Belgian Pearls is celebrating its 10th anniversary today!

It’s hard to believe! These 10 years have passed in the blink of an eye! It seems like only yesterday, when I prepared that very first blogpost, finally published on July 31, 2009!

One of the pictures shown in Belgian Pearls’ first blogpost – July 31, 2009

I started this blog for fun and to share my love and passion for design with all the people who might be interested in what I was intended to write about.

Over the past 10 years I tried to introduce my readers and followers with several Belgian designers, craftsmen, artists and companies, all related to interior design.

It already brought me so much fun and joy!

I learned to know so many interesting people, from loyal readers, who expressed their most wonderful thoughts in writing the nicest comments and messages, to interior designers from around the globe, who became interested in my work as interior designer, giving me the opportunity to work together on some of their projects.

I am so very thankful for all of it!

 

And I will never forget that day in 2013, when I received a phone call from Pam Pierce, to ask me if I could be interested in assisting her and her team with the launch of her new interior design & lifestyle magazine MILIEU. Pam came over to Belgium for a photoshoot of a Belgian home and she promptly named me as ‘Contributing Editor to MILIEU’. I couldn’t be happier!

Cover MILIEU – Summer 2019

 

Another highlight I do love to share with you here today, is about an evening in January 2018, I was invited to the most beautiful, elegant and chic Parisian apartment of Timothy Corrigan, one of my all times favourite desingers, on the occasion of a party Tim was given for the launch of his new wallpaper collection for Fromental.

Can you imagine how thrilled I was being part of this selected group of invités!

Parisian apartment of Timothy Corrigan

 

How much more honoured can one feel when you realize that your readers nominate your blog as one of their favourite blogs!!! That is how Belgian Pearls entered the Amara Interior Blog Awards, included into the top finalists on the shortlist, this for the four past years in row! I feel so very thankful for this recognition.

 

It may be said that the launch of my own Belgian Pearls Home Collection last year was the top of the bill of 10 year blogging!

When I started this blog I couldn’t imagine, and I did not even dare to dream, that one day I would launch my own ‘Belgian Pearls’ collection.

The idea of creating an own collection actually came from you, my dear readers! So many of you emailed me, suggesting the start of a Belgian Pearls collection! This made me think indeed and finally, last year, I took the plunge.

I really need to say something further on this. Recently a reader commented on one of my posts, saying that since I tried to sell via my blog, the fun of reading Belgian Pearls was over. I was shocked! No, really, selling and to make money out of my blog has never been my intention. This is not me! Had this ever been my intention, I could have earned money, already for several years, by sponsored ads. To this day I am not interested in sponsorship at all.

I started this blog for fun and I absolutely want to decide myself what I want to blog about and when I want to write. I absolutely don’t want to be dependent on any sponsor.

But honestly, can anyone blame me for blogging about my own Belgian Pearls collection? Am I not allowed to be proud and to introduce my followers to my collection items from time to time? It makes me happy to hear and to see that people love my collection and do buy their favourite piece to embellish their home.

But it is true that, whatever you do or undertake, even with the best intentions, one will always be criticized.

Belgian Pearls MIMI Chair – Photo Credit Claude Smekens Photography

 

There is one more thing I should talk about today. Maybe you will have noticed that, when entering a certain tag on the side bar of my blog or searching for a particular blog article, you can’t find it anymore.

I am so sorry to tell you that I have removed quite a lot of my earlier years’ posts because of some problems I had with a certain organisation that incorrectly tried to let me pay me for supposed author’s rights on photos.

As a lot of us bloggers, do, we share pictures from one blog to another, and we source pictures from websites and online magazines from around the world. I always list the picture’s source together with its photo credit if possible. But I had to find out that there are people who are trying to gain money from bloggers who, in good faith and unsuspectingly, are sharing pictures that often were published a thousand times before. I don’t want to elaborate on this issue, I only wanted to update you why I erased hours of my work over the past years of blogging. This is indeed very sad, but it makes no sense to look backwards, so let’s focus on future Belgian Pearls blogposts.

Aspirin Rose from our garden – Picture by me

 

I am very grateful to you my readers, for your everlasting support to go on with Belgian Pearls and I would like to emphasize again this year, that, without all of you, Belgian Pearls would have no meaning.

Until today, it has already been a wonderful journey!

 A SINCERELY THANK YOU !

xx

Greet