Rainbows

Working with rainbow felt results in pretty rainbow scraps :-)

Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Aleka

Days in photos

Hi there, it's been a while! I've been working on a few things, you can see from the photos and somehow managed to completely neglect the blog. Hope to post more often again :-)
Have a lovely day,
Aleka

Fruits and notes

Our musmulia (loquat tree) is full of fruits this year, picked these yesterday and I have already eaten most of them! My absolute favorite fruit :-)
And I'm working with felt, making a new mobile. The notes are a bit tricky so I'm working slow but so far it looks adorable!

A flash giveaway from Nafsika!
Have a lovely day,
Aleka

New year's hoop art tutorial

Hello!
This is a project I had in my mind for a while, it didn't take me a long time to make it and I do love the result. I've used white fabric mounted on an 6 inch embroidery hoop and black felt numbers to "write" the new year. I've used a font called twinkle and after I printed my template I cut each number from paper and then used them as templates to cut the felt. A nit little trick I did to cut the insides of the 4 & 0 is this: I used blue chalk to mark the cut out on the felt, as you can see in the second photo and then used my pointy scissors to cut it out.

I placed my numbers on the fabric and then started embroidering them. I did the little twinkles first to secure the number in place then used scissors and tweezers to remove the paper. Then I just traced the number with white thread. I followed the same rules for the rest of the numbers, first I embroidered the little stars and after removing the paper I embroidered the outline.
And when I finished I had my new year's hoop all done, I love the contrast of the white fabric and black felt!

Wishing you a great day,
Aleka

Linked to Homework, LizMarieBlog, PersiaLou & Whipperberry

Work work work

Waking up to hear these news.

And working, working and experimenting. My latest experiment is using gold metallic thread, it's really difficult to use but it does look great! I've tried making french knots as well but they just don't hold up, I guess I'll try something else. And Georgia making a bead necklace, in green and brown, a very autumn color combo.

Autumn has been good so far, the temperature has dropped but the days are sunny :-)

Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Aleka

The disappearing act

A week went by, I spend most of it feeling unwell and with no desire to post anything. I think I stayed away from the computer for as long as I possibly could. I'm still not 100% but hopefully the iron supplements will work their magic soon.
I'm not really sure how I managed but here's a project I finished: these cute crown princess cake toppers from felt in burgundy, purple and pink. They are done and now I just need to edit the photos before I list them, hoping to do it today.

And I'm playing catch up with my favorite blogs: Ricardo Rodrigues on The Interview Series, Pumpki and Mo open studio, Sciencewerk Design, animal illustrations and a giveaway!
Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Aleka

Cupcake Flags

Like I said I'm working with turtle speed so these small flags took more than a week to be finished, after deciding on the shape, a couple of trial and errors, cutting and sewing they are finally done! Yay!
Now I just need some cupcakes to decide on the height of the skewer, so that they don't topple over, next I'll glue the flags on the skewers and photograph them on the cupcakes. Really I need the cupcakes for scientific purposes alone :-)
And after that a rainbow set of flags is waiting to be finished too.
xoxo
Aleka
ps. See more creative peeps right here!

Fishes

Yep it's fishes :-)
I have this great (well in my mind it looks great) idea on what to do with these fishes. I'm trying to figure out the details as I slowly progress and finish them. Hoping to get everything sorted by the weekend :-)
See more creative people right here!
Aleka

Rainbows and hearts

It's only been a few days of 2013 and I'm happy to say I've been feeling very productive lately. After I posted the coin tags I got a lot of positive feedback, so a new project came to my mind! I finished a set of rainbow tags and I must say they look absolutely fantastic, just like colorful candies :-)
And I also finished a set of puffy hearts for Valentine's day! I know it's only been a few days of the new year and too soon to think about Valentine's but I got the idea and simply had to see it thought!
Wishing you all a very happy and productive new year :-)
Aleka
ps. you can see more creative spaces right here!

The super heroes

My friend Maro is doing something very lovely this Christmas, she is collecting gifts to give to children whose families are having a hard time and buying presents is going to be difficult for them. She has been in touch with a school teacher of an elementary school and after figuring out which kids would need a present from Santa she called others to contribute too. The gifts will be for little boys and girls and although the girls are fairly easy to please making something for boys is not an easy task.
I thought of making super hero brooches from felt so with a few in mind I made these, they are almost done by now! The spider man one is really cool and I have to say my 5 year old nephew was very impressed with it! The only one I haven't finished is Mike (from Monsters Inc) I like the first version better so a change might happen there.
I want to pack them in cute paper boxes, I'm thinking of finding paper from comics to make them. I'm hoping to finish them until tomorrow and I'm hoping they'll be liked by the kids :-)
Have a great weekend,
Aleka
ps See more creative spaces right here!

Heart coin tags

Since I've been working with felt a lot lately, I had to figure something out for these small, tiny pieces of scrap felt that can't be used. I usually throw them away but I've been in a "waste not" mood lately so I decided to try and use them. And so I made these small heart coin tags, they are filled with these little felt scraps that I cut into even smaller pieces and they work just as well as polyfill stuffing. Tiny cuteness right?

I'm also hoping to make an advent calendar for our nephew these days, there is lots of inspiration to be found online and it is quite difficult to decide on something, I feel a bit bombarded by all these great ideas :-)
Wishing you a great day,
Aleka
ps You can see more creative spaces right here!

Secret Santa

This year I'm taking part in the European street team gift exchange, which is called Secret Santa. I've been given the name and likes and dislikes of another teammate and now I have to make something for her. I realized how difficult it is to make something for someone you don't know, sometimes it's difficult even if you do know the recipient of the gift.
This time though I'm struggling with it, I had a lot of ideas for a brooch design, you can see sneak peeks of the three of them half made, not sure which one will get the green light! The one that's mostly finished is very different from what I usually make, I was inspired by India and the many bright and vivid colors they use but I'm afraid of being too close to the kitschy side of things. Then there's the absolutely simple one and the one that's a bit in between the two, not too simple but not too flashy either, that one is kind of growing on me more and more.
I'll be working on them over the weekend and hopefully I will make a decision before the due date for the sending the gift.
see more creative spaces here!
xoxo
Aleka

Our newsletter

The painting of the hallway is done, now all we have to do is clean the mess and put things back to where they were. So I've been less productive in the creative part this week but I've managed to create a newsletter on mailchimp. It will be sent to subscribers once a month and will contain news about our shop, special offers and updates on our blog.
If you subscribe you'll also get the chance to win a felt heart brooch, any color you wish. Once a month I'll be drawing a lucky subscriber, who will choose the heart brooch he wants and it will be sent to him, completely free in any part of the world!
Wishing you a great weekend and don't forget to visit our creative spaces, for more fun stuff!
xoxo
Aleka
ps You can subscribe here:
Sign up for our free newsletter!

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

Entering challenges

We listed two new things in the shop. The brown paisley brooch is taking part in the Etsy Greek Street team challenge, inspired by greek traditional costumes. The green necklace is taking part in the European street team challenge, with "leaves" as the theme.
xoxo
Aleka & Georgia

New things

Finally got around to editing some photos and listing two new things in the shop. The blue felt necklace and the pencil brooches from paper mache in blue, green and red.
I'm hoping to list more items in the following days, I'm in a very creative place right now! I've been writing down new ideas for the blog and the shop, taking photos and keeping busy. I'm really liking the way summer is ending and hope that I'll be just as creative when September comes :-)
Linked to zsazsazu, check it out for more Saturday shopping!
xoxo
Aleka

Taking more photos

The sun has been shining all week, it's the reason why I decided to re shoot some stuff from the shop. I really wasn't all that excited about the original photos but I think I have (finally) improved my product photography skills. I like these so much better! These are my green bunny brooch and the blue heart brooch.
Friday will be here soon and I've got a little road trip for the weekend, really looking forward to getting away from the computer for a couple of days :-)

A fish brooch

The lat few days I took advantage of the sunlight and took some photos of the earrings and paper mache brooches in my hand and the felt brooches on the mannequin. I'm hoping it will help with the size reference. Then the sun went away only to come back today so that I could photograph this fish brooch, I wasn't really happy with the first photos. It's still trial and error trying to get the perfect photo!
Another thing I've done is change the avatar and banner for our jewelry shop, I liked the old ones but I have to admit I like the new ones a lot more! Also I like the jewelry with a twist shop title, I'm thinking of making it more specific but maybe I'll do that later...

Lazy daisy

I've been making a few new things, taking my time and really not rushing it. I know I will eventually get back to my working schedule and I'm trying to prioritize my to do list, it's a pretty long one too! I made these two felt heart brooches and did a little lazy daisy flowers, I think they look quite cute.
Jules Verne was born today, google's page was a lovely reminder!