Let's Meet Emily Vanderputten
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Emily Vanderputten
This month’s feature is a fabulous maker! Emily Vanderputten works with patterned papers from around the world as well as hand-painted or block-printed papers of her own design to create gilded decorative objects, taking inspiration from the history of decoration to combine new techniques with traditional finishing methods that result in heirloom quality works for today’s modern collectors. Friends I own an exquisite heart of marbleized paper by Emily hand. Her works are stunning.
Emily welcome to the Chalet my dear please introduce yourself to the readers. Hello Meryl! My name is Emily Vanderputten. I grew up in Dayton, OH and moved to Atlanta after graduating college. After close to ten years, I returned to the Midwest for work and met my husband Mark shortly after moving back. We currently live on the east side of Cincinnati with our teenage daughter Pietra in a ranch style home.
hearts
Most creatives I speak with can’t remember a time they weren’t making… tell us about your memories. Yes! I have loved making things for as long as I can remember – drawing, painting, cutting, and especially coloring – but I think the development of my creative eye truly began at the age of 4 when I received a large wooden dollhouse for my birthday. Captivated, I watched as my mother, Lisa, decoupaged remnants of patterned paper onto the walls. We glued loads of tiny wooden pieces to the top to create a shake roof – I can still smell that glue. She let me pick out wooden furniture that we altered with scraps of fabric. We even made a runner for the stairs! Experiencing the transformation of the dollhouse from a plain wooden shell into a beautiful, little home was impactful. I played with that dollhouse constantly, rearranging the furniture, redecorating and dreaming up fantasy lives for my little people.
An icon painted by Emily’s mother Lisa
In retrospect, I am certain this core memory of mom applying ‘wallpaper’ to the dollhouse walls contributed to my affinity for the craft of decoupage as well as my obsession with interior design. It is no surprise that I have floral wallpaper in my kitchen today.
Incidentally, mom paints orthodox icons so years of observing her meticulously apply 24K gold leaf to icon boards likely also informed my choice to gild most of my decorative objects.
decoupage ROUNDS
While you creative beautiful objects.…I’ve seen your home, tell us did you decorate your bedroom while growing up? Absolutely! I graduated from decorating the dollhouse to making design requests for my bedroom. To be clear, Mom always had a clear vision for our bedrooms, but she allowed me to make a few selections. When I was six, my parents divorced so we moved from a classic saltbox that my parents built together into a modest bungalow in a wealthy neighborhood filled with historic homes and mansions dating from the early 1900s. Off we went to an antique shop to pick out a dresser for my new room – the scrubbed pine one I chose is in my current bedroom! Even though Mom’s circumstances had changed, she worked hard to make our home feel as rich as the stately mansions by filling it with quality pieces and antiques, custom window treatments, transferware, majolica and loads of art. And ALWAYS fresh cut flowers. I will never forget how she spent that first week in our new home, chiseling up layer upon layer of linoleum so that she could have hardwoods throughout. It was like witnessing the dollhouse transformation again, only this time bigger! Most importantly, she filled the house with interesting people who became dear friends and family – artists, actors, decorators, musicians, clergy, doctors, lawyers, and politicians – all of whom informed the direction of her life and taste, as well as mine. By the time I was leaving for college, I was drawing up floor plans and creating design boards for my rooms.
Where and What you went to school for. I graduated from Miami University in Oxford, OH with a degree in Biology. Having been surrounded by design and art my whole life, it is surprising that it did not occur to me to pursue a creative degree. It was just always assumed that I would become a doctor as I was deeply interested in science and loved to study and learn. But by senior year of college, I began to question whether that was the right trajectory. Instead of applying to medical school, I moved to Atlanta and got a job in sales and marketing which, after many years, ultimately led me to become a management consultant.
How long you’ve been in your home and what is your favorite space? Having lived in our current house for 17 years, every space in our house has been tweaked in some way. It is hard to play favorites – I have enjoyed decorating each room. Much like my childhood home, our house is modest in size and while I have always longed for one of those stately homes, the size is right for us. Slowly, over time, I have filled it with quality things that I love – antiques, art, vintage lighting, and meaningful collections – just like mom. And lots of COLOR. The wooden floors in our house came from my husband’s family farm so they are particularly meaningful. His mother grew up in that farmhouse with her siblings as did my husband with his siblings. Now my daughter is the 4th generation to walk upon these wooden floorboards. Maybe an odd choice for a favorite ‘space’ but when we refinished the floors ourselves, a few years ago, I was struck again by how important this seemingly small detail is to our family home and very reminiscent of my mother who worked so hard on her hardwoods all those years ago.
KITCHEN
I look at your home and think it’s put together marvelously… your pattern mixing is the thing of dreams…. Have you always done this? What is your design philosophy? Thank you! Pattern mixing and color is something that comes instinctively to me given my exposure to it from a young age, so the short answer is ‘yes.’ How I further developed my design philosophy was by paying close attention to the way my mother and her fabulous friends lived. Specifically, one family friend has had a large influence on my life. She has inspired the development of my interests and informed my aesthetic, ultimately impacting the way in which I live now. Her home is a place of exceptional beauty and apart from a few tweaks, has largely the same décor as when I was a child – demonstrating that thoughtful and timeless design should be centered around how one really lives. She has a high standard of living, to be sure, but the overwhelming effect of her home is one of comfort. Everything is considered – there is a comfortable place to sit, a spot to place your drink (they still do cocktail hour!), and everywhere you look, there is something to delight the eye. Kettle cooked chips are served in polished Revere bowls! From her example, I have endeavored to make everything around me beautiful. Taste is not something we are born with; it is a matter of observation and consideration.
LIVINGROOM
Daughter Pietra was a design client when Emily redid her bedroom a few years ago. Pietra was very involved in the process and everyone is pleased with the results.
Skirted Table in the livingroom
Your logo is so distinctive can you share the details behind it. I started making decorative things in earnest as an outlet from my stressful job as a management consultant around the same time my daughter was born in 2008. Making things with my hands always calmed my overactive mind so after a particularly stressful consulting project I began block-printing, a technique I had learned from my seventh-grade art teacher (Thank you Mr. Griffith!). The repetitive motions of drawing, carving, and printing by hand are very therapeutic! The fantastical beast on my business logo, which was inspired by a piece of ancient Iznik pottery, is one of the first motifs that I drew and carved during that time and among the first things that my followers requested to purchase so in essence he symbolizes the reawakening of my creative eye.
I’m amazed by your approach - you sketch, carved and printed the dolphin and monkey pattern and the design is brilliant!
When did you start selling your creations? In 2012, during a break between long-distance assignments, I started a lifestyle blog as another creative outlet. I received purchase requests during my blogging tenure (I no longer publish on the blog) for the things that I made but I mostly demurred as I really had no idea how I would effectively sell things via my blog.
With the advent of Instagram, I migrated to that platform where the purchase requests increased as I began sharing more things that I made for my own home. I did not have the means to buy some of the beautiful things I wanted so I learned how to make them.
At the behest of my husband, I finally acquiesced and began offering hand-printed wrapping papers, stationary and custom pillows of my block-print textiles directly through IG. But it was when I began working with marbled paper in 2018 that things really took off.
Auction catalogues are a big source of inspiration, so I began playing around with techniques and finishes to approximate some of the antique decorative items I coveted - marble obelisks, porphyry urns, and lacquered chinoiserie pieces. I started sourcing hand-marbled papers from artisans around the world and experimenting with them on various shapes. This was the birth of my first collection of holiday ornaments that included paper mâché stars and faceted baubles. When I posted them on my Instagram Stories they sold out within minutes. I was completely shocked. People were messaging me to be placed on a waiting list in case I made more. And it has been this way ever since.
I have created exclusive collections for:
My baubles have been featured in Southern Home Magazine, Southern Lady, Holidays by Southern Lady as well as on Veranda’s website via Lyndsey Zorich of The Avenue.
These features must have been incredibly exciting. Thank you! Yes, any time something you create receives praise or is featured in a print or on-line magazine it’s very gratifying and a pinch-me moment.
A super fun surprise last Christmas was discovering that my baubles made a cameo appearance on a Homeworthy tour of Brian Branton’s historic home – he is the KING of Christmas decoration! When he said his favorite ornament were my baubles and they are so pretty I screamed in excitement!
How can we purchase items from you? People can find me on Instagram @emilyvanderputten where I accept wait list requests through direct message. I process payments via Venmo or PayPal when orders are ready to ship. Every order is custom made so I do not typically have finished inventory on hand to sell nor do I sell on any other platform because I could not keep up with demand.
I do accept wholesale orders with quantity minimums, and I share my retail partners when their collections are available for purchase. I work from my wait list year-round, but my busiest season is October through December as the baubles are my biggest sellers. I feel very fortunate to have the best clients who collect baubles year after year! I absolutely LOVE making them.
What’s upcoming? It’s July so you’re hard at work on Holiday I am excited to introduce more of my own custom design papers in the Holiday 2023 collection as well as expand my product offerings. While I am still obsessed with marbled papers, often I struggle to find the exact color combinations or patterns I want, so I have been playing around with my own designs this year.
We will see what shakes out. Hearts for Valentine’s tables were a surprise hit this year (You have one in the Chalet!) so I definitely plan to include more seasonal items throughout this next year. As always, many prototypes are in the works so stay tuned! Thank you so much, Meryl, for having me!
Emily I am in awe of you my dear! The creativity and beauty you share with the world blows my mind!!!! Thank you Thank you for saying yes, when I asked if we could chat and taking time away from vacation so we could xo.
You can find Emily on Instagram.
Til next time be well and I’ll see you over on the Gram!
