Old Treasures

When you’re young you have different values so you don’t always notice the treasures that surround you. Twenty years later you might see things in a different light and the items that were taken for granted at the time start to become of great value for no particular reason other than the fact that you’re older (and hopefully wiser as well *wink*).

Sentiment might be the reason, perhaps you’d like to bring back the past, memories, a link to your childhood or the stories that are attached to a certain item or object. Me, I like really old things: old lettering, books, labels and package design. Objects that were once loved and used by their previous owners, objects that tell their own enchanting history.

Like the beautiful fifties tea set that I got from M. and W. or the tea cups and hundred-year-old books that I found at Greenwich Market. This time I found my treasures close by and I only needed to mention the fact that I absolutely adored the dark blue one and the brown one magically appeared… Hidden for years in the back of a cupboard.

To my surprise I was told that I could have them. Out came a few others but not as nice as these two which I chose. I just love the drawing on the blue one, it reminds me of fairy tales, cozy fireplaces and cold winter nights. The design of the brown one is just gorgeous simplicity, there’s (export) text on the sides in e.g. Chinese, Indonesian and Dutch.

Time is a strange concept that seems to add value to otherwise ordinary things…

Aren’t they cool?

I love the design! Chinese text on one side…

Wait A Little

Draft from: 2009-10-08 15:31:03 updated and published today

I’ve noticed that a lot of my blog friends or blogs that I read seem to have the same issue for a couple of months now. They all struggle to write posts because of a lack of time and/or inspiration or because they’re caught up in daily life and its issues/problems. I wonder if this is like a subconscious kind of mass reaction… ;)

I too am having problems writing posts because I’m currently in a phase of my life where I’m trying to build something again from scratch which isn’t easy. But at the same time it’s challenging, exciting and going way too slow to my liking. But there’s not much to write about or perhaps there is too much and/or I don’t feel like sharing, I don’t know…

Earlier I was blog hopping and noticed this Thought For Today called ‘Solutions’ We are never without the solutions to our problems. It’s just that sometimes we may have to wait a little. Learn how to remain peaceful and patient. About a week ago I received an email from someone close who complimented me on my perseverance. Both remarks made me think…

I guess I am trying to be patient and learn to remain peaceful while I’m waiting to receive some good news about the start of a new education/job opportunity that I really want to be part of. It took me three months and a few meetings/phone calls to find the right person within the organisation and she promised to keep me updated about the progress.

Another waiting game is ‘China’… I’ve contacted the intermediary again to ask a few questions and was told that they will make a decision later this year and he asked for my sympathy with regard to the Chinese way of the hiring process which is different from our Western way. So what else can I do besides being patient and collect all info I can get?

In the meantime I have been installing eCommerce software to test it, I must note none of it is doing what I would like it to do and I’m saying this from a designer’s, developer’s and user perspective. Some are way too complicated, some are way too slow due to too much Java scripting and database issues, have no easy design options and no good UI.

One of my client’s eCommerce website is also finally live after almost a year of pushing them to push things forward. It almost feels outdated again for some reason and if I could redesign the webshop all over again, I would. I’ve built a landing page which looks much nicer than the actual shop *sssh, don’t tell anyone*. This week they want me to design a voucher.

I’ll be installing new eCommerce software today and see if I can design a nice webshop. I’ve read good reviews about it and I’ve seen some cool shop examples. This is not for clients but for my own project, I have two months to test and finish this in preparation of the bigger plan which is still a work in progress and highly confidential *LOL*.

See? All sorts of stuff going on in the background… But I’ll better keep quiet if what I write starts to sound like an old skipping record that’s being played over and over again, until I’m really into the groove of things… ;)