Merry go round

Every last friday of the month, I jump on the 'Merry go round'. What is the Merry go round exactly? Each month, a group of craftswomen from around the world join together and give their reponses to the same question/challenge. Since I forgot to post last Friday, I post the first Friday of this month! :)

This month's topic is "write a simple tutorial on anything - craft related or not"
Oops, a tutorial? That's been a while hey!
To be quite honest, time has not been on my side to make 'em as often as I used too.
And even for this one, it is nothing really spectacular as I kind of forgot about this post and I got reminded on Tuesday evening. So on wednesday before leaving to Holland I decided to quickly snap a few pics and edit them later. They didn't turn out really well so you'll have to forgive me for the bad quality I'm afraid.

How to make a quick & fun packaging idea?

What do you need?
Brads, handmade paper, paper, punch, water, needle, brown paper bags and a brush.

Punch out a flower.Take a piece of handmade paper and apply with a brush some water along a ruler.
The water makes it easier to tear the paper and you get the lovely handmade look afterwards.
Fold it over on the paper bag, add the flower and punch a hole with a needle.
Then use the brad to close it.
Pretty easy and fun packaging.

Want to know what tutorials the other Merriers posted? Hop over to their blogs.
Please bear in mind that the members will be posting at different times of the day, depending on which world time-zone they are in :)

Laura at Blue Terracotta
Monika at Red2White
Ruth at Birdland Creations
Kim at Vilt a la Kim
Sara at Crafts of Texture
Samantha at Vintage is for lovers
Mariana at Florcita
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent
Jen at Painted Fish Studio
Bethany at Dirksen Dabbles

Mini-Etsy-Labs at 101 woonideeën

image by 101 woonideeën

Later today I'll be heading off to the Netherlands. I'll be spending a few days at Marta's place and hang out at the Woonbeurs (Living fair). It's a big, big, big interior design fair in Amsterdam and I'm quite happy to snoop around there.

Marta asked me if I could give a small Etsy lab there & I am thrilled to participate. So on thursday I'll be making moss terrariums at the stand of 101 woonideeën from 1PM till 3PM.

image by Dutchhandmade

And tomorrow evening I'll be at the koopavond (buying night) at the Etsy's pop up shop in Leiden called 'Etsy Open - (be) zoek de makers'. (Etsy open - visit the artists)
It will be the last few days the shop will be open & lots of stuff has sold already so if you are in the area and want to take a last peek: hurry up! :)

Flickr Favorites

1. Too weird? - Explored!, 2. Untitled, 3. leisure time., 4. Untitled

It looks a bit grey in here today hey? I love the movement in the pictures. It makes 'em very vivid so they don't need color really.
And I often wonder how long is now? Don't you?

Hello Etsy - part 5

One of the coolest rooms I've ever been in: the control room at Ework in Berlin. It is Germany’s oldest preserved commercial power plant, built in 1885. You can read more of it's history here if you like.

Hello Etsy - part 4

Besides all the inspiring talks at 'Hello Etsy', I also made another Marimekko creation at the sewing station on my lunch break. Really strange as dreamed about making it on sunday morning so I just had to go back and do it.
As I'm a beginner sewer, of course I don't do complicated and everyone can make it.
I cut 4 strips of different kind of happy Marrimekko fabric about 25cm wide (10 inches) and then I cut random pieces horizontally. I mixed 'em all up and sewed the pieces back together horizontally. I made sure I had 2 the same lengths and then I placed 'em right sides on top of each other and sewed it together. When that was done, I reversed it and it was nearly ready. Since there was no ironing board present, I decided to finish it at home by stitching all the way alongside the edge. It is already too cold to wear this pretty cotton scarf now here but I'm sure I'll enjoy wearing it next spring. If the above instructions weren't clear enough, check out some of the tutorials I found via Google. Apparently this is not a very original idea that came into my dream, it's been done many times before so no need for me to make a tutorial!! LOL :)

Hello Etsy - part 3

Listening to all those sessions does make a person hungry. But no despair, Etsy took really good care of that. The catering at the conference was simply sublime.
And if you had finished lunch, there was an opportunity to do some creative stuff. I sewed 2 lovely pillows from beautiful Marimekko fabrics. It was superfun to do something with my hands for a change. Listening and being quiet can make me restless especially in such a creative boosting environment. :)
Here's Judit sewing a bag with the help of Minna. You could also pass by the Etsy stand to get more information! Hey look, there's sweet Marta! *waves*
At the Burda stand you could doodle on a white sheet with fabric markers or sew-doodle with yarn. Fun! :)
And in the afternoon, the caterers served cake! YAY! Lots of them and so many different ones to choose from.
And for those that could resist the cake, there was fruit! Yum too!
I wanted to post a livestream of Hessam Lavi today who did a talk on 'building a search engine small business' but I couldn't find it yet. I found this session extremely helpful as I never even looked at SEO. Hessam Lavi is a great speaker who really thought about the content of his session and connected with the audience. When there were questions, he always repeated 'em which I found great as sometimes they got lost in space. Hessam Lavi also asked people to submit their SEO questions beforehand and answered to them here. So you can check that out too if you're interested to read more.
Happy weekend everyone! :)

Hello Etsy - part 2

To be quite honest, the schedule at 'Hello Etsy' was quite overwhelming! So many interesting sessions going on that it was hard to chose which one to go to. Thank goodness they livestreamed the entire event so that it's still possible to see some of the sessions from your couch at home.
I'll be sharing a few of my favorite sessions on my blog. One of them is called 'Branding on a shoestring' by Lisa Rodwell from Moo. It is quite amazing that this company who was just a teeny tiny printing company a few years ago, grew from 'pleasure cards' to the giant 'Moo' all through branding and consistency. One sentence of this session summed it all up for me: 'celebrate your brand' YAY! That is exactly what they do at Moo! The enthusiasm they show of their product makes up half of the branding if not more.

Conversation starters were spread all over the place

If you subscribed for the 'Hello Etsy' conference in Berlin, you had the opportunity to order a set of free business cards through Moo. I've never had any so I ordered em and put on the new designs of our collaboration work. I love the cards!The feel of the cards is so lovely and I love the size too! I think I prefer these to the mini cards they usually have.

And Moo made sure we were using the cards righ away as they let us play a networking game. You had to collect 6 stickers of a different craft. As you can see below, everyone was frantically swapping stickers and business cards! It really worked!And when you had a full card, you could redeem it by going to the Moo-stand and pick a coupon code for some free Moo stuff! :)I get a free business card holder! Yay! I think I should order some more Moo's now.

And if you're really quick, they have a special offer until the 25th of September with a coupon for 25% off! :)Below you will find the live stream session on branding! Enjoy! :)

etsy on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free