Scandinavian Christmas houses

Preparing for Christmas and I made these two miniature clay houses inspired by Scandinavian patterns! They are one of a kind, handpainted with red acrylic on white clay. Find them in the shop: little Scandinavian house and Nordic Christmas house.

Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Aleka

Gingerbread houses

Gingerbread houses in the shop! They are one of a kind, made from terracotta clay and hand painted with detailed patterns in white, red and green acrylics. They were challenging to make but I love how they turned out :-)

xoxo
Aleka

Early Christmas

My work space suddenly got very Christmassy :-)
Working on personalized trees and a garland! It's the perfect time for me as I can take things slow and not stress like I do when the holiday rush begins.

Wishing you a lovely new month,
Aleka

A felt house

I wanted to make this with a tutorial but the nephew didn't have school today so everything was made before I had a chance to stop and take photos, first it was just pieces of felt and then a finished little house :-)
It is made from very thick felt and the pattern is one I made super fast from paper, nothing fancy or extremely precise as you can see. The most difficult part was cutting the felt, it is very thick and needed a bit of strength to cut it. The chimney was the kids idea and the felt decorations too. After we finished it I told him to put in under the Christmas tree but he liked it so much he took it home with him.
Wishing you a lovely week,
Aleka

Linked to Homework

Rustic Christmas trees

I've really enjoyed making ornaments from little twigs, I love the natural and rustic look they have! So next I made a little Christmas tree, you can see the tutorial over at the WeLoveUnique blog and make one yourself :-)

The advent calendar is proving to be quite a challenge, too many options, too many ideas, wondering what will work... Hoping to make something happen in the next few days.
Wishing you a creative day,
Aleka

Special Christmas ornaments

A couple of things that we made for this holiday season that are extra special:
- personalized Christmas trees ornaments, first a custom order with embroidered name and year and then another one with the names in Greek, that was so much fun to make!
- two discounted sets of retro ornaments, these Christmas ornaments have buttons that are one of kind so each set won't be duplicated.

I'm hoping to make an advent calendar tomorrow, it will be my first so we'll see how that goes!
Wishing you a great weekend,
Aleka

Christmas angels

 Gold heart angels

Green heart angels

Red heart angels

I really enjoyed making these angels and playing with the metallic thread, it was a bit frustrating at first but I think I got the hang of it. I used gold, green and red thread to embroider the hearts on white felt, I embroidered sleepy eyes on their faces and I think they look so peaceful :-)

They are listed in the shop along with many more Christmas decorations!

Wishing you a great day, 

Aleka

Having fun

Too soon for Christmas?
One of my favorite new designs, these Christmas trees are so much fun to make! I get to pick different colors of tiny felt flags and place them differently each time. That way every single tree is unique and one of a kind :-) It keeps me from getting bored making the same thing over and over again and the result is so much fun!
I also made a green Christmas tree version, with this one I just love the simplicity.

Wishing you a great weekend, 
Aleka

Giveaway!

Here's a chance to win this set of white angels with embroidered red hearts!
All you need to do is head on over to our facebook page and leave a comment under the photo. That's all :-)
I will send them all over the world, safely packaged!

Happy November 1st!
Aleka

Updated designs

I know it's too soon for Christmas but it's been in my mind for a while and I decided to go for a new design before the holiday season. So the old felt ornaments set has been updated now there are four ornaments, one shaped like a pine cone and one like a gourd added to the two already existing designs. I think now they look even more retro than before! And of course they all have buttons :-)
Also two new color schemes have been added, a black and white and a white and black and I'm hoping to start listing lots in the shop, sets of 8 ornaments that are one of a kind since the buttons we'll use are limited.
Stay tuned :-)

Wishing you a lovely day,
Aleka

Recycling and Christmas

We thought it would be a great idea to make some Christmas ornaments from paper mache and then give them to our nephew's kindergarten. Using cookie cutters and pulp made from newspaper and envelopes from bills we made ornaments shaped like a boot, a star and a round bauble. Because of the envelopes they have a bluish hue and not the typical grey that you get from newspapers, there are also bits of other colors popping here and there which gives them a great texture.

We figure each kid will take a set of two ornaments so they can paint them themselves and put them on their Christmas tree. We are still in the process of making them while the first batch dries, we've been using the oven to speed up the drying as it's been a cloudy day today. Once they have dried we'll make a hole and tie a string so they can be hang on the Christmas tree.

Wishing you all a great day, 

Aleka

ps. You can see more creative spaces here!

In the Etsy Finds

A big surprise came in the mail today: our retro Christmas ornaments were featured in the Etsy Finds newsletter!! I keep looking at the newsletter, smiling and giggling when I see them pop up, it's such an honor to be featured with so many other wonderful picks :-)
Wishing you a great Saturday,
Aleka

Shabby chic Christmas stars

Since we've been preparing for the Christmas bazaars we haven't really had time to decorate our home and get into the Christmas spirit. So I did a simple and easy little craft, here is the shabby chic Christmas stars tutorial.
What you need:
linen fabric (I'm not sure if mine is actually linen but as long as it frays at the edges it's ok)
iron on transfer sheet with printed music sheets - I got mine at The Graphics Fairy
cotton thread
star pattern

Print your music sheet on the iron on paper but make sure you reverse the image, so that you'll avoid having it printed backwards. A simple horizontal flip on photoshop or any editing program will do. Trace the star pattern on the back of the iron on paper and cut out your stars. Place them on your fabric and iron them for a few minutes, usually until the paper changes color, it gets a yellowish hue. Leave to cool off, peel the backing paper and then cut your stars leaving a few millimeters around the edges. You don't have to be perfect doing this, so no pressure. Cut off another set of stars from the same fabric, using the printed ones as size guide, to use as backing. Choose your thread colors, I chose a light caramel color and a fuchsia red and stitch the two pieces together. Again you don't have to be perfect doing this, any imperfections just adds character :-) Use a piece of same color thread to make the hanging loops, stitch them and you are done!

Hope you liked it and try it yourself :-)
See more creative spaces here!
xoxo
Aleka

Monday Moodboard Festive Red

1.StormsHandicrafts 2.ILaBoom 3. bdbworld 4. MelashaCat

Today I realized that the Christmas holidays are so close, every house in our neighborhood has put on decorations and lights and Christmas trees. All except ours! We've been so busy making new stuff for the bazaars that we had no time to decorate our tree. I don't think that this has ever happened before and I really miss the Christmas atmosphere. I'll try to do it this week (keeping fingers crossed!).

For more Monday Moodboards visit StarOfTheEast.
xoxo
Georgia

Last ones

Listed the last of the Christmas decorations, four garlands , seven sets of retro ornaments, one snowman and boot set, the clay trees tags and the small green and red hearts make it a total of fourteen on our holiday decor section! I've been busy with these and now that I'm done it's time to find something new to work on.
I'm thinking of entering this year's feeling stitchy contest, covered in stitches. I need to go through my books, find a cover I like and begin! This may be a bit tricky as I have lots of books and choosing one may be difficult, if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them! It's quite a challenge, especially since I haven't done any serious stitching since the rainbow of stitches contest from last year.
Exciting new things to follow :-)
xoxo
aleka

Feeling Christmassy

I know it seems a bit weird listing Christmas ornaments in September but this is our second year on Etsy and last year we learned a valuable lesson: Shipping after the end of November is an absolute nightmare. So this year I'm listing my Christmas ornaments early, hoping to avoid the long delays that are linked with Christmas shipping. There are two more felt garlands and different color combinations of retro ornaments on the way, I'm hoping to list them all by next week :-)

Linked to zsazsazu's blog where you can see more beautiful things!
xoxo
Aleka