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A lovely Sunday in Amsterdam

Starting your own business, or better/worse (*please delete as appropriate ) your own shop, can be compared to renovating an old house. If you would know up front what you’d run into, you would never think of starting it. But hey, as said you never know what will happen, so still moving along! ;)
Nevertheless, there have been a lot of deep breaths lately.

 

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!)

 

 

The truth about The Woonbeurs

So. The Woonbeurs.

 

The truth about the Woonbeurs…is that after all the craziness and mania that is called Woonbeurs, for a week I lived like a zombie.
From different sides I had been told that this was completely normal post-fair behaviour.

 

Wowza!

 

“Never mind”, I told myself, “the enjoy-your-succes-part will soon arrive”. Unfortunately when the end of the zombie era came in sight there were some nasty family circumstances to deal with. And well… at that point in time super-grumpy Ellen kicked in.

My recipe: a nice night with friends and a walk with Mr Rockstar through the always welcoming city of Antwerp. My clearer head told me: circumstances can’t be changed and no one wouldn’t want me to enjoy my success.

 

So. I gave myself a good kick in the butt to have a little Woonbeurs blog party tonight.

 

Even though the Woonbeurs is a subject that’s already long gone in blog country.
Even though everybody has already moved on to write about autumny stuff.
Even though I really have to start working on me OD’ing you guys on exclamation marks.

I’m turning back time two-and-a-half weeks, when:

  • I got to build my own little living room together with friend Kim Welling.
  • I got to work together with a very talented designer I admire: Femke Veltkamp!
  • I got to meet so many online friends, which for me, always is the best part of events like these.
  • We were a huge success with people calling us a fresh breeze after all the hardcore designs out there. Woohoo! Exactly what we were hoping for!
  • The whole reason I dreamed of having a shop was to see for myself how people react to my work, to meet and interact with like minded people. That was exactly what happened. We had such fun!
  • My favorite magazine published an interview with Urlaub on their blog!
  • And then afterwards… over 15 blogs rewarded our hard work with lovely pictures and words about the shop! (check http://www.immerurlaub.nl for links)

 

Yaaaay for The Woonbeurs! Thanks everyone! ;)

 

Check out these cooooool pictures (and the nice blogs they originate from)!

 

Spaziale:

woonbeurs spaziale

woonbeurs spaziale

Mikodesign:

woonbeurs mikodesign

Refreshbug:

woonbeurs refreshbug

Liefgeval:

woonbeurs liefgeval

A good friend of mine was just there as this nice lady bought three of my prints all at once:

Enigheid:

woonbeurs enigheid

And for the Grand Final a big thank you to the friend that was watching me the whole fair and offered a welcome little break every now and then.  (Look at it! I so so so wanted to take that gorgeous thing home!)