Maison & Objet - part 3: the floral displays.

Do you like flowers? I do. But ever since we got our mischievous cat Viggo, it's touch and go for living greenery in our home. He either ignores it (if we're lucky), or he tries to climb it, eat it, dig it over, play with it and generally demolishes it within an hour.
Having no plants or flowers in my house is inconceivable to me, so we've resorted to displaying fakes. The cheaper ones (not in my home) look just like that: cheap fakes. But the more expensive kind are so well made that people visiting us often mistake them for the real thing. Next to my real, cherished, purple Anthurium (which Viggo leaves alone) are fake orchids, and the compliments I receive for them always make me smile.

I fell for this exhibit; very Oriental (which fascinates me), but not a riot of colour - very simple, very peaceful, most Zen. Everything you can see is fake, mostly silk. And gorgeously indistinguishable from the real thing.

This Mimosa is so French to me (although an Australian FB friend informed me it is known as wattle over there and is common as dirt); I adore it as it smells divine and will not grow in my Wetlands. This display was for the benefit of the cups, and the flowers are real. Pretty enough to put as a banner over this blog!

This display is all silk, and totally over the top as far as I'm concerned. It was approx. 1 m. high. But it would look good in the right environment.

Ermm...no comment. (We have a 'thing' for Christmas decorations in our house. It's absolutely harmless and not contagious, don't worry)

:-)

I'll leave you with two of my own little flower displays. We grow the flowers in our own garden, and obviously I can only pick them in Summer. Can you identify them?

See you again soon!

Vive la France! - Welcome to my visitors from the home of Marianne!

Maison & Objet - Part 2

A wall full of the most amazing, funny, creative clocks imaginable. We would have liked to take home at least a dozen. But how many clocks does a person need?

At Maison & Objet we saw things we never realised anyone could ever need...

Take these two peacocks, for example. Would you put them on your mantlepiece? They are so over the top kitsch that it becomes stylish.

And this I really liked! It appears to be glass, but actually was rubber, or something like that, it was flexible. Lovely colours, lovely shapes, great invention! It's Italian, by the way. Trust them to make their own Venetian glassware look boring by comparison.

Ah! Someone used my favourite colours! I would love the prints on the wall as well. Perhaps I'll pinch the idea (shhhh! don't tell anyone)

Okay, I'll give you another update soon. It's upstairs to bed for me now, I get up awfully early in the morning.

Bonne nuit!

Maison & Objet - it's the lights that made Paris famous!

Good evening!
I promised you some blogs about the Maison&Objet trade fair, and this is the first installment. And it is about: LIGHTS.
Paris is famous for it, and there were numerous design firms selling light fixtures at M&O. I've taken photos of the ones I liked best. See if you can spot your favourite designers!

Adore this one. What a simple idea, but how effective! Using only 3 basic colours, the designer combines them to make lots of colours. The only drawback, as I see it, is that glass is only lovely when it is spotless. As soon as it gets dusty, it loses its dazzle. So...buy this and dust until you drop!

This appears to be paper, but is actually fiber glass. Lovely!

Cute, eh? My daughter loved this.

I liked these tremendously. They are made from wood, and very light.

For music lovers. Cool!

And this was simply gorgeous. But not so practical for your home, perhaps... So, if you are aiming to light the atrium of your multi-storied millions-earning business, this is the light for you.

Personally, I would have liked to take these lights home with me...

See you again soon!

Gosh I adore Paris! - Care to join me in a little tour of (some of the) sights?

Bonsoir!
My family and I have just returned from a flying visit to the City of Lights and Love (2 days), and we've had a whale of a time!

Montmartre

Isn't it perfect to board a train in Rotterdam, and then step onto a Paris platform only 2 1/2 hours later?!

The Thalys was full, to the brim, which probably had something to do with the same reason for our trip to Paris, namely the enormous home furnishings trade fair Maison & Objet. 

To get in, I had to fib a little; it is a buyers trade fair, so we used the name of my daughter's non-existent-but-in-the-future-to-be-business M.K. Styling. And O Em Gee...did we see some gorgeous design!

We also saw a lot of other stuff. In fact, there were 9 humungous halls full of stuff. I never realised there is so much for sale...and so many people wanting to buy it only to sell it to other people.

I'll be writing a string of blogs over the next couple of days, themed, for your perusal. So for now, I'll leave you with a more personal one. Because visiting M&O was only a very good excuse to take my family to Paris...

We didn't have a lot of time, so were picky in what we saw. We stayed near the Place de la République, extremely handy for travelling by Métro, but a very nice square in its own right, with lovely restaurants and a lively skater and roller blader community. And those Parisians think nothing of a bunch of Dutchies rolling into their restaurant on a Thursday at 22.40 in the evening (Ha! Try that in boring old Hellevoetsluis!) "You want to eat? Welcome!"

And they speak English! I mean: no better way to make me feel at home!