Forever and a day ago I provided Emily of From China Village the above image after she asked me for a small snapshot into what is inspiring me about Copenhagen for a newsletter for The Hive Conference late last year. This is what I said in the newsletter;

I'm inspired by the all the water that runs through Copenhagen and how the blue colour of this year's colours is the same colour as the water and the sky. I love all the boats with their little flags that line the foreshore and the multicoloured houses are just beautiful. I know my biggest challenge will be to use the colours together without them saying "4th July!"/ "Bastille Day!"/ "Team GB!" I should receive images of the venue at any moment, which I'm so very excited about as the venue is so important when designing decorations! And they may just inspire me in a whole other direction!

Since I have been supplied images of the stunning Scandic Sydhavnen, where the conference will take place, but my thoughts are still running along the lines of the sea, the harbour and maritime life, which I am SO excited about because I believe life should be lived like you are on a boat, always - cue a conference wardrobe FULL of stripy sweaters, calling it now.

I also told her that I would post credits to the images I sourced via Google Images in a post, well, because, the images aren’t mine and that’s how the internet should work. Running clockwise; bunting :: garland :: badges :: canal :: girl in street :: coloured houses :: map and bunting. Image created on the iPad via Procreate.

Tickets for The Hive 2014 are not yet sold out, head here for more info and to buy tickets. For my round up post on last year’s The Hive to hear more about it head - -> here.

xx

Decoing The Hive

#decoingthehive photos from Instagram, via Tagboard

Around this time last year I came across reports of the inaugural The Hive conference on two of my all-time favourite blogs, Pret-a-Voyager and The House that Lars Built. At this stage I didn't have a blog, I was just a 'lurker' - you know, one of those people that are obsessed with reading blogs, will start one "one day", never comments but always wants to (are YOU a lurker?! Don't be shy, come say hi!!). I then went on a Googling-spree to absorb as much information as I could about this wonderful weekend in Berlin and thought maybe, one day, I'd perhaps attend something like that, that maybe it could be fun. 

Fast-track to January, my baby of a blog still finding its footing, and the news of a second The Hive conference is announced. After weeks of "Oh, I really want to goooo!" Mr M flung his bank card at my forehead and told me that if I didn't buy the ticket then and there and shut up about it he'd just do it for me and I'd have no choice. So I did.

Two weeks later I was emailing Yvonne to ask if I could supply The Hive with decorations.

Yvonne and Peggy were not only so enthusiastic about what I had proposed they also asked me to create for them and The Hive a map of Europe for everyone to place their business card on, after seeing something similar at Mecca-of-all-blog-conferences Alt Summit.
Crafting the deco I had in mind for the conference, while extremely time consuming, was a no-brainer as I had proposed something that was within my realm of capabilities (read: comfort-zone!) The hundreds and hundreds - for fear of loosing my mind I never counted how many - little squares I had cut at the copy shop at the end of my street (angels on Earth, those Office Depot girls... The things I ask of them!) which I then hand-cut into hexagons using a template were sewed together to bring The Hive's 2013 motif to life and took over the Betahaus as the 200 odd bloggers did that weekend. Being the 'Hive' a few honeycomb balls had to be put into use also.

Image: The Hive Flickr

Image: The Hive Flickr

"The Map" on the other hand, went through several reincarnations in my head, all the while keeping to the brief that it had to be plain, so as to be able to be reused for future conferences, and be able to fit in my suitcase to be able to take it from Paris to Berlin. I wanted to make it really beautiful and give it a traditional European crafted feel, so, in the end, I went with what I know best - sewing - and bought some rustic French linen and created the borders with a cross-stitched effect in paint.

Because I have some geniuses for friends, one suggested that I film the process - so I did (the other is in the footage helping me).

(I wasn't quick enough to capture the map without any cards on it, so the lonely two at the end of the montage are my own and Elisa's! Thanks for being the first card on the map, lovely!!)

Thank you to Peggy and Yvonne for having me decorate The Hive. It was a blast. And thank you to everyone that said nice things about the map and the deco, you made me and my little hexagons blush bright magenta!

xx