Happy production

I made a big batch of Happy girls for the Fashion Museum in Hasselt. They have a jar of them in the museum shop and every time when there's a new exhibition I go and fill up the pot. Most of the time, all happy colors have dissapeared so I made more of those this time. It's a happy job to do. :)

Organize your art

When I came across the work of Swiss artist and comedian Ursus Wehrli I got instant happy. His 'tidy up art' is funny and clever and it reminds me a bit of I myself try to organise things sometimes...

For those who know me a bit better, they know that I'm very color sensitive. V.E.R.Y.
And even though I can be very messy, I love everything organised, lined up or piled up neatly.
You can call me freaky but I tend to organise by color: white, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green, black. And it always makes me happy to see a lovely rainbow of color whenever I finish. Even when there are only 3 or 4 colors, they will always be put in the same color order.
I think it makes life happier. I actually applied Ursus technique to my happy field. :)

Don't you get instantly happy from that? I do!

Talk about organised, my partner and I sometimes discuss how much easier it would be to shop by alphabet. Since I don't do the shopping around here, I make lists. I try to make the list in that way that my partner can go into the shop and grab everything as he goes. But it would be supercool if we could just make our list in a spreadsheet, sort it by alphabet and go to the Alphabet-shop. :)

Preparing

Yesterday, I prepped things to take to the Fashion museum at the end of this week. All of these things will be sold in the museum shop and the happy girls are a big time favorite there so I made loads of 'em.
Thank you for voting on the tags. I love the lime a lot but since these will be put up for sale, I thought a more neutral one would fit better so I went with what most people said: hemp twine.
And then I had to come up with packaging for the buttons. I glazed 'em all transparant and thought that a kraftpaper packaging would look nice.
I cut out A4 sized kraftpaper and printed a tekst on them & drew a frame around it. The tekst says 'LACE' (porcelain) as the buttons do look a bit like lace but they are pretty porcelain...And now I'll have to glaze a whole batch of colorful buttons so that I can fire the kiln & deliver the goodies soon.

A beautiful slice of hope...

About a year ago, Baa from Baahar put lots of work and effort in getting the European Streetteam's charity shop rolling. It's called Europe for Charity and it's filled with items donated by people from all over Europe. There is a great variety in work to be found there and I would like to invite you to take a peek in the the charity shop if you feel like shopping.

The profit from the shop is donated to 2 causes so far: one is Architecture for Humanity for their rebuilding work in Pakistan and Haiti and the other cause is 'BlinkNow Foundation' to support their Kopila Valley Children's Home and School.

I'd like to invite you to look at a video of a very inspiring, young girl named Maggie. She decided that she could change things and still does...

Maggie Doyne — Why the human family can do better from The Do Lectures on Vimeo.

Not only am I dearly in love with Nepal and the Himalayas, but also the happy girls were so taken by her project, that we decided to spread the love...

Normally I don't sell the happy girls in my Etsy shop as they are part of my branding. But I do know that people love 'em so I made 12 packs of 7 happy girls in rainbow colours available to support Kopila Valley's Home and School.They are for sale here and each sale will go directly to Maggie's BlinkNow-foundation. The happy girls can't wait to fly off to new homes so that they can support the Nepali orphans and send 'em to school.

Happy world

We're up to something.
More news sometime next week...

How to make a happy girl?

Happy girls are an ArtMind trademark. From the beginning I added them to my orders. They looked a bit different then as I used to have a red avatar so I send off red happy girls. I had been told that my avatar looked a lot like Target's and that this could cause trouble. I decided to change it to lime which happens to be my favorite color. And since then, every order is accompagnied by a lime happy girl.
The world is a happier place with happy girls so I decided to share a tutorial on how to make 'em.

Here is what you need:
A cutting mat, a cutting knife, a ruler, hemp thread,
3mm thick felt, doublesided tape (2cm),
wooden bead (12mm), scissors and a thin black liner.

Put doublesided tape (2cm) on the felt.
Cut with a liner just below the doublesided tape.
Cut a piece of the hemp thread 7cm or 3 inch long.
Cut a piece of hemp thread 20cm or 8inch long.
Tie knots on the ends of the threads.
These are the hands and feet.
Fold the larger hemp thread in half and
slip the wooden bead over the end.
Tie a knot about 1cm or half an inch from the top.
Cut the felt in the shape of a dress:
more or less 1cm or half an inch on the top and going wider on the bottom.
Cut a second piece of the dress.
Remove the doublesided tape.
Place the body and arms on top of the dress.
Place the second piece of the dress on top of the other piece of felt.
Draw a happy face. :)
And if you're in a productive mood,
you can make a mountain of happy girls.

In case you are a returning customer in my shop and prefer another color of happy girl when ordering, please don't hesitate to specify the preferred color. :)
Orders placed for my collaborative work with Anna (LilaRubyKing) receive an olive colored happy girl.

Sunday Market

I've had a few people asking me what I usually put in the goodie bags that I give away on fairs. It mainly depends on what I have ready or if I can come up with a fun idea. This time, it contained 2 plastic bags to make something.
One bag had all the ingredients to make a happy girl, the other had all the ingredients to pimp a feeling postcard. I also asked people to send me a pimped card and I will give a happy package to the most fun, unique and original pimped feeling postcard. I'll leave about a month for people to pimp it and will show 'em on my blog so you can help me pick a winner. :)
I have 3 goodie bags left so if you want one, leave a comment in this post and I'll pick 3 peeps to send it to on Friday.

Later on, I'll post a tutorial on how to make a happy girl so stay tuned for that! :)

Can you believe I didn't even take a picture of my own stand at the Sunday Market?
And there were so many Etsy stands that I didn't even get around photographing them all.

Here's the few that I did right before the market started...

Paperfection, Momfetti, Mamutopia, Tizzalicious, FleurFatale and L'AccentNou

L'indecise, ViltalaKim, BabongoHome and BroochfromMaris

A glimpse of the meeting in the evening. On the left you see Swiedebie, Martice and Ballee. On the right in the back with camera, Huismus, FleurFatale, Vadjutka and P8accesoiries

Martice and Ballee.
A BIG and WARM thank you to Marta for making this experience so unforgetable.
She was the perfect boothbuddy and organised lots
of stuff to get so many Etsy-peeps together.
Marta, you're a GEM!

Matt from Etsy in motion.
He just could not stand still as he's full of energy and enthusiasm!
Thanks so much for coming to visit and making us even more Etsy-crazy! :)

And a big thank you to everyone who visited my stand and supported my work.
I loved meeting you all & had a fab time in Amsterdam! Till next time! :)

My creative space

Remember I was making cards last week? While making them, I came up with a new design...

I cut out the pieces.They look a bit weird like this.

This looks better already.

No party without happy people.

Today, I will take pictures of this card and put it in the shop.

These designs are Dutch and I will take 'em to the fairs with me.

Want to show you creative space? Hop over to Kootoyoo's to play! It's fun! :)