Retro Villa, Art and Wallpaper

In 2009 Mette Helena, the owner of the fabulous vintage wallpaper shop Retro Villa, went to England to buy a roll or two of vintage wallpaper for her apartment and came back with 60 rolls instead! She found them in an Indian hardware store where the owner had not been able to sell the old wallpaper. Soon after, Mette Helena returned to England to buy the rest of the vintage wallpaper treasure and sold them through a shop i Denmark. In 2010 she was able to open her very own store in Copenhagen with Scandinavia´s largest selection of original vintage wallpapers. The store is called Retro Villa (Villa is the name of her daughter).

I got to know Mette Helena during an internship at her shop for a short period. I have wanted to write a post about her for a long time but it is difficult to write about someone you know. Mette Helena is very energetic, creative, spontaneous and so much more, and has a way of inspiring people around her to start their own creative projects (for instance my neon lamp DIY project). There is a bit of the author Astrid Lindgrens “Pipi Longstocking” character about her, and there is some”Villa Villa Kulla” – energy in the shop environment as well.

Compositions like these are everywhere in the shop and Mette Helena has a great eye for creating such  tableaus and also works as an interior decorator for magazines. She is an artist and studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Her creative projects with sowing patchwork blankets and pillows and selling wallpaper began as a hobby  to support her studies and has now developed into a business.

Also very cute in person : Mette Helena in her store, wearing a vintage dress.

Painting by Mette Helena called “Watch it happen” from 2006

Painting “Puberty” by Mette Helena from 2008

“Untitled” from 2008 by Mette Helena

See more of her art at Mettehelena.dk.

Vintage wallpaper from Retro Villa

My grandparent´s house – a soft embroidered place to fall

“Rød grød med fløde” -the first thing you learn to say when visiting Denmark, and to everyone´s amusement. It means red porridge with cream and is a traditional dessert. Here it is, rhubarb porridge with whipped cream, home-made of course at  my grandparent´s house. Since blogging has entered my life, some peculiar situations arise when I take pictures for the blog. Like when I arranged the porridge next to the flowers and my grandmother gave me a slightly worried look and I assured her that it is quite normal for my generation to document everything they do on camera.

So I took pictures in their basement of homemade fruit juices, jam, jelly etc. My grandmother Edith still looked worried but a bit amused at this point..

This is what the rhubarb porridge  is made from, fresh from the garden.

These toys are from when my mother was a child and my son really loved playing with them, even my old dollhouse was a hit.

Hand embroidered pillows are everywhere in my grandparent´s house, even the toilet has hand crocheted towels for the guests.

My grandmother gave me this pretty vintage flower dress from the 70s. Thank you Edith.

I hope you enjoyed my family story. My grandparents mean so much to me, when I was a child I used to stay with them in the summer and since I am partially brought up abroad, they have been a stable part of my life. They really understand how to value the simple things in life and my cousins and I loved to stay there, play and eat fresh beans, potatoes  and strawberries from the garden.

My grandparents are in their 80s and still very active. My grandfather-engineer and inventor- invented the first solar energy storage system for heating in Denmark, during the energy crisis in the 70s, called Sunwell, I am so proud. My grandmother works as a volunteer at a 2nd hand shop. These volunteers care for every garment, and clean and prepare the clothes for sale, and nothing is wasted but all goes to charity. These pretty porcelain teacups are from the shop -and very cheap too.

Create your own cute Mood Board using Olioboard

My Olioboard called Cute Retro

I just discovered this site where you easily can create your own dream living space using Olioboard, it is free and fun to use. It works like a very simple version of Adobe Photoshop and you can use the items on the site (which you can buy of course). -Clever advertising but it is possible to add your own images as well.

Some of the cute retro furniture are from Vintage Looks.

Glitter, bows and neon stars at Pico Copenhagen

One of the best accessory shops in Copenhagen is Pico. They produce their own product design in their own workshop ranging from scarves and shoes to jewellery and hair accessories. They have an online store as well. The materials for the jewellery are sterling silver or goldplated sterling silver. The price range is low and the quality high.

The interior of the shop is something out of an old grocery shop with wooden shelves and glass display mounts. You can get all the items in almost every colour.

Scarves en every colour.

Hairbands

Glitter, neon, leather and more.

Bows for every taste.

Pico online shop here.

Enchanted at The Royal Cafe in Copenhagen

The Royal Cafe in the heart of Copenhagen is an enchanting place filled with fairytale atmosphere. When you meet this woodcutted sign you already feel that this is a cafe that allows experimental design that mixes old and new.

The interior is very detailed and feels very free and not clean cut and minimalistic like many other cafes you can find i Copenhagen. The cafe describes its style as “Funky Baroque – design confusion and humourous and chic”, wich pretty much sums it up. Arne Jacobsen´s Ant chair produced by Fritz Hansen has been resized for the cafe in a higher cafe-version. Holmegaard Glass have created the chandeliers for the cafe. The ceiling has shiny silver wallpaper with leaves.

You enter the cafe from a typical Danish city-courtyard.

Cut roses in still water outside.

Carefully arranged flowers at the counter top.

The cake is as good as it looks. My son had warm chocolate which of course  actually was heated chocolate the food is delicious and made with the same care and attention to details as the interior. The porcelain is, of course, from Royal Copenhagen.

A love seat by the window sill. Many designers have their art on display or for sale in the cafe such as Swedish Kosta Boda.

A miniature kitchen made from recycled material.

Very inspiring mobile decoration with silk ribbons hanging from the ceiling.

The murals show different Danish features like the wooden monkey made in 1951  by Kay Bojesen and floral decorations from Royal Copenhagen porcelain.

This Tripp Trapp childrens chair you find in almost every Danish home, and in the cafe they have one in gold.

More flower murals

I will definitely be back ♥

GIVEAWAY HERE

DIY Magic tree & Mobile

Mobile in my son´s room from acryllic squares which I drilled a hole through and hung on the ready made wire-mobile. It spreads the colours round the room when sunlight hits it.

I wanted to show you a DIY idea for your children´s rooms. My son´s room is very small and I wanted to give it personality and atmosphere. I had some leftover black paint, som masking tape, and a black pen. I drew the tree with a pencil and masked the lines with tape, then I painted twice. The branches are made with the masking tape afterwards and also painted twice. The small insects and characters are drawn with a black all-surfaces pen by free hand.

At the tree trunck I drew grass with the pen, it was the most difficult for some reason.

The boy on the swing is Silas -my son- this he loved! He is part of the magic tree and we tell many stories about the characters.

Tiny characters formed themselves on the tree.

The gentleman spider and Silas on his swing

Just wanted to show a miniature sodapop earring I made. The hole in the sodacan for the jewellery parts, was made with a needle.

I don´t usually take pictures of my food but this was such a nice snack: Home baked warm bread with cottage cheese, small tomatoes, fresh basil, salt and pepper, yummy!

Post a comment here and you could win a Kawaiicph giveaway ♥

Teatime in Wonderland with Jorine

Tea Time porcelain set by Jorine

“Tea Time is a high tea set based on characters. Build up to be a family. Each piece has its own identity. With their character-like look they seem to come alive, living their lives on the table like soldiers in a little nation. Creating surrealistic moments like in Alice in Wonderland.”

This text is from Jorine Oosterhoff´s website and I immediately found my old childhood cartoon book from Disney with Alice in Wonderland. I have taken photos of some of the pages and postet them here, I think the pictures complement Jorine´s porcelain stories nicely.

Cakestand from Teatime by Jorine

Photo of my Disney book with pink “choose me” cookies and porcelain with little feet.

Yoska cups by Jorine

The Yoska cups refer to the wooden, Russian Matryoshka dolls. They can be stacked within eachother.

Snout cups by Jorine

It looks like an ordinary cup but when you drink from it it becomes a snout, and the cups come with different animal snouts. When you buy a pig snout you help support the animal aid organization Pigs in Need .

Tea cups with little tree-trunk legs, called T(r)eacups. Put them together and a magical forest arises.

Which way should I go..Alice in the forrest of signs from my childhood cartoon Disney book.

Bird clips from Puhlmann the Zoo by Jorine

Dear Deer hook by Jorine

Hamster and Squirrel money bank for Puhlmann the Zoo by Jorine

Flowerlamp by Jorine

Left Overs glaze porcelain tableware by Joline

The Left Over in the flower relief pattern, tells its own graphic story..

My favourites ♥

Here are some of my favourites

My perfume from Paul Smith

A dangerously addictive spicy tea I ♥ ♥ Yogi teas

Fresh herbs in the window sill in the winter and from the garden in the summer

I collect these Moomin cups from Arabia in many colours but of course my favourites are pink…

My Blythe doll from Japan

This is a gift I got, it is so cute from Danish Liebe

My best jewellery: the glittery stars and the butterfly earrings are made by me from recycled paper

This bag I have had for many years it is from HM actually

Shoes from Paris

Candy Apple Mint nailpolish from Essie

I love my blue scarf from Petit Bateau and I collect vintage children´s books

Bathtubs are highly underrated this is the ultimate luxury, children´s bubblebath from Hollys

Vintage pin-up magazines

Vintage magazine Frou Frou

I have read this book many times, definitely my favourite, written in 1975, fantasy novel by Salman Rushdie “Grimus”

I love this cd with Agnes Obel

♥ My stuffed bird

Without a doubt my alltime favourite: my son Silas

Brinjas Blog – life in mini

I stumbled upon this super cute blog by Brinja in Copenhagen. She is a supercreative  shopowner who, as one of her hobbies, recreates her apartment in miniature scale 1:12. I think this idea is so original and inspiring and puts life and our purchases in perspective. All items in the miniature apartment are almost exact copies of her real home and when she rearranges the furniture or buys new ones, the scale apartment is refurnished as well.

Brinja´s miniature has attracted quite a lot of attention: on the picture above her creation is getting ready for a photo shoot . There is something hypnotic about it and the time and effort it must take to create this little world in such detail.

Even the papers and magazines are carefully scaled. I could just stare at this tiny wonderland all day.

When Brinja and her husband had their daughter they had to make some changes to the apartment and I can´t wait to see tiny toys appear in the corners of the miniature apartment as well. Notice the changing table on the wall above and in the background of the picture of Brinja and her daughter Vilja below!

Brinja has so many how-to tips and generous give-aways like this pin on the picture below -and her blog is in English!

You can also visit Brinjas webshop here.

Cute in Copenhagen : Retro Villa and Akimbo

If you visit Copenhagen it is a must to go to “Strædet” where alle the cute shops are nearby, my favourites are Akimbo and Retro Villa:

Wallet from Akimbo in Hyskenstræde, the place to go for gifts, cards and cute accessories

Cards and paper from Akimbo

Photos from Akimbo´s website

 

Photo from the shop Retro Villa in Badstuestræde where you can buy original retro wallpaper and handmade unique accessories

Photo: Tia Borgsmidt

Vintage Wallpaper with flowers from Retro Villa

Interior from Retro Villa

Photo: Tia Borgsmidt