Yesterday I posted this on Instagram.

Even before I received Marloes‘s lovely gift, Octavie – who I never met in real life – touched me with hers.

I would wish for all of you to be Dutch. Just to be able to read Octavie‘s blogs.

In the commercial blog world, her non-commercial one really stands out. Sharing her beautiful drawings and her magical view on life. Such integrity, such sincerity.

I found the painting below in my mailbox after a little post on facebook that I loved her robin so much…

Thank you so much, Octavie (and Marloes and Anki, and all those others that give so much), you don’t know how much these things mean!!!

I deserved a break. So last week I donated myself some offline time, which culminated in a beautiful day in Amsterdam. I was invited to Ingrid‘s (aka Ingthings) booklaunch – at colourful shop All the Luck in the World in Amsterdam – and decided to combine this with a three hour breakfast on a sunny terrace at the area called De Pijp. I met my talented friend Nadine there which always makes for some good conversation.

I must say my distaste for Sundays is maybe, just maybe, slowly giving me less of a hard time.
I had a blast!

So many smiles: Dog Marley showing us her icebear moves, kids grooming guinea pigs (!) in the parc, Mikodesign‘s daughter being all excited about going to the best high school ever, this beautiful Frida she designed together with her mum and gave to me, and all those little gifts that Ingrid had layed out for all us guests to take home. She really knows how to throw a party (and must be the most generous person I have ever met…). I took home the little bird below (unfortunately my cat liked it as much as I did..!).

Check out Ingrid’s wonderful book, about thrifting, DIY, and foremost about enjoying small things, right here: Kringloopgeluk.

(sorry for all the filters, peeps, only had my iphone on me!)

Forget about snailmail.

There’s a new concept in town.

The Letter blog!

Italian rooted Dutch creative centipede Chiara van den Berg spent wintertime at her family’s old casa in Palermo.

There she came across beautiful old craftpapers and envelopes.
At a garage sale she found inspiring antique and devotional pictures.

She cut, glued and wrote, and there it was. One letter blog. Everyday.

When her stay had ended she had made twentynine letters.

I decided to order one of them. That Churchill picture alone would’ve been worth the money.

Would you also like to receive a letterblog? Chiara is still sending them all over the world!
You just need to transfer €3,50 to her account, so she won’t starve on all those orders and can still have nice vegan dinners every night.

Check out all twentynine Palermo letters right here.

Also check out JaniceMacLeod, who writes letters from Paris!

And now one of the Netherlands’s funniest illustrating ladies, Maaike Hartjes, is working on a book about the illustration business! According to her too many illustrators don’t bother reading business books because they tend to be too boring. That’s where Maaike comes in: she won’t be writing boring stories on how to do business… she will DRAW them!

The book is aimed at starting and wannabe illustrators but she hopes professional illustrators will pick up a few tips as well.

The title will be ‘Tekeningen, Rekeningen’ (drawings, bills’).

Because of the growing enthousiasm for her book and it’s facebook page (where she shows finished comic pages of the book) she decided to translate her business comics in English!

Here’s number one:

I am also so in love with the badge she made for illustrator’s websites (see below).

As Maaike puts it:
“One of my colleagues got an assignment for a comic this week.  Though well, assignment…
There was a tight budget so she was asked to work for free!
Somehow it didn’t occur to them to ask the printer or designer to work for free.
After all, those are REAL jobs  and drawing is just a fun hobby, right?! :-/

So here’s an answer you can tell your ‘clients’ when they ask for freebies!”

Maybe for some of you this badge still doesn’t do the trick?
Then check out the website of Mr Bingo: www.mr-bingo.org.uk.
Scroll all the way down to ‘Info’ and click on the link that says ‘Does Mr Bingo work for free’.

Guaranteed laughing so hard it will hurt.