Tuesday 30 October 2012

Nautical Wedding


As you might know, I have been making driftwood boats for a while for our GiftsandStars shop. A while back a lovely lady bought this little boat named 'true love' and left a message telling that she would be using it as a wedding cake topper. I loved the idea and asked her pictures, which she has sent the other day.




I think it turned out adorable and I'm definetly planning on making some boats fitting for this purpose! Wishing the lovely couple many happy years together!

Monday 29 October 2012

Monday Moodboard


1. MADEbyMADA  2. stephmelart  3. PeekABooCornerShop  4. ReComputing

I never like the hour changing thing every spring and autumn, it always takes me ages to get used to the new hour, I do like these clocks though :)

Have a great week everyone!
You can easily make your moodboard with the mosaic maker.
Please be sure that all featured shops are from the EuropeanStreetTeam.

Thursday 25 October 2012

Our Creative Space...


We love to incorporate old embroideries in our bags. The size and shape of the embroidery determines the size and shape of the bag. Usually it is pretty straitforward, but this hmong embroidery piece was a bit more difficult. A lot of craft paper later I had made a pattern to incorporate and enhance the embroidery.


We decided to use leather for this bag. Here the hide gets an adhesive backing.



The lining is a very pretty Mary Engelbreit cotton.


It is coming along nicely, not sure about the strap, though.


Isn't it nice? From the breast plate of a traditional costume to a bag.
In the picture below you can see how the costumes were worn.


See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Tree Hugger


What we all do to sell online :)
I'm sure most people have climbed trees as a kid, but born and raised in a city, I never did, untill a few days ago.


We discovered this amazing tree that has collapsed, most likely during a heavy storm. Perfect for a newbie climber with lots of horizontal areas :)


I never had problems with heights but have discovered that I'm not much of a climber :)


Going back down I got stuck in this charming position and eventually fell in a big bush of wild very thorny flowers were my arms and legs got scratched and clothes thorned, my mum also was a 'victim' of those bushes while she took the pictures, I tell you it is not easy to sell online :)


Monday 22 October 2012

Monday Moodboard


1. Baghy  2. BarbaraSzepesiSzucs  3. bluepalette  4. EarthLab

Garden work and an endless Summer made me think of green leaves :)

Have a great week everyone!
You can easily make your moodboard with the mosaic maker.
Please be sure that all featured shops are from the EuropeanStreetTeam.

Thursday 18 October 2012

Our Creative Space...


Some new sea urchin ornaments for the giftshop needed to be made. Especially now that Christmas season is getting closer ornaments are a must :)
I hear you saying 'Oh no, not Christmas already!', time flies my friend before you know it we are already at the end of the year.


I love making these ornaments, maybe with all the tiny urchins of our jewelry, working with bigger ones is a nice change. They look great all year long, and give a little extra to for example cupboard doors.


And the results can be found here.


See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Searching for Cobalt


It is funny how many things we collect through our lifes. While getting inspired by this Cobalt blue bracelet I started to search for matching items and these were just a few. A beautiful vintage glass bottle, a piece of blue painted driftwood found on the beach, a bow for decorating packages, a fishing lure found on the beach, a blue pair of scissors with a blue ribbon, evil eyes, feathers of the Eurasian Jay soon to be made into earrings found in our garden, a pencil, a blue pincushion and funny enough even the thread was blue and a few more blue treasures. This kind of collections always intrigue me so I decided to make some too from time to time to get those creative juices flowing :)

Monday 15 October 2012

Monday Moodboards


1. DUEALBERI  2. raori  3. aplusdesignnn  4. stephmelart

The other day we took some outside pictures with our jewelry and bags, a few are already in the shop but we still have to get the hang of it, it needs a different approach then white background modelled pictures. Here some beautiful outside picture to show the mood :)

Have a great week everyone!
You can easily make your moodboard with the mosaic maker.
Please be sure that all featured shops are from the EuropeanStreetTeam.

Thursday 11 October 2012

Our Creative Space...


I am fascinated with exploring all the possibilities of fabric alteration, like smocking, pleating and orinuno. The book on the picture is called Shadowfolds and is about a folding technique developed by a very old japanese gentleman named Shuzo Fujimoto. He started this as a folding technique with fabric, called hira-ori, a form of orinuno, or origami with fabric.


He developped this technique using methods of binding very similar to american smocking, resulting in tessellations done with thin linen or silk, beautiful to see and amazing when hold against the light.
I have tried one of those on a batist hanky. The dots of the pattern are drawn on the fabric and connected with tread in a concentric way. 


The  book tell us to pull and knot the thread for each binding while progressing from the middle. This won't work, though. When pulled tight the dots get distorted and is not possible to see which dots have to be connected.


What I did was connect all the dots  each binding and let the thread hang. This method I used before when making bubble smocking, a form of american smocking.


This is how it looks with all the dots connected but not tied.


When connecting the dots is good to keep the pattern close by, so that you connect the right dots together.


Then, starting from the center, pull each thread tight, knot three times and cut the thread.


This is the back completed.


Now at the front you turn each circle of folds, one clockwise and the other counter clockwise.


Iron with your very appropiate japanese mini iron :)


My result is only so-so. Specially the decagon in the middle is only a blob. I will try again with shantung silk.


But you get the idea.
See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.