Need for a change

Welcome in New Year! I hope you’ve had a great start of 2017. 

I am still very much in the mood of planing, dreaming and taking some important decisions for this year. It is one of my favourite times of the year, when it feels like a new start and a 12 months seems like long, open time to fulfil….well , at least that’s what I hope for.

It is winter for many of us, and we are still waiting for some snowy days out here. At the same time we are all about summer vibes and new collections showing up here and there. Today I’m bringing you a bit of sun from Nepal and beautiful products made by Muskhane. We are so glad to cary at Rafa-kids some of their soft colourfu pillows and the Grizzly carpet is our customers favourite at the moment. We will bring you even more beauty and inspiration this year. I promise. This is just a start! 

Let’s the fun begin!

The sun shines, the days are getting warmer, we couldn’t be more happy! 

Our favourite time of the year is just starting. 

Welcome March! We were waiting for you for so long…. 

Rafa-kids really likes the new beautiful collection on Darling Clementine. Till know this Norwegian brand, started by Tanje Holand & Ingrid Relthaug  was offering mostly stationery and paper products, but they just introduced textile! We absolutely love the simple, graphic aesthetic and playful character of the new products. The little Pantomime pillow, was a ‘must have’ for our carefully built textile collection for kids’ room. Don’t you thing, the small little products and elements, make the child’s room so much more personal and playful ? 

2016

Welcome in New Year.

A new start…light and blank space in front of us, which feels like beautiful welcome for new ideas and challenges. I really like this time of the year, 

because it’s so easy to believe that all the new and good things are so close to my reach 

and that’s all I want is possible. Do you feel that too ?  

Making plans for 2016 makes me so exited. If you wrote my blog post: living-in-old-school 

you probably know, I’m looking for a new home for our family. In January 2016, we will know for sure if the place we found can be ours, and we believe this will be a start of a new journey for us. 

This year will bring us into our 40ties and we wish to celebrate it with an exotic trip…

but for now, I can’t tell you any more. 

There are many new ideas and plans for Rafa-kids brand in 2016. 
New furniture which we already working on and some exited collaborations.  Oh yes! We also hope to welcome a new people into our creative team.  Yes - look for a sign - we are hiring very soon.  

Rafa-kids stock will grow substantially and we’ve already made some logistics improvements, which will hopefully give us more space for creative work and to be with you! 

I can’t wait to start the journey! 

pictures 1/2 

Wool Week

Last week it was a Wool Week in the Netherlands, according to Campaignforwool. 

I think it is significant and it would be good to support it and show you few beautiful pictures from their Wool magazine. I’m so happy to see that customers become more aware of environmental issues and choose natural and ecological materials and wool is becoming the fibre of choice. 

Few interesting attributes of wool : 

“ .. Merino wool is the finest wool in the world, according to the micron of the fibre. The lower the micron, or diameter, the finer the wool, ensuring superb next-to-skin softness. “  (…) This is because wool not only looks beautiful, but it also has countless exceptional and practical benefits. The natural structure of the wool fibre means it’s elastic, breathable, moisture- regulating, anti-static, stain resistant, fire retardant and even UV-protective. …” 

“ … The history of wool, and the craftsmanship that is so closely connected to it, goes back centuries. The process, from a fleece to yarn and the subsequent creation of a fabric or knit, has been developed over the course of thousands of years. For a long time this process was established by hand but the Industrial Revolution changed the industry forever. Nowadays it’s machines that perform these tasks. The wool industry has become more and more advanced thanks to new techniques and very talented people.  Yet there has been a growing interest in manual techniques. Designers as well as consumers have rediscovered carding, spinning, weaving, knitting and felting of wool. And anyone who works with wool will attest to the soft and rich character of the natural fibre that is wool. …” 

Pictures for this post from: wool magazine

Spring at Fine Little Day

I hope you are having a relaxed Easter break…

We are enjoying our 'slow' long weekend with kids in Rotterdam with a beautiful Spring's sun. Most of the time around Easter, our kids have a longer school break, but not this time, so we didn’t have chance to plan any longer holiday away…

New collection of Fine Little Day , takes me back to our holidays in Sweden, some time ago. We have a family leaving there at the sea side, so this is exactly what I see back in the new design patterns of Elisabeth Dunker. If you are not familiar with the name, Fine Little Day started as a blog in 2007, by an artist and photographer Elisabeth Dunker. 

“… During the years Fine Little Day has expanded into design and interior products with expressive and narrative patterns and images as the key essence of the brand. “

From their new Spring collection I absolutely adore the bedding collection with the new Fish/Wave and Ohoy pattern. I think it will be a hit of the season! 

children room's with plants

I went into my children’s rooms moodboard on Pinterest in search of inspiration for putting plants into kids’ space. There was not even one room I could find with plants! I start wondering, how is that possible?  It’s such a great, living element we could not only watch and decorate with, but we can also learn kids to take care of.  Why they are hardly ever on the pictures ? Do you put plants into kids’ rooms ? 

We had such a sunny last weekend in Rotterdam. Inspired by beautiful nature which is just about to wake up, I decided to start a little plant collection with my boys at home. I think it’s a great activity for kids, to observe plants grown. I absolutely love the idea of putting bulbs into transparent container with stones and watching the changes that take place over the time. I will show you more soon! 

little peanut terrarium project

planting a bulb - project

How about starting a little plant collection with your kids ? 

Great idea to hang plants in kids’ rooms if they are small. 

On the picture’s some ideas how you can add plants into kids space : 

1/2/3 /4 /5 /6 /7 /8 /9 /10 

welcome February with colours of Muskhane

“…Even though it is still cold, windy and maybe even snowy where you are, the spring will arrive soon enough and so will the summer – we promise!…” 

this was a message I found in my mail box the other day from ‘soft gallery’ launching  their new Spring/Summer collection. At the M&O in Paris in January many other brands have shown their spring/summer collections and  Muskhane was one of them . Looking at their dreamy and colourful collection made me miss sunny summer days even more. Like I told you thousands of times: pink is not my favourite colour but in a combination with yellow, is something I accully really like. Don’t you think this Muskhane stand looks like a big candy store ?  I would pick up few of accessories to decorate. Their storage baskets and rugs are my favourite.

blue in children’s room

“ Blue is commonly used in the Western hemisphere to symbolise boys, in contrast to pink used for girls. In the early 1900s, blue was the colour for girls, since it had traditionally been the colour of the Virgin Mary in Western Art, while pink was for boys (as it was akin to the colour red, considered a masculine colour) ..." 

more about a history of the colour : BLUE

Are we going to see more blue colour in interior's deco in 2015 ? I hope so! 

I painted my kitchen wall in soft delicate blue color (the one on the first picture)  like 4 years ago. It’s looking very good with industrial steal elements and white kitchen….it’s one of the very unique coloured wall in our house, the rest is grey and white. (except our boys’ room!) 

My favourite addition for blue colour in children’s rooms are tones of grey. It gives blue more contemporary look. Accents of indigo, make a great finish touch. Could you spot the pictures from the Ferm Living new Spring/Summer 2015 collection ? That’s what I’m talking about. What do you think about putting together blue with brown? This colour combination ( on the picture with the moving bed and desk)  is very inspiring and it could be a great combo to use it in a teenager’s room. 

picture’s links: 2- 3 - 4 - 5 - 7 - 8  - and 3 last nursery photo's from instagram: sonyayu