Helena Bonham Carter and the Rockabillies

Good Sunday evening to all of you, I hope you had such a wonderful fall weekend like I did. It is cold, stormy and wet since yesterday and our house smells of cinnamon, vanilla and coffee. Can it get any better?

Since it is fall my creative energy goes nuts and I can't help myself working even if it's weekend.

So I finally started on the "Helena" collection which I was shoveling around in my head for such a long time. In my opinion it fits fall pretty well.

This collection is inspired by Helena Bonham Carter (great actress and beloved fiancé of even more beloved Tim Burton). It's the first part and there will be many more of them.

Originally I thought about doing a collection for some of the characters she played such as "Miss Lovett" in Sweeney Todd or "Bellatrix" in Harry Potter. But my point of view is that Helena herself is such an interesting woman with a unique style which made me come up with "just" a plane "Helena" collection.

Ok, I guess you all got that I'm totally in love with her ;) So here's the first part of the collection:

And next to it I finally, finally finished the second part of the Rockabilly collection (The new Generation)

Here we go:

Reserved

If you are interested in one of the pieces feel free to contact me on here or on Facebook. 

For now I will cook a great sunday's fall dinner and just be happy livin' :)

Much love to all of you,

Dina

In need of old Boxes...and Mondays

This may be unusual for a lot of you to read on a Monday but oh how I loved to go back to work this morning! I hardly could resist on getting back to my atelier this weekend but my Mom and my husband kept me busy on getting things done in the house and on relaxing. Although my thoughts where keeping me busy on what I could work on next.

I will show you what made me feel so good, for it where some of the last few things I finished on Friday.

First of all there is another box and for those of you who didn't read some of my older posts: I'm in love with old boxes but these days I'm running out of them. I don't know what's the matter with my "before" pictures lately but I keep loosing them...sorry for that!

Before, the box was in a dark brown. That's it. :)
And here is my redo of it.

I painted it white matt while the brush was almost dry. This made the original dark brown shine through which, in my opinion, gives it a neat finish. Afterwards I aged the paint using sandpaper on the edges.
On the inside I did a small upholstery with a striped fabric on which I sewed on an image I found on Karen's blog The Graphics Fairy. It is an old sign of a french corset label and I love the style of the letters!

On the outside I "Mode Podged" some the rest of the graphic onto the wood.
...done...


There was a lot of leftovers of the fabric the corset label image was printed on and I don't like to trash leftovers. So something I've seen somewhere on another blog (I can't remember which one, otherwise I sure would give credits to the girl!!) popped into my mind but I did not want to just copy it. I've seen small fabric squares with stamps on them and I thought it would be kind of neat to have them as tags.
So I ripped the fabric leftovers apart, stamped them and eyed them. This is a fast and easy way to make unique and cute little tags on your own. And this is how they look like:

So these are some of the last things I did on Friday and I hope being able to show you all of the other things I did. I might won't be able to explain all of the processes the items have been through because I'm afraid it will get boring but I will pick out some of the interesting ones.

Much love and... gotta love Mondays!!! :)

Dina

Preparing for Christmas Market

Never wanted to start a blog entry with "long time, no see" but I guess that's best to start today.
There was SO much going on in my life, good things but also not so good things.
A lot of health issues where bothering me over the last few months and I also had to recover from an absolutely awesome week with a friend of mine from Minnesota who visited me here in Liechtenstein.

Back to business, I was working on the second Rockabilly Collection (New Generation) which in my opinion will be a good one, came up with other new future collections AND did massive preparing for the christmas market.
I'm not sure yet if they will let me participate but I will know soon.

Do you remember me telling you about sledges I got at Mösi's?  I planned on showing you "before" and "after" and I remember taking pictures before I started on the remake but I accidentally can't find them anymore.
Quick description: the crib was a dark brown-red, just like the wooden handle which I also liked but I wanted to lighten it up a little. The Inside was black.

Now it looks like this:

Redone Puppet Sledge for Christmas Market

I took the crib off of the frame, sprayed it white matt, used Mod Podge to glue and finish the sheet of music around the handle (which was a real old sheet of music with a piece written for violin and piano on it) and adjusted three chains with rusty snowflakes and bells on the front.

I cut a greenish piece of fabric with little flowers to the size of the crib inside and used also Mod Podge (I love that stuff!! We just can't get it around here...) to glue and finish the inside of the crib.

Also I sewed a piece of white felt to go with it as a small blanket.

It didn't take me very long to do this and it was loads of fun!

The second sledge I did is a "real" one you even still could ride. Actually I thought of it to be just a decorative item but I made sure it still can be ridden (I used out door Mod Podge on this in case it will get wet).

Redone Sledge for Christmas Market

Redone Sledge for Christmas Market

The seat got grinded with sandpaper, cleaned and painted in cream white (on oil base). Then I used the rest of the music sheet and two graphics from Karen "The Graphics Fairy" and glued and finished it with three thin coats of outdoor Mode Podge. For a neat finish I glued a white lace band around the front and attached four rusty bells and a rusty snowflake.

Here also I sewed a felt blanket with another four vintage graphics on it to go with it for decoration or just for a cosy feeling. :)

Hope you like it! Wishing you a great and energetic week with love,

Dina

Old treasure and belated spring accessories

Some of you know that I tried to get in contact with a lovely friend of mine for a long time: Jessi from Coiffeur Phoenix in Glarus.
Right at the beginning of Mad Tea Parties she helped me out, selling some of my pieces at her coiffeur salon and she asked for more and new pieces in spring. I did a lot of new bags, purses and jewelry and we tried to get together since but it just did not happen.
Today we did it! I got a new haircut and Jessi got the new items to present at her salon. :) FINALLY!

Some weeks ago I was thinking about the first purse I ever did, remember? This one:

I thought it was kind of sad that I didn't own it anymore because I gave it to Jessi with the first load of purses to sell. I thought it would be wonderful to still have the first one I've ever made.
But when I arrived at coiffeur Phoenix I discovered that it was still there! I was so happy about this fact and I took it home with me and pinned it on the wall next to my sewing table so I can see it.
It is crappy and not well done compared to the ones I do now but it just makes me giggling every time I'm looking at it! ;)

Now Jessi got new stuff and here is a sneak peak. These are all available at coiffeur Phoenix in Glarus (Switzerland) but if you see a piece you'd like to have and you don't live that close to Glarus, just let me know and I'll see if I still got the material to redo it for you.

Love, Dina

"Katrina Van Tassel" Collection

Niiiiice weather outside! One little thunderstorm is chasing the other.
The last two days I feel like getting a lot of things done that have been neglected for so long...I didn't have much time to help my husband cleaning and keeping our household up to date and there where a lot of things I wanted to get out of the way.
So, I shifted furniture in our corridor, cleaned, decorated and threw a lot of things away that made it all crowded and just collected a lot of dust and "whool-mouses" as we say...I guess you call it dust bunnies or so. :)
It feels like coming home again in our corridor. Nice! And you actually can breath.

Finally I also got to tear down an old wooden wardrobe at my mom-in-law's. My pa-in-law once got it from a flea market and leached (is this how you say it?) it and did a nice redo of it. The wardrobe was standing in my husbands room when he was a kid and then got moved from one apartment to another and from one room to another and finally one side crashed.
My mom-in-law wanted to trash it. First I thought about another redo but since I'm not a carpenter I thought that I won't be able to do it the right way. Anyways we don't have that much of space in our house.
So I decided to take it apart all the way and to use the wood (which is just beautiful and old) to make signs out of it.
We did not know how massive the wardrobe actually was...but we figured soon.
Glad I had my husband on my side I discovered my personal limit of destructive urge.

After all of this I feel pretty comfortable to spend time at the computer now. And this enables me to get my newest collection out.
It's comforting to get out another collection of purses and jewelry between all of this rough work with chests and furniture, which I love dearly, but I guess I've just got two sides :)

Too many words... here's my Katrina Van Tassel Collection ("Monday", "Wednesday" and "Sunday") dedicated to the female character of Sleepy Hollow.

Love, Dina

"Katrina Van Tassel - Sunday"

"Katrina Van Tassel - Monday"

"Katrina Van Tassel - Wednesday"

Chest "Farewell"

It's beautiful weather out there. The sun is shining and a storm is rising beyond the mountain tops. It makes you feel like setting off for a journey.

That is why my newest lovey is named "Farewell"

I got the chest at Mösi's flea market...where else... and it looked like this before

before (top)

before (bottom)

before (inside)

Awesome wasn't it? Some of the edges I had to nail because they where lifting.
I tried to do justice to it by using very few paint and even leaving the bottom outside almost as it was.
The brush was nearly dry so just a small amount of distressing had to be done afterwards.

For the cover inside I did a little "upholstery" using a wooden sheet, padding and a cotton fabric. I printed a very cute image I got from "e-vint.com" on that says which flower you give for what reason. It got sewed on before it all got glued together.
For the inside bottom I just used a wooden sheet and the same cotton fabric.

The box did not close properly and the lock was broken so I decided to just sew four ribbons glue and nail them onto the bottom and the cover. Now they just can be tied together if the chest has to stay closed. 

For decoration I used a pretty french postcard I've found on Karen's blog (the Graphics Fairy) and a cameo with a base setting, attached to it a small butterfly.

Hope you like it!
It's for sale.

Love, Dina

Frog Box "Sweet Home"

Jewelry Box "Sweet Home"

Had a rough week so far but I was so into doing boxes that I had to finish this one today, even if I was exhausted.
Working on this jewelry box kind of fixed me and made me energetic again. I can't even tell you why I love this one so much. Maybe because of the awesome picture with the frog I found on Karen's blog (The Graphics Fairy) I get all nostalgic about? Because of the self mixed greenish egg shell paint? Because of the dotted light blue fabric? I just don't know. But I really DO love it! Maybe it makes it all together or it's just the rainy weather.
Snow covered mountaintops, rain, low temperatures, cloudy. Wonderful! :)


This is how it was looking before, when I got it at Mösi's flea and antique market. I guess it was an old cigar or tobacco box.
That's also what my mom said. She told me that her mom's aunt had boxes like this one at her restaurant. And they where filled with cigars.
I love when she's telling stories from back then!

before

First I thought about saving the picture on the inside of the cover but I could not remove it and I also didn't know anything about it's copyright so I decided to cover it up.

Cleaning and grinding as usual, then I mixed a greenish eggshell paint with white, green and blue furniture paint (acrylic).

Distressing and waxing also as usual.

For the cover inside I used a very light wooden sheet.

First I printed the frog image (from the Graphics Fairy) onto a light cotton fabric, sewed it onto a light blue fabric with white dots, glued lace trim and sewed shell buttons to it and then covered the wooden sheet with it.

Afterwards I glued it into the cover (the cover inside didn't get waxed).

There was "Club Sortiment" engraved on the outside of the cover. I caught that and colored it black and distressed it, glued a fabric flower and hanged a self made tag to it.

On the inside bottom I used a scrapbook sheet and glued it underneath the partitions.

Done. And proud! :))

After

Outside

Outside

By now I'm really exhausted and will try to catch some sleep... hope Abby won't find some flies to jump at the whole night again...

Love, Dina

P.s. Box is for sale