Greek summer in thread

Fall is officially here! It's been only a few days into September and the weather has changed a lot, it's been raining since yesterday and it seems it will continue like this for a few more days.
I didn't get to travel anywhere this summer but I did a bit of mental traveling by starting an ambitious embroidery project. I made these hoops as a reminder of my travels in past years, the dovecot is from Andros island, the temple is from the temple of Poseidon and the windmill from Santorini island!
Each hoop took a few days to finish and is one of a kind! I loved this project so much though I was a bit uncertain when I started and there were a couple of moments where I had to rip stitches and do them over. But overall it was a very fulfilling experience so much that now I'm trying to find another idea, something new that I can create with thread on these little hoops :-)
Wishing you a lovely day,
Aleka

New in our shop

Paper mache pencil brooches

Purple clay skeleton key

What's new

It's been weird these last few days, yesterday's flooding rain was unbelievable and today the sun is shining.
A few updates in the shop:
the dove bird with text from Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen and two new houses, a purple high rise and a green one.
I have a couple of ideas I want to work on, something inspired by spring and summer with lots and lots of colors just need to find the time and energy to do them :-)
Wishing you a great weekend
Aleka

The birds

A bit of an ominous title there but it couldn't be helped, the clay birds I made are coming together finally. It took me a while to decide how I wanted to paint them, had a few ideas in my mind and this is the one I liked the most. They still need a bit of paint then varnish to be finished but I'm pleased with the result :-)
Have a great weekend
Aleka
ps. you can see more creative spaces right here!

Monday Moodboard - Ice cream

{1. ice cream earrings from PetitPlat  2. bunny painting from monpetitZouZou 

3. bear and hedgehog print from ucuspucus 3. photograph from magalerie}

It's hot, hot, hot and humid as well. Terrible summer weather all this week we'll be burning under the summer sun. One good thing we can enjoy is ice creams, hopefully they'll help cool us a bit :-)

Hope you are having a better week,

Aleka

ps. See more Monday moodboards at Estella's blog right here!

Terracotta wall plaques

From the terracotta clay pack that I opened in addition to the clay houses I made some small round wall plaques. It took me a while to figure out how to paint them, everything I did either covered the design I made on the front or didn't show off the terracotta underneath. After a couple of failed attempts I came up with this painting scheme, I quite like it. It's colorful but you can still see the lovely color of the clay.
They are still not finished I want to thread them so I can hang them and see how they look, I'm a bit worried as they are quite small and maybe the cord will not fit well visually. Trail and error with these ones I guess but it's fine I like trying to figure things out :-)
You can see more creative spaces right here!
Have a wonderful weekend, we'll be having lots and lots of heat (again)
xoxo
Aleka

ps. I stumbled upon this I wish you were here project sending a postcard to Marianne from all over the world, a wonderful idea from a daughter to her mother.

Creating a space

Now that summer is officially here I have to move my work space, from the spacious room it now is to my much smaller room. The move needs to be made as my normal workspace has absolutely no air conditioning and can get extremely hot, now that the heatwaves are coming, while in my room it is a lot cooler.
So I had this project in my mind for a while now: right above my dresser I have a vitraux sun my sister made but there is a big space left unused. My first thought was to get a metal bar from Ikea, screw it into place and use small magnets to pin my favorite clippings. In my last search at Ikea I didn't find what I was looking for so I decided to go about it a different way: I have a paint from efco called magnetic paint, which essentially turns any surface into a metal surface so magnets can stick to it. I painted a bar with it, traced a ruler I have as liked its size and painted it several layers of the paint.
After it dried I collected my favorite images and used small and bigger magnets to keep them in place, so here goes: urchin photo by Alicia Bock, city painting by Diamantis Aidinis, woman in corset by Toulouse-Lautrec, little girl hiding her face by Nikos Michalitsianos, postard (from the menagerie book) by Amy Timms and finally a drawing by Thanasis Lalas from his free press newspaper. The little felt heart and yellow bug are made by me :-)
Now I just have to keep cleaning to make this space ready for work (i.e. make it messy again)!
Have a great weekend,
Aleka
ps Don't forget to see more creative space here!

A house

Finally listing something new for the shop! The first thing I learned in my clay workshop was how to make decorative tiles, an easy task which teaches you the basics of working with clay. I made a couple for my home, they are decorating my living room wall. Then I made a few for the shop, the colorful hearts, the house and the tree which will be listed shortly. I'm hoping to expand the home decor section of our shop, not just with wall art but hopefully other cute things to decorate your home!
I'm pretty happy with the photos I took, although I faced the same problem I've had for a while: photographing shining things. There is a glare, a shining that I just can't avoid I can only try to minimize. Since a lot of my stuff is coated with an acrylic varnish, they inevitable are very shiny so I need to figure out a solution to this.
Have a great day :-)