer break (and everyone else as well off course)!

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Show Your Plant Gang!

It's so cool to see all those Plant Gangs from bloggers all over the world through Urban Jungle Bloggers! I'm happy to show you my very own Plant Gang! I gathered (almost) all of my plants and thought the Tomado shelving unit was a perfect place to make a composition of my green friends. As you can see, some of them are in glass and some of them are in terracotta or porcelain. I love to mix them all together in different sizes, structures and shapes! For all my UJB posts, click here!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Offer a Plant to a Friend

I really like this month's Urban Jungle Bloggers theme "Offer a Plant to a Friend"! Just showing your loved ones that you care about them with a little green gift! I found this small Cacti garden at the garden centre and thought this would be a perfect gift... I painted a triangle pattern in white & light pink on the flowerpot to give it a personal touch. The person I wanted to show some green love is my sister. She deserves some extra love because she had a tough year. Nevertheless she makes the most of it! Love you sis!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Happy Green Easter!

When this month's Urban Jungle Bloggers theme was announced, I didn't immediately had an idea. So what do you do when you're not inspired? You go to the Thrift Shop! When I was browsing through the store, my eye fell on this glass egg planter, perfect! I also found a very hideous yellow flowerpot. But the longer I looked at it, the more I started to love it! I bought a couple of mini plants and placed them into the egg, not that easy I can tell you... But it worked out and I think this mini Easter garden looks great in my living room! Happy Green Easter everyone!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Hanging Planters

This is my fourth Urban Jungle Bloggers post and I'm very excited that I joined this cool green community a couple of months ago! It's a lot of fun to work on a different green theme every month and it's a good excuse to invest in some new plants every once in a while. I recently won the cutes book ever called "Me and my Plant" by the Dutch publisher "Snor" with the Give Away that Judith & Igor organized! How cool is that?!

This month's UJB theme is "Hanging Planters". With some Zpagetti cord & two baskets I made these hanging planters and hung them on a ladder that I placed between two beams on my attic. I bought a new hanging plant called Coral Breeze which is the big one on the right. I also used the Consol Solar Jar that I wrote about earlier. The result of this project is that I want these hanging planters on the ceiling in our living room now! To be continued....

Pictures by Marij Hessel