Wednesday, October 5, 2011

is there life after the blue box...

Dear readers! It took me a while...no post last week because I was in the hospital, emergency surgery, got my appendix out! I am recovering. Not easy for me: piles of work, millions of plans and ideas, and even more promisses and deadlines....

 
Some of you might know that I worked as a stylist for IKEA Amsterdam years ago. A strange world, creative in a certain way, with the loveliest co-workers you could wish for, but locked up in a large blue box every single day.
And there I met Ellen, she actually was my 'boss', and we became friends. We kind of didn't fit into the IKEA mold and we felt extremely unhappy in our XXXL unisex stylingteam IKEA uniforms, on a daily basis children used to point us out: 'Mummy look, there goes Bob the Builder!'
You can imagine Ellen and I asked ourselves: is there life after the blue box?

Well, there is! She came a long way: but here is Ellen van der Wiel!

She has built up a beautiful little company in felted home accessories, which she all designs and makes herself, partly by hand, partly with her huge new felting machine.

The icing on the cake for her: her plaids and cushion covers where used in the huge VT-Wonen-magazine stand on the Dutch Interior Fair called Woonbeurs (see photo's above), that was held last week. And her work is on the cover of this months issue of VT-Wonen.

Ellen, I am so happy for you, you go girl!

4 comments:

  1. Get well soon. Going to check out Atelier KleurKunst right now.

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  2. Take good care of yourself Jurianne. Get well soon xxx

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  3. Outch! I had the same, right after I finished my finals at school I had to go to hospital. Get well soon:) You have a great blog!

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  4. First get well soon!!!
    For me as a big admirer of your blog and all your lovely products it's very funny to read that you worked at ikea!!! Me to!!! A few years ago I worked as an interior designer at ikea in Berlin and I allways felt like you, especially in the summer. It's a shame to stay in the blue box while it's hot outside! And customers always thought I'm a man when they saw my outfit!
    Now I'm very happy to work as a freelancer. I write a livestyle blog (http://casacolorata.wordpress.com/), I have my own little shop on Dawanda and so on... It was a good experience at ikea, but I'm much more happier today!
    Have a nice weekend! Greetings from Berlin.
    Mareike

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