Monday special: Upcycling finds Europe part II

Last monday I made my monday special based on upcycling finds from the European Street Team, and I found so many lovely items made by upcycling or recycling so I decided to follow up with a part II from Europe.

So here we go:

Trashion Baroque Japan Jacket by yasminbochi:

eggyolk-yellow summer top from recycled fabric, size x-small by katsai:

One of a kind sunny yellow tote with vintage applique by Ravenhill:
My Little Gem 3 - Warm Brown with Rosette by karuski:
Magicien de la nuit - my first handsewn plushie ever by ArtMind:

Have a wonderful week, and remember to think twice before you trow anything away - it may be turned into something loveable!

Taking it a bit further....

Those of you that have seen my Etsy-shop, may remember my Pop Art Pendants made of soda pop cans and newspapers, maps and magazines. So far I have had 3 different lines of Pop Art Pendants:

* Windows of the Past, Pop Art Pendant (with vintage newspaper/magazine)

* Windows of the Sea, Pop Art Pendant (with lighthouses or other items related to the sea)

* Windows of the World, Pop Art Pendant (with a piece of a map)

This week I've been working on a way to improve my Pop Arts, and I've ended up with 3 changes to the product:

1. Making a mini-stand so the Pop Art can be displayed as any other piece of art
2. Stamping the frame, this makes me able to add a title or a statement directly on to the Pop Art.
3. Using a piece of fabric as the motife.

This is the first one I've made involving all three changes:

This item 'Aqua et Ignis' is inspired by the weekly challenge of the European Street Team. This week the theme is aqua (Take a look Amandas blog for more info and all the other entries).

I've have not added the little 'loop' on top of this item, so this can not be used as a pendant. It is ment to be on display, and I will call this line of product for 'Framed Fabrications, Pop Art on Display'

The three next photos shows the different shapes I've used on the mini-stands and how the backside looks:




The mini-stands can also be used with my pendants, and will look really great on any shelf. The mini-stand will soon be available as a separate product in my shop.



While I was shooting a lot of photos of my new product today, my two little girls (Marthe and Lilly) were having a great time climbing. Looks fun!

Cool Temptations

It is time for a new presentation of a great Etsy seller. Today I'll let you all meet Maria João from Lisbon, the crafter behind Cool Temptations.

1. Tell me about your store (name, products, etc)?
My shop’s name is Cool Temptations and I design and create jewellery and accessories, mostly with lampwork and glass beads. I design and handcraft necklaces, bracelets, earrings, lariats, and smaller pieces like key chains, brooches, book markers, glasses holders and everything else which is doable with beads!!

My friends, and greatest fans, always said that my pieces were a temptation they could not resist, and that they would always come back for more! That showed me the way when it came to deciding the name!! Of course I took some precautions, as the word “temptations” can easily lead you to a very different kind of products, once you google it!!! And I added the word “Cool”, in its several significant, meaning fresh or refreshing, smart, updated, fashion, that’s everything I want my jewellery to be!

2. What made you start selling your products and show your designs to the rest of the world?
Well, the truth is that jewellery is a rather recent addiction. I didn’t use to pay that much attention to it and always wore a gold chain with a beautiful pendant, always the same, but from the first necklace I made in early 2004, I realized that there was something about making beaded jewellery that opened a new world of colourful options.

And one thing led to another: my friends started to ask me to make them something new to wear with this or that outfit, I started to buy more and more beads and spending more money on my new hobby, and I started to make one or two jewellery parties at home, and friends’ friends came in and bought my necklaces, and that was the best way to finance my addiction!!!

Last year I discovered Etsy and I loved the concept of creating a world wide shop supported by crafters from all over, so I decided to join in this fantastic community and share my jewellery with them!

3. How do you let the world know about your products?
It hasn’t been an easy task, I can tell you!
I’m an architect and I have been working in my own office for the last 20 years. Being my own boss doesn’t allow me to always stick to time tables, as when a new project comes into the office, or deadlines for competitions arrive, I must drop everything else and concentrate entirely on my work and have no time for fun.

This means I’ve been trying to list frequently at my Etsy store, but it’s been difficult to keep up to an everyday routine. I also joined a wonderful team in there (http://www.europeanstreetteam.etsy.com/), which allows me to communicate with a fantastic bunch of creative people, and I try to get some treasuries to promote the work of other crafters, I looked for a mentor that helps me and gives me useful advices on Etsy activities.

I also have my own site English written (http://www.cooltemptations.com/) and a blog written in Portuguese (http://www.cooltemptations.blogspot.com/) where I show my jewellery and sell it too. I’ll be making it bilingual shortly!

And I still have one or two jewellery parties now and then, where I try to get as many friends as possible, and ask them to pass the word around their friends!
And I always wear my own creations, of course!

4. Do you adjust you crafting to the different seasons? And how?
Well no, not really! I know people think one doesn’t wear this or that colour in this or that season, but I always create with all the colours in every season! I just need to find a set of lampwork beads that I like, and that’s that!
Sometimes people come to me with a sweater or a dress asking me to make them something to wear with it, and then we both decide if it should be a long or medium necklace, a bracelet and earrings set or whatever she prefers.
When it comes to the small accessories I mentioned before, I generally make them mostly for Christmas Season, as they make unique and rather inexpensive gifts.

5. How do you get inspired?
Lampwork beads are my best source of inspiration! I buy some exquisite sets from several glass artists I’ve been coming across these last 4 years, through the internet, and then I look for other top quality glass beads, seed beads, semi-precious gemstones, silver beads and findings to keep them company!

Lampwork beads always fascinate me with their infinite combination of colours, shapes, transparencies and opacities and a large variety of designs that lead us from figurative to complete abstract landscapes.

Making a necklace or a bracelet with this or that bead depends on how it talks to me! I tend to visualize first where I would like to wear it, and then decide the design! 6. Do you ever get a creative block?
Oh yes! I have been sitting in front of my working table for hours with no idea what so ever! They’re my blank periods, where I look attentively at the beads, but don’t get any kind of message from them!
When this happens, I just go for a walk or do anything else! I stay out of the room for a few days and I only return when I feel like cleaning it and tidying everything up. It’s a wonderful exercise before starting again!

7. What is a normal day like for you?
I’m not a very early riser, so I wake up around 7.30 or 8.00 am, feed my cat, get breakfast, check my messages and my Etsy store, wait for my husband to be ready, then I get a shower and get to work.
My returning hour is never the same, but I try to get to the gym before 7pm. I need to get exercise at least 3 times a week, as I need to loose weight and I have a lazy thyroid that keeps stocking up everything I eat into my thighs!!! Sometimes I pick my teenager daughter at school and we go together to the gym, or we return home, she studies for a while and I sit at my table to play with beads. When I get too excited about some new beads, and I start making something, I tend to forget about dinner, which is a good thing, but I get reminded of it by my family and I‘ll just make something and get back to it!
At weekends I love to stay in and spend hours with my beads, making something different everyday! It really full fills me!! 8. Do you do this for fun or for serious business?
Well, I do this mostly for fun and as an anti-stress for my working life.
It began as a hobby and as something I could do with my daughter, but then it evolved both to an addiction and as an escape from a serious problem I had some years ago. My mother used to live with us and she had Alzheimer’s. She passed away in 2005, but her last two years were very demanding and difficult to deal with. I had to stay home for hours and hours to be with her, and beads and creating jewellery were the only things that prevented me to go insane!
Today I can say it’s a little bit of both, fun and serious business, as I love creating and I sell my pieces in order to support this beautiful addiction I have.

9. How do you see yourself down the road?
I would really love to be able to make a peaceful transition from my architecture office to making jewellery as my everyday work (=fun).
It hasn’t been easy to run an office here in Lisbon, with this entire international crisis around! And I would surely have a better life if I could find a way to be earning some money with my Etsy store. I would love to get the time to promote my jewellery and sell it both through the internet and in local shops.
Maybe I can get there in two or three years, who knows? I’ll keep trying that’s for sure!!!

10. What else interests you besides your craft?
I’m really fortunate to live in Lisbon and be able to go for walks along the river and go to the beach from May to October, but I also love to travel and visit new places.
I love to read and going to the cinema, theatre or a good art exhibition. Oh yes, and I also love some TV series like Grey’s Anatomy, Gilmore Girls and The Practice.
And most of all I love staying in with my family and friends, as they are the most solid part of my life and the ones I could never do without, and join them in a good meal, a great wine, a good laugh and a great conversation.

11. Is there something you would like to say as the end of the talk?
I always have a wonderful time while creating my jewellery, and I take special care in details, comfortable findings to wear, good quality materials, and one of a kind designs. I hope that you will enjoy looking at and wearing my work as much as I enjoy making it!!

Take good care of yourself and have a wonderful life!

If you would like to see more Maria João's products, please take a look at her shop: Cool Temptations.

.....and of course, I'll be back next week featuring anoter talented crafter!

Monday special: Upcycling finds Europe part I

Today I've made a search for upcycled products made by members of "European Street Team", and here are some of the gorgeous items I found:

Hand Printed Recycled Map Paper Envelopes - Mixed Prints - Pack of 10 by annarubyking:

Upcycled handbag made from mens shirt by Babongo:

Lost Girls No. 2. framed collage by lapomme:

PETALS - Bobbypin set of 2 in Recycled Cherry red satin bobby pins by MGMart:

Vizsla - Set of 5 Calendar Gift Bags - for animal charity by makemesmile:

Levis 501 upcycled black denim boho indie bag green lining double entrance by Lazyfish:

I'll be back next week with Upcycling finds Europe part II.

Plask Design & Print

Welcome to my first in a hopefully long serie where I feature Etsy sellers.

Today I'll let you meet Nicole at Plask Design. Nicole is from Canada, but are now living at Askøy, a beautiful island at the westcoast of Norway.

Nicole is actually the first seller I contacted when I started at Etsy, and she gave several great advices that helped me when I opened my own shop. Thanks Nicole!! I am really honoured to be able to feature her and her shop in my blog.

1. Tell me about your store (name, products, etc)
My store is named Plask Design and I design and create fun accessories for cold weather – these generally include gloves, hats, and scarves though I am open to other ideas as time allows. The word Plask is the Norwegian word for 'Splash'. I love the sound of this word and think that it is just about one of the best words I have ever heard of. It also fits my store perfectly: on the west side of Norway we receive over 3 meters of rain a year, and are expecting more with climate change. It also rains most of the winter here, which makes it very important to dress warmly to keep away winter colds and viruses that make their annual migrations through Scandinavia. Finally, it just feels wonderful to be nice and warm even when it's cold and blowing just on the other side of your jacket.

2. What made you start selling your products and show your designs to the rest of the world?
Before I started making my own items, I sold a lot of Norwegian products on eBay, mostly to Norwegian Americans. I sold everything including Dale Sweaters, Bunads and Festdrakts, Pewter, Norwegian Literature and Norwegian Food items. As the fees from eBay began to skyrocket and my ability to make an okay profit began to disappear, I became disenchanted with just being a 'middle man'. I really felt like I wasn't dong anything substantial. It was around this time I discovered Etsy and it became very clear to me that this is what I wanted to do. I already had experience selling and knew the system. I spent the summer months making items and beginning my exploration of textile arts. The first day I began listing items and after 30 minutes one of them 'disappeared'. It took me close to a half an hour to discover that it had sold. Although it took me a number of weeks to sell my next item after that, but I was hooked. -- Concerning the original question – I want to make designs and show them off to the world because of my upbringing. Having grown up in North America, and especially because having grown up on the west coast of North America, I have an over exaggerated sense of self confidence and believe I can easily play with the 'big boys and girls.'

3. How do you let the world know about your products?
I actually don't do a lot of advertising. I renew my items daily on Etsy so that they are close to the top of the list of products. I try to create treasuries and hope that those I've chosen will remember me in the future one day. One thing that I really like to do is I like to help other Etsians. When I see members asking for help in the forums I actually do my best to give them good ideas. I do believe that I'm more creative than others in this area (ie – problem solving and seeing outside of the box). I'm also a firm believer in what goes around comes around, karma, or whatever phrase you would like to use. I'm more than willing to give away ideas or advice that might help others.
I am also working on a local level in my community – my friends and co-workers know what I do and most of them are quite impressed with my work. I often donate my items or gift certificates to my store for local fund raisers and this generates a lot of interest in my work and my store.

I also work on a blog (plaskdesign.blogspot.com).

Finally, in 2009 a girlfriend of mine will be opening a cafe and lunch bar. Not only will I be lucky enough to be able to market and sell my wares here, but I will also be using the same local to hold classes in crocheting and knitting with alternative materials such as fabric, plastic and metal.

4. How do you get inspired?
I actually get inspired by the materials I use. A lot of my materials are given to me by family members or neighbours who give them to me instead of throwing them out. It's incredibly inspiring to move through boxes of materials, having vague ideas of what each material might become, and then seeing the material transform into something even more beautiful than I had envisioned in the first place.

5. Do you ever get a creative block?
I work full time, take care of 2 young children, take care of most of the house as my husband works shift work and does a lot of landscaping work on our house. I make dinners and clean up most of the time. I do laundry most of the time. I drive the children to and from gymnastics training most of the time. I purchase food and household products most of the time. I also spend a lot of time with my children, reading to them and teaching them English, giving them opportunities to be creative with all sorts of different materials, taking them on weekend hikes and outings. In the end I simply do not have time to have a creative block. There is always circa 5 projects I am working on.... and as one or two of those reach the final stages, my mind has already thought of one or two more ideas that it would like to work with.

6. What is a normal day like for you?
At 5.30-6.30 a.m, depending upon my shift, I wake up, make lunches, make breakfast and prepare clothes for my children. After this, wake up kids, get them dressed and send them downstairs to start eating. Then I join them, clean faces and brush hair, send my son off to school (or the neighbours where he'll walk with his friend to school later) and drive myself and my daughter to the day care where I work full time. Do my 8 hour shift, collect my daughter, collect my son (who may or may not be at my sister-in-law's depending upon how late it is), go home and start dinner unless hubby has come home first. If hubby is home, I sort through the never ending pile of laundry. Eat dinner, spend time with hubby and kids, do one major piece of housework and then start getting the kids ready for bed. Read to kids and tuck them in, do some more laundry then check out Etsy and work on my Etsy projects.

This does not include the days I drive the kids to gymnastics training, have an evening meeting, or some other appointment.

I do a lot of my basic Etsy work during my «dead time». I knit and crochet gloves, hats, and scarves when I'm waiting for things: waiting for my kids during their lessons, waiting to start work (if I'm early), sometimes during my lunch break, if we're driving somewhere as a family and I'm in the passenger seat, when I'm at the mall waiting for my husband to get what he needs, etc, etc, etc. It's amazing how much you can get done during times like these. I then decorate them usually during the evenings on the weekends.

7. Do you do this for fun or for serious business?
A little bit of both. It is a lot of fun, and I really like the idea that I am creating something that someone, somewhere is going to wear and be happy with for a long time. But I do hold myself to a high level of professionalism. I am 35 now, and would like to have this hobby grow slowly over the next 10 or 15 years.... so that as I get older, I can perhaps work a little less in my 'real job' and spend more time working with textile artistry. I also take very seriously the reason why I'm making this a lifestyle. I believe that every time I make something and sell it to another person, it's a small hit against the big industries that are making hordes of money by paying very low wages to second and third world citizens. Also, when I sell and buy items on Etsy, I'm doing my part to keep alive a modern cottage industry market place, which will be open for other women and men around the world, who maybe need the this market place for personal economic survival. I believe in one of the founding principles of Etsy, that this could be a new way to do business that will level the playing field for anyone with access to the technology, but it will only grow if many of us use it regularly.

8. How do you see yourself down the road?
I see myself happily working at a 'real job' that I truly love, though perhaps working a little bit less. I look forward to be earning money from Etsy (or whatever will be popular in 10 – 15 years to come) that can be spent on things I like (as opposed to new rain suits for my growing children) and I look forward to start teaching my skills to others so that other can start making items for personal use/gifts, or to further open this fantastic marketplace.

9. What else interests you besides your craft?
I love building stuff – especially if it requires tools of some kind. At work, I'm the one with a big garden shovel building huge sand castles for 4 year olds. I'm the one who builds towering towers from wooden blocks. I love making bread from scratch. I'm the one who built our wooden porch at our cabin. Speaking of which, I do really like spending time at our sea-side cabin. My husband inherited it from his grandfather 20 years ago, complete with leaking roof, punctured windows and bug-eaten floors. He has been restoring it and building onto it, and I joined him in his project when I married him 10 years ago. When we're not working hard at this, I really like fishing, as well as some gardening, although I have not done this since my daughter was born 4 years ago.

10. Is there something else you would like to say as we end this talk?
Yes – It is really important for me to stress to people that they need to really start thinking of where their clothing, jewellery, and not to mention food comes from. People really need to start re-thinking the value of products that are very inexpensive and start considering the value of fair wages for everyone as well as considering the thought of exactly how many 'things' we need. How many shirts do we really need? How much food do we buy because it's incredibly inexpensive, but ends up rotting in our fridge, or is fast food and not good for us anyway? If everyone started small with these thoughts, it would create a dramatic change around the world.

Please take a look at all the beautiful products of Nicole in the shop: Plask Design

I'll be back next week with another lovely shop to feature.......

Monday special: Upcyling finds

Here are a few of the many great items on Etsy made by upcycling a used product - giving it a second chance.

Flower Necktie Cuff Bracelet with Buckle by debapaka

SYMBOLS - Vintage Typewriter Keys Earrings in Ivory by GemmaBeads

UPCYCLED Felted Wool Hat by FoxIslandFancywork

Upcycled White Ruffle Purse by TheReFORMatory

CB121 RECYCLED Computer CIRCUIT BOARD Jewelry EARRINGS Geekery Trashion Bronze colored with Brass Metal by DebbyAremDesigns
I'll be back with more upcycled goodies next monday - see you ;)

Do you want to be featured?

I am refreshing my blog, and will start doing so by featuring a few of the many talented shop-owners at Etsy.

I intend to feature one or two shops a week.

If you are interested in being featured - just leave a comment with a link to your shop or other contactinformation. If I choose to feature your shop, you will have to give a short 'interview' (approx. 10 questions) and send me a maximum of 5 photos.