We participated in the MKB Export Award 2018 and are part of the Top 9!

The MKB Export Award is organised for the 6th year in a row by TNT Netherlands, The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl) and Royal Organisation MKB-Nederland.
Of the more than 100 contestants, the Jury nominated us and 8 other companies. 
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The winner will be revealed during the event 'Klaar voor de start? Export! ("Ready? Get set! Export!) on Tuesday March 19th 2019.

Who knows, we might be succeeding last years' winner Anne Pleun van Eijsden of 'On the Rocks' and go home with the prize: amongst others a transport cheque and business partner scan!

It all started with our participation in the Paris fair Maison&Objet last September, for which we applied for an Export Mission Voucher.

After the fair we got invited to join the MKB Export Award, and since we really think we can conquer the world with our Flower Constellations and can use a little boost to get us going, we applied.

In January we received a phonecall from the organization surprising us with the news we're on the shortlist!
Early February we got to show a small part of the jury around House of Thol headquarters, and tell them all about our designs, projects and plans for the future.
We had a lovely chat, as i'm sure they had with all other eight nominees.

Now all that's left to do is wait..... With our fingers crossed...
We'll keep you posted!

Only 1 (ONE) week to go before our presentation at Object Rotterdam should be ready to roll.
We're about to be starting prep on lighting and stands in just a minute.
Still quite a few final decisions to be made, i'm afraid.
But i'm sure we'll  make it work.

Before we head to our workshop however, i wanted to celebrate the Object PR-department for getting the expo out there.
We're super happy with our designs being part of some of the online press-coverage of Object Rotterdam.

Architectuur.nl wrote a lovely piece about Object and used a photograph of our reCabinet in their article.

Read the whole piece here (in Dutch)

Studio Perspective zoomed in on all sustainable designers at Object. 
We're ever so happy to be part of this list.

Check out their selection here (also: in Dutch)
​(ps. added bonus: you can win two tickets for the fair!)

​Alright now, time to get ourselves in the workshop and get things ready for Object.
Will we see you there?

We always try to keep track of whenever a design is mentioned in a magazine, so we can get our hands on a copy and be proud about it at the time the issue is actually in the stores.
But sometimes we miss the memo, and a magazine is already out the stores before we can catch on and get our hands on a copy.

We were a little late to the news the Flower Constellations were featured in 2018' last issue of magazine Buitenleven.
Although we don't actually have a hard copy in our possession, luckily we did receive a pdf of the piece (which you can find below).

Super happy with the spotlight. Thank you Buitenleven! 

Fleur Magazine is the Belgian professional florists journal and is packed with great advice for anyone running a florist shop as well as pages filled with inspiration, new designs and background information about plants and flowers.

Personally i was pretty impressed with the overall look of the magazine and the articles, that are fun and interesting to read, even for non-florist me.
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I love how the magazine provides the floral entrepreneurs with hooks and stories that can help sell more flowers and plants.

We are over the moon to be featured in this lovely publication with not only one, but two products. Check it out!
When clicked, the images should enlarge in a lightbox so you can read the actual (Dutch) text. 

Blogger Sarah Militello-Wilson (based in Los Angeles) wrote this lovely piece about our Flower Constellations back in June on her blog Milk & Flowers.
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Impressed by how she took the time to write a piece of original content about our design, i thought we shouldn't let the feature just disappear in the archives without an extra mention.

​What i love is that Sarah mentions flower frogs in her post about the Flower Constellations, which is in fact a flowertool used in Ikebana, and something we looked at while developing our design.
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I also really like how she went into ways you can source your flowers. For example: "If you’ll be using wildflowers, you can leave more out in nature for others to enjoy."

<Read the full blogpost here on Milk & Flowers>

​Thank you for sharing Sarah!

If it wasn't for our sweet friend and creative colleague Meike pointing this out to us, we would have completely missed this lovely post by Designcrushblog from back in September.

Here's what blogger Kelly from Pitsburgh wrote about the Flower Constellations (which she catalogued under 'Create / Grand Design'):
"I love having fresh flowers in my home and will pare down a bouquet as it wilts until only a few blooms remain. Flower Constellations make floral arranging using only a few stems super easy thanks to a flat brass disk with openings that can expand and contract to fit a variety of vases."

<Read the full piece here on designcrushblog>

Thank you for sharing Kelly, and thank you for pointing us towards the post Meike!

Jonathan Lo launched his blog 'Happy Mundane'. back in 2006, and -in his own words- it's all about "Celebrating the ordinary and the extraordinary, good design of any kind, and taking a moment to appreciate some things that get overlooked in the everyday."

Jonathan about the Flower Constellations:
"Speaking of plants, do you ever find when you have a bouquet of flowers, some flowers die out faster than others? The creative team at House of Thol have come up with a solution. They’ve made a “flower constellation” metal disk that sits over your vase to provide a way to display single stems. The best part is the arrangement of the holes is based of astrological sign! A great gift idea!"

<Check out the full gift guide here>

We've been so insanely busy in the months of September and October that even in late November we're still working through the pile of work that was 'put aside for a moment'. 

For example, we never got to tell you about our Volkskrant magazine publication in October.
We are so happy to be featured in the magazine, and in the Design special no less!

At the time, we were actually at the VT Wonen & Design beurs. We had a blast there, but it pretty much consumed all our time and definitely all our energy.

Anyway, here it is, maybe you spotted it back in October already?
It might be more than a month ago, we're too proud of the publication not to mention it!

Last weeks' Libelle (#49) featured the Flower Constellations!
Did you spot them?

We were just in time to get a copy ourselves and are very happy to be part of the 'Groene Vingers' (Green fingers) segment. 

​Thank you for featuring our design Libelle!

We love it when one of our designs gets featured on a blog, especially when the blogger in question takes the trouble of writing an original piece of text.

Frances of new blog Franpress wrote a lovely (Dutch) piece about our Flower Constellations that shows she's familiair with trying to nicely arrange a few flowers.

Thank you for sharing Frances!

<Read the full piece here>

In Dutch we have the saying: 'that's a one-cent whistle', or, more accurately 'that's a wistle of a cent', for something that's really easy.

In English you'd say something is a 'piece of cake', which if literally translated to Dutch doesn't really mean something.

Anyway, we're happy with this Kekmama publication of our Waterworks-set, which states keeping your plants alive with Waterworks is a whistle of a cent.

Thank you for sharing Kekmama!

Hey there Linda readers! 
Spotted the Flower Constellations right there on page 15?!
We're over the moon with this little mention as a 'hebbedingetje' (something you want) in this months' Linda.

Thank you for sending us a copy, Linda magazine people! It was a wonderful surprise to find our Flower Constellations in there.

We're very happy with this sweet mention in Plus Magazine. 

We're not exactly the Plus magazine target audience and would have undoubtedly missed this little publication if it wasn't for the nice people from Plus Magazine who sent us a copy of this edition for our administration.

Did you know they'r the largest monthly magazine in the Netherland?

Thank you for the mention @ Plus Magazine!

The Flower Constellations will be launched in a little over a week and Eigen Huis & Interieur featured them in the magazine that came out last week. 

Thank you, lovely people!
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The large photograph and sweet text is definitely worth checking out. ​

Got this months' EH&I?
Scoop through to page 252 to get to the update. 

​No access to the magazine?
​Luckily the photograph above should make it possible to read the (Dutch) piece.

ps. don't forget: Earlybird discount runs out August 26th!

This publication in Volkskrants' summer magazine V-Zomer brought something about: orders started pooring in in our webshop and we ran out of stock! 

Nothing to be worried about though: a batch of glassware is on its way to our studio as we speak, and we'll be restocked by the time we get back from our little break. 

Definitely worth to check out the text, love the cheeky happiness (in Dutch)

We first met Annelies from Dirksdotter during last years' Dutch Design Week. We got to chatting and she ended up highlighting our work in a DDW roundup (click).

Since Dirksdotter is a fellow flower- and design lover, we gave her a head's up about our new Flower Constellations. We love the sweet post she wrote. Check the full (Dutch) piece here: click

A few weeks ago we spent a good part of the day with the lovely folk of Renault life, shooting an episode for their Renault TV Youtube series focussing on sustainable innovations and design.

We had so much fun working with the professional crew and experiencing an official film shoot including clip-on microphones, lighting set up and (more than a few) retakes.
Our self-consciousness about being in front of a camera quickly faded while working with the skilled and friendly team. (thank you David, Tom & Vincent!)

Us working through the night getting the studio cleaned up and film-ready was definitely worth it.
​Although if you look closely it did result in a few bags under our eyes while filming.

Not being used to seeing ourselves on film, you can imagine we had no idea what the final result would be and we kept pretty silent about the whole thing in eager anticipation of the premiere.

Well, the time has come: This afternoon 'our' Renault life episode premiered on Youtube!

We love the beautiful images of our workspace and green surroundings the Renault team shot,  and how they did not only catch our story but also made us look pretty comfortable in front of a camera, just being ourselves.

Check out the full episode below and let me know what you think!

Want to know more about the projects in the video?
Check out Waterworks here (or buy here), and read all about the Flower Constellations on this page (pre-order here).

Renault life made more episodes with sustainable and innovative designers that are definitely worth checking out. 
Find their official YouTube channel here and make sure to give this video a thumb's up while you're at it.

The World Packaging Design Society runs an influential packaging design blog featuring contemporary packaging designs from around the world.

We're very happy we made it onto their feed with our Waterworks box! 
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Definitely worth checking out on Instagram.

We're very happy to be featured in one of the Netherlands' biggest magazines: Libelle.

The Libelle Tuinspecial is definitely worth a read, and i'm not just saying that because Waterworks is in there: i'm in love with the relaxed gardening style and lush green gardens the magazine showcases.

​Anyway, here's a close-up of the publication: 

A -rough- translation of the text:
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"Forgot to water your house plants again? This funny Water reservoir solves the problem (and your feeling of guilt). It's called Waterworks and does what it's made for: gradually distributing water and preventing the soil from drying out." 

​Click here for a pdf of the publication