Fabric bowl with coasters

Now when the Christmas and birthday rush is over I can start blogging some of the things I made this year.

My parents have just redecorated their livingroom and my mother wanted something to match the new walls and furniture. So for her birthday she got a bowl with matching coasters in black and golden beige.

Cork board with a twist

My collection of old tapestries has grown slow but steadily. They are all different and come from different places but they all have one thing in common, they were framed. I really need to start using these frames for something soon or they will take over the house.
For me, nothing triggers my imagination more than having too much to do. So that a new use for some of these frames came to me during Christmas perorations was no surprise.

After a trip to my local second hand store I ended up with a gigantic cork board that was only god for shopping into smaller pieces. I sew parts of fabric together and decorated with lace before attaching it to the cork board with staples.

The frame was sprayed with sort of a brushed gold color before I put everything together
I also made my own push pins by gluing beads on top of draw pins.

    

This weeks Epla favorites

1:  Serveringsfat fra Bambi

2: Bestemorteppe fra En fra Janet

3: Engel fra Trollsmed

4: Hjerte fra Galleri hjertebilder

5: Håndveske fra Vilmarksdottir

6: Brødrister fra Retro

Baby blanket

A very good friend of mine is expecting his first child. And because of that I decided to sew a baby blanket.  Sadly flannel isn’t a type of fabric I have a lot of laying around, so I had to make the best of the few pieces I had.  When it was finished it didn’t really look like a boys blanket so I decided to give it to the parents to be a little early so that I would have time to make them something else if they didn’t like it. Luckily they did :)

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Personalized pillow

This pillow was made to order for my dear aunt. She wanted a pillow that would match the colors in her living room and had all the grandchildren on it.
The picture of the kids had a rather messy background so I had to play around in photoshop with it, before printing it on cotton sheets. To help me find the right color I had a picture of the living room and my own memory. I’ll find out if I succeeded when I go to her house for dinner on Christmas day. But so far she didn’t say anything and I see that as a good sign… :-)

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This weeks Epla favorites

Starting top left:

NoMoreHeartBreake fra MekitaNaku
Laptop sleeve "phonebook" from By KaireK
Nostalgi glassmykke from by Lena Leth
Smykkeskål i dongeri og silfe from Tavis Twist
Titan øreheng "sol" from Tottos smykkeverksted
Pute slik som hos bestemor from Drømmehjørnet

Christmas bulbs

Now that we are half way through the advent period there have finally been some Christmas activities in my house as well.  As usual all the light bulbs run out at the same time, and while I was running around changing them all I started thinking about how their shape reminded me of Christmas bulbs and that they deserved a new life.  So I cut out some Christmas images, glued them on, sealed the surface , painted the metal part and sprinkled on some glitter.  

If you want to make your own bulbs you can find the tutorial here.
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This weeks Epla favourites

Some Epla shop owners decided to make their own weekly list of their favorite Epla products.  I thought that was such a good idea that I’ve decided to join in.  But making the list wasn’t as easy as I thought because there are so many beautiful things to choose from. But I finally managed to pick some. Pleas enjoy :)

1: Frøken Gry fra Iskrem

2: Øredobber fra Trumpery

3: 60-talls kurv fra Gnom

4: Julebukk fra Blåbær

5: Peysa fra DaMa

6: Hund fra Gyldenlakk designteam

7: Sminkepung fra KariM

8: Retro vase fra Retro igjen

9: "Itti bitty kitty purse" fra Portemone

10: "I'm doing fine..." fra Eplamarkedet

11: Votter fra Bare Lene

12: Halssmykke fra Unika

My latest domino pendants

Since today is the first Sunday of advent the appropriate thing to do would be to have a post to mark the occasions. But as I have mentioned before I’m not really a Christmas person so instead I’m adding my latest domino pendants. They have all been added to my Epla store and a few are already sold (which makes is so rewarding to make new ones :)

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A new scarf

I’ve made another scarf and like the first one it’s got a pompom border and it’s made of different cotton squares. But these squares are a lot smaller then on the first one and the colors are blue, turquoise and green.  It’s for sale at my Epla shop and it’s also been chosen as a Christmas gift suggestion “for her”

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Christmas fabric bowls

I am defiantly not a Christmas person, especially not the years my daughter is celebrating with her dad. This is one of those years which mean that only a minimum of Christmas decorations will see the light of day in this house.  But the same will not be said for my Epla shop and the first products to start the festive season are these Christmas patterned fabric bowls.

My favorite

This is sold

My second favourite

Two versions of the snowman pattern.

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Cartoon coin purses

I’m probably not the only one that has seen the small coin purses made of old milk cartons. A while ago I decided to make my own version of these.

I laminated some old cartoons, cut, sew, folded, added a pushbutton and viola these purses were born. They have two departments and room for both coins and cards.

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Tapestry pillow

Yet again a pillow made of tapestry and leftovers has been born in my house. This one reminds a lot of my previous, except for the color scheme. The tapestry I picked up at my local second hand store a long time ago.

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Secondhand bargin

Yesterday I visited my local secondhand shop and the first thing I saw when I entered was this beautiful thing. I have wanted one for ages, but they have either been tiny or extremely expensive.

But yesterday it was finally my turn and this fantastic sewing box got to be mine for only 150 kr (about $25/£15) It’s a bit worn on top, but that’s nothing a little bit of paint won’t fix :)

Lampshade bowl no 2

Finally the lampshade bowl no 2 of 4 is finished. The yarn is sort of a metallic brushed gold color, but even though it looks good it was not right for this project. It kept entangling which both resulted in me spending twice the amount of time and yarn to get it finished.

Scaf in blue and green

I may not look like it, but I do actually work out and when I do i have a clear view to a quilt shop across the street. But it closes quite early so I have not had a chance to visit it yet. But last week it was a school holiday and I had a couple of days of work so I decided to stop by. The first things I see are some precut pieces that were just begging me to become a scarf. So when the shop owner gave me an offer I could not refuse I decided to grant their wish :)
At first I thought about lining it with fleece since it a very cold season ahead of us. But decided that it would be to impractical to wear so it ended up like this instead.



                 



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On the front page of Epla

Today I was lucky enough to have one of my bowl son the front page at Epla. Thank you very much Sophie Mari with the shop My Fie!

Big fabric bowls

A few months ago I made some fabric bowls and I found the project so much fun that I promised myself that I would make more.

Since then I have done some experimenting and ended up with this.

With a diameter of 29 cm (11.5”) they are big enough to be filled with both fruit and chocolate (For those who like that sort of thing… :) I chose to make them in various colors and patterns to create some variation.

All of these bowls are now for sale at my Epla store.

A new ATC card

Today I found a pleasant surprise in my mailbox… a new ATC card. I got this beautiful card from Karin på Øsæter, and her blog is here.

And I do still have more cards, so please let me know if you would like to swop :)

Lampshade bowl

I had seen beautiful candy bowls made of old lamp shades on Epla, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would embrace a project like this. It seemed to time consuming and monotonous and I had more than enough projects going alreaddy so I really should concentrate on them instead of starting a new one.

 But that was until I stumbled upon 4 lampshades at my local second hand shop that was practically begging to be filled with candy. So I brought them home and put them in a corner, and from there they turned into one of those projects that you would love to see finished but never get around to doing.

 Eventually it was my lack of storage space that pushed me into getting started. (It’s amazing how space consuming a unused lampshade is, no matter how small it is…) It also helped that I needed a low concentration project on a Sunday after a very long Saturday.

So after a few hours of wrapping this bowl was born. As a bottom I used some thin plexiglas decorated with paper in the same color as the yarn. The only thing left now is to find the motivation to get the other tree done…

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Epla update

I just had to tell about my Epla shop debut that has gone beyond all expectations. 5 days after I started I was featured on facebook as the taste of the day, then a few days later I got to be on the front page of Epla itself. Now, 2 weeks on, I have already sold a couple of necklaces, and I am unbelievably grateful to those that appreciate my work.

But the most exiting thing that happened was actually the day after my shop opened. I was contacted by Galleri Krane in Tromsø who wanted to buy some of my jewelry and then resell them in their galley. We have now agreed on the terms and, what I hope, will be the first of many shipments are ready to go north.

So now I’ll be chewing my fingers hoping the necklaces will be of taste to the people that are able to view them live aswell.

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Decorated tin can

Here is another decorated tin can. On this I have glued on strips of different scrapping paper with pale blue swirls on top. Inside I painted it pale blue and glued a white lace around the top.

This can is a little bigger than the earlier ones, so its most likely to be used for storing scissors an paint brushes.

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Birds

This weekend I decided it was time to get rid of some leftovers, and that the way to do it was to sew some birds.

It might have been a more appropriated project for spring, but the birds were very fun project so there will be more to come. Maybe I’ll try to sew them together to make a mobile.

The pattern would need some modification, especially the head (strange how things change when they go from being flat on a piece of paper to 3-dimensional…) but that will have to wait for next time.

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Domino collages in my Epla store

Epla is the Norwegian version of Etsy, and I have finally opened up my own store. To be more specific I opened the account months ago, but haven’t had the time to do all the preparations needed for the shop itself. But finally it all got done and I’m happy to welcome everyone here who wants to take a look. I don’t have that many products yet, but it will come, slow but steady :) Today’s contributions are these 3 domino collages, 2 necklaces and 1 brooch.

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