Holiday Gift Guide + 5 small presents from Europe 🌞 #81

Welcome to this week’s installment of what’s hot in brands and products.

Holiday season means two kinds of people: the ones who had their gifts wrapped in October… and the rest of us, still “thinking about it” with dozens of browser tabs open.

To make life easier, I’ve put together a Holiday Gift Guide: 50+ new products on a 11-page PDF, all fresh picks.

If you want it, you just need one referral – send From Europe with Love to a friend, your sibling, or your boss (I don’t judge your choices) and the guide is yours.

(Your referral link is right below the intro ⬇️)

If you prefer the deep-dive route for inspo: the full archive is always there too. It’s still a bit clunky – you have to click into each issue like it’s 2014 – but everything I’ve ever shared lives in there.

If you’re new: every week I share 5 of the coolest products from Europe I’ve found in the last 7 days.

I scout, you explore. Let’s get to it!

With love 🌞
Jakob

My kids don’t read this newsletter, so I can share with you that this will be a christmas present in a few weeks. A first “real watch” for kids that doesn’t look like a cartoon prop. TAKK Rainbow is an analogue watch with a clean, high-contrast dial, washable nylon strap and a proper stainless-steel case. KWIO is the same German design team behind those well-designed school backpacks.

Teach time in technicolour

Little fruit slices you stick all over your life admin. London-based Papier treats even tiny tabs like mini design objects, so your reminders actually look… inviting.

Flag the important stuff with fruit

Classic cookie jar energy, but put through a Copenhagen design filter. HAY’s tin containers are tinplate with glossy, colourful check patterns and a lid that sits perfectly flush, so they feel more “design object” than storage afterthought.

Give your chaos a check-up

P.S. If you need even more “ta-daa” and fanfare for your cookie storage, take a look at the Alessi Circus edition designed by Marcel Wanders.

A solid pine stump by Cologne-based designer Carsten in der Elst, turned in Germany from Black Forest timber, speckled like a Dalmatian and heavy enough to feel serious. Side table, seat, plant stand – his in der Elst studio piece just quietly does the job and looks good aging into honey yellow.

Meet the speckled stool

A monolithic pepper mill cast from bio-resin and… peppercorns. Designed by Scottish product designer Marc Sweeney and sold through Bard, it hides a ceramic grinder inside a clear column of suspended black pepper, so the whole thing looks like a tiny skyscraper of spice. Because it’s cast (not milled), there’s barely any waste material – and yes, it actually smells like pepper when you use it.

Turn up the grit

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