FORMEX

Hello Friday!

Yesterday I attended Formex, Scandinavia's biggest trade show for design, here in Stockholm. Formex is huge! There are so many amazingly talented designers and brands from all nordic countries and from every side of design shown here. Everything from fellow illustrator's work, to textile companies and interior design firms. I haven't gained the courage to set up my own booth here just yet but I'm working towards possibly showing all of my designs at the next one. Crossing my fingers!

My favorite part of visiting the fair is of course to see what other illustrators are up too. I love being inspired by other illustrator's different techniques, and the products they decide to produce. This year's Fall Formex fair gave me soooo much inspiration my head may explode! Pastels were all over the place, as well as many gorgeous graphic prints. Here's a peek at some of the amazing booths I was especially in love with.

Lisa Edoff. A friend of mine who designs gorgeous trays, cushions, and silk scarves.

OYOY Living Design. Super cute and quirky pillows and the such. 

Edit och Björnen. Wallpaper and prints inspired by nature. A two illustrator team, they work on each design together.

 Littlephant. I absolutely adore Littlephant and every single product they produce. So many gorgeous prints, pillows, handbags, books, mugs and tea towels. The cuteness kills me!

Michelle Carlslund. Illustrator who creates super fun quirky mixed media prints in several sizes. They are also printed on something I've never heard of called stone paper (as the name suggests, made from limestone plus a special binder and is totally green and sustainable. Neato!)

What on earth am I going to do with all this inspiration and all my new ideas? I hope I think of something soon and get to work on lots of new products so I'll be able to show them off at the next Formex in January. Got to get to work! Have a great weekend.

Pattern Making

Hello Monday!

I think I'm finally back into the swing of things, aka working! Actually I feel so inspired, motivated and full of ideas I can hardly keep myself from drawing and digitally coloring all day long. (My fingers hurt actually.) I hope this spurt holds on for a long while longer because I have so many ideas that I'd like to get out of my head as soon as possible. Don't want to loose them!

I've been especially obsessed with creating new patterns. I'm not sure quite yet what these patterns will be used for, possibly just for my portfolio, but hopefully printed for some sort of collection one day.

This time when dreaming up ideas for new patterns I decided to step away from pink lipsticks and chose to draw my inspiration from nature. I'm pretty sure vacation has been a huge influence on my choice of drawing sea shells and other green park details.

What do you think? What should I draw next?

Instagram

Hello Thursday!

I love instagram! Don't you? 

I just love getting a little peek into the worlds of other inspiring ladies, and I really enjoy sharing peeks at my life as well. (I wish only that I had a little more exciting things to show you, and more amazing projects to show you.) It's been really slow around these parts. Since it's warming up in Sweden I'm sure I'll soon be going on more fun and pretty outside adventures, and hopefully I'll start work on lots and lots of new projects. Here's hoping I get another great inspiration kick soon. Follow me if you'd like @emmakisstina

There are so many instagram accounts that I adore but here are 4 very inspiring Swedish illustrators that I love and admire. @asiapietrzyk @smamie  @tovelisa @fidelisundqvist

Blogshop Stockholm!

This weekend was so much fun! 

I was lucky enough to work as an intern for Blogshop Stockholm with the lovely founding ladies Bri Emery and Angela Kohler. I had been looking forward to this weekend all month and I'm so glad it was just as fun as I had imagined. Everything went so well, all the students were really nice, Bri and Angela were really knowledgable great teachers, the studio was gorgeous, and everyone learned a lot. 

The weeks leading up to the workshop I helped just a little to set up the studio, catering, pick up supplies, and had all the goodie bag items sent to me. (I felt to important.) During the class I (and my friend Asia who also interned) got to assist Bri and Angela with teaching the students. I've worked with Photoshop for years and know all the important basics but I learned a lot of great new short cuts which are seriously going to make my Photoshop life much easier. 

First off let's take a look at the gorgeous paper decor created by Ilona Hansson. Gorgeous right?!

The class was a perfect size of 11 students, full of a great mix of ladies and one gent from Sweden, Norway, England, Ireland, America and Canada. I think everyone learned loads... maybe even made new friends.

Meeting the ladies was really amazing as well, especially Bri who I've followed in internetland for quite awhile. I must say it's a little strange meeting people you know so well from their blog etc but don't actually know. But Bri is exactly as she seems, aka really nice, open, creative, quirky, and maybe a pinch of fun crazy. 

I'm going to remember this experience for a while. After the workshop was over my mind was buzzing with new ideas and inspiration. I think it's going to feed me for a long time. 

p.s. Do you like the blogshop-esk look to my photos? I tried at least.

Artsy Fartsy

Hello Tuesday!

This weekend I was very cultural and went to not one but 3 art exhibits. Mats Gustavson's gorgeously simple fashion illustrations at Milles Gården, the wild and crazy Jean Paul Gaultier fashion exhibit at the Arkitekturmuseet, and the fun Pop Art exhibit at Moderna Museet. The above image is of course from the Pop art exhibit. (Wish I could have come up with something more interesting than Hi for the talk bubble. I'm soooo boring.)

Sometimes it's really nice filing my brain with lots of images and random art... inspiration we can call it. They were all fun to see, though I don't think these were the greatest exhibits I've ever seen in my life.

Gasp, I think I've kind of fallen out of love with art. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't been going to museums and galleries lately, because my days are filled with simple illustrations and blog design or if I've just become a little too cynical. Maybe there just haven't been any amazing exhibits in a while here in Stockholm, who knows. All I know is I truly hope this is just a rut, because I have been plans on becoming one of those cultural old ladies when I get older.

July Favorites

Since July is just nearly over I thought I'd do something a bit different and discuss a few monthly favorites to keep July going for a little while longer. It was such a lovely month! I've actually been planning these sorts of posts since April, and haven't gotten around to starting. (Reason #157 why I suck at blogging.)

So July was a gorgeous month filled with lots of lazy summery vacation days. The boyfriend and I enjoyed a week of vacation on gorgeous Gotland, fixed up our apartment and had a very fun house warming party, enjoyed the unusually hot weather, and I've gotten great use out of my bike. I couldn't have asked for a better start to the summer, and I'm really glad it's not quite over yet. We still have August to look forward to.

Eat: During the summer months I'm always a bit obsessed with fresh Asian and Mexican flavors because they really just taste the best when it's hot outside. I combined my two loves in this dish, an Asian flavored Carnitas rice noodle salad. I'll have to share the recipe real soon. So delicious!

Place: As much as a staycation is nice I'm so glad we were able to take even a short vacation this summer. Gotland was gorgeous, and it was really exciting to see another amazing side of Sweden. 5 days was just enough to get a feel for the island and enjoy some well deserved free time.

Beauty: I'm definitely a lipstick lover (I'd pick a bold lip over a dark eye any day), and I especially love to wear bright colors. I'm also pretty particular as to the formulas, nothing to glossy or too sticky. I love traditional cream lipsticks but they can get a bit messy when it's hot outside. So when these balm lipstick hybrids came out I was all over them. So far I've tested formulas from tarte, Revlon, and IsaDora... I love them all!

Thing: It's been a while since I last sat on a bike, maybe when growing up in Maine which was a gagillion years ago. So when my boyfriend's parents gifted me a used bike a was a little nervous about using it.... especially since I've heard how crazy biking in Stockholm can be. But let me just say it was just like riding a bike. I haven't had any problems, and it hasn't been as scary as I thought it would be. I've actually really really really enjoyed taking my bike out for a spin on gorgeous summer evenings this month. I'll I need now is a really cute wicker bike basket and helmet too.

Blasfemmes: Girly Mode

What can I say, this is so gorgeous! Right?

This gorgeous setup and photo was taken by Sandra of the blog Blasfemmes. You must must must go check out her blog right now, not only to see the rest of the photos from this shoot, but also to see her great style and beautiful home.

A big thank you to Sandra for featuring my illustrations!

Studio!

1/2/3/4

I'm so excited that my countdown until moving to our new apartment is today down to 30 days! Yay! I seriously can't wait to set up my new workspace (and the rest of the apartment of course) and 30 days is just going to fly by so quickly. We haven't packed anything, nor have we purchased anything new for the apartment just yet, but we've been doing tons of window shopping for possible items we may need for the bigger space. We've also been collecting a few hand-me-down furniture pieces from family members to help us fill our 69 m2 space. (Our current apartment is just 46.5 m2.)

I can't quite decide on how I'd like my new studio to look. There are just too many possibilities and one can't really plan until actually in the space to move things around. But I must confess I've been really dorky and have played around with a digital floor plan in Photoshop, hehe. I think I'll just let it organically come together. Can't wait!!!

A Nice Kick in the Pants

Sometimes I really just need a major kick in the pants. I feel like the laziest illustrator in the world at times. As an illustrator wouldn't you think I'd be drawing absolutely all the time? Like, you'd have to pry my pens and drawing pads from my hands to get me to do anything else. Strangely I don't, and I even have to force myself. So I go on feeling a bit down on myself (I'm not good enough, I'll never be like them... blah blah blah and all that silly crap we tell ourselves.) But then I'll revisit the work of one of my many favorite illustrators and just feel this urge to also make more beautiful things. Bam! (Kick in the pants!)

This is how I felt last night when I dropped by Julia Rothman's website after listening to her interview on Design Sponge's After the Jump radio program. Gahhhh the inspiration! Idea overload!

Just look at her amazing work...

Images via www.juliarothman.com 

So I think, gosh darn it, her work is rather similar to mine (I'm a big pinch more to the girly side, but still.) If she can make all these gorgeous things, then so can I! They are in the works, but maybe I could work just a little bit faster faster faster.

Frances and Francis

Oh man, these are the prettiest paper flowers I've ever seen. I think any one of these arrangements would look just stunning on my desk. For the most part I usually see paper flowers of the flimsy tissue paper variety. I love how sturdy these look, especially as they are attached to beautifully selected branches.

From gorgeous Etsy store Frances & Francis.

Formex

And so it was Monday again, but don't fret Kristina, you're actually feeling pretty inspired, excited, and full of energy. (Annoying right!) Know why? Because you were at Fomex this weekend (One of the largest Nordic design trade shows held here in Stockholm) where you got to see almost too many inspiring things. Everything from textiles to kitchen gadgets, and were introduced to many new talents up here in the cold North.

Now your brain is almost exploding with ideas for textile collections and fun projects to start work on. You even got some great tips for places to contact for production and collaboration. Nice!

Enough of the third person craziness... These two companies became my new favorites... Ferm Living (because of their attention to detail and a little quirk) and Littlephant (because it's just soooo dang cute!) If I can one day build EmmaKisstina to be anywhere near as nice a company, I'd be very pleased.

There were of course many more interesting designers and companies.
A few other favorites were...
• Lisa Bengtsson
• Mairo
• Bungalow
• Anna Ekre
• Vallila

Happy Monday!

Neon

 It's funny how mesmerising neon lights can be... especially if they are shaped like icicles and change color ever so slightly. Scary also how very very black the sky was at only around 5 o'clock. (No photoshopping I swear!) Again the boyfriend and I took the camera with us on a trip into the city, me hoping for gorgeous inner city Stockholm images to share with you, but this is all we came home with. I think those city pictures are going to have to wait until Spring or Summer. The city just isn't as pretty covered in gray and dirty slush. sigh.

These neon lights were hanging off of the entrance to PUB, one of Stockholm's larger department stores (and I think my personal favorite.) I wonder if these are their modern take on Christmas decorations or if they are permanent fixture?

Oh Christian

You haven't missed that The Selby photographed the Christian Louboutin studios, have you? If you did you must go take a look right away. I almost find it more interesting to see pictures of how the shoes are made and where they are made, and who makes them, more than I do like seeing the finished (though gorgeous) product.

I especially adore that many of the shoe moulds are in the iconic Louboutin red.