Each year my good friend Leslie (aka Swarm) visits the Design Academy Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week, and while she’s there she takes photos of some of her favourite creations/ideas/designs on display and emails them to me. This one came through my inbox the other day with just these words “Make your own wallpaper from wildflowers and a hammer”.

Love. It.

Created by design student Elena Pereira, her idea stems from the notion that flowers are used to express emotion as well as the strive for perfection:

“Life withers, nothing ever stays the same, why then should we cultivate perfection? The living space is a reflection of the daily struggle with life’s demands.”

Here is a little film of her making the wallpaper, and you can visit Elena’s website to see more of her work.

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Photo courtesy of Leslie Oschmann

Dutch stylist & jewelry designer Miranda van Dijk has just created a beautiful new collection called hidden memories. I’ve known about it for some time, and have found myself going back to Miranda’s website to take ‘one more look’ a number of times over the past couple of months. Drawn to her new work but again last week, I figured it was about time I share it with you here in the (blog)house…

Inspired by the connection between nature and humankind, Miranda has fashioned brooches and necklaces from cotton fabric printed with old photographs. Above are some of the designs she has been working with, and I’m captivated by all of them, but especially love the necklaces. Miranda sells her work in markets around Holland (she was just part of the Swan Market in Rotterdam this weekend), but her work is also for sale online here.  And you’ll be rapt to know that Miranda is also offering custom creations as part of this collection, just send her an email.

Now I’m inspired to rummage through my old family albums and email some photos to Miranda… mother’s day is just around the corner.

A couple of weeks ago, Romain and I had the pleasure of having lunch at my favourite Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam with my great uncle Roel who I had not seen in 15 years. Oom Roel lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but he is Dutch-Indonesian, and grew up both here in Holland and Indonesia. Over our long lunch of rijs tafel – a Dutch-Indonesian speciality – he shared stories from his childhood, and told me things about my Opa that I never knew.

Oom Roel’s mother – my great grandmother  – was half Indonesian, half Scottish. She spoke many languages and she traveled the world regularly, even in her nineties. As a child I was so inspired by her, and I felt somehow deeply connected, even though I’d only met her a handful of times. During lunch, oom Roel gave me a letter that his sister-in-law had been saving for me all these years. It was a letter that I had written to my great-grandmother when I was just 8 years old. As soon as I took the letter out of the envelope I had the most vivid memories of the paper. But the content of this letter is what captured my heart the most. To my delight I discovered that even “sometimes” wishes can come true…

…this sweet charm necklace made by lennebelle (a.k.a the lovely Lenneke Kooijman)  looks so utterly charming in it’s glass tube, I could not bare to take it out… until today…

Oh yes, I’m a very proud friend. I just wrote a post about it in the (blog)house kitchen, go and take a wander in there to learn more about this gorgeous book in the making!