Hey lovely friends and decor8 readers! I'm happy to be here today to say hi because I've been a bit absent due to getting a cold and from managing my family life and travel, etc. Right now, I have an intense travel period so I spend as much time as I can when I'm home to be with my little boy. When you are away 4-5 days at a time, you have to create balance by being very present when you are home and for me, this means blogging less and playing with him more. BUT the good news is, that I have a great schedule for daily blog posts from now until the end of the year - you will either be hearing from me or someone from the awesome decor8 team that I've newly formed... So you won't have to miss anything inspiring at all.

This weekend, from October 20-23, I will lead a group of 15 bloggers/influencers/vbloggers from all over Europe to Eindhoven for Dutch Design Week and we'll be using our hashtag #BlogTeamDDW. If you want to follow us, just search for that hashtag online or on Instagram and you'll see what we are doing and seeing as we go. I'm sure you will find our photos and insta stories inspiring, especially if you love art, design, conceptual design work, pretty cafes and shops... Oh wait a minute, OF COURSE YOU LOVE THOSE THINGS. Duh! So follow us!

I CANNOT WAIT to see the student work at the Design Academy Eindhoven and to visit Piet Hein Eek and see his new work for IKEA and NLXL and also to finally meet Paola Navone after so many years of following her work. It's going to be quite spectacular to dine with people who have inspired us all for so many years - older, wiser and certainly more experienced!

I formed this blogger group on a whim, I wanted to return to Dutch Design Week after 11 years of not going - it was the fair that started my career as a journalist since it was the first thing I ever wrote about for Domino magazine back when I lived in the United States! I don't see or hear as much about DDW as I'd like to from my fellow American bloggers and journalists, so I thought since I'm American and live over here AND live only 3 hours away from Eindhoven, why not take the lead and form a group and together, hit the fair and unearth gems to share with my followers and for all of the bloggers with me to do the same. Why not cover a fair that could be really inspiring to all of you, that isn't necessarily the typical type of fair showing products already in production? I love conceptual design and though so much of it never sees the light of day in the way it was originally intended, a lot of the ideas around the design can and do end up becoming actual things we use someday. I was told recently that what you see at Dutch Design Week as a concept this year, is what you just may see at a trend fair as a product in 5 years, which is why it's so important to go to these types of student fairs.

Here is the stellar group below that I've chosen so click on them all to follow them too -  we have a very lovely weekend ahead so again, do follow us from October 20-23 and like our photos and feel free to share as you go. If you want to be a part of future blogger groups that I organize to attend fairs or events, please reach out to me via my assistant, Jessy, who will let me know of your interest (jessy@decor8blog.com).

Here is our #BlogTeamDDW (in no particular order):

Desiree/Vosgesparis (NL)

Anastasia/Stilzet (Germany)

Stefan/Trendstefan (Sweden)

Wendy/BeeldSteil (NL)

Danielle/The Style Files (NL)

Agata Dimmich/Passion Shake (Italy)

Sandra Kaplanovic (Interior Design Student from Montenegro)

Mette/Monsters Circus (Denmark)

Mel/Styled Canvas (Sweden)

Marta/Everyday Marta (Belgium)

Yvonne/Yvestown (Belguim)

Judith/Joelix/Urban Jungle Bloggers (France)

Igor/Happy Interior Blog/Urban Jungle Bloggers (Germany)

Jantine/April and May (NL)

and of course, me.

To say I am happy THAT these bloggers and influencers accepted my invitation to join me in Eindhoven doesn't even capture the gratitude I feel (thank you guys so much!). I am deeply honored and can't wait!

And I owe Desiree so much for joining in my effort to help me organize everything because without her, it would have been a struggle with pinpointing exactly where to go as DDW is huge.

My only hope is that they all love it and we end up having a weekend to remember that gives us all lots of happy feels!

We have so many special events lined up, I hope that you will enjoy watching our Instagram accounts all weekend long - just use #blogteamDDW to stay in the know on IG.

See you all on Instagram in Eindhoven!

Love,

Holly