I read in the paper this morning about an exhibition of contemporary illustrators in the Stedelijk Museum Kampen (Municipal museum in Kampen). Had a quick look at the website and I saw so many pretty things. Like the illustrations Esther Aarts makes, she sometimes uses an old-fashioned mimeograph (see the illustration above).  There is also work by Lobke van Aar, who does regular illustrations for NRC Next (Dutch newspaper). For those of us who don’t want to go all the way to Kampen, do visit the website

http://www.stedelijkemuseakampen.nl/smk/stedelijkmuseum/exposities/illustratoren.aspal, and be sure to click through to the illustrators’ personal websites.

Posted by: Irene

 

Joselien, 36, married and mum of three kids, likes all things ‘old’. She feels most at ease surrounded by all the pretty old things in her old house. Where she makes the creations for her webshop.

You sell a lot of stuff with pictures of the Dutch province Zeeland, how come?

“I was born in Zeeland. I moved away for a bit, but I couldn’t stay away. The Oosterschelde (an inlet of the North Sea), the freedom it used to give me, and still close to beautiful cities. My gran (my mum’s mum) used to wear the traditional garb. I have a lot of pictures of her, in a little box, and I love rummaging through it. I also have some jewelry from that period. Stuff I’d never wear, but I would love to breath some life into them, but updated. A little while ago a friend told me ‘stuff that would otherwise just waste away in the attic gets a new lease on life thanks to you’. That hit the nail right on the head.”

Where does your inspiration come from?

“Cards, old pictures, fabric and just by looking around cities like Antwerp and Gent – an advantage to living in Zeeland, as they are quite near. I often go to a beautiful city for the day and end up with tons of inspiration.”

How do you find the time to make stuff yourself?!

“I often wonder myself… The web shop is going very well and that leaves me with very little time to design and make new things. But whenever I have a moment to spare I get behind my sowing machine or my laptop. It feels great to be able to add something new to the shop amidst all the bustle.”

And the name of your shop, two sisters and Jan, what’s that all about?

“Those are my kids, Doortje, Jan and Lien, two sisters and Jan!”

www.2zusjesenjan.nl

 

 

 

 

We are getting loads of positive feedback on the Flow let’s-get-away-pad, in shops since last Tuesday. We are thrilled, because it is also meant to be a simplify- your-life-publication: making your life easier by putting lots and lots of great holiday addresses together in one pad. Great people share their favorite holiday spots, and that times 208. Unfortunately we had to seal the pad, because it would get damaged too much in the shop otherwise, but this video shows what it looks like on the inside. The Flow let’s-get-away-pad is currently for sale in stationery shops, for 9.95, and also available via our site: http://abonnement.flowmagazine.nl. Happy Easter!

Posted by: Irene

 

 

In the current Flow we feature a couple of yummy baking recipes from the beautiful book One more slice by Swedish TV cook Leila Lindholm (page 112).

We don’t watch much Swedish TV (none at all really), so we’d never heard of her, but my Swedish sister-in-law told me that back in Sweden, Leila is just as popular as Jamie Oliver.  Sweden is very much a pie- and cake-baking-country. Leila also keeps a blog with ‘help, I burned my cake’-tips, styling tips and even shares her granny’s cleaning tips. Besides an entire collection of darling bowls, dishes, and cake stands and anything else you could possibly need around the kitchen. Fun! PS if your Swedish isn’t up to scratch, there’s an English version of the blog as well

Posted by: Jocelyn

 

Recently we decided that the next few issues will each have their own theme. Not every article has to fit in with the theme, but it will provide some great insights and inspiration and it will be stimulating, so as of number 3 (in shops April 25^th) there will be a theme. The first one will be old and cocky. Because we often envy the peace that older folks have. They don’t have anything left to prove, can accept things just as they are, are better at letting go and all those things we’d like to be better at ourselves. The issue features interviews with ladies who’ve been around the block a few times. We asked them: how do you look back on your life? Did it leave you with a motto? It resulted in some beautiful quotes, like this one from Marian Blom (70) “When I look back on my life, I realize I can’t change the past, nor tomorrow. Now is all that matters.” A beautiful mindfulness thought. Another quote, by Truus Bruggeman (71) struck me as well: “When I close my eyes I see myself at 41. We used to complain about getting older and being over the hill back then, but now I know a woman is at her most beautiful at that age and life is amazing.” Good.

Posted by: Irene

As of tomorrow, and only at Bruna (Dutch stationery chain), and in a very limited edition: the Flow notepad. A Flow with a beautiful cover, but nothing else really. That felt good just this once. Gorgeous empty pages, white as the driven snow. Completely devoted to your own stories/sketches and notes. The cover is by Fiona Richards, from Cartolina cards, who also designed the cover of the real issue. Oh, and it’s only for sale in combination with the regular issue, so if you’ve already gotten yours you can always give it away to some lucky person.

Posted by: Jocelyn.

Petra and Iris ‘are’ Nils and Olle, a web shop with Scandinavian design. They both love the beautiful, playful designs, pure shapes, use of color and natural materials.

 Can you tell us about yourselves?

 “We are Petra Bouwhuis & Iris van de Looij from Nijmegen. Petra is a graphic designer and has her own studio. Iris is a visual therapist and makes unique screen prints. We developed and designed the website ourselves. We also took most of the pictures.”

 Is it hard to decide what you will and won’t feature in your shop?

 “We spot new fun things almost every day, but we’re very critical about the things we actually buy. We’re looking for young brands and designers, who haven’t been introduced to The Netherlands yet. In other words: a fresh look at Scandinavia. The products that do end up in our shop are deliberate. We have regular discussions (in the positive sense of the word).

We consider the value for money, the source, and the uniqueness of the product. A product needs to add a special something to the web shop and provide the customer with that one special feeling. An important aspect is how our target audience will be using the product. We happen to sell tea towels by Almedahls that are way too pretty to use for the dishes. So we advise people to frame them. Looks super cute in the kitchen. We ponder this in advance and sometimes we really convince each other whether a product will work or not.”

 Any new plans?

 “The personal touch is very important to us and we try our best to achieve this via our web shop, for instance by adding a personal card to the package. We’d love to expand on this and have an actual showroom and we’re hoping to open one in Nijmegen’s old center within the next few years. So our customers can touch, see and smell the products!”

 www.nilsenolle.nl

The best holiday- and weekends away-addresses are often the ones we hear about from our friends and acquaintances. Because then you’ll know for sure that it’s nice/there’s a nice restaurant around the corner/the people are nice. So we figured, wouldn’t it be great to gather up all those real finds and put them in a little guidebook together with all the best addresses we ever featured in Flow. So we’ll never have to go on the hunt ourselves ever again. That was the plan, so we started pumping all our contacts with a good nose for such things and now it’s actually been printed and we got the first box yesterday at our offices. And wow, it turned out so well. We only got five so far – I sneaked one home yesterday, sorry Irene – but the rest of the edition will be in stores from April 3^rd.

Posted by: Jocelyn