A splash of Palm Green!

Last week I decided to give our guestroom / my workspace an update. When we moved into our home, we used a lot of simple white wallpaper on the walls upstairs. Now there's almost nothing left of the wallpaper, I rather paint my walls white or give them a nice splash of colour! For this room I had a dark green in mind. I thought it would go well with the plants & furniture in that room because I used a lot of mint, light blue, green and grey. On the website of Flexa, I looked at all the options in dark green and teal. I chose the colour "100% Palmboom". To paint the complete wall in this colour could be a little too much so I decided to make a graphic shape on the wall and paint it in the palm green colour. 

I wanted to combine the palm green with another fresh colour, only couldn't decide which colour would go well with it... A great way to decide which colour to use for your walls are the Flexa Creations Testers. You can buy them at the construction market for less than two Euro's and you can choose from 35 different colours. I decided to test out the colours "Stylish Pink", "Fresh Linen" and "Early Dew". The testers are really easy to use because there's a mini roller integrated into the tester so you can use it directly onto your walls or you could use them on a piece of paper. I used them on my wall right next to the palm green so I would get a good impression of the colours in daylight and artificial light.

After testing the three colours on my wall I eliminated the "Stylish Pink". I do like the combination of pink and green but in this room it wouldn't be great. When I looked at the furniture and accessories in this room I decided to go for the "Fresh Linen". There's already a lot going on in this room and with the colour "Early Dew" there would be too much different shades of green. So I got myself a can of the Fresh Linen and painted the rest of the wall with it. As you can see this colour is very close to white but it's just a tat more greyish and I think it's very fresh with the Palm Green!

This was also a great moment to hang my new String Plex Pocket that I got at the Imm Cologne tour, such a generous gift! This is a new version with wall panels of clear perspex which gives it an original and modern twist. I love my new wall and the Palm Green got me thinking of a nice tropical wallpaper, maybe, somewhere? We'll see!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Jungle Animals

It's that time of the month again! It's still so much fun to join the monthly Urban Jungle Bloggers themes that Igor and Judith come up with! This time it's all about Jungle Animals... With this theme I immediately thought of the inspiring Justina Blakeney and her amazing Jungalow style that I absolutely love!! Just browsing through her images for a couple of minutes inspired me to get going. Actually I don't have a lot of animalistic things in my home (except for my two cats) so I decided to give the thrift store a go (any excuse will do). I was positively surprised by the cool things that I found! First I stumbled upon some wooden elephant figurines and later on a wooden and a marble (!) rhino. You can imagine how excited I was when I found the hanging monkeys that were just perfect for this theme! It's funny when you have a certain theme in mind, how different you look at things. Otherwise I probably wouldn't even have noticed these fun jungle animals!

Oh and congratulations Igor and Judith with your upcoming Urban Jungle Book!! Very well deserved and I can't wait for the result!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

DIY Cacti for Fashionista magazine

This month the restyled Fashionista magazine is out with a complete new look! I'm very proud to be featured in this issue with a fun and easy DIY! Even though cacti are plants very easy to maintain, sometimes we're just too busy to take care of our green friends and they might end up dried out or neglected. If that is the case with you, this might be the solution: fake cacti! They will live forever and don't need any attention at all!

This is what you need:

- foamboard or cardboard

- Green and white paint

- A black marker

- Rice

- Flowerpots ( I got these at Ikea)

- Utility knife

- Cutting mat

- Pencil 

Step 1:

Print out some cacti templates ( you can find one on my DIY Pinterest board: https://nl.pinterest.com/myattic/diy/), cut out the shapes & trace them onto the foamboard with a pencil.

Step 2:

Cut out the cacti shapes from the foamboard with a utility knife.

Step 3:

Paint them in different shades of green. Use the white paint to create the different shades of green. Leave them to dry.

Step 4:

Use the black marker to draw some spines onto the cacti and put the pieces together to create a cactus. 

Step 5:

Fill up the flowerpots with rice and put the cacti into the rice.

All done!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Bye bye 2015!

The end of 2015 is very close so it's time to look back at some of my favourite moments of this year! It really has been a good year full of creativity, nice collaborations and great events. I have a lot of reasons to be thankful! It also has been a busy year and I have a feeling that 2016 will be pretty busy as well... But I'm ready to work hard, follow my dreams and have some fun while doing it! I hope 2015 was a great year for you as well! If you have had some setbacks, I hope you have family and friends to fall back on and cheer you up. I like to think that a new year comes with a clean slate and with a positive attitude, you can achieve anything!

These are some of my favourite moments of 2015...

FLEXA

It was great to collaborate with a brand like Flexa. At the Meet The Blogger event, I had the opportunity to host a Flexa workhop which was so much fun! Later on I used the Colour Of The Year "Ochre Gold" in our bedroom and I'm still in love with it.

MOLLIEMAKES CHRISTMAS SHOOT

This year, Christmas came early for me because in August we did a Christmas shoot for Mollie Makes magazine at our home. It was pretty difficult to get a real Christmas tree at that time of the year but in the end it worked out and I was a little sad when it had to go back to the owner once we were done shooting! The pictures were made by Henny van Belkom.

VTWONEN

I'm very happy that vtwonen decided to work with bloggers more and more because we can do some great things together! In August, the "vtwonen loves blogs" magazine came out where I was featured in together with a group of inspiring bloggers. We were all invited for a lovely lunch at the vtwonen headquarters to celebrate our collaboration. Since November, I'm also blogging weekly for vtwonen about my love for greens!

SNOR FESTIVAL

In 2015 there were a lot of great events that I went to and met up with fellow bloggers. This is always very inspiring but more important, a lot of fun! It's great to meat up with people that have the same interests & eye for detail (and don't bother me taking pictures of everything because we all do it!!). The event that stuck with me the most was the lovely "Snor Festival". The location was amazing, the weather was good, the people were nice, food was delicious and we got to see Anki & Casper from Zilverblauw launch their book "Shoot!"

NYC

I love traveling (who doesn't?) and a great plus of my job at Costes is that I get to travel to amazing places on a regular basis! The best trip of 2015 definitely was New York City... I love the atmosphere and the people. You can feel at home very easily here because this city makes you feel very welcome! This place, Tiny's and the Bar Upstairs, is where we had breakfast a couple of times, isn't it cute?

Pictures by Marij Hessel

DIY Christmas Wreath

With the same greens that I used for my gift wrapping, I made a couple of Christmas wreaths. Because I didn't have any thick wire at home, I used an old electricity wire. Luckily it was brown so it came out looking pretty natural! With thin wire I attached the twigs to the circles. I used different kinds of Christmas greens that I got at the gardening centre, the smell really gets you in a Christmas mood!

I hope you're ready for a cosy and relaxing Christmas! I still have to do some cleaning because our home doesn't quite look like these pictures at the moment ;)

Merry Christmas!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Christmas Wrapping with Greens

Just before Christmas has started you might be in need for some last minute wrapping inspiration... If you have some neutral looking wrapping paper lying around you can easily give your gifts a festive touch by using some greens like eucalyptus or pine springs. As you can see I also made a mini Christmas wreath with some wire and conifers leaves. I made these pictures for the vtwonen blog where I write a piece about greens every week. You can find them here! More Christmas inspiration on the blog tomorrow!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Tropical plants for vtwonen

As you may know I'm blogging about the possibilities of greens every week for vtwonen. If you are a plant addict like myself, you know that the possibilities are endless so it's a great topic to blog about! I wanted to share these pictures with you that I made of tropical plants in my living room. I used the bottom part of our pink sideboard (it comes in two separate parts which is very handy) for this setting because it combines beautifully with the tropical plants! For the plants I used some vintage pottery, you can never have too much flower pots right?

Tropical plants are very easy to maintain and they don't need a lot of water. You do have to make sure that the soil is always a little moist and the best place to keep them is in a light, warm space but not in direct sunlight. Unfortunately, these beautiful plants only bloom once so make sure you put them in a prominent place to enjoy the flowers while you can!

Read more about my love for green on vtwonen or follow this Botanic Pinterest board!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

DIY Flowerpots for Vtwonen

I made these diy flowerpots for my latest Vtwonen blog after being inspired by a couple of similar ideas on Pinterest. I still had some paint left from the Flexa workshop that I gave in October at the Meet The Blogger event and I decided to use it for this project. The terracotta flowerpots I bought at Ikea some time ago because I loved the design and shape, they were perfect for this diy!

With tape I created a graphic pattern on two of the three flowerpots and filled it in with yellow and mint green. For the best result I did the painting part twice but it didn't take too much time because the (wall) paint dried up quickly! For the third pot I made a template of half a circle and used it to draw the pattern on the pot with a pencil. After that I used a small paintbrush to fill in the pattern. I'm very happy with these updated flowerpots that are now on one of my favourite thrifted drawers!

As you can see, my cat Def, was not that excited as I was! He still wanted to be in the picture though...

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Plantshelfie

I joined the UJB community about one year ago. The first blogpost I wrote for Urban Jungle Bloggers was about a Plantshelfie as well and now Igor and Judith decided to bring this classic back! This time I used my workspace to create a green setting. Evert and I made this little wall cabinet from OSB boards which I wrote about here. In the meantime, my workspace has changed a bit but the cabinet is still there. I collected some of my plants and made a little hanging garden above my desk. It's always nice to have some greens around when you're working right?!

The desk I found at the thrift shop an painted it in a mint green. I'm still not sure what to do with the top so if you have any suggestions, they are more then welcome!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Plants & Flowers

For this month's UJB theme "Plants & Flowers" I was a little delayed but that's the great thing about this community, it's ok!! This weekend I found the time to visit the garden center in my home town where they always have new plants and flowers that I haven't see before. When I'm shopping for plants, I never leave uninspired! This theme brought out a whole new sense of creativity for me and when I was just looking at the results of other Urban Jungle Bloggers, I feel like I'm not the only one, it all looks so great!

My intention was to only get some flowers because I already have enough plants at home... It may not surprise you that I came home with a couple of new plants as well! I especially loved the flower shaped succulent called Echeveria, isn't it beautiful? The second plant I bought because of the intense dark red colour. This one is called Sienna Sunset Peperomia Schumi Red (I decided to look at the names from now on).

When I got to the flower section, there were a lot of autumnal flowers and branches so it was hard to pick just a few! I chose the black berries, the kale flowers and an artichoke. The shapes and structures of these plants & flowers are fascinating and together they make a beautiful colour palette!

Pictures by Marij Hessel

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Plants & Art

It's time for some green inspiration again together with Urban Jungle Bloggers! This month's theme is Plants & Art. I think some plants are already little pieces of art because of their shapes, textures & colours. Especially leafs, sometimes they have the most beautiful pattern, almost like a print! That's why I decided to make my own artwork with different leafs. I've cut a couple of leafs into triangles and created a graphic artwork with them. I used double-sided tape to stick the triangles to the paper, very therapeutic!

I combined the green artwork with a couple of framed leafs that I loved as well. I like the frames that are transparent so it looks like the leafs are floating.

Again it was fun to work with a new green theme! 

Pictures by Marij Hessel