Spring favorite # 4: Buttercup Flowerballs

These I actually made for Easter, but I just didn't have the time to share them here.

They are, of course, very Easterly, but if you like buttercups, I guess they may cheer you up any time of the year. Plus they are very easy to make, really, and quite fun. All you have to do print the sheet (one sheet makes a flowerball, and I made these on slightly heavy, ordinary printer paper), cut out the twelve petals, and sort of hinge them into a ball. See explanation on the PDF about printing on both sides of the paper (which makes a really nice effect on these).

I found a very instructive video on YouTube, on how to assemble them. Super easy!

They are a remake of the pink Hanami ones I made a few years ago, and I have scaled them down a bit, so they are slightly smaller, and changed the outline a bit. They pay tribute to one of my favorite garden weeds; the pretty, yellow buttercup. And in just the same way, you may stick a bit of string to the inside, before closing the last petal, if you want to make them into hanging decorations. 

Download the Buttercup Flowerballs PDF and get started!

 

2021: I have a new location for my downloads: please go here for the front print -
and here for the back side print (it's a print-on-both-sides design).

Spring favorite # 3: Vivian Maier, street photographer

I went to Dunkers Kulturhus in Helsingborg and saw the exhibition of the photographs of the mysterious Chicago and New York nanny, Vivian Maier (1926 - 2009), who turned out to be a world class street photographer, but only received the recognition she so enormously deserved, after her death - and by sheer chance. 

The story of this private and unusual woman, who earned her ways as a nanny for wealthy Chicago and New York families for more than forty years, but simultaneously managed to take hundreds of thousands of sublime photographs of street life in the 50ties and 60ies - is quite amazing. 

Check out the documentary 'Finding Vivian Maier', it is a really intriguing story! (It's on Netflix at the moment).

Here is a very small taste of her wonderful work (starting with one of her many odd self portraits). So full of human empathy, so gentle - and yet sharp and unflinching. And her mastery of graphic composition, is almost like a thing secondary to that fantastic eye. I will never stop being curious about just what it is (besides a certain technical knowledge) that makes a great photographer. She sure was one. 

See much more on her official website - and be prepared to browse for a long time!

Spring favorite # 2: The Flower Queen

Marianne Eriksen Scott-Hansen is a Danish fashion artist / designer / stylist / general creative explosion - known by anyone who has followed experimental fashion here in DK for the past two decades. She works in all kinds of media, but her almost superhuman ways with the scissors are somehow central to much of what she does. When you read interviews with her, she often explains how she works intuitively, with very few templates, work drawings or such. She simply lets the scissors do the talking, and incredible things happen. 

At the moment she works almost entirely in paper, and her wild, textural visual style has really taken off in her current project: doing enormous flower installations in cheap tissue or crêpe paper. She emphasizes how she insists on working in the standard materials her local paper shop stocks (although the amounts of paper that she uses are not quite standard - she must be a wonderful customer for that paper shop!!), and how she does everything herself and by hand. 

I am simply breathlessly impressed and full of awe and wonder! It is stunning and abundant. The workload almost incomprehensible - and, it's all from plain paper and a pair (or several pairs) of ordinary scissors. Paper truly is a magic material (as I keep insisting on).

Please enjoy these few pictures of Marianne Eriksen Scott-Hansens Easter decor in the Royal Copenhagen flagship store - and, I think, from a backdrop for the ELLE style awards (just two of her many, many supersize flower extravaganzas).

All photos are from her instagram, where you should follow her and fall in love with her work as well.

Spring favorite # 1: Modulor in Berlin

Hope you're all enjoying spring, which is turning into summer her in Cph!

I've been very busy, but have collected a few thoughts and loose ends, so even though I have a bit of a blog break at the time, let me welcome you to my little series of Spring Favorites!

We took a small Spring break in Berlin some weeks ago, and I love love love Berlin. I could write a lot about that place, and we had some sunny and lovely days on our visit, so I have lots of blogging material, so to speak, loads of photos and such. But I actually only want to share this one tip with you!

I've been to Berlin quite a few times before, and it's a city full of change, energy and exiting things, and every time you come, there is a whole new neighborhood or scene to check out. And the shopping, oooh! In my view the very best shopping spot in Europe - as far as I'm concerned, anyway. I have it pretty well mapped out, and have lots of must-visit-shops.

Which is why it is a bit odd - with my almost lifelong passion for paper and art supply shops - that I have never visited this utterly and completely fantastic shop before. But this time I finally went!

If you, as I do, love that kind of shops - look no further. This is seriously the best there is, and I would travel to Berlin for this shop alone. 

Niftily situated right next to Moritzplatz U-Bahn Station, and near the Design College - and opposite a small park, where they have nice street food vendors in the Summer - it is an absolutely must from now on, for my future visits. As driving there is fairly easy and quick from Copenhagen, I contemplate going there on a shopping expedition with an empty trunk! Oh, man, did they have some nice stuff I would like to own.

Because, not only do they have EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine in the way of papers, modelling materials, glues, paints, colors, pencils, markers, stickers, tools, metal bits and bobs, decorating materials and aaaaaaaaall that. No, no - they also have probably the most interesting selection of affordable storage and office/workplace furnishings and accessories I saw in a long time. 

So, I am having a real retail love thing going on here.

See for yourself.
Here is their web shop, with a fraction of the range you see in the actual shop...!!

We drove in a car stuffed to the brim with four adults and two kids and all the luggage relevant to such a setup, so my friend and I had to stick to fun (small) paper products. I filled a bag, and here is a little bit of it...

(- and the wooden thingy? Well, that is a carrying handle, of course. A small, but significant, freebie from their packaging table, after the checkout. They obviously have this huge table, with free wrapping paper, bubble wrap, different kinds of tape, string, scissors, cutting knives etc. so that you can wrap your purchase properly. And anyone who have carried a heavy, big or oddly shaped parcel, knows just how big a difference such a handle can make! God is in the detail and Modulor is one cool shop.)