Secret Santa wants to know...

... who is an inspiration for you...

Flickr inspires meBlogs inspire me... here are a few I love...

oh hello friend
something's hiding in here The small object
studio violet
Tokyobunny
Ashley Goldberg
Japanese craftbooks

(via Lisa Tilse from TheRedThread)MadonnaAyala bar

The many creative souls at the European Streetteam.My sister.Li Edelkoort

Free spirits, those who follow their own ways,
but with respect for other people.
(found via Flickr: D Sharon Pruitt ) Dalai Lama

Mother Theresa

Nature, textures, shapes,...
(and it has a sense of humor too)

David Bowie

John Galliano

Gabriel Garcia-Marquez

My mom (via designsoftheheart on Etsy)Tamar Mogendorff

Ann Wood
Look at these fantastic castles here.Martha Stewart

My family

Gustav Klimt
My GrandmotherFrida KahloSanna Annuka (Finnish designer)My husband

(via icehousecrafts on Etsy)

Secret Santa is a game played by the European Streetteam on Etsy. The idea behind the Secret Santa is that you make something for a teammember and also receive a gift yourself.

Since I try to organise the game for our team, I get a lovely reward: reading all the questionnaires and knowing all the teammember's secrets! :)
What I also know is that lots of people of the team would like to read them all too... That's why I share part of the answers on the questions in my blog. And even though it's anonymous, it's still fun to read what other people wrote... Hope you enjoyed to have a peek in our team.

My creative space

Last week I fired some buttons for my friend Ira Grant. She wanted BIG buttons to use on her bags. I posted a picture on Flickr and from the comments it seemed that lots of people liked them and told me to list some in my shop.
I don't have any spare big big buttons left as I sent them all to Ira but I have some smaller ones that I'm preparing to list soon. I have been hesitant to list them in my shop though as it seems like I've got so much different stuff in there. But I like making the buttons so I'll list them to see how they go. I hope it will not make my shop look too cluttered!
Someone suggested to me to split up my shops in Artmind, Artmind Jewellery and Artmind Supplies but I thought that was the silliest idea ever! Thank you cheeky one! :)
I'll also be making some more buttons today with porcelain clay and I'll be experimenting with textures as well. It's grey and rainy and the perfect day to spent inside with a hot cup of herbal tea!

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

The secret project... work in progress

The secret project goes on... I had a secret chat with my partner last friday about the samples I sent her. We decided on the things that we will use for sure. Some designs will need some more tweaking so I know what to do. Now my partner can play too and she'll be busy trying out a few things here and there. I can't wait to see pictures of her first trials.
In the mean time I would like to share these pictures with you. It is one of the designs that we're not sure about yet. I found a little seacreature while going trough my travel stuff from over the years and I thought it looked great. So I went to work and made these whithout discussing it with my partner first. So sometimes she get's surprises too and I'm sure she'll treat me the same way! LOL :)
I'll be producing what we have decided on, fire it and sent it off so she can make the final product, take pictures and list it. All creations will be listed in her shop. We don't have an official launch date yet so it will show up whenever it is ready...

To know the idea behind the secret project, go read the first blogpost here or click on the label 'the secret project' to see all the posts about it.
Can't wait to receive your guesses but think about it carefully 'cause you can only guess once! :)
You can send your guess to mitsy@artmind.eu and can not change your guess so think about it carefully...

Flickr Favorites

1. corales macro, 2. felted, 3. for the colours, 4. blubber

Yesterday I have been working a lot with porcelain clay. It will be utter whiteness when fired.
I'll be combining part of yhe things I made with red so that's were this weeks inspriration came from. Red & white pop! If it are stripes or dots, I think it's a magic combination.

Make sure to check out last week's favorite mosaic.

If you like to play this week, make your mosaic and add a link to your blogpost (NOT your blog please) or Flickr in Mister Linky (click on the button below and fill in your name with the link to your blogpost or Flickr picture).
I'll pop over to have a look at yours. Can't wait to see your creations and find new favorites! :)

Oops, looks like Mister Linky is being naughty again. If you can't see a place to link, please come back later to link it.

We don't need no computers...

we don't need no computers

image by Tussenpozen

I spent too much time behind my laptop the past weekend that I thought a computerfree day was in order. Will feel great to spent some time in my studio, crochet, read, bake or perhaps I will do absolutely nothing! Are you jealous? :)

How to make a special giftbox?

I have to admit: this is a tutorial that involves a lot of work. I recycled a pre-made box to reduce the amount of work. But you can also used recycled cardbord and assemble the box yourself of course.
Because these boxes take so much time to make, I usually only make them for very special occasions or people. As far as I know, all of them have kept the box the gift came in. To use every day or sometimes. I just love the thought of something handmade being cherised.

Here is what you need:
Handmade paper, thin cardboard, PVA glue, box, pencil, eraser, scissors,

glue brush, scoring tool, cutting knife, doublesided tape, thick transparant plastic, ruler, something small but fun to put inside the boxHold the side of the lid on the edge of the paper and draw a thin line.
Do this for 2 sides.

Place the lid against the thin line again and put the box down. Trace the bottom of the box on the paper.

Add the same lines on the other two sides.
It should look like this now.

Cut out along the lines.

Take the lid and put the thing you want in there on the inside
and draw a border around it.

Cut out the border with a cutting knife.

Put glue on the paper.

Place the lid on top of the paper.

Fold the paper around the lid.

Press the paper with a scoring tool closely to the edge of the lid.

Cut the middle part with a cutting knife so that
you will be able to fold over the paper to all sides.

Put glue on the sides and fold over the paper.

The lid should look like this now.
Let it dry for a bit.

Do the same with the bottom of the box.

Now cut a piece of sturdy transparant plastic to put over the hole in the lid.

Put doublesided tape along the edge of the hole.

Place the plastic on top of the doublesided tape.

Now we will make a box for the finding you want to put in there. Use the left over cardboard you cut out as a mould and depending on
how thick your finding is, you add some flaps to it.

Score the lines with a scoring tool so that it's easier to fold over.

Put glue on the cardbord.

Glue it onto the paper and cut it out.

Attach some tape to the edges to make a box.

Put doublesided tape on the outside flaps.

sorry for the very bad picture...

Put the finding inside the box.

Press the box onto the inside of the lid.

The inside of the lid looks dreadful so we'll put some paper of that too. Place the lid over a piece of paper and cut about 1cm around.

Then cut some lines toward the middle of the tiny box inside the lid.

Put glue on the inside of the lid.

Oops, I forgot to cut away the corners which makes it harder to glue,
so I do it quickly while glueing!
Press the paper firmly onto the inside of the lid.

That looks better already.

Ready! :)This mighty cute sales fairy will go into the box.

I made this sales fairy especially for the European Streetteam's new game. This fairy will sprinkle her fairy sales dust in Turkey as StarOfTheEast was able to catch her.
I caught this fairy & she already worked her magic! :)
Read more on the Sales Fairy game on the Handmade blog of the European Streetteam.

And while I was making boxes, I made some more for future gifts.