Saturday evening we were enjoying a little peace and quiet, when all of a sudden, there it was:
The pledge.
That one more pledge we needed to reach our crowdfunding target.

First of all: we want to thank each and everyone of you for helping us along, either by pledging or sharing our story.
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Thank you!
We would've been nowhere without your help.

This is only the beginning: The crowdfunding campaign runs until Saturday May 5th, 21:00 CET, so still a while to go.
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We're determined to take this success to the next level and create a worldwide audience for the Flower Constellations.
​Are you on board? 

We have a few stretch goals lined up that we'd love to meet, and have a new professional reward tier in preparation especially for shops who want to be first  to sell the Flower Constellations.
Also, we have a little thank you surprise in store for you that we'll tell you all about soon. 

Now, since its a sunny Sunday, we'll get back to entertaining the kids and watering the wildflowers.
We'll be back behind our desks tomorrow, getting into details about our big plans and next steps. 

Again: Thank you so much for your help so far.
Let's make this big together!

Three days into our campaign and i'm finally finding the time to tell you a bit more about our Flower Constellations and their back story.

I'll be posting other updates about aspects of our design and production-process in the future, but for now, let me tell you a bit about the journey preceding our Flower Constellations crowdfunding campaign.

After designing and successfully crowdfunding Waterworks, bringing our natural watering system to market turned out to be less straightforward than we had hoped.

We learned a great deal about running a business that first year and started to craft a strategy about the way we would develop House of Thol further.

Working best while coming up with solutions in our own living environment, we focus on keeping our designs close to ourselves.
We aim to create durable products that add value to our daily lives and help us maintain a green lifestyle.

Four years on, we have established a worldwide network of supporters and shops, and have sold almost 5000 Waterworks-sets.
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We are ready for a new green product to add to our House of Thol collection.

​A large Dutch Garden center opted to produce it, but ran into management-issues and production stalled.
​Last year we took matters back into our own hands and developed the Flower Constellations: based on the same flat-pack multi-fit principle, but for flowers and with an improved design. ​

A perfect fit, not because we're into astrology that much, but because we love that millenia ago, people tried to make sense of the skies and created the constellations as some kind of memory aid. 
Telling each other stories so their order of things would not be forgotten.

The code is valid this whole week and can be used for all products in our webshop. ​

​#whatsyoursign

Urban Jungle Bloggers is a global society of plant lovers, at least that's what's stated on the Urban Jungle Bloggers website.

The website is a mix between a blog and a platform and was founded in 2013 by Igor Josifovic (Happy Interior Blog) and Judith de Graaff (JOELIX.com) with the idea of bringing more green into homes and blogs.

Judith and Igor are now head of an enthusiastic army of green-interior-lovers hashtagging away with #urbanjunglebloggers from all parts of the planet. (Check it our on Instagram)

It was only a matter of time before these two would turn their blog into something less digital, and indeed: in 2016 their first book, aptly named 'Urban Jungle', was published in both English and German.
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The book showcases beautiful green interiors from around Europe and offers loads of ideas and information to help you create your own urban jungle.

And two languages wasn't enough: last fall the book came out in French, Czech and Dutch as well.  

And we're in it!!!

Well, not 'we' exactly, but Waterworks is!
And not with an actual photograph, but in the text (fast forward to p. 168 <Dutch version>).
And we're pretty damn happy with that.

It's a gorgeous green publication, and to have our Waterworks adviced as a handy tool to water your plants (which it undeniably is), is making our week.
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Thanks Urban Jungle Bloggers!

Happy New Year!
      Good intentions, fresh beginnings, new leaves and all that nonsense.

      Truth is: the Holidays are over (i had a blast), yet i hardly even made a start on all the things i planned to do during my break, and the new year is knocking on my door -loudly- while the relationship-status between me and my alarm- clock is still... well... complicated.  
(don't tell me you can't relate)

      It seems like the last months of 2017 (read blog) were more about keeping up with the workload in my inbox and less about entrepreneurial vision and strategically prioritized goals and projects.

Well...enough about bad habits and hesitations: let's get to it!

In order to be on top of my priorities in this fresh year, i created this easy to use productivity planner which helps to prioritize your projects and plan your work-week accordingly. 

A couple of things i'd like to add: 

1. No, you don't necessarily need 9 projects in your to-do list, i'd advice a maximum of 4 or 5, but with the 9 slots you'll have scribble room for the easy to forget smaller tasks that are part of the work-week and have a tendency to pile up over time.

PS. Please note: The baselines in the planner have a thickness of 0.25pt, whereas Adobe Acrobat usually previews a minimum of 1pt.
​      In other words: Don't be fooled by the adobe preview, the planner will print with thinner lines similar to the image on this page.

      We started with a farewell to the seaside and a move to (literally) the other side of the Country. We quickly got settled in our new rural home located about 75 minutes away from Amsterdam (which is considered a huge distance in The Netherlands only), and started on a home-improvement journey that will probably span most of the future decades.  

     2017 Was also the year we got official with Solidworks and upped our business game; we sold our 4000th Waterworks-set; had our lamps launched by Pols Potten; we reconsidered our entrepreneurial stategy (a couple of times) and updated our online appearance with a new website and a better use of online media.
(did you notice?) ​  ​

And now...

​Well... we're not quite ready for 2018 yet!

We'll be taking a small break and get back to you in the 2nd week of next year.

Have a great Holiday period and awesome 2018.
​We'll see you soon!