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Prelude · lili.productions · est. 2024

Beautiful objects from what others throw away.

A small design and production studio on Fyn, Denmark. We design and 3D-print beautiful objects from food-industry waste, upcycled plastics, and recycled filaments — for the brands and partners who want to mean it.

Industrial design · Fyn, Denmark
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A short orientation

Three ways to begin. Choose the one that sounds like you.

or just keep scrolling
See the full catalog →
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/02Custom development

For brands and producers ready to make something proper.

A single commission, a curated retail line, a full product family for your brand — or a white-label series we develop with you and produce under your name. Industrial design, materials choice, prototyping, and production: all in one studio, on Fyn.

Custom is the work I'm proudest of. It's also the work I take on carefully — a small number of projects each year, chosen for fit. Brands that want products with a real story behind them. Interior designers and architects with a specific intention. Producers and retailers who'd rather invest in a proper development than buy something nobody designed.

It starts with a conversation — not a brief, not a form. Tell me what you're trying to make. We'll know within an hour or two whether it's a fit.

01 · Conversation

A call, an email, or a studio visit.

Honest scope. Honest fit. We talk about what you're making, who it's for, and whether our materials and process are right for it. If they're not, I'll tell you.

02 · Design & Material

Industrial design, with the right material chosen for the job.

Form, function, materials, end-of-life — we think about the product across its whole life. You see 3D renders, then a prototype to hold in your hand before anything goes to production.

03 · Production

Printed in our workshop, on Fyn.

Single-piece commissions, small runs, or full lines. Made to order — no inventory, no excess. Lead times set up front. White-label available: existing designs branded for your shop or studio.

If your project sounds like a fit, write me directly. For urgent answers, call.

Start a conversation →
/03Materials

No single material is right for everything. We start with the approach that fits your project best, and bring in the others where they earn it. All three are useful — none is a compromise.

walnut shells
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From food-industry waste

Premium Bio-Composites

Walnut shells, coffee grounds, brewer's mash — food-industry side-streams bound with plant-based PHA. Warm, tactile, designed for the whole journey from material to end-of-life. The work I'm proudest of.

Best for: larger objects, interior design, urns, simple forms

See bio-composites →
PP pellets · greenhouse waste
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From industrial waste

Upcycled Plastics

Industrial plastic waste — greenhouse trays, shop fittings, production offcuts — shredded in our workshop or by partners, then printed into new objects. Built to last.

Best for: outdoor use, larger objects, fences, chairs, lamps, custom boxes

See upcycled plastics →
recycled filament
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From rejected production runs

Specialised Recycled Filaments

Recycled PHA, PETG and high-spec filaments — premium plastics from industrial waste streams or production runs that never made it to market. Equally responsible. Plug-and-play.

Best for: production runs, broader colour range, lower entry cost

See recycled filaments →
Tested at Teknologisk Institut No virgin plastic Plant-based binder Designed for end-of-life
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Allan Sejer Ertner · Industrial designer · Fyn, DK
/04Why

We don't sell sustainability. We make products that earn the word.

Industrial designer with 15 years of practice. I started this studio because I couldn't keep designing products that ended in landfills with a clear conscience. So I work with the partners who already collect what others throw away, and I choose the material that fits the project — not the easiest one for me.

3D-print is one of the most effective ways to democratise manufacturing. Good work shouldn't only belong to the big players.

That belief shapes everything here. The premium bio-composites are for ambitious work. The upcycled plastics are for durability. The recycled filaments are for accessibility — so a small brand with a strong idea can compete on quality, not just budget. Different doors. Same studio behind them.

No buzzwords on the label. No marketing claims we can't back up in a lab. We use the words we've earned — tested, traceable, designed for end-of-life — and skip the ones we haven't.

Tested Teknologisk Institut Independent third-party lab — so you don't have to take our word for it.
Traceable Real partners, named Schärfe, Nuterials, Grounded — you can call them. We've nothing to hide.
Made on Fyn In our own workshop Designed and 3D-printed here. Visit by appointment.

Full lab data and reports available on request — we don't lead with numbers, but we have them.

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/05Get in touch

A short conversation is the start.

Questions, samples, a project in mind — or just curious. Write or call. You reach me directly, and I answer when I can.

◷ Studio on Fyn, Denmark · find us on the map →
First

Email me. I read every one. For quicker answers, call instead.

Then

A short video call or studio visit. We figure out together whether this is a fit.

If yes

We start the work. If no, I'll point you somewhere better.

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/01The catalog

What we make.

Three product lines, all designed and 3D-printed in our workshop on Fyn. Lamps sold everywhere, urns through the funeral profession, and small-batch objects for curated shops. If none of it fits, we also develop custom.

/01Lili Lamps

Lili Lamps.

Lili Lamps came first. Before the urns, before the studio had a name, there were lamps — quiet, ridged forms that catch the light. They are still the heart of what we do, now made in our own composites and recycled materials.

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Interior designers

Made to be lived with.

Each lamp is 3D-printed to order in the workshop on Fyn — no warehouse, no overproduction. The ridged surface is not decoration; it is the print itself, every layer left honest and visible. Light moves through it differently than through anything moulded.

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Retailers & design shops

A material you can read.

A lamp can be made in warm walnut shell, near-black coffee composite, or a quieter pure white. Hold one and you can tell what it is made of — the material does not hide. That honesty is the whole idea: beautiful objects that never pretend to be something else.

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Custom commissions

Yours, if you want it so.

Designers and shops often want a version that is theirs — a particular colour, a size, a small change to the form. Within reason, we can do that. It starts with a conversation, never a form, and we will know quickly together whether it is a fit.

Want to see more?

The full lamp collection — with photography, prices, and a shop for buying a single piece — lives at lililamps.com. If you are a designer or a shop, or you simply want to talk lamps, we are always curious to chat. Write or call.

/02Cremation urns

Cremation Urns.

A composed range of urns in our food-industry composites — designed and 3D-printed on Fyn, and sold directly to undertakers and funeral homes. Each one made to order, with no warehouse behind it.

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How it started

Began with Schärfe.

This range began with Schärfe — a long-established name in Danish urns who saw what we were doing with food-industry waste and wanted to build a line around it. They were the first to bring our materials into the funeral profession, and they remain a close partner today. Every urn is made to order in the workshop on Fyn: no moulds, no inventory, no overproduction.

walnut and coffee urns
The range

Four materials, one quiet form.

The same considered shape is made in four materials. Walnut shell — warm brown, refined, the most versatile. Coffee grounds — near-black and deeply earthy, a material that has already lived several lives. Brewer's mash — medium brown and visibly textured, currently in development. And pure PHA — a quieter white or graphite, for families who want a cleaner, more minimal surface.

None of them imitates stone or ceramic. They look and feel like exactly what they are — which, for a great many families, is the whole point.

Read about the materials →
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A new way of selling

Sold directly to undertakers.

This line works differently to the rest of the catalog. We supply urns directly to undertakers and funeral homes — not through a distributor, not through a wholesale catalog. That means a funeral director can offer families something genuinely distinct: an urn made from food-industry waste, on order, with a real story to tell — instead of the same catalog every competitor carries.

For an undertaker, it is a way to stand apart. For us, it is the most direct route from workshop to the family who will hold it. If that way of working sounds interesting, the next step is simply a conversation.

Tested at Teknologisk Institut No virgin plastic Plant-based binder Designed for end-of-life

Want to offer these to families?

If you are an undertaker or funeral home, I will gladly walk you through pricing, lead times, and how the reseller arrangement works — no portal, no catalog, just a real conversation. Samples available; studio visits welcome. You can also order directly.

/03Bowls & objects

Bowls & Objects.

Bowls, planters, and considered objects in our composites and recycled materials. Limited runs, made to order — for shops looking for something with a real story behind it.

walnut composite bowl
What we make

Small, considered pieces.

Bowls, planters, and vessels in our materials — some in walnut shell or coffee grounds composite, some in upcycled greenhouse plastic, a few in collaboration with other designers. Not every shape is available all year; we do not keep big inventories. Most things are ready in two to four weeks.

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For curated shops

Stock the line.

If you run a design shop, a concept store, or a curated retail space, we would love to talk. Small-batch supply, made to order, no minimums that do not make sense. If your shop has a specific take — a colour story, a seasonal collection — we can usually accommodate small variations.

Want the current range?

For the current range, prices, or to start a stockist conversation — write or call. We will be in touch.

workshop
/04Custom development

Nothing fits? Let us make it.

If none of the catalog lines is quite right, we develop custom — a single commission, a curated shop line, a full product family, or a white-label series produced under your name. Industrial design, material choice, prototyping, and production: all in one studio, on Fyn.

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/03Materials · in depth

The materials, in depth.

Three approaches built on what others throw away — plus pure PHA where bio-composite isn't the right tool. Here's where each comes from, what it does, and when we choose it.

/01Approach 01

Premium Bio-Composites.

Four bio-composites — walnut shell, coffee grounds, brewer's mash, and pure PHA — bound with plant-derived PHA binder. Warm, tactile, designed for the whole journey from material to end-of-life. The work I'm proudest of.

A bio-composite is a material made of two parts: a base of food-industry waste, and a binder that holds it together. The base is the side-stream — walnut shells, spent coffee grounds, brewer's mash — material that the food industry produces in large volume and would otherwise discard. The binder is PHA, a plant-derived polymer. Together they form a solid material we can 3D-print into finished objects.

We work with these materials because the food industry already produces them at scale, in a known and consistent quality. A coffee roaster knows exactly what their spent grounds are. A walnut processor knows their shells. That consistency matters: it means the composite behaves predictably on the printer, batch after batch, which is what makes it usable for real production rather than one-off experiments.

The process is direct. The side-stream is dried and ground to a fine, consistent particle size. It is blended with PHA binder in a measured ratio, then extruded into either pellets or filament for printing. We print on our own machines in the workshop on Fyn — no moulds, no minimum production runs, no inventory sitting in a warehouse. A design can be adjusted between one print and the next. For a buyer, that means low commitment to start and the freedom to refine before scaling.

Each composite has its own character. Walnut shell is the most refined and versatile. Coffee grounds run nearly black and carry a faint roasted scent. Brewer's mash is rougher, more visibly textured. None of them is trying to imitate wood, stone, or conventional plastic — they look and feel like exactly what they are, which is the point.

walnut shells
01 / 04
Warm brown · refined

Walnut Shell

The shell that protects the kernel — the hard outer husk, not the nut itself. Walnut shell is a by-product the food industry generates in real volume, and for a long time it had nowhere useful to go. We take it, grind it to a fine and consistent particle size, and bind it with PHA into a material we can print. The result is warm mid-brown, with a surface that looks coarse but is surprisingly soft to the touch — closer to fine cork than to stone or ceramic. It is our most versatile composite: it holds detail well at larger scale, it takes light gently rather than reflecting it hard, and it ages without looking tired. If a project could reasonably go in several directions, walnut shell is almost always where we begin — it is the material we understand best, and the one that disappoints least often.

Partner: Nuterials ApS

coffee grounds
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Near-black · earthy

Coffee Grounds

By the time spent coffee grounds reach us, the material has already lived several lives — grown, roasted, brewed, and in our case often passed through a reusable-cup scheme before being collected. Rather than letting it end as waste, we dry it, re-grind it, and bind it into composite. The result is the darkest material we offer: a deep near-black with an earthy warmth, and a faint roasted scent that lingers in the surface for a surprisingly long time. It is the material people most often reach out to touch without quite knowing why. Coffee composite suits objects that want presence and weight — pieces meant to be noticed rather than to recede. Because the input is a genuine waste stream collected locally, no two batches are ever perfectly identical, and we have come to treat that slight variation as part of the material's honesty rather than a fault to engineer out.

Partner: Grounded

brewer's mash
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Medium brown · alive In development

Brewer's Mash

Brewer's mash is the spent grain left behind after brewing — malted barley that has already given up its sugars to the beer. It is produced in enormous quantity by every brewery, and almost all of it is discarded or sent to low-value use. We dry and process it into a composite that sits close to walnut in colour but reads very differently: rougher, more openly textured, with the grain still legible in the finished surface. It is the most visibly »alive« of our materials — the one where you can most clearly see that it came from somewhere real, from a process with its own history. Brewer's mash is currently in development. We are still dialling in consistency and print behaviour before we commit it to production pieces, because a material is only useful to a buyer once it behaves the same way every time. When it is ready, it will be the most characterful of the four.

Partner: Grounded

pure PHA
04 / 04
White or graphite · clean

Pure PHA

The fourth is the simplest: PHA on its own, with no food-waste filler — the same plant-based binder that holds the other three together, used alone. Where the composites are warm and textured, pure PHA is quiet and even, a clean surface in soft white or graphite grey, with a small range of further colours available through our filament partner ColorFabb. It is the bio-composite for projects that call for restraint rather than character — a minimal urn, a piece where the form should speak and the material should not. We are honest that it is the least sustainable of the four: it is virgin material rather than a recovered side-stream, so it does not carry the same waste-into-object story. But it remains plant-based, it is designed for end-of-life like the rest of the family, and it sheds no microplastics. A more responsible version, made from used cooking oil, is on its way — and when it arrives, it will simply replace what we use now.

Test results

Tested at Teknologisk Institut, our walnut shell composite broke down in soil faster than TÜV-certified benchmark PHA materials — and wheat grew just as well around it. We're encouraged. Designed for biodegradation in soil; further certification is on the roadmap.

All materials are tested, traceable, and named. If you want the lab data, ask and we'll share it.

Tested at Teknologisk Institut No virgin plastic Plant-based binder Designed for end-of-life

Questions about sustainability or testing?

If you want to know more about the degradation, the lab results, or the testing behind these composites — call or write. I will get you all the information you could ever need. This is the part of the work I most like talking about.

/02Approach 02

Upcycled Plastics.

Industrial plastic waste — greenhouse trays, shop fittings, production offcuts — given a second life. For products that need to last.

PP pellets
From industrial waste streams

A second-life story.

This approach is for the longer-living products. A planter that sits outside for years. A piece of retail fixture. A vessel that's meant to be used, not contemplated. Where bio-composites are about the whole life including the end, upcycled plastics are about extending the useful middle.

We work with industrial waste streams: greenhouse trays from horticulture, shop fittings at the end of their commercial life, production offcuts from manufacturers. Some of this we shred and print in our own workshop. Some comes from specialist partners who handle larger volumes.

No virgin plastic enters the line. Every piece carries a real second-life story.

Best for Outdoor & larger objects Fences, chairs, lamps, custom boxes Retail & commercial use

Have a material you'd like made into something?

If you have an industrial plastic waste stream — or simply an idea for an object you would like made this way — I would be glad to talk it through. Call or write, and we will see what is possible.

/03Approach 03

Specialised Recycled Filaments.

High-spec recycled plastics — for production runs, broader colour ranges, and the projects where bio-composites or upcycled plastics aren't quite the right tool.

recycled filament
From rejected production runs

The lower-barrier door.

Recycled PHA, PETG, and other high-spec filaments. These are premium plastics capable of fine detail and strong mechanical performance. They come from two sources: industrial waste streams that get reprocessed into filament, and QA-rejected production runs that never made it to market — perfectly good material that would otherwise be wasted.

This is the lower-barrier door. We use these to help good people get into the market at fair prices — because 3D-print is one of the most effective ways to democratise manufacturing. A small brand with a strong idea shouldn't be locked out of quality production by upfront tooling costs.

Equally responsible. Plug-and-play. Just a different set of strengths.

Best for Production runs Broader colour range Lower entry cost

Have a project, not sure it's feasible?

If you have a project and you are not sure whether it can be done this way, call or write. I would love to find out whether we can make it for you — and do it responsibly.

Closing

Choosing between them.

Every project is different. As a rough guide:

Premium bio-composites →
For projects where the material story is central — urns, considered objects, gifts, ceremonial pieces. The work I'm proudest of.
Upcycled plastics →
For products that need to last — outdoor pieces, retail fixtures, functional objects. The second-life story is real and durable.
Recycled filaments →
For production runs, larger colour ranges, or projects with tight margins. Same responsibility, lower barrier.
Pure PHA →
For specific colour or surface needs, where composite isn't the tool. The deliberate-choice exception.

When in doubt, write. We'll figure it out together — and tell you honestly if none of them is right for your project.

There is more to say.

This page is a start, not the whole story. Every material here has more behind it — test data, sourcing, the things we have learned the hard way. If you would like to hear more about any of them, the fastest way is simply to call. We like talking about this.

Get in touch