Gardening?

Good question :) Minimalistic I can say :)

Since last time I was writing about our messy garden some time passed. We had grey and rainy last week of April and few nice days this week.

Result: More weeds in some places - specially dandelions :), more leaves here and there plus few nice additions :)

Dom tried to have nice bean - homework from nursery - unfortunately no success... we tried twice...

But one day after eating watermelon, we decided to put few seeds into pot with compost - result:

The other day we were with Dom in Plants Nursery and back home with two new plants for our garden.

Dom's little bushy plant blooming nicely in yellow:

I'm curious how big this cutie will be :)

Still waiting for my tulips blooming...

Here another cute flowers - waiting for more pinky 'heads' :)

More pinky-purple flowers :)

For sure we can expect lots of strawberries again - they are spreading all over :) You can find one strong, blooming bush near front gate of our next door neighbours - I'm suspecting ants in work, cause our front gates are on the other side of the house :)

Kittens and new cardmaking technique

I'm always waiting for my crafty mags with some thrill - free gifts, new techniques to check etc :)

Last issue I received by post about week ago or so was packed with nice stuff, specially kittens stamps which my cat lovers friends will adore :)

Yesterday I decided to make a card to check new stamp and technique shown in my mag. Technique is called 'Spotlight effect'.

So I choose some nice papers, then stamped one of the stamps twice with brown ink.

Then cut out two pieces from one stamped image and colour them with pencils.

Then fixed coloured pieces on top of other image.

In next step I stamped sentiment, add bit of colour and layer both prepared pieces into green paper.

Then layered chosen papers on my card

added centrepiece, sentiment and extra butterfly for finish :)

What do you think about my 'kittens' card? 

                                 

Selling handmade

As you know already I'm a bit of crafter.

Some of my creations are made as gifts, but I also have online shop to sell some of it ( link: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TobisiasLilThing?ref=hdr_shop_menu ).

Selling handmade products is trendy but not easy specially if we talking about jewellery.

I'm playing with jewellery making few years - before I opened my shop on Etsy, I was making most of my pieces for myself or my Mum or my friends.

One year my next door neighbour asked me for bracelet for herself after I gave her little girl one of my first children bracelets - Amy's wrist was my sizer for them :), also made another bracelet for Amy, Amy's cousin and her Nana  - so that was nice first custom order :)
After that I sold few pieces to Mums, which I met when walking for toddler groups with Dom.

I was making more and more, finally in 2014 I opened my little shop - Etsy is huge thing with millions sellers and buyers, so selling is not easy-peasy. I'm happy every time I sell something, and it doesn't matter sale is made via my Etsy shop, Facebook or order from Mum I met at nursery :)

From time to time I re-modelling pieces I made before or just recycling them cause they are totally out to date. Last time: yesterday. I checked all I made and decided which going for total recycling and which I should update a bit. Still few bits left to work with, but I can show you what I've already did :)

Pieces with little changes - just new findings and bit of re-modelling...

Only new pins :)

New pin and new shape for pendant piece :)

New pins and few new beads :)

Totally new pieces with usage of recycled chains from old pieces:

Which way to go??? ;)

Remember seaside Summer...

I think I'll send one of necklaces to my Mum as her birthday gift :) Still not decided which one tho... :)

One of other things I did yesterday was adding Special Monthly Sale section to  my shop - want to sell all my silver-plated pieces as soon as possible, to have a chance to focus on copper jewellery I started to make some time ago ( https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TobisiasLilThing?ref=hdr_shop_menu&section_id=19038499 ), also decided to lower prices for my cards. I'm thinking about putting some of cards into sets... Maybe that can be a good idea for selling them.

Ah, stop with this gibberish :) Wish you all good day with lots of sun!!!

Giraffe and other masterpieces :)

As we suspected weather changed for worse with start of weekend...
And believe it or not - today's weather is total nightmare - sun, rain, snow plus nasty wind, and again sun, rain, snow and.... over and over again... feel tired...

But to the point of today's writing :) Last Saturday we were on early shopping before I went to hairdresser :) We back home with wooden giraffe for Dom - he choose it :)

When I was away to deal with my hair, Dom was painting his giraffe and his Daddy taking pics of creation process.

Hmmmm, which colour now???

Look Daddy!!! I painted my hand :)

Little giraffe :)

Dom was in artistic mood during weekend and he didn't finished with his painting on wooden giraffe, oh no :)

Here his new pieces:

Dog? Cat? Hmmmm, what animal is it?

Kite project?

I think it is a bike :) 

From other things, we tried giant couscous, and we like it :) I used first time silicon little cakes moulds - result was funny, but more about this maybe some other time :) 

That's all for today peeps! Have a nice day!!!

Meet Matthew

Today I want you to meet one of just few gentlemen in Handmade Movement Team - Matthew.

Matthew is from Florida, USA and is proper artistic soul :) His domain is collage - postcard size.

Interested?

Here what he wrote about himself in his Etsy profile: ' The Material Whirl project got its start several years ago, when I began following the one-per-day websites of various artists. Since the beginning of 2010, I have made several hundred postcard-sized collages ( though far from one per day), all from various types of recycled paper and cardboard, and have been listing them, one by one, here on Etsy...'

Want to know more? Read Matt's profile: https://www.etsy.com/uk/people/FascinatingFiberz

Most of Matthew's art works you can find on his blog: http://thematerialwhirl.wordpress.com

This amazing collage you can find on 2016 TwitterArtExhibit in New York

You can find lots of interesting things in his Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MaterialWhirlCollage

My faves from Matt's shop:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/177472833/dalmatian-spots-you-blow-me-away-blank?ref=shop_home_listings

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/92786217/paper-collage-art-four-private-acres?ref=shop_home_listings

If you are interested in Royalty you can find some mags in Matthew's shop, eg:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/290098725/royalty-monthly-magazine-vol-8-no-5?ref=shop_home_listings

Matthew is very nice person and one from few who was in our team from almost its beginning, if I'm not wrong :)

Bit of this, bit of that...

Another week almost gone...

We had beautiful weather... forecast for weekend isn't good unfortunately... Clouds are coming already...

We were in the park, in the port and on the beach with Dom during this week :) We bought new flowers for our garden and plant them, now we're waiting for them blooming :)

I checked another new recipe from old cooking mag this week:

Forgive me for no pics of our plates, but they were empty very fast :)

Below you can admire 'Super Potato'

Dom made him at nursery today :) Lovely creature - don't you think?

This card I made yesterday - I'm planning to send it to my Dad for his Namesday next month.

Today I received papercraft mag I'm subscribing - lovely stamp set added as a free gift - just cannot wait to use it :) Perfect for cat lovers :)

Dom's Kingdom :)

We finally dealt with stubborn roller blind in Dom's room... what a fight!!!

You should see us - almost defeated, with murder in our eyes :) But we won this crazy fight, with cutting, fitting and testing :)

So... if you dare

We are opening gate to Dom's Castle :)

Be aware of  some vicious creatures!!!

Tigress is keeping Dom's bed warm :)

Few of Dom's masterpieces :)

Nice posters from https://www.etsy.com/shop/HayahDesigns and bunting made by Mum :)

Dom's dragon standing on guard of Dom's books :)

Crazy fly made by Dom from his Trio blocks :)

Currently fave puzzles ( but why Mum or Dad should put them together). Hihihi!

Dom likes his room and spend lots of time in there, we are reading books together and playing with his cars making lots of crashes and laughing a lot there.