Happily awarded

There has been plenty to do since my last post but today I decided to just hang around and do a little scanning (I'll get right back to that a little later on) and blogging since tomorrow is an official holiday and all of the people out there got long weekends.

In the middle of working on a lot of different things for christmas market, Peggy, from PJH Designs awarded me with the "Liebster Blog" award.

The "Liebster Blog" award is given to up coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. "Liebster" is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, beloved, loveliest, cutest...

Thank you Peggy!! :)
Peggy refurbishes furniture and other lovely things that other people would pass by or even trash and is doing an awesome job on it!! Have a look at her blog.

The rules for the Liebster Award are: 

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it  to you.

2.  Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3.  Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4.  Have faith that your followers will spread the love too!


So this are my five picks...it was hard to choose amongst a lot of great blogs and bloggers!
The listing is in no particular order.

kUnTer BunTes from Blüämli Claudia :)
Claudia is a swiss girl. She is sewing and doing all kind of craftsy stuff and sharing it with the rest of the world. I love her fresh and free way of writing about what she's doing.

Kuunlilja from Sari
Sari is a lovely lady from lovely Finland. She also is sewing and doing a lot of different crafts stuff and sharing it with the rest of us.

Nid de Reves from Luisa
Luisa is an ex pat living in the french speaking part of switzerland. I got to know her over Annie Sloan Chalk paint :)
She is redoing furniture and in my opinion does a great job on it!

Moonbeams and Fireflies from Ann
Ann is doing a lot of different things. "Anything from vintage treasure hunting to journal making, from sewing to gardening, from butterfly watching to photographing the wildlife in the yard." is she saying, talking about herself.

Heart Vintage Design
up's and down's, a journey of opening up an own booth at a flea market.


Make sure you visit these cute blogs and leave a comment or two, or three ;)
And I guess I'll get back to the scanning in another post :)


Much love and THAKNS to Peggy again!
Dina




*Für Claudia ;))*


Regeln für die "Liebster Blog" Auszeichnung:


1. ä Link setzä zu dem wo Dir d Uszäichnig verliäh hät
2. suäch Dir 5 Blogs us wo Dir super guät gfalled und weniger as 200 Läser händ und tuä sie uflischtä damit sie alli anderä chänd gu aluägä
3. kopiär z Bildli vu der Uszäichnig (ganz obä im Itrag) und tuä's i Dinä Itrag setzä
4. Schriib bi denä Blogs wo Du uszäichnet häsch ä Kommentar dass Du sie uszäichnet häsch :)
5. Spass ha ;))

Look, look what I've got!

Hey there, I was an early bird this morning and started work at seven a.m. and made quite a few more of the felt hearts. Not only felt. There are also normal cotton fabric hearts and linen, of course, in three different types.
They are all pretty glittery and just give you that christmas and winter feeling.

In the afternoon I had to get some walnut stain for the signs I planned....wooha...I planned them last spring. Hope they'll make it to the christmas market!
On the way home I decided to visit Mösi's flea and antique market and just wanted to get a few things.
Well yeah...a few things...look what I found:

haha! Little Mad Helper in the background!

And I actually can NOT believe that I did this, because I wanted to wait way longer to do it, but I just could not pass those excellent beauties!

Now I want to see your faces!!!

Look: :))))

Sorry for the bad garage-floor-and-junk-in-the-background-pictures but I first will have to figure out a suitable place to work on them. Aren't these beauties?? At least two of them are original baroque, not sure about the third one. 

Sorry, I'm just going completely nuts over them!! :D 

Now my budget is SO depleted but it was worth it a hundred times!

Have a good night. Me and myself will dream a dream about the thousand ways those three sucker punches could be done. :)

Much love, Dina

Surprise par Excellence

First of all a big Welcome to all of "my" new readers!
I actually would be on vacation now, in Austria, sippin' on a fresh orange juice, lying on a deck chair next to a well temperate pool, reading a good book......enjoying the vacation I was in desperate need of for more then two years now.
We actually where in Austria, in our hotel...for exactly ONE night, until Abby (our beloved dog) decided to bark because of every little sound. It started at five o'clock in the morning when the guys of the hotel kitchen started to prepare breakfast.
Our room was right next to the elevator, so Abby heard it every single time they used it and next to this, just about freaking everybody had to pass our door on the way to the elevator.

I don't think anybody heard her but only because I jumped out of the bed every time she was up to getting loud. I got one hour of sleep, just like Abby, and we both where letting my husband know that we are NOT going to take this another night. We packed up our things and left.

It was just too much for Abby and she really got crappy before we left. We rather have a happy dog than a fresh orange juice at the pool ;)

When we where back home I started my computer and wanted to check on everything and guess what: My Tin Milk Can made it to get featured on lovely Karen's blog "The Graphics Fairy"! Thank you big time for this Karen!
There where also a lot of orders and mails to check so it was a good thing to be back home and get things done.

Before I left for Austria I started on sewing hearts for the christmas market and this made me come up with this small sewing tutorial for today. Lace framed pictures.
For some of you this may be "an old hood" as we would say, but I've seen projects with the lace cut in four pieces and glued on with overlapping edges. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with handling it that way. I just wanted to provide an easy method how you also can handle it.

Lots of words, here are the facts:

Don't cut the lace before you know how much you will need. If you are not sure if the trim is long enough, you can wrap it around the picture and you'll see if it will fit.

Using pins is no disgrace! They help you, all the more if you're not an experienced sewer. 

Flip over the end vertically on the edge.....

....pin it, so you won't have to fix it with your fingers. It will get more accurate and easy...

....and flip it back, horizontal, or what ever direction your frame has to follow.

You can just flip over the end and cut it off. If you are happy with the precision you can start to sew on your trim. If you feel safer with the pins, just leave them in while sewing and take them off afterwards, just please (!) make sure you don't hit the pins with the sewing needle! I did once and was lucky enough to close my eyes before getting hit by the needle splitters...Be careful or take the pins out right before you are getting to that area.

And here is how the first few hearts look like:

(JOY and the bird image are from Karen's Blog "The Graphics Fairy". 

"Forget me not" picture from The Graphics Fairy

"Joy", made with typography from The Graphics Fairy

Hope you like them!

Love, Dina

Book Page Cone Bundles for Christmas

Christmas Book Page Cone Bundles

It's all about preparing for christmas and christmas market these days and I really need some time to calm down, for I was in a rush all day for the last few weeks, hopping between my other jobs and Mad Tea Parties. So I'm slightly over worked.

The idea of posting another tutorial was a friendly thought and off I was, making and preparing pictures to show you how to make these cute cones out of old book pages.

First of all you need an old book. I prefer really old books that even have the old script, stains and natural darkened vignettes.

Roll three, or five, cones. It's always better to use odd numbers in decorations. I used three on this.

It's better to use odd numbers in decorations.

You can roll the cones as you prefer, there are many ways. Just make sure you glue the ends so the cones will stay cones.

Then glue one cone to another and the third one on top. I did not glue them in one line because it looks less straight.

Original old lace trim fits so well on this but I did not have as much as I needed for all of the bundles, so I ended up on using new lace trim as well. Both looks fine but the original old lace makes it...old. :)

You might want to use a little glue to fix the lace so it won't slip towards the points of the cones.

Now to make the decoration richer, because that is what's mostly wanted on christmas, you can add some flowers, leaves, stars, snowflakes... I used these stunning flowers which I found in "Papierwelt", a scrap-booker's paradise. 

Those flowers are kind of expensive but so worth the money when you see the effect of them.

You can place the item of your choice where ever you feel like. I glued it right next to the lace trim on one side. You even can glue items to both sides or to the top. Use as much decoration as you like. It's all about taste.

If you feel like you also can add some glitter, which is what I basically do with everything that will attend christmas ;)

You can use glitter-glue or loose glitter, flitter, shapes, flakes, what ever sparkles and catches the light.

I used loose glitter on this because it sparkles brighter than glitter glue.

For loose glitter just add some glue where ever you want, I did on the edges of the cones.

Then you can either pour the glitter onto the glue which maybe will make you loose a lot of glitter, but you can catch it with a paper underneath your work and safe it, or you can dip the cones. I'm kind of doing both techniques.

And in the end you, at least (!), have to look like this. Otherwise you missed the christmas preparing spirit... weeehee ;)

So I hope all of you will be able to preserve plums now...

For now I will head for some more shopping and afterwards get back to my glittery atelier.

By the way, I FINALLY, found a distributor of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint here (!!) and I ordered a lot of milk paint and wax to make my boxes and chests and hopefully another furniture soon!

Stay tuned if you wish!

Much love and choccolat-cinnamon-apple-glitter-cookie-fireplace-spirit to you

Dina

 

Carriage Lamp & a Treasure for ourself

Here are another two things I did lately.

One of them is a beautiful old carriage lamp. It even still had the original candle in it but it wasn't burning really well, so I had to change it.
I just painted it with a almost dry brush, using a special paint for heating radiators and used...Mod Podge..what else...to glue on a piece of a beautiful bird picture I've found on Karen's Blog (The Graphics Fairy).
Then I added the "must have"-tag and the original old lace trim with an old rusty key.
That was it :)

Carriage Lamp before

Carriage Lamp after

Carriage Lamp

And then I finally did something for us to keep. I've found this gorgeous Chest at Mösi's and immediately fell in love with it. It was a dark walnut before and I first wanted to keep it that way. One fine day I was on the phone with my mum, though, I looked at it and all of a sudden felt that it HAS to be white.

So I painted and distressed it and now we are even happier with it brightening up our living room.

a treasure chest for us :)

So by now I'll get back to my glitter and christmas paper work and wishing you a wonderful and creative week!

Much love,

Dina