Passagen Interior Design Week Cologne is Germany's largest design event. It's pretty much the 'Fuori Salone' event of the huge IMM furnishings fair that takes place in the Koelnmesse in the same week.

A few years ago we met sweet Claudia Schaaf during the Dutch Design Week and she invited us to showcase our work in her lovely Salon Zwei during Passagen 2016, as part of the Ehrenfeld Design Parcours. 
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With a taste for Dutch Design, Claudia presented a different Dutch Designer in her shop during Passagen every year for the past 6 years, and now it's time to bring it together.

For this years' Passagen, Claudia teamed up with Buro Sabine Voggenreiter to curate an exhibition about Dutch Design at the Designers Fair at the Pattenhalle in Ehrenfeld. 
We're super happy to be part of the line-up that also includes Studio Lorier, Foekje Fleur, Nord Interior Design and Mo Man Tai​.

But that's not all! Our designs will also be part of the colorful 'We love Dutch Design' presentation at Claudia's homebase Salon Zwei. 
And from Passagen onward, Salon Zwei will be a House of Thol vendor!

Dutch Design Cologne revisited
Passagen Designers Fair @ Pattenhalle
Christianstrasse 82
50825 Koeln - Ehrenfeld

Open 13 - 19 January
Mon-Wed: 12:00 - 20:00
Thursday: 12:00 - 23:00 - drinks from 18:00
Fri-Sat: 12:00 - 20:00
Sunday: 12:00 - 18:00

6 years Dutch Design
Salon Zwei
Gutenbergstrasse 2
50823 Koeln - Ehrenfeld

Open 13 - 19 January
Mon-Fri: 12:00 - 19:00
Sat-Sun: 12:00 - 16:00
NB drinks on Thursday 16.1 from 18:00

It's almost December and Sinterklaas is in the country!
With our boys being 4 and (just) 7, our household is all about the Saint and his nimble associates.

With just a few weeks to go till Pakjesavond we know the struggle of having to find gifts for all your loved ones while steering clear of the socks, chocolate & shower gel clichés.
Look no further: 
The brass Flower Constellations are a great personal gift for any flower lover (and who doesn't love flowers?); Waterworks makes it super easy for anyone to care for their houseplants; and growth constellation
Helios is perfect for anyone who'd love to watch a plant grow from an otherwise discarded avocado pit.

To help you along, you can now choose to have your order wrapped in Sinterklaas-themed wrapping paper!

After weeks of summer adventures and waking up without an alarm clock, we brushed the boys' hair this morning and dropped them off at school with suntanned faces eager for a fresh year.

Recharged and with our hands freed again, we're ready to take on the coming months.
We might as well... there's loads to be done!

To get the new season off to a running start, we've set up a Back to School discount of 10%!

So get your Waterworks sets now and keep those plants alive, start growing your avocado tree, get yourself a Flower Constellation to stylishly arrange the cut flowers from your garden (even the ones with thicker stems) or simply stock up on presents for upcoming birthdays!

To receive the 10% discount, use code 'BacktoSchool19' at check-out and ten percent will be deducted from the total amount of your order.

The discount code is valid on all products up to September 8th.

Father's Day is around the corner! 
And although it might seem all fathers need new Americana accessories for their BBQ, we know for a fact many dads love to let things grow.

That's why we busted our behinds to get the Helios out there in time: the new durable tool to help you grow your pits, bulbs and cuttings on water.
Read all about our Helios Constellation here.

Is your dad more of a houseplant fan?
Why not gift him a Waterworks-set to help keep his indoor greenery happy and healthy.

But that's not actually what this post is about: As a little something extra, we added a few new Father/Family-themed Growing Cards to our collection.

With these cards, you're not only sending your dad a sweet message, you'll also give him something to grow.

The cards have been printed on Growing paper that contains wildflower seeds.
To germinate the seeds, lay the paper in moist soil, place in a sunny spot, cover with a thin layer of earth and keep moist. 
Depending on the kind of seed in the paper, you'll see the first tiny green leaves pop out of the earth after about ten days.

Just a quick reminder that we'll be in Den Bosch these coming days.

We're not only bringing our Flower Constellations and Waterworks-sets, we'll also be trying out our very own line of plantable postcards and giftlabels as well as new seed-package labels.
I've had a lot of fun designing these, so i hope they'll be well-received. Fingers' crossed!

And that's not even all of it: Visitors to the fair will get a very first sneak peak pf the new Flower Constellations Helios (for pits and bulbs) and Ophiuchus (for larger vases and bigger stems)

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?

After moving to our rural home in Overasselt two years ago, we (or i) immediately started fantasizing about our garden. 

I actually bought a permaculture book (bible) months before moving and started with big plans to turn our land into a lush and fertile eating forest.  
​With no prior gardening experience to speak of, you can guess how that went down the first year...

You guessed correctly: although we did have a decent strawberry and pumpkin harvest, our garden is not so much a fruit and veggie heaven yet.

However i have hopes that with a lot of time, practice and soily hands, we will get there eventually.
We made great strides last fall planting 16 fruit trees in the meadow. It will take them a couple of years to bear fruit, and i guess so do my gardening skills.  

However, gardening did become a new love of mine. 
And i'm definitely planning on freeing up more time this season to tend to my greenery. 

The TuinIdee ('garden Idea') fair in Den Bosch in late February is a brilliant place to start the season. 
And we'll actually be at the TuinIdee with our designs!

​Participating in the fair is kind of an experiment, and we have no idea how this will turn out. 

But even if our designs aren't a match with the visitors and we don't sell a thing, at least i'll be getting my fair share of gardening inspiration.

We'd love to see you there!

21-24 February
10:00-18:00 daily
Brabanthallen Den Bosch
free shuttle-service from the train station

<Get your tickets online with a discount>

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.
​
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. 

It's December! With the Holidays around the corner, now is the right time to spread a little bloom with our latest Newsletter.

In it more about our custom wrapping paper (+ free download), Holiday bloom, special discount codes and much more.

No worries, click below to read the Dutch or English version online and sign up for our mailing list to conveniently receive future updates, specials and discounts to your mailbox directly.