EMMAS DESIGNBLOGG

Design and style from a Scandinavian perspective

How to get your white home to stay visually interesting

I just read a great interview with Line Dammen, editor-in-chief at Norwegian Elle Interiør. It's about white, how to prevent your white home from being boring and bland. It's in Norwegian of course, but there is always Google Translate for those of you who can't read it.
And there were pictures, amazing pictures! I'm showing some of them here but there are more over here.

 

Cool offices from RUM

I really need to find a nice vintage office chair like the ones in these pics, pronto! See more cool offices/studios at RUM's site.

I won!

Last week I saw that they were having a great giveaway over at Bungalow 5, where you could win a big canvas picture from Hagedorn Hagen, you know the guys with the beetle and butterfly prints that have been all over the bloggosphere in the last year. I already have their beetle prints, and now I'm the happy owner of a 120x120 cm big canvas print with wasps! I think I'm going to avoid hanging them in the same room though, it might become just a little too many bugs in one room... Or what do you think?

Guts, a new Swedish stylist

While reading Frida's blog Trendenser I found this new Swedish stylist and her company Guts. Love the name! It refers both to that gut feeling in your stomach when you just know that something is right, and guts as in courage. Her name is Louise Svensson, and her portfolio looks like it could be start of something great! She uses lots of black and white, graphic patterns and signs, raw wood and industrial and vintage details, all things that I love! I chose some favorites to show you here, but there are lots more in her portfolio.

Saturday Sweets

Since I am decorating my daughter's room at the moment, my head is full of kids rooms, so I thought I could share some of my inspirations with you. I wrote a post here about what I wanted her room to look like last year, but I have some new thoughts now... These are my current inspirations, and now that I see them all together I realise that there are clouds in a whole bunch of these pictures. I have to try to incorporate that in some way!

 

Happy Weekend!

I'm taking the afternoon to clean the house before the weekend, so I thought I should give you something to read. I found this nice magazine called Toc Toc Toc, and you can see some of the pages online here. I really like this feature of a sewing studio, very inspiring!
Now I'm off to vacuum the floors, and after that I'll try to pull down the masking tape from the walls in Lo's room. We just finished painting it, and now it's time for the fun part, decorating! I'll show it to you when it's done.

Have a great weekend!

Drawing the winner of a night at Scandic!

Hi there! Sorry I've been invisible this week, but I just couldn't find anything good enough to post! And I'd rather post nothing at all than show you things that won't make your hearts beat faster...

Today it's time to draw the winner of the free night at any Scandic hotel in Sweden. And the winner is... *drumroll* Emelie! She wrote that she is pregnant and has been feeling sick up until now, half way through her pregnancy. Her boyfriend has been taking care of her and everything else, and now that she's feeling better Emelie would like to thank him for that. So I decided to help her. Congratulations to you Emelie!

To all of you who didn't win, join Scandic's Facebook page to take part of their offers and competitions there, they are often giving away nights or presenting great discounts.

Completely Incomplete in Elle Interiör

I loved this feature called Completely Incomplete when I saw it in the latest issue of Swedish Elle Interiör, and now I saw it up on their web and had to share it with you! I very rarely show pictures with this much color here, but I hope you like it as much as I do! It's styled by one of my favorite stylists; Lo Bjurulf, and shot by the amazing Stellan Herner.

Styling: Lo Bjurulf Photo: Stellan Herner

Drawing the winners of Mr Mustache!

I just drew the three winners of Mr Mustache by Studio Violet, and here they are: Gaëlle, Becca and Elodie! I'm contacting all of you tonight, congratulations! And thanks to everybody else who commented. Better luck next time!


Saturday Sweets

Yes I know, it's Sunday already. But sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done, so I'm giving you your Saturday Sweets today instead. I hope you don't mind the wait, after all you got some nice giveaways instead!
I have some sweet bedrooms for you today, enjoy!

Photo: Alexander Crispin Styling: Stella Nicolaisen

 

Scandic Staycation Giveaway

The winner has been drawn!

As promised, here is the giveaway of a night for two at a Scandic Hotel of your choice! This is only available in Sweden, so sorry to all my international readers, if you want to join in you will have to come to Sweden to claim your prize. All you have to do to have a chance to win is comment here and tell me why you and your friend/partner/whatever need a hotel night. I will draw the winner on Friday next week.

While you are thinking about what to write, find a little inspiration over at Scandics Staycation campaign site where you can create your own romantic film, with you and your loved one starring in the main roles!
 

Get your copy of Mr Mustache here! [giveaway]

The winners have been drawn!

I'd like to wish you all a happy weekend by giving away three copies of Studio Violets new book; Mr Mustache (in English)!

"The life of Mr Mustache is a book about the Studio Violet character Mr Mustache who worries for nothing and can't sleep. What is bothering him? When he finds out, things start to feel better. Written in rhyme."

Just comment on this post, and don't forget to write your email (it won't be published) so I can contact you if you win. I will draw the winners here on Monday (Oct 18)!

Staycation with Scandic [sponsored post]

This week my boyfriend and I spent the night between monday and tuesday at Hotel Malmen in Stockholm. You see,  I was offered a free night at any Scandic Hotel in Sweden, in return for writing about them and hosting a give away, and it sounded too tempting to resist!

We chose Malmen partly for the design and partly for the location. It's the best designed Scandic hotel that I know of, and of course that means a lot to me when deciding where to stay! And the location is perfect, on Medborgarplatsen right in the center of Södermalm in Stockholm, with all my favourite shops, restaurants, cafés and bars very close by.

Our room looked exactly like the one in the top photo here, with a nice black/grey/white colour scheme going on and a cool wallpapered feature wall. It's hard to see in the first photo, but you get a glimpse of it in the second pic. The third photo is from the restaurant.

The give away I was talking about is coming in a post later this week, but if you want to be sure you get to have your own staycation, you can book a room here, in any Scandic Hotel in Sweden, from just 295 skr/person and night! This low price is only available until November 30.

 

The home and studio of Paula Leen

I found an email in my inbox last week from a reader named Paula Leen. She wrote that she had seen her own kitchen on my blog and sent me the picture. When I posted it I had no idea it was from a real kitchen, I thought it was a studio shot. But nope, this is Paula's kitchen, with cabinets built from the sink and flooring from her old kitchen. Great idea, isn't it?

I begged her to send me more pictures of her home, and yes, they were just as amazing as I thought they would be! Look for yourselves. The play with light and dark surfaces, the mix of natural materials and the sparsely furnished rooms adds up to make one of the most beautiful houses I have seen.

 


 

The photos below are from her studio, where she makes wool felt objects for her brand Poetryworld. On the wall are bags full of wool for future projects, and the old iron bed is covered with Paula's own designs.

 

Photography by Hotze Eisma

Styling by Rianne Landstra

Saturday Sweets

Hi all! Are you here for your weekly treats? Here you go! A bag full of dining rooms is what I have for you today. Have a great weekend!

My shoot with Lotta Agaton

Remember a few weeks ago I told you I was going to be assisting Lotta Agaton on a shoot? I have the first result from that job now, and thought you might be curious... It's an advertising campaign for IKEA beds. Lotta styled three different settings and the first picture is out now, and the second two will be published soon.

First we ran around Stockholm for two days collecting lots of props, everything from books and flowers to gardening tools and slippers. We had to be really careful with what we chose as none of it could look remotely close to anything that could be sold at IKEA. Here are a few snapshots to give you an idea of what things looked liked behind the scenes:


Then on the third day we went to the studio and met up with the photographer Patric Johansson and his assistant, three people from Ikea, Anna who is Lotta's agent from Agent Bauer, Lina who is Lotta's regular assistant and Catrin who is Lotta's old assistant. We started assembling beds, cabinets, drawers and chairs, powertools were buzzing all over the place together with some random cursings. Well, you know what it's like to assemble IKEA furniture, don't you? Once you think you are finished you realize you put that first thing upside down and have to start over from the beginning again! Let me tell you, I was really happy we were three assistants right there, as there was A LOT of screwing to be done!

Around lunchtime the first setting was finished, and Patric could start shooting. However, we had to remove lots of stuff from the picture as IKEA needed space to write. So the final picture came out quite empty. The top picture is what we saw, you can see how bare it looks with all that empty white space. But as long as the customer is happy, it's all good! The bottom pic is the finished result, cropped and with lots of text everywhere, not looking so empty anymore.


I had lots of fun doing this, met a bunch of nice people, and hopefully I can work with Lotta soon again!


Fair report: Hem 2010

This weekend it's time for the Hem 2010 fair here in Stockholm, and I was there yesterday to check it out. As usual I think the trend exhibitions were the most interesting parts, the rest is mostly just a few stalls with interior products and then hundreds of stalls is filled with stuff like heat pumps, super insulated windows and under floor heating products. I didn't take any pictures myself, because the lighting there makes everything look like crap, so I borrowed some from the fair's homepage instead. Here you go!

The two pictures above are from the exhibition by the Swedish Fashion Council's CEO Lotta Ahlvar. She also gave a very inspiring talk, mostly about the natural trend, illustrated by funny youtube clips of sheep herding!

 

Trend expo by Elle Interiör's stylist Agneta Törnqvist

Kitchen Life by Synnöve Mork

 

 

Introducing The Home Company!

My latest sponsor is a Swedish store called The Home Company. They have had a successful physical store in Karlskrona, Sweden, since 1996, and have just taken a step further and started a webshop. The shop is full of carefully chosen Scandinavian and European design goodies from manufacturers like Vipp, Design House Stockholm, Muuto, Normann Copenhagen, Hay and Vitra. I've chosen a few favorites here:

Milk light by & Tradition

DSW Chairs by Eames/Vitra, currently in a "buy 6 pay for 5" campaign.

DLM XL side table by Hay

Shuffle table by & Tradition

And a picture of the physical store, looks great doesn't it?

If you like what you see in the store, but you can't quite decide or figure out how to use the things in your own home, The Home Company also offers decorating services. Here are two examples of homes they worked on:

 

Book your holiday ads now!


I have a few ad spots left for November and December, so if you want an ad here during the holiday season, now is the time to book! Email me on emmasdesignblogg@gmail.com for more info!


Light and airy 234 sqm for sale

I found this amazing Stockholm apartment for sale by real estate agent Eklund Stockholm New York. They specialize in selling exclusive homes in both Stockholm and New York, and you can waste quite a lot of time on their site browsing all of them.
This home has seven rooms spread over two floors and 234 sqm, located in Vasastan, the northern part of central Stockholm, very close to where I grew up. Our apartment wasn't as huge as this though...

Photographer Mikkel Adsbøl

The last photo in my previous post is shot by Danish photographer Mikkel Adsbøl. I love the way his pictures are either extremely light or very dark, he really knows how to use lighting, and both his light and dark shots are extremely beautiful! I was feeling kind of "Autumnish" today, so I chose some dark and moody pictures to show you here. You like?
All of the pictures below are from a campaign for Tine K Home.


Saturday Sweets

Anyone up for mixed sweets tonight? Here you go!
First a bit messy, and then very organised. Hopefully that is the order of things at your place too today?

Introducing Shak-Shuka

I would like to introduce my latest sponsor, Shak-Shuka!
Behind the funny name (meaning to shake or mix up) is a webshop full of sustainable products for children. The name comes from the Hebrew word leshakshek, and Shak-Shuka is also the name of a mixed-up dish served in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Here it is used as a symbol of how the world is evolving in to a great big mix of different nationalities and cultures.  Actually, this company is a little melting pot in itself, with a heritage from Spain, Argentina and America, but based in the Netherlands. You can read more about the little family behind the company in their blog here!

Shak-Shuka isn't only green, but stylish too! I found lots of great products while browsing their shop, both clothing, toys and decorating details. I think that shopping green is even more important than usual when the products are meant for children, as eco friendly also means human friendly with no toxic chemicals in toys and clothing. Kids and babies are so much more sensitive than us, and they also have the habit of putting everything within reach in their mouths, so to me it feels totally right to buy only eco friendly things for my kids.

Here are some of my picks:

Paper puppets

Mr Moustache mobile

Track suit set

Casa Cabana Playhouse

Sarah Illenberger on Freunde von Freunden

Fresh today on Freunde von Freunden, an interview with Sarah Illenberger! I have to confess I didn't read it though, because I don't know German and Google Translate kind of sucks. But the pictures are nice! I think I'm going to copy what she did to her dishwasher, with the chalkboard paint.