Green Thumb

I've been on the Road and on the Go for a while now. In between switching countries I discovered these 5 cuties at my local florist's and although I only had 2 pots waiting for their occupants, I just couldn't leave the rest of the crew hanging.

Meet the Babies

echeveria elegans

somekind of crassula

sempervivum tectorum

no idea, so i named him Paws

crassula ovata hobbit

Adorable gang aren't they? Now finding suitable homes for the little ones, I needed to get a bit creative. The big sisters Vera 1 and Vera 2 (gotta come up with cooler names) took care of their new buddies while I dug about my drawers and stashes. 

I bought the aloe veras from 2 different fleamarkets for about a year ago and they have grown fabulously ever since. We had to battle against some mealybugs with whisky and new soil in between but it seems like they have survived the meany attacks quite unharmed although Vera 1 has turned sadly pale.

Done! I had to surrender my favourite tea cup and a tiny milk jug made of porcelain to the kiddies but what wouldn't one do for their children right? One of the plants inhabited a small marmelade glass which I then stuck into a water resistant paper bag from Uashmama.

Yeah I feel like I just saved the planet by planting some mini trees. If not the planet then hopefully at least the air quality of my 13m². A Bit. I suppose the summer slash holiday feeling was more what I was going after.

Have a great week people!

Today I'll take My Time

Celebrating one of my favourite Days of the year today.

I feel like the world is smiling with me.

DIY Tea Tin

I had this tiny DIY-thingie going on one night. I'd bought Matcha Tea for cooking/baking purposes (try it with risotto!) from a Tea House in Hamburg and would have liked to have a prettier tin to go along with it. I insist on storing my loose teas properly and most of all elegantly! Therefore I was left no choice but to take action myself. I took inspiration from my bigger jars -as seen in the picture above- and thus went for a japanese style.

First of all you need some of these lovely origami papers. I bought my yuzen at my old job at Akiko's. My tin was luckily tiny enough that I could work with 8 cm x 8 cm big slips and needed altogether only 4 pieces for it. For bigger projects, bigger papers of course. You may as well take other papers but make sure they're thick enough so that they won't get wavy from the glue and last longer in use.

Start with picking up a nice series like Bewitched here that doesn't need to much of your attention to run in the back. Tea Tin dressing needs love and devotion you see. You also need some runny glue, scissors and a flat soft paintbrush. I had Decopatch glue (google decoupage technique), and just a basic 1 cm wide watercolour brush.

Now use the cap to draw a circle to the back side of  your chosen paper and cut it out by leaving a 3-4mm edge to it. Spread the glue with a brush and place the paper onto the middle of the cap. Now use scissors to for tiny diagonal cuts for the left-over edges and then fold and glue them along the border rim as seen above.

For the "body" you should measure the hight and width of your tin and cut a 2mm higher rectangular piece to wrap around it. Glue. Finish the edges like you did with the cap.

Now do the same thing to your cap that was still left undressed above except for the top. It's just another cylinder so don't sweat it. Pay extra care, however, when glueing and finishing the edges! You don't want them to start peeling off any time soon.

TA-DAAH! A pretty little tin for storing tea, jewelry or any other small items elegantly. I also think it's a great made-by-yourself gift idea! Infact I am already planning on trying the same method on a squared tin for a friend's birthday that is coming up next week!

Ps. I've used decoupage technique before on several items as you might see in picture Two with the spacey looking box holding my sewing things or in picture 4 the picture frames on the wall dressed in the map of Barcelona.

Ambiente 14

A few weeks ago I had the awesome opportunity to work at the Ambiente Fair 2014 in Frankfurt to my old boss Akiko! Ambiente focuses on consumer goods around the themes of Dining, Giving and Living meaning a loooot of home design and tiny luxury items. I was in heaven!

getting inspiration for Exhibition Stand Design

The curtainwalls are actually really long candles of the Company!

I made the most of my free pass and scrolled daily through the loveliest unaffordabilities whenever I had toilet breaks the chance. The Frankfurt Fair is gigantic so even tho I spent over an hour before and after my shift no-matter-how-tired walking around the different sections I could not manage more than a half of it!

Working with Akiko and her other colleagues was fun and the hours flew by really quickly.  I was happy to notice myself more confident and socially talented than at the Early Bird two years ago. To top that the International flair made me very happy of my language skills in German, English and Japanese and I even got to use Finnish a few times!

Some companys really put their heart and money into getting new customers. I for sure was impressed by it all. Might this be Bloomingville?

House Doctor for sure made me drool and I wish they could have sold some of their items after the fair...
Not that I left all empty handed tho! Some of the exhibitors DID agree to part with their sample items after the fair with some really student-friendly prices! I'll shoot some of my shoppings soon enough to show where my hard-earned money actually went into haha.

(SULKU)

I finished and handed in my last Project before the holidays yesterday. I'm so happy, proud and relieved to have months of hard-work and stress behind me! Thank you Elena for being the most perfect partner for our Hotel Sulku.

What you are viewing now are the photos of our miniature Model (1:200). This semester we had to plan a 4-5 star Hotel for Trier West along with the Urban planning of the area close to the River Mosel. It took us a lot of sleepless nights, head- and heartaches to pull this thing through but I am glad we did and I really like the result.

 For those of you who don't know:  planning, designing and drawing something this huge is quite a task! As an architecture student in Germany you are forced to abandon your friends, family and free time to your studies and pull all-nighters at your laptop in the working room. This project took us two exkursions to the site and more than 300 hours of work on the computer, at workshops and at home. Weekends and nights included. 

Prior to the hand-in presentation this week (where pretty much have to wear a blaizer etc. to look sharp and attractive to be able to sell your design to the Professors) I was at the University around the clock, awake for 30h in a row, showered twice and slept for about 20min to 2 hours per night and eating 1 meal per day. I look just as shitty as you might imagine.

the overall hand-in hanging on the hall wall

Nevertheless like I said I am insanely happy to have my design out there and will now finally enjoy my semester holidays for a week before the next hand-in-battle!