Forest Inspired Vignette

Autumn mist, crisp air, the wilderness of the forest - all these seasonal elements inspired me to a little vignette. I love to play around at home from time to time and go through my piles of props. This vignette has been triggered by a vintage oil painting that I had found recently online. I liked the deep greens, the evocative brushstrokes, the immortalized nature. The oil painting reminded me of my scented candle named Skov (Forest) by Skandinavisk and I had the perfect props from Bolia to finish it off - three little wooden forest trees, a shiny vase and a marble tray. 

What I like most about this vignette is not the green hues, it is the interesting 2D/3D effect created by the forest trees on the oil painting and the wooden forest trees. More pictures and explanations can be seen on the Bolia blog where I presented my forest vignette, too.

Happy weekend, friends!

Photography by Igor Josifovic

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Urban Jungle Bloggers: Cosy & Green Bedroom

November is reaching its end and it has been a real cliché here - lots of grey and foggy days, cold and wet. It's the kind of weather that makes you want to stay in bed all day and just not go out. Probably this was the idea about our November topic for Urban Jungle Bloggers: Creating a cosy bedroom with green plants to make those dull, grey November days bearable seemed like a nice task. For me it was literally a last minute task: I was running from work to grab the last bit of gloomy November daylight to make a super quick styling and shoot the pictures.

I have shared images of my bedroom a few times already and I always have plants there. This time I have shuffled my plants a little bit and changed the selection: I have moved the monstera plant next to the bed, I have added my aloe vera plant, my purple succulent, my white fluffy cactus and my latest addition, an offshoot of a plant called purple heart that I received from my Urban Jungle Bloggers partner in crime, Judith. Additionally I have added a cutting of a succulent on my Kimidori stool (I actually nicked that cutting in a Greek restaurant) and I hung an air plant above my bed. 

Colour wise I love mustardy hues this time of the year. I have added a brand new bedspread from Urbanara in a soft and tactile waffle structure, paired it with a few blue cushions - that's it. I matched it with my yellow desk lamp, a mustard hued kitchen towel and I served myself a cup of green tea in my new, handmade Japanese mug also from Urbanara. Add a great new magazine (The Happy Reader) and voilà - after the shooting I jumped into bed and had a good read and finished my tea.

Since we're approaching the festive season I am continuing my Santa mission today too: I have teamed up with Urbanara to offer you the same bedspread in the wonderful mustard colour too. All you have to do to join the giveaway is leave a comment under this blogpost. The giveaway will be open until Sunday, November 30, 2014, midnight CET. It is open to all European readers.

Here's to a calm and happy weekend in our cosy and green bedroom!

Urban Jungle Bloggers is a monthly series initiated by 2 bloggers: Igor (Happy Interior Blog) and Judith (JOELIX.com). Every month we share ideas to create an urban jungle through styling ideas, DIYs and green tips & tricks. You can find additional inspiration on our Urban Jungle Bloggers Pinterest board and keep up-to-date on our website and Facebook page. Want to join? Use #urbanjunglebloggers on Twitter and Instagram. Or let us know and we'll share the badge and upcoming topics with you. Let's bring some green into your homes and blogs!

Photography by Igor Josifovic

This blog post has been brought to you in collaboration with Urbanara

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Giveaway: Win A $1,000 Gift Pack From Drake General Store

We are just a few days ahead of December and I have fantastic news for you: Santa Claus exists! So no matter your age or belief, I do know he exists. At least here on Happy Interior Blog because today I will be your personal Santa! In order to accomplish this humongously responsible task I have teamed up with the Canada based Drake General Store (isn't Santa from Canada? Well today he has a great gift center right there in Toronto).

But why am I so excited? Maybe because it is the biggest giveaway ever on Happy Interior Blog offering a gift pack worth $ 1,000? Maybe. But I am also excited because I am doing it with Drake General Store - a very cool Canadian lifestyle brand founded in 2008. Drake General Store originated as the hotel gift shop for the Toronto-based boutique hotel The Drake Hotel and has expanded to five brick and mortar stores and a fantastic webshop. With this peculiar history, Drake General Store reimagines the hotel gift shop while capturing inspiration from the classic general store. 

When I was asked to curate a gift pack worth $ 1,000 for one of my readers, I was totally amazed. I spent hours clicking through the extensive range of beautifully curated eclectic treasures, housewares and apparel which have a strong emphasis on design, pop culture, novelty and nostalgia. A fab mix! Currently the store features a wonderful Holiday Collection with lots of beautiful pieces - you can be reassured that some of these goodies have found their way into the gift box! Moreover, Drake General Store offers flat rate shipping worldwide! Yay! Well, I can't judge myself but I'd say I have accomplished my Santa task in the best Happy Interior Blog manner and have curated a fabulicious gift box for one of YOU! 

What do you have to do to join the giveaway?
If you want to be the lucky one and win the $ 1,000 worth gift pack, join the giveaway by clicking and registering on the dedicated landing page HERE. The giveaway is open worldwide and runs until Wednesday, December 3rd 2014. The winner will be chosen randomly. 

Good luck & happy festive season from Drake General Store and Happy Interior Blog!

Photography via Drake General Store

This giveaway has been brought to you in collaboration with Drake General Store

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Why This Room Caught My Eye

If there is an all-time winning combination, then it must be blue and grey. At least in my world. This colour combination is the main reason why this room caught my eye. Imagine a plethora of beautiful interior images on Pinterest, and then there is one that sticks out totally and catches your eye. That's exactly what happened to me when I stumbled upon this interior styling. And it was a double surprise - I realized it was styled by one of my friends, the stylist Pella Hedeby. Everything in this room is an aesthetic pleasure, but these three elements are my main eye-catchers:

• Blue Cushions: Those blue cushions are the stars of this monochromatic interior composition. They stick out, they are the main visual cue on the first sight. I also like that Pella used different textures of cushions and matched them with a few tearsheets sticked on the wall.
• Tearsheet Gallery: A smart and simple way of adding a temporary gallery are favorite tearsheets. We all read nice magazines and love those amazing images - be it editorial photos, ads, detail shots. Why not tearing those out of the magazine and creating a little gallery wall like in this example?
• Bertoia Diamond Chair: This design classic makes the entire interior styling sophisticated. It underlines the design aesthetics and consciousness of the person living in (or styling) this room.

How do you like this room? What catches your eye?

Photography by Sara Danielsson, Styling by Pella Hedeby via Hitta Hem

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From Place To Space: Paris In November & New Paris Tips

As an avid and frequent traveller I have one luxurious problem – I am running behind with my travel posts. But I am trying hard to keep up and share all interesting information and travel tips with you. So let’s catch up and cover my latest trips to Paris in November. I travelled twice to my second hometown in November – the first trip was for a fun film shooting for our Urban Jungle Bloggers project and the second one was just pleasure related including cafés, shopping, food, design and music.

Let me shortly tell you about the filming thing: Judith and I were lucky enough to raise some good awareness for the Urban Jungle Bloggers project and eventually we were asked by the Dutch Flower and Plants Council to be interviewed in form of a little video in Paris. We were more than excited to do that and spent almost two full days with a Dutch TV crew in super sunny Paris filming at various green locations (including the fabulous art installation 'Many Small Cubes' by Japanese artist Sou Fujimoto in the Jardin des Tuileries) and talking about Urban Jungle Bloggers. More about this once the little film has been published!

Let me move to the more interesting part for you – my new discoveries and travel tips for Paris. I spent a good deal of my time in my home borough – the 20^th arrondissement. I love this Paris quarter for its authenticity, its creative vibe, its multicultural inhabitants – it is a real piece of Paris beyond the touristy glitter. This seems to be attractive for many local creatives, which is why I am noticing a slow but ongoing upgrade of this arrondissement. So here are my latest favourite spots in the 20^th arrondissement of Paris:

CreamCoffee (50 Rue de Belleville): This outpost of the famous third wave coffee places in Paris has set foot in the most bustling street of the 20^th arrondissement, the Rue de Belleville. I love this street because it descends from the Belleville hill towards downtown Paris opening up a fantastic yet totally mundane view of the Eiffel Tower. Now you have one more reason to go there and sip a cup of fabulous coffee at Cream, mingle with the young and creative crowd or simply watch the people pass by. Parfait!

Liberté (150 Rue de Ménilmontant): I blogged about this fabulous bakery quite a while ago (read it HERE along with more Paris tips) when I first discovered it in the trendy 10^th arrondissement. Now they have opened a second shop in the 20^th arrondissement, which features a bakery and restaurant. The space is open and very convivial with large tables to sit with locals and mingle. I went there for breakfast on a Saturday morning and loved it very much – the breakfast includes a pastry of your choice, two tartines (slices) of delicious baguette, a freshly squeezed orange juice, a hot beverage and butter and jam (see it HERE). And all this comes for less than 10 Euros – a great price in Paris and the quality is absolutely top notch. Délicieux!

La PetiteFabrique (15 Rue des Vignoles): The organic restaurant La Petite Fabrique (HERE is a peek) has been around for a little bit longer than a year, but it was only this time that I had the opportunity to wander down to a somewhat tucked away corner of the 20^th arrondissement, south of the well-known Père Lachaise cemetery. The restaurant has a very warm and inviting vibe – it is one large room that is not fully packed with tables but leaves a lot of space for the guests to be comfortable and enjoy their food and good conversations. The open kitchen creates a feeling like being at home or at a friend’s place. I went there for brunch on a rainy Sunday and was delighted by the organic treats: a full plate of yummy salads, eggs, bacon, potatoes and good bread, a crepes maker where you can make your own crepes as many as you like and top them with good organic jams and chocolate spreads, warm and cold drinks and a desert to round up the feasting. You will leave this restaurant with a very happy belly. And the way to and from the restaurant was another revelation to me: This rather residential area of the 20^th arrondissement boasts with quiet and green alleys and wonderful modern and ecological residential buildings. Wow!

I hope these three new discoveries will be reason enough for you to embark on a little adventure during your next Paris trip. You won’t regret it, that’s for sure!

Happy new week, folks!

Photography by Igor Josifovic

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Giveaway: Win Art For Your Walls By Ixxi

Have you heard of ixxi? If you love art on your walls this is the way to go! Ixxi is the perfect solution for wall art in rented spaces or if you do not want to harass your walls with a hammer, nails or a drilling machine - because the ixxi art is simply attached and detached without trace once you want to change your wall decor! I have teamed up with ixxi and I am working on three German home stories for their blog (you can see the first home story HERE).

Ixxi offers a wide range of possibilities - you can customize your favorite image into an ixxi art piece or choose from their huge image bank. Your chosen image will be divided into square images on a high quality synthetic paper which is waterproof and UV resistant. You will receive your ixxi in a small box within three days and you can then start playing - you can connect the square parts with the included connecting crosses and then easily fix your finished ixxi art piece with the delivered hanging strip. And once you are over and done with it, you can detach the ixxi without traces.

For the upcoming advent season I am happy to give away three winter/advent themed ixxis to three readers. We are giving away the following ixxi art pieces: The colourful advent calendar by Hannes Beer, the blue and white advent calendar by Geertje Aalders and the winter landscape by Avercamp, a favorite art piece from the Dutch Rijksmuseum. 

How can you join in? Simply leave a comment under this blog post telling me which of those three ixxis you'd like to win. The giveaway is open internationally and all comments posted until November 26th, 2014, will be in the draw. We'll make sure you get your ixxi beginning December. So what you're waiting for? Tell me which one you'd like!

Happy week, friends!

Photography via ixxi

This post has been brought to you in collaboration with ixxi

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Everyday Amazing: Esprit Home In 2015

A few weeks ago I received one of the coolest press preview invitations (see it HERE) - it was so amazing that I was totally intrigued. And it read: Everyday Amazing! But what was it all about? Esprit Home invited the press to a special press preview in Hamburg and even though I couldn't make it up to the north of Germany due to other projects, I wanted to know more and share it with you. 

I have blogged about various Esprit Home collections here on Happy Interior Blog and their campaigns were inspired by urban surroundings and were named after a world metropolis. But in 2015 the strategy is changing: Esprit Home's new collections celebrates the return to nature and the essentials in life. It focuses on our desire to escape the urban bustle and reboot ourselves with all our senses. 

Spring: Lakeside

Summer: Coastline

Autumn: Desert

Winter: Woods

Esprit Home will launch four seasonal collections in 2015: Spring will be entitled 'Lakeside' and features greens and turquoise hues with floral prints. Summer is called 'Coastline' with diamond shaped patterns and stripes in blue and purple hues referring to the ocean. Autumn is named 'Desert' and boasts fiery reds and graphical and African inspired patterns as well as strong black and white contrasts. Last but not least, winter is simply baptized 'Woods' and showcases frost patterns and cosy grey hues.

I don't know if it's because of the current season or maybe because I have grown a bit older, but my favorite is the winter collection with its calmer and subtle design. I can't handle too much pattern I assume:-)

Happy Thursday, friends!

Photography via Esprit Home

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