Stiel en Stijl

image by Elza D.

It's only a month away and it's going to be magnificent.
Still have lots of work to do.
Lots.
But I'll take it as it comes as I know I can't execute all the things that are in my head so I'll be there with what's done. And I'll bring Anna from AnnaRubyKing/LilaRubyKing along to share a table with, so that's a double reason to mark your calenders right now.
We'd love you to come say 'hello' to us, so see you there? :)

PS: Can you spot my puppy in the tree?

Flickr Favorites

1. 3huizen, 2. Bake Sale For A2A: Cookie Assortment, 3. HomeMade-free-printable_finishedjarsgroup, 4. Trader Joe's Bags Continued

With the holiday season in sight, I thought I'd browse Flickr for some packaging inspiration. There is so much fun stuff there that it's hard to include only 4 images. I can easily get lost for an hour or more browsing the packaging groups. :)

Meesterlijk

I wanted to share the few pictures I took at the living fair last week. After the workshop I didn't take much time to look around & I really should have as the 'Meesterlijk'-hall seemed a great place to get creative impulses and inspiration. Bummer! Will have to go back next year I suppose. But the few stands I did visit are really worth mentioning so check out their sites if you are attracted by what you see. :) All the links are below the images.

Feetbag

This company is comitted to the preservation of the leather trade in the Netherlands and stimulates the development of this field. Quirky and fun leather objects!

Anne Vandenheuvel

Beautiful versatile textile art: smashing colorcombo's, felt mosaics, wall decoration and care wear.

Bouwjaar 63
Fun felt items in fun happy colors.

Instincts

This stand really attracted by the minimalistic touch and interior. I loved how all was set up & showed. And apparently she has an Etsy-shop too!

Penduka
Image by Penduka

Penduka provides work to women in Namibia. This way the women and their families have an income and the downwards spiral of poverty can be broken. Their embroidery tells a story using typical imagery of the ethnic groups these women originate from. The women embroider their own life stories, centuries-old, orally transmitted stories, or any story that you would like to be told.

Femke van Gemert

I was literally drawn to this stand. I simply couldn't resist taking a closer look at the textures of this woven wall art. Femke surely knows how to impress with all the different kind of fabrics woven into a new piece. Beautiful!

From Africa with love

With passion from Africa and design, this new gallery in Amsterdam sells work of Africa's most talented designers. They have work of Skinny laMinx too! I love the wobbly ceramics dinnerware!

Don't you love the tiny branches used to hang the jewellery?
It looks so clean and brilliant!Corina Rietveld
How clever are these embroidered silver rings? Love 'em!

There were approximately 100 stands in this hall and I only saw a fraction of them. If you are interested in seeing more, there are links to all the designers on the webpage of Meesterlijk.
And today, 101 woonideeën also published a post on Meesterlijk. :)

Pendants North Story

The pendants of North Story arrived in our shops (ArtMind/AnnaRubyKing) .
Go stalk 'em if you like. :)

Hello Etsy - part 6

This is the last post in the series about the 'Hello Etsy' conference in Berlin. And I must say 'last but not least'! I think this might have been my very favorite session of the entire weekend.

Stealthisprocess

Project management is something I'm not very good at and I get disctracted just too much by ideas, impulsive actions and in general being very chaotic when it comes to making deccissions on what to do first. So there are days that I feel I have nothing accomplished at the end of the day and then my head starts spinning and coming up with all sorts of 'tasks' that just don't find a place. Also defined as 'unfocussed'. This session gave me an insight on how I could change that and up until now, it has helped me to get more organised.

Project Managment for indie businesses / Eleanor Mayrhofer

from Hello Etsy on Vimeo.

The above video is quite long but it's definately worth watching & get inspired by.
One specific sentence from this session pops up in my little notebook: 'there is only right now, live for today' Which seems a bit contradictionary with all the setting goals and planning in there but in the end, that's what it's all about: planning to find and give your life more balance.

Thanks Eleanor for sharing your process and letting us steal it! :)

Early bird angel

I'm preparing a bit for the holiday season and I have not forgotten the hectic times last year. It became a bit of a nightmare in the end as postal wise, things weren't quite going as planned. Apparently, normal delivery times did not apply and I was ready to pull out my hair every time a customer inquired why their order hadn't arrived yet.
As soon as a package leaves my hands, it's out of my control and after a few e-mails, I ran out of things to say and ended up feeling sad because the postal services didn't co-operate the way they usually do.
So this year I thought of a way that might encourage people to place their order early and that hopefully can avoid me being bold at the end of the holiday season. :)
Here's the plan...
If you place your order before the 25th of November, which is the last day that I can garantuee arrival before X-mas, you'll be getting a lovely extra surprise...

So I've been cutting a bit of felt...... and some paper.And I made some bodies too.And after assembling them, you get...
Happy angels! :) They are slightly bigger then the happy girls & quite ready to join you for some holiday fun!

Every on line order will get a happy angel added to their package. The only thing you have to do to get this extra surprise is to order before the 25th of November.
That's not really hard is it? You'll have an excuse to go shopping early! :)

Flickr Favorites

1. Colorful Clothes, 2. 253/365 no fear,

3. call for SUMMER!, 4. Colorful Clothes

It's the first Tuesday of the month so we play by theme if you like.
This week I thought it would be fun to do have an explosion of color. The brightness of colors makes me happy! I love it when people wear happy colors and I really should add a bit more color to my wardrobe too. I always feel that colorful clothing draws too much attention so that's why I rather dress neutral which is totally silly of course...
Do you like to dress colorful?