We're on Instagram, follow us!

Yes! House of Thol has an official Instagram-account!
Finally!

It took us a while, partly because you can only manage one instagram-account at a time on your phone, and i had my personal account going on. However, lately i've been sharing more and more House of Thol related pictures on that account and we decided to finish our Social Media collection by adding Instagram to the mix (we added Google+ as well, by the way).

Of course we were already on Pinterest: another image-driven social media channel that i absolutely love spending (way too much) time on.
What i adore about Instagram is that it's so personal: this is truly what's going on in peoples' lives right now (with a pretty filter added of course).

And now we'll be sharing what's going on with House of Thol on a day-to-day basis.
How about following us? We'll follow back! [click]

Holiday cheer: free gift wrapping on all orders

New feature in the House of Thol webshop: select your giftwrapping.
For this Holiday period we offer a lovely gift wrapping with a bit of added sparkle.

So if you're giving the gift of green fingers this Christmas, order in our webshop now to have us personally wrap your present!

Would you like to know how to DIY this wrapping paper click here. For an extremely easy 1-2-3 tutorial for the sparkly gift tags, read this blogpost.

Spice up your wrapping #02 - Glittery gift-tags in 3 minutes

After this tutorial to make your own wrapping paper, you must have been eagerly waiting for the promised Glittery gift-tag DIY.
Not?

Well, here it comes anyway:

What you need:
-Basic gift tags (buy them anywhere, or make them)
-Glitter
-Glue
-Brush
-Something to put the glitter on (i used a little plate)

Now, pay attention, because it all goes pretty fast...

1. Put the glitter on a little plate.
2. Brush glue on the lower part of the tag (both front and back).
3. Dip the glued areas into the glitter until fully covered.
4. Let dry.

Got it?
Takes three minutes. Tops.

NB: I tried glittering the entire tag and didn't find it that pretty, but feel free to try for yourself.

Happy gift-giving!

Spice up your wrapping #01 - Gift Wrap Tutorial

Wrapping packages in kraft paper is an all-time favorite.
For the Holiday season however, there's a perfect excuse to spice it all up a it, perhaps even add a bit of sparkle to the mix...

First things first: How to easily create your own wrapping paper.
Here goes....

Things you need:

- Kraft paper
- Rolling pin
- Tape
- Paper
- Scissors
- Foam stickers
- Paint (i would recommend acrylic paint because of the short time it takes to dry)
- Paint roller
- Christmas treats (alright, you don't really need those, although they do help set the tone)

Get everything ready to go.
You might want to protect your table a bit, since there's paint involved.

First thing to do:
1. Cover your rolling pin with paper.
Why? Well, firstly because you might want to use the rolling pin again (to bake cookies), secondly, because the foam stickers stick better on paper.

2. Cut the foam sticker into a gazillion little dots (or any shape you fancy really, i went for snowflakes/dots).
Mind you: this is the most annoying part of the whole thing, feel free to finish your Christmas treats while you're at it.

3. Stick the foam dots to the covered rolling pin, making sure you space them out evenly and randomly.

4. Paint and roll!
Use only a little bit of paint and re-apply after every 'roll' to achieve a natural and even result.

If you've used only a little paint like i adviced, the paper is ready to be rolled up again almost immediately after finishing.
Feel free to store it in waiting of the fab glitter-gift-tag tutorial we'll add Friday as a little week-end treat.

Enjoy!

New photographs by Masha Bakker

Finally! Today we received the highly anticipated photographs of a.o. our Waterworks packaging.

Waterworks packaging
by Masha Bakker Photography

The photographs were shot by talented photographer Masha Bakker, who also did a great job on the Waterworks photographs we've been using so far. (click here to read the 'behind the scenes').

by Masha Bakker Photography

We immediately added the photographs to the House of Thol webshop, the website will follow later.

by Masha Bakker Photography

by Masha Bakker Photography

Let us know what you think about these images. Are you missing any angles or close-ups?

by Masha Bakker Photography

If you like what you see, you might want to check out the rest of Masha Bakkers work on her website. Did you know she also does wedding photography?

Don't hesitate to get in touch for images in suitable for publication.

Getting things wrapped - part 01

It's that time of the year!

After the Dutch celebration of Sinterklaas had it's official grand finale on the 5th of December, we're now finally allowed to indulge ourselves in the wonderfully cheerful world of Christmas.

One of the Holiday promotions we offer in our new webshop is the option to have your order delivered to your mailbox beautifully wrapped and ready to gift.
The only thing left for you to do is write a name on the specially designed gift-tag (will be revealed soon) and find a nice place under the tree / around the mantelpiece.

Anyway, i went online for a little wrapping inspiration:

Found on Wit and Whistle

Found on My White Obsession

Triangle stickers from Blankgoods

From Weddingchicks.com

Spotted on You Are My Fave

From Manon21

New House of Thol webshop, let us know what you think!

It took us a while, but we finally decided to up our game and invest in a proper webshop.
Over the last months we've been experimenting with both a Big Cartel webshop (more internationally oriented, for Paypal payments) and a Mijnwebwinkel webshop (aimed at the Dutch market, for iDEAL payments.

Since the Big Cartel store was so much easier to design, we've kept it as our first option, forwarding people to the Mijnwebwinkel store only if they preferred to pay with iDEAL.
Up until now...

After a lot of going back and forth we finally decided on using the (paid version of)Dutch platform of 'Mijnwebwinkel', simply because it offers the possibility to pay with iDEAL while also supporting Paypal and creditcard payments, whereas Big Cartel supports many a payment method but sadly not our Dutch favourite iDEAL.
Added bonus is, we were able to activate Sofortbanking and Bancontact as well, often used in Germany and Belgium.

So...
This last week we've been working hard on the design of the new official House of Thol webshop, while at the same time getting our heads around store policies and international shipping methods.

And even though we're not there yet, we're confident enough to invite you all to have a look at our new webshop.
We'd love to hear what you think!

Over the next weeks we'll be adding more items to the store, but that's not the only reason to keep paying attention: more news about Holiday promotions will follow soon!