It's in the genes

It's obvious where i got my love for decorating from.
During my stay in the Netherlands i stayed with my parents and made some photos of my mom's decorating in the living room. I remember growing up never knowing how the home would look like after any day of school. Often she would have re-arranged the entire house while we were gone!

There is always something to discover. Here, a small feathered owl is stuck next to a candle in a flower centerpiece.
Or find these two little birds on the edge of a vase, looking at a silver face of a Buddha.

More birds in a flower centerpiece with a large decorative silver ball in the middle.

A beautiful Buddha statue surrounded by a glass lotus flower, a clear vase filled with beads and lots of flowers. My mom created a whole corner around the Buddha (see first picture of this post).

Another (smaller) Buddha statue on a cabinet. Placed on a round mirror with cones of incense and little beads and knick knacks in front. Surrounded by old photographs of friends and family.

Easy Lamp Revamp

We bought this floorlamp with the large white lampshade when we moved into the new apartment. Right away i knew the shade was calling for decoration, but i also wanted to leave it white for awhile. Then my Love said, after like two days of white lampshade, "Honey, i know you'll have to decorate that plain lampshade!" Oh, he knows me so well. So i thought about it for some time, wanted to do something that i would be able to change later on. And with the decor i had put on the wall behind the lamp it didn't needed a lot of decoration.
Then i found a strip of self adhesive felt ribbon in these lovely leave shapes!
It fits so perfectly! I didn't actually stick it on the shade. I could have, but like i said, i want to be able to change it up later on. At least have the possibility to do so. A bit of double sided tape worked like magic to stick the strip on.
The entire revamp didn't take more than 5 minutes!

Wall Storage

I needed some additional storage and didn't want to put any more stuff on the floor.
So now, on the wall directly next to my desk, i hammered two medium sized nails and hung my two vintage reversible bags on them.
Voila, instant wall art / storage space!

Deer Decoration

I see so many pretty handmade decorations on a lot of blogs, i almost feel bad for not having the time to make some myself this year. I must admit there are hardly any decorations in here this year. So not me. But there is a Merry Christmas sign in the living room with this adorable deer underneath. I wish i could leave her up on the wall all year round!

I'm rethinking my blog usage. Not thinking about quiting. On the contrary. I should be able to post daily. Or at least 6 days out of every week. Something. Maybe it will be just a picture with not too many words if nobody minds. I have so many returning visitors and i know not everybody uses feeds to get updates, i don't want people to be so sweet to keep checking my blog but not seeing any new posts. And i really got enough to share. Not a day goes by without something cute, decorative, thrifty or creative in my life.

Maybe blogging daily should be my new new years resolution?

Cute mobile girls

Talked about the Japanese Paper Doll Mobile in the post where i showed our purple couch. Promised to make close up pictures. Was kinda difficult to get sharp shots since the mobile actually moves around in circles...

Quick project: Doilly Pillows

2 purple pillows, some fabric glue and 3 vintage doillies = quick weekend project!

Dollhouse Bedroom unveiled

Woohoo. I must admit i was a bit nervous having my room unveiled over at Cruststation. Luckily there were some kind visitors leaving sweet comments so i'm not scared anymore that nobody would like it...
All other rooms are currently unveiled. They are gorgeous!

We were all asked to write down our thoughts on this project. Here are mine. Unedited ;)

Name: Ismoyo
Blog address: http://www.ismoyo.com/ismoyoblog.html
Room: Bedroom
Thoughts on the project:

In the words of my 3 year old cousin "Can we play the bear and the turtle game? Pwease?"

I loved this project from the moment Babelfish first mentioned her thoughts about setting it up. I almost missed signing up for it, but luckily i could get in on the fun! I was assigned one of the bedrooms of the house, which i was very very happy with. But then again, i think i would have been happy with any of the rooms.
What i wanted was to end up with a room that could be loved by anyone and at the same time would be in a typical 'ismoyo' style. That meant there had to be some pink in it and ofcourse a little vintage feel.

The project gave us so much freedom as to what mediums to use, the possibilities and my ideas where endless. But i got very much limited by my personal situation (moving overseas and moving apartments a lot, thus having my craft supplies all over the place but mostly in storage).
But my beloved computer was with me, so i choose to do a digital collage with some illustrations in it.

I had to put a cup of coffee on the nightstand 'cause it so says "New York" to me, plus the fact i can't start my day without a cup of steamy coffee.
The framed artworks on the wall are scans from my personal vintage postcard collection.

While working on this project i got company from my little cousin from time to time. It started out with the question "Why can't that lady walk?" and me having to explain what a sewing mannequin was, which resulted in a lot of puzzled looks.
Then he discovered the bear on the chair. He looks like he wants to play! Oh, the wonders of layers in Illustrator and Photoshop! We made the bear jump up and down on the bed, play on the floor, hide under and behind the bed, until the bear got bored and wanted a playmate. In came mister turtle. Oh how much fun they had! After playtime they took a little nap on the big bed and got back to their favorite places in the room, the bear got comfy on the chair and the turtle liked his view from being on one of the shelves.

"Can we play the bear and the turtle game again? Pwease?"

Purple couch and more

So finally i'm showing some decorating in the new apartment. This is the purple sofa bed/couch we got from Ikea (ikea name: Beddinge). It's a 3-seater and actually not difficult to transform into a (very comfy) bed. And yes, i assembled this piece of furniture myself too. Love helped tightening some screws though. (Sometimes you need some male strength) The decorative fabric is of course from my own personal vintage fabric collection.

What else is in the picture? The white carpet is from Ikea too. I know, white. Stains. Stop. My mom already told me. But i so much like the look of a white carpet on a wooden floor. And it's comfortable. And i like sitting on the floor a lot.

The brown clutch purse on the sofa was one of the thrift finds in the warehouse sale the other day.

The penguin is a new friend of me and my Love. We call him "Ukkie", which in Dutch means something like "Shorty". And Ukkie lives on the couch. He likes it there.

The lamp i found in a discount store in Manhattan even before we found our apartment. "Love, if we find a place, i already found the perfect lamp!" I did wait purchasing it, because you never know if something actually 'fits' in a place until you've seen the space. Of course the huge white lampshade can't stay white forever. Got to get some decoration on it. Thought maybe to wait with that a little while. Can't overdecorate, don't want to freak Love out. But he is the best. The second day we had the lamp he said "But baby, you will put some Ismoyo decorations on it right?" Oooh... that's why i love him. He understands.
But then i put the decorative paper on to the wall (originally an washable paper table cover i brought with me from Amsterdam), and now i kinda like the whiteness of the lampshade like it is.

There are three Japanese paper dolls hanging from the lamp on a very delicate thread mobile. I got those once from my girls during a roadtrip-birthday-escape-to-Antwerp. The dolls represent us three, so now my girls are with me in New York. Kinda.
They are real cute and i will take a close up picture to show of better. I'm talking 'bout the paper dolls. My girls are cute too, but no showing pictures of them. ;)

In the lower left corner you see a little part of the shelved bookcase that i put on its side on the floor. Will make another picture of that too. It holds a lot of my craft and inspirational books and on top of it are (vintage) items that please my eye.

Think that's it for now. I am thinking about writing more about interior decorating on my blog. But then again, i thought about doing that before and never really got to it. Maybe i should this time.

Paper Gift Bags

i love paper gift bags. especially those with beautiful patterns on them or pretty illustrations like these. i found the lovelies in a 99 cents store and knew they would come in handy for something. One is now holding my paper magazine scraps, the other yarn and some unfinished projects.

they stand next to my new desk for easy access.

Could have been a carpenter

Decorating a new place means putting together a lot of furniture. My Love was very helpful carrying heavy boxes from stores and up to our fourth floor apartment. Before he did that, i had promised him i would put together the furniture (what was i thinking to volunteer for that?) Anyway, i don't really mind doing it. It's like a puzzle. And i have always thought that if i would have been born a man i probably would do something in the carpenter branche, design and make my own furniture, something like that. Build things.

So recently i put together an sofabed/couch, our Queen bed, two four-shelve bookcases, a large standing lamp and my desk.
Of all these projects this desk was the most complicated. People tend to complain about putting together Ikea furniture, but those were actually the easiest.

I first saw a desk like this one in the Sears catalog. Called them up but didn't like their delivery fee. Went online and found this desk at ilikefurniture.com, and even better with no delivery fee and two foldable side parts instead of the one side of the Sears version.
After some perseverance this is how the desk came together.

Both sides can be folded up so you end up with just the middle drawer part and extra space in the room. But i doubt i will fold it up a lot. Luckily have enough space in the room.

And after not too long my supplies had found their way into the drawers, up the wall and on top of the worksurface. It's nice to have my laptop and sewingmachine accessible at all times.

Fabric from my mothercountry

Not the country i'm born, but actually where my mom's born. Indonesia. One of my sweet homegirls got me this gorgeous fabric on her last trip over there, brought it back with her to Amsterdam and sent it with my parents here to New York. Travelled the world to get to me and i LOVE it.

I do think this batik fabric is too pretty to cut up and use in my creative projects. So i think i'll leave it as is, keep it for when me and Love get a new apartment (one where we'll hopefully stay awhile). I'm sure i'll find a decorative way to use it. Or maybe i'll make some pillows from it. But that would mean cutting. Well, not sure yet.

Thank you house!

Whom i shared so much with
laughter and joy
sadness and tears
goodtimes and bad

the friends
the creativity
the kitchenfire
goodbye's and welcome homes
the seasons
the okura and rembrandt building
Anne Frank's original home around the corner
Creaking sloping part in the middle of my hallway
the gorgeous broad treelined street
the love
and so much more

When i left Amsterdam there were still some pieces of furniture and so on in my apartment. Those were picked up by my relatives after i left. Weird that i haven't seen the place emptied out. So my father sent me some pictures from after they were done. I wonder if there is already someone else living in 'my' apartment. If so, hope they have a wonderful time there, it has been a good home to me.

checking in 'hello!'

i know i got to update my blog. i think about it daily. i still make blog notes in my journal not to forget to post certain things. i make pictures every day that i want to show here.
just don't seem to find the time to do so. and if i do, i don't get online all the time.
got to take care of some things, got to get my situation arranged over here. working on it!
settling in, everything i brought has to find a new place.
how do you like the view from the back of our apartment? isn't it amazing? ;)
Got my collage journals all together. Loads of inspiration!
The small fabric covered chest of drawers are from the 70's. The one on the right once belonged to my mother, the one next to it was a great thrift find a couple of months ago, the sales lady just wanted it to go to a good new home and when she noticed my excitement, she gave it to me for free! thank you saleslady!
Some of my little friends found their way into my suitcase when i left Amsterdam. They are now getting acquaintant with their new surroundings.
The lovely Apple Brown Betty board was a church thrift find on the very first day i arrived in Brooklyn. Love spotted it for me, i had almost missed it! This way it was a great welcoming present.

Fabric collage wall art

This project was a work in progress for a long reason. No particular reason, you know, sometimes you just have a project that's just there all the time waiting to be finished but never really gets the priority to finish up. Finally i have. I think the girl turned out cute. Since one project leads to another, i'm thinking of doing some more smaller pieces with only cute girls. With this project i didn't have a set idea of how i wanted it to end up when i started. I've put some fabric on a framed canvas and opened my fabric scrap box and let the fabric pieces lead the way. Next time i will draw a sketch first and start cutting and sewing next.

Would be nice as nursery art, but if your anything like me, always a kid at heart, you don't need a nursery to put it up on the wall! hehe

Collage door

It's the door from the hallway into my livingroom. I never have this door closed. It could have might as well not be there. But then it wouldn't be the canvas for this mixed media collage like area.

It is a mixture of party flyers, stickers, musicians, fashion magazine pages, photos, a small Indonesian wajang doll and a cute mashimaro doll which falls down a lot ..

I have 'done' this door a long time ago, so i'm so used to it being like this, i would feel uncomfortable if the door would be plain again. It will be weird taking it all off when i will move. Well, for now i'm still here and the door is too.

A passion for dollhouses

A group passion for dollhouses turned in to a great collaborative project!

I never had a real dollhouse. I once had a lovely figurine treehouse i gave to my cousin when i 'outgrew' it. she threw it out one day when she got bored with it and i wanted that i could have had it back...
i always adored paperdolls. i loved to draw paper dolls and their houses.

And now we're making a paper doll house! I got one of the bedrooms to design/decorate. Woohoo! I would have taken any room since i almost missed out on this project. A house only needs that much rooms, so participants had to be limited. I was so happy that my friend Babelfish came through for me and included me in the fun!
I'm excited and inspired. Flipping through my decoration magazines, going through my fabric stash. So many possibilities. My thoughts are going at highspeed, so read a much clearer explanation of this Paper Doll House Project over at cruststation!
I'm not sure what i will be doing, but we have time. i don't want to dissappoint the rest with a silly room when they, talented bunch receive my room. hm. i will do fine.
another time i will update on this and i want to list and spotlight the rest of the 'interior decorators' in this project!

Corner of my home

I am working on my crafts, i really am! Will show new finished projects over the weekend.

For now, this picture of a corner of my home. Photography is creativity too, right?

about last week

About last week. A little bit of this and that.
Me and my girls went to this lovely shop, Het Grote Avontuur (The Large Adventure). It's always ooh-ing and aah-ing over there. We kept our control and didn't even buy anything. I did make some pictures i wanted to share.

The flowers on the dark wall were cut out from (i think) wrapping paper and glued on. A great inspirational idea to put in my little decoration notebook!

This last Sunday a flea market was held in the sportscenter at the end of my street. Only a ten minute walk to many possible treasures. It was a bit rainy, but it was an indoor market so i put my umbrella up and walked down the street.
Glad i did, because the market was fun, met some kind people and found some goodies i'm real happy about!
I love all the cards i've found. I think i never came across that many additions to my collection at once before!

Just can't control myself when i find something adorable and not too expensive. The little hearts fabric is a baby outfit that i gave to my friend, tomorrow the tiny sneakers will be wrapped. I think every time i visit, i have a little surprise something something for her.
The shiny Hello Kitty was a gift too, but that one was for me!!
A very nice former colleague of my mom goes to Asia regularly and almost always brings something small and cute back for me! Thank you! It's a Hello Kitty keychain locker. When you open her up, there's a small mirror inside. Pretty.

it's a pair

One of my most precious things in my house is this sweet vintage doggy clock. I have found it maybe two years ago during a thrifting spree. The clock does work, but runs a tad bit slow. So for me the doggies are there for decorative purposes only.
The two glass swans in the foreground were a little surprise gift i got from Love one day.

Interior Decorating of the 70's

with Amazement I'm flipping through the pages of my latest vintage thrift find.
A Dutch edition of "1601 Decorating ideas for modern living". Bare in mind 'modern' is published 1975. It's a yellow fabric covered hard bound book full of beautiful photographs and great ideas from past times.
I have a chair like that! My parents bought it when they were decorating their first apartment.
The photo caption said (translated) "Not too high shelves and cupboards are used more often now, to divide large spaces in two. Here they also serve as support for the couch and the fold out table."














Photo caption translated "In the work of ground breaking designers the furniture, the use of space and the color scheme give us an impression of the future. 'Visiona 3' of Olivier Mourgue consists of living zones on different levels. A sleeping unit, bathroom unit, the lounge area and the kitchen can be placed where you want. The hanging closets (right) and the dividers can be moved along rails attached to the ceiling."
hihi. It gave us a great impression of the future. Who of us Doesn't live like this nowadays? ;)

a happy place

a little corner of my home, it's a happy place.

Easy wall art

This isn't something i just did, i just haven't shown it here before.
There used to be empty wall space above the couch in my living room. You know, such a space of which you keep thinking, i must find the perfect piece of artwork for it, but never come across it.
So if you can't find it, make it!
I traced the outside of a cd cover as the base size for loads of magazine cut outs. It's so easy, choose your favorite images, decide what is the best part of the image, cut it out, collect a pile of those and arrange them how you want. The fun thing is that you can add extras when you want and enlarge your artwork over time.
It's quick and easy and it will personalize your living space!

Retro works of art

Above the fireplace mantle in my living room is where i showcase my collection of late 1960's / early 70's children's paintings and prints.

I'm thrilled whenever i find one in the back of a thrift store, in a box at the second hand market or in my mailbox after winning an online auction.
Could you believe there are such sweet people who send you two additional pieces just because they know you collect them and thus know you will cherish them?
For real. At first i didn't know if the good people made a mistake and sent me them by accident. I emailed to tell them i got two more than what the bid was made for. And what do you know, they did sent them on purpose. They thought i would like to have them in my collection. You're right i do! They had already captured my heart straight away.
Thank you, kind strangers!

Some works in my collection have been signed by the artist, some haven't. But unfortunately i haven't been able to find a lot of information about the ones that have been signed anyway.
These four are all by Idylle. The three are painted on wood, the one next to the Buddha is a paper print in an old plastic frame.
I will make more close up pictures of my collection soon.

I see a pattern here

I see patterns...
My eyes are attracted to patterns..

The two 'glasses' (they're plastic) I can sort of justify buying them. you know, you need them to have a drink. not counting all those glasses I already have in my kitchen.
But what about the two decorative balls? Haha. Sounds so not pretty. But they are. At least to me they are. And I found them in the bargain bin! Probably because nobody else knew what to do with them..
And there are the pink and green pre cut felt garlands which are cut in a lovely flowery shape. No clue what anyone else would use them for, but I know they will come in handy some day in a creative project of some sorts.

So much for spending money on items I could have lived without but sure love living with!

Back in Amsterdam; Mom's surprises

So i safely arrived back in Amsterdam yesterday. Didn't have a great trip back, i might do a post about this trips' flight experiences later on. When i finally got to Schiphol Airport, both my parents were waiting for me. They dropped me off at my home and hurried to their work. My house was cleaned from top to bottom and my fridge was filled! How sweet are they?!
Walking through my apartment, trying to re-adjust to being back in Amsterdam again, it felt like some sort of a treasure hunt, since my mom had put small surprises all through the house. Like the tidying up and cleaning wasn't enough right? They're too much. My dad even cleaned all the windows inside and out.
Anyway, the surprises. My mom put a bouquet of beautiful fresh pink flowers in my livingroom. And she used two of my small pink vases to also brighten up my little nick-nack-Buddha-table under my fireplace mantle. (which doesn't have a fireplace, but hey.)
On my sewing table i found a stack of vintage Marion fashion pattern magazines from the seventies she bought at her local market. How great are these? I will definitely make some scans and share them in here one of these days. (I've still got so much to blog about, so don't know when yet)
Check out the picture of some that i already got and posted before, if you like.
On my dresser in my bedroom i found this great display piece. My mom works in a large department store and they were about to throw this out. Luckily she saved it for me. She told me it was used to showcase a special type of watch. But she had very clever displayed one of my necklaces on it. The flower is see through which makes it even more special i think.

There was also a cute Hello Kitty marshmallow lollipop waiting for me. Too sweet to eat!
And one of my aunts left me some Max Faxtor make up she and I both use with a little From: - To: note on it. Sweet!

It's still a bit weird being back here. Still somewhat jetlagged. I go to sleep when everyone else is getting up. I eat when everyone else is sleeping. Ah well, I'll get over it. I've got loads of things on my to-do list waiting for me. Haven't thought about that or looked at it for the last couple of weeks. But I'm not yet back into the swing of things. I miss Brooklyn. I miss my LOVE. Why are we so far apart again? I know we'll see each other again, but i can't be very happy yet right now. I walk through my home and realize i love this place with all my creative corners and decorated walls, but at the same time, i haven't really missed it while i was away. I know i can make a new home in Brooklyn which i will adore just as much.

I am so ready to start working on creative projects again. I just don't know where to start. New York gave me so much inspiration, my head is just overflowing with ideas! So stay tuned, I'm planning to be posting a lot!

Living with only musicians

This is what happens. Not a lot of furniture, but a whole lot of instruments!
(that's my love in the background, he didn't want to move for the picture... hihi)