See you at Inside Design Amsterdam

It's a bit quiet here which most of the time means , I'm very busy. 

We are going to show the dark chocolate Rafa-kids beds for the first time to the public 

at Inside Design Amsterdam 2013. 

A design event organized by ELLE DECORATION taking this year 

the whole downtown Amsterdam by storm. 

Come to see us between Friday 27th and Sunday 29th at MMOUSE. 

 On Friday 27th at 16 - 20 there is a special opening organized by MMOUSE 

with drinks and music! Rafa-kids  will be glad to meet you there! 

Zara Mini by April and May

I'm not in a baby mood, but definitely I'm into a great work of April and May 
for a new lookbook of ZARA mini.  

First , some of you might ask : who is  April and May ?  

Two talented Dutch stylists Jantine Vaartjes and Vivian Hoebe are running unique studio April and May . 

If you step by to see their webshop : April and May, you will easy get the feeling of their style.  This talented duo is  focusing on interior design, styling and concepts and is also an author of the April and May blog. New collection of ZARA mini, was styled by this two women and photographed by James Stokes. I find it very interesting collaboration, and really love the result. 

The minimal but warm look of the collection, enriched by using such a simple elements. We will see beautiful  gray tones of fabrics and wool, together with cupboard,  cork, a piece of wire… pure elements , but used in a very creative and conceptual way. It gives simple and somehow also cute look of the collection. 

We'll done ladies! 

Fold-up Paper Animals

Do you know already the Papier City designed by Papierowemiasto? 

I just notice that this Polish brand created new product :  FOLD - UP ANIMALS 

made out of 100% recycled cardboard. 

Set includes 12 sheets of gray cardboard with color print of 20 animals :

 giraffe, zebra, rabbit , bear, fox and much more! 

Each animal fold size is 10cm . 


" Animals are durable and not easy to destroy. " 

I think this is not only fun to make and play ( during the Autumn and Winter days ) 

 but also will be looking great as a decoration in child's room.

wooden toys and furniture for children from Japan

Welcome Buchi. Simplicity, playfulness and beauty. 

They are toys and furniture which parents like to look at it and I don't know how many time children share they taste. I think we wish to have less and better quality products for our kids and it is worth it to give a try. The lady behind Buchi is Fumie Shibata,  a Product Designer based in Tokyo. I translated from her website :  " Her works have received tremendous acclaim in various Design Awards worldwide including, red dot Design Award in Germany and Gold Prize of Good Design Award, and MAINICHI Design Award  in Japan." Buchi products appears a lot to my and this is how I see a good design for kids. 

modern Japanese house by taro architects

If it comes to architecture, my architect's heart fly very easily to Japan. 

I've never visited the country, but since study times, I was spending hours to analyze floor plans of houses and adoring japanese design. There is not much space to build and that's why you can see such a interesting ways of playing with the space.  Can you imagine that the floor area of this house is only 95m2? It feels so open and full of air, doesn't it? 

Japan has a long tradition in craftsmanship. In this house instead of walls, the furniture plays role of the place dividers. Even the stars are hidden inside a cupboard!  Can you see the low side-table which is also the first step of the stairs? This makes my hear bit faster! Amazingly beautiful. And the old church chairs, with a small pocket details at the back. The table is just hanging above the stairs, to utilize the space as much as possible. In this house you see not only respect for space and functionality but also such a big love for natural beauty of wood. I could really move into this house, straight away. 

 I wish you a nice week - end

Photo's Koichi Torimura  via: designboom

Rafa-kids is GROWING

Rafa-kids is GROWING FAST. 

At the moment almost all of our beds are sold out. 

Especially the WHITE Rafa-kids collection is very popular. 

The factory is almost ready with new delivery, which we are going to welcome in the studio in about a week. Some of the beds are not getting back to stock. Our F bunk bed whitewash is already sold out for pre-orders. I'm very sorry for all customers who are waiting for it and would like to make an order in September. The toddlers are also running out very fast, and I have only few left for you. 

You wonder what's going on? 

We placed an order at our factory clearing the material they had in the warehouses reserved for our beds. 

We have to order new stock of our beautiful Finnish plywood again and double our production. Unfortunately this will take a bit more time than usual. The new beds will be ready around the beginning of December. 

It is definitely a BIG GROWING UP moment for our brand, and I'm very happy it is happening.....

Masterclass Fotografie & Styling

I'm going to join Meet the Blogger Masterclass Photography & Styling 

ran by Anouk Brands and Wendy van Woudenberg this Thursday.

 I'm very exited to meet this two inspirited ladies, which I only know from the internet. Anouk is a stylist with a very strong taste and style. You can just step by her site ANOUKBRANDS to have the feeling. Her style is mostly black&white but with a lot of personal touch and influences from different fields and cultures. Wendy has a blog BEELDSTEIL with minimalist look and scandinavian touch. The Photography & Styling class will be run at Toonkamer in Utrecht, so it's also very interesting place to see. 

I'm curious how the ladies work and looking forward to learn as much as possible. 

Wish me luck!

First photo :  www.elmarkrop.com Styling: www.anoukb.com for www.yaya.nl

Teener bed in dark color from Rafa-kids

I'm so happy to finally show you these pictures,

 which we did just before holiday time.

 Since we didn't have much time to make pictures of the dark chocolate Rafa-kids furniture yet! 

(focusing so much on the white ones) we start with elegant A teen bed. 

This color is very rich, not black, but very dark brown. That's why I wanted to create a room, with strong colors of orange and blue and a touch of vintage music. I hope you like what you see ;-) We got some accessories from Loods5 for these pictures. Eames chair in orange looks so beautiful!  The black baskets are made out of old tires, very cool and useful for storage. The blankets and pillows I've found in Zara home, new Autumn / Winter collection. The headphones and old LPs are borrowed from a great store next to our studio de aap met de gouden ring.  and last, can you imagine that this poster was hanging in my husband's teener room? So it has some nice personal touch for him. We do everything very personal anyway ;-) More to come….

photo/styling : Rafa-kids team / Agata & Arek Seredyn 

You will have a chance to see our F&A set in dark chocolate 

during Inside Design Amsterdam at Mmousse!

We will be presenting it first time to the public.  

OYOY - new AW13

After screaming colors from Holland in the last post, 

it's time to calm down a bit with some scandinavian feel. 

I'm a big fun of the Danish brand OYOY. I really like the Japanese touch in their collection and the minimal forms. I'm into orange lately so this would be perfect to choose from for our living room this winter.  New colorful pillows with stripes I would take to boys' room. Sometimes I think I'm scandinavian at heart, and I wish to move to Denmark! Really! 

I wish you a great start of the week ….more Rafa-kids news very soon.