Welcome To At{Mine}

If you are a regular reader of my blog or you follow me on one of my social media accounts, you will know that I am an eager user and fan of the new London based online interiors community at{mine}. In fact I've been a beta member from the very beginning and blogged about it back then (read it HERE). Not only do I love to share pictures of my home on at{mine}, I also love to peek into other creative homes and discover how people live in their homes. By now, many of my friends and leading interior bloggers have joined the beta community. And right now, at{mine} has launched its brand new site with many new features and a fantastic new look & feel - both on desktop and mobile.

The interiors community at{mine} is all about real homes. It showcases peeks into real people's homes as well as inspiring brands and their stylings. Users can also tag certain items in their homes and thus help others to find furniture and home decor pieces they like. But above all it inspires you to create and recreate your home and share it with likeminded people who respond and feedback.

The new sites features great functionalities like a search option to look for certain users or categories, the explore section gives you a fantastic overview of all available categories and lets you thus delve into inspiration hunting according to your needs. You can like and comment on pictures and add items that you like to your wish list.

The new at{mine} community is still in beta phase but will launch officially very soon. However, as my dear Happy Interior Blog readers you are very welcome to join me and many other inspiring people on at{mine} right now by using THIS INVITE.

See you at{mine}!

Photography via at{mine}, living room image with dog at{Carolina V}, 

sofa image at{Rebecca Guss}

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Illustrator Zoë More O'Ferrall

Creative people are one of the sources of inspiration I love (their work and their homes). I do not consider myself too creative as I am not executing a creative job per se - I am not a designer, an architect, a potter, a textile designer, an illustrator. Those creative minds inspire me to seek more creativity in my daily life and try to see things from a different perspective.

One of those creative minds I had the honor to meet shortly during our Bloggers Tour in London last March. Zoë More O'Ferrall is a London based commercial illustrator and has a very distinct, quirky style that makes me smile in an instant. When I heard that our friends from at{mine} teamed up with her for the Bloggers Tour London, I was excited to say at least. When I heard that she is going to illustrate our tour, I was very excited.

Zoë has worked for major names like the Vogue, The Times, Mr Porter, New York Times Magazine, Harrods and many more. Now imagine how humble I felt that she also set her pen onto paper to illustrate my face among others!? Ha, I love the outcome! I think we all look very cool as illustrations (I felt the urge to shave afterwards obviously LOL)  and the map perfectly captures our busy but super exciting London Design Bloggers Tour.

See more of Zoë's work HERE.

Image and illustration via Zoë More O'Ferrall

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Mindful Living With The New Craftsmen

In today's consume-focused society we tend to buy for the sake of buying, we add things to our homes because we want them, we tend to clutter our everyday life without a big deal of reflection. On the other hand, we can see more and more people and brands focusing on the essentials in life, focusing on good, handmade work by craftsmen around the globe. During our recent Design Bloggers Tour to London we had the opportunity to meet up with The New Craftsmen, a design brand that works with some of Britain's best craft makers and showcases some of their work in their great Mayfair based store. Today they are launching 'Mindful Living', a collaboration with furniture designer-maker Gareth Neal showing how objects can affect our mood and well-being.

Gareth Neal has designed a few pieces for the new 'Mindful Living' project and other makers of The New Craftsmen have collaborated and participated in the project too. All pieces have been made with the idea of a stripped back life with a pure set of objects that can fulfill our needs both physically and mentally. The collection included the Brodgar cabinet made by Gareth in collaboration with Kevin Gauld, but also a new textile range by The Good Shepherd and stackable ceramic vessels designed in collaboration with Billy Lloyd.

'Mindful Living' is all about putting sense and meaning to the objects we surround ourselves. During our visit at The New Craftsmen we were asked to create and design together with London based designer Lola Ley a set of placemats for our dinner with The New Craftsmen. We were asked to create a simple and useful piece by working with natural materials and dyes. During the fantastic homemade dinner we used our placemats to create a boho styled table setting and enjoyed good food and talks with the people behind The New Craftsmen and its designers. You can join the discussion about 'Mindful Living' on social media by using the hashtag #MindfulLivingTNC.

Thanks to at{mine} we had this fantastic opportunity as The New Craftsmen are among their beta users in their new interiors community. If you want to join me and many other creatives at{mine}, sign up HERE. And if you want to know more about The New Craftsmen and their 'Mindful Living' project, read the intersting interview on the at{mine} blog!

Photography by Susanna Vento, Linda Elmin, Anna Gustafsson

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Liberty's Secret Garden

If I asked you to name one London department store that is the most awesome, most traditional and iconic, most refined and pretty luxurious, I bet many of you would name the one and only Liberty in London on Regent Street. This London landmark will make anyone's knees weak and you will have the hardest time ever leaving the store empty-handed. During our recent Design Bloggers Tour in London we had the fab opportunity to team up with the London based interiors community at{mine} (still in private beta phase) who invited us to visit one of their beta members, Liberty London.

We were welcomed in the design premises around the corner from the store where we met a real design celebrity - the iconic Head of Design Emma Mawston and her team. Anyone of you who is really into textile design will now make big eyes! Yes, it is a rare and privileged opportunity to get a presentation of Liberty's latest textile and wallpaper collection named 'Secret Garden'.

Inspired by the book of the same title by Frances Hodgson Burnett, these fabrics and wallpapers come in lush and leafy designs evoking secret gardens full of colourful blooms, rich foliage and exuberant opulence. We were amazed to see all of these designs being hand-drawn before they eventually find their way onto rich and sumptuous fabrics and wallpaper. Suddenly you realize how much inspiration and work is woven into each and every piece of this collection.

As an Urban Jungle Blogger I had quickly found my favorite prints - the Wallace Secret Garden Linen in Green Gauze and the Orchard Wallace Secret Garden wallpaper. Now I only need a big apartment with a room for all my plants and one wall would definitely be covered in this fantastic wallpaper. Up to then I'll keep on dreaming of my secret garden.

Photography by Susanna Vento, last image by Linda Elmin

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