Colour

Thank you so much to everyone that emailed and commented about getting an agent.  You guys are awesome!

I really enjoyed putting the post together last week about colours that I loved and was inspired by.  And colour is definitely an area I am trying to work on at the moment.  So I thought I would share some more colour inspiration with you.  This week it's vibrant colour!  A little early but these colours have me thinking of the height of summer ... maybe a seaside home in Portugal or Mexico? 

I love the contrast of the vibrant colours with the muted worn background.  This is a carpet from the 'Tufted' collection (the image is theirs) found via the gorgeous blog Poppytalk.

These summery brights from Zara Home are also fantastic.    If you look at my artwork and illustrations you might think that my home is all light and soft colours ...but I always find myself drawn to these particular whites and brights too.

What would you call this sort of palette?   It also reminds me of this awesome handmade felted wool ball rug.  These are made in India and you can buy them at Krita here.  I would love one of these for Yashar's room!  Do you think they would wear well?

What's getting you inspired lately?

For me at the moment it is all about colour - the fresh new colours of Spring, soft colours, blossom, vintage pastels.

There is a great post over at decor8 at the moment by Leslie who does a monthly column there called Colour Me Pretty.  Image below is from that post.  Isn't it gorgeous.  And, growing up with a father with a passion for roses, I have loved these beautiful old style roses for so long.

At the moment I am in love with these illustrations by Marcus Oakley.  They have such a cool retro feel and the colours are a little darker than the pallette I am into for my own work, but I love the subdued dusty shades.

Marcus Oakley
Portfolio



The soft dreamy colours of Yvette Inufio's photography:

I am always drawn to vintage luggage like this for some reason - And I love that she is also a librarian!

Yvette Inufio
Shop
Flickr
Blog

What are you inspired by at the moment?

Etsy Euro Week

To celebrate Euro week at Etsy here are some of my current Etsy Euro favourites:

lola's room
Shop

Blog

ika bags
Shop

secdus's shop
Shop

You can also read an interesting interview with Turkish Etsy sellers Star of the East here.  

And visit the Etsy European Street Team blog - 'Handmade Europe' here.

V

xo

The most awesome present...

Phew, I have so many things I have been wanting to post about, especially this one.    I made what may very well be the best present ever for Senol for Christmas last year!!   And I left it way too late so it arrived in early January.  Oops!  Some how I came across a site called Tiny*Prints (um, does everyone know about this already and I am just way behind?)  I think it was when I was a friend of mine had asked about making calenders using photos. 

I decided to make it a book of photos of Yashar from the last year.  Senol is definitely the sentimental type and has photos of Yashar pinned up all around his desk at work - so I knew I was on to a winner - I was just hoping it would turn out well and that the printing would be good.

I thought it would take a few hours, but, wading through a years worth of photos - especially since I take photos almost everyday was a ridiculously massive project...and choosing was hard!  Anyway after many evenings hiding in a corner and telling Senol he wasn't allowed to peek at what I was doing I chose the photos, picked a template (the traveller one), uploaded the photos and made the book!  I ended up adding lots of extra pages and had fun playing around with the different backgrounds, because, you know, I'm in to that sort of thing.  These are some of my favouite pages...hmm...I had trouble deciding.

I was so excited about how it turned out!  It was such good quality, the cover was nice and thick and it was printed just perfectly!  Senol loved it!

The plan now is to make one every three months.  I think it will be such a beautiful record of Yashar.  I just can't believe that you can make things like this, so so cool.

Has anyone else made something using Tiny*Prints?  How did it turn out?

ps I got in touch with Tiny*Prints and have now got a little banner in the side bar on the right with a code to get a discount with them if you are interested.  Just click on the banner to visit the site.  Yay!

New Illustration Work

Recently I had such a great time working on an illustration for new etsy shop owner Secda! I created a large illustration for her and then used the illustration to create 4 shop banners for her - one for each season.

While I was creating the illustration, Secda sent me some photos of her creations and the illustration was very much inspired by them - they are so cute! I hope to do a proper post about Secda and her creations soon!

Above is a detail from the larger illustration and below are the four banners.

Her creations are all decorated hangers (wall hangings) with cute little bags attached to them - hence the hanger I put in as part of her shop name.   Some of my favourite designs of hers are here and here.    I love that little shawl the bear is wearing in the second wall hanging!

I took the opportunity to work with colours that were a little brighter and eye catching than my usual illustrations and I loved it!  One of my big goals this year is to start to experiement with colour!   Still soft and gentle...(because that's what I love!) but exploring all the beautiful colours out there.

So more on Secdus's shop soon, but in the mean time if you want to take a look at one of the banners up close and in action and to check out Secdus's shop click here.  The shop is just getting started but I have a feeling it will be a hit!

A little secret...

I posted briefly about Secrets of a Butterfly a while back and then this week I checked in there again and was astounded all over again by all the beautiful things on this blog!  So much so I decided I had to write about it properly!

Kat, who writes the blog and finds all the beautiful things on it, is one inspiring woman!   She has struggled with illness for a long time, which you can read about more here, and, it seems to me, is slowly but surely triumphing over it.   As she puts it, she is on a healing journey.

Kat has a very strong aesthetic.  You know that when you visit with her you will find special things that are dreamy, delicate and beautiful.  Her palette is soft and gentle...which you might have guessed is what I am naturally drawn to in my own illustrations.  I have recently found myself wandering over to her site for colour inspiration for an original I am working on.

And now she has a gorgeous book!  The book is a personal project of hers that she very kindly shared.  The book is for 'looking at in moments of quiet reflection'.    The photographs are all her own, taken in and around her house.  I think it looks just beautiful.

So if you have a moment, take a break, and visit her site.  I promise you will leave feeling calmer and inspired.

Thank you so much Kat for allowing me to share this.

Making Mondays: A present from Babaanne

I have been doing a little making here but first I wanted to show you the gorgeous little jumper that Babaanne (Grandma) knitted for Yashar for his birthday! (More on the birthday soon!)   She is an amazing knitter.  Most of the time she doesn't use patterns, just knits from memory or from looking at an example or photo.  She is so quick, knits most of the time without even looking at it and look at how beautiful those stitches are!  I wish I could knit half as well.

I noticed there is a similar pattern on ravelry.com called the 'Child's Placket-Neck Pullover' if you are interested in making it.  You can find the link to that pattern here (you might need to sign up to get it).

Thank you Babaanne!

Sebastian Can Do

I am so, so happy to be a part of this! One of my blogging friends, Kara Melissa Sharp, is currently holding an art raffle to raise money for her wonderful and gorgeous little son Sebastian. Sebastian has Cerebral Palsy and the money raised is for therapy for him.

You can see the gorgeous photography from all over the world (and one of my prints!) that you can win at Sebastian Can Do, where you can also buy tickets. You can also read there about how "we came to find out, and our journey from ignorance to awareness and understanding". I have definitely learnt a lot from reading it. Photograph taken by Jessica Bibbee in the Reed Flute Caves of Guilin, Guangxi province, southern China.

I hope that, as much as we can, we are able to help and support Sebastian.

Kara also has a wonderful and inspiring blog called Free as Trees, about her life and adventures in Egypt, where she currently resides. Her words are thoughtful and real and you can see some of the beautiful photos she has taken. The light just seems to have a special quality in Egypt that I love.

I especially like this one she took in Alexandria (which you can also win!).

A little taste of Zara

A little while back Keryn from Eighty Days Design mentioned a beautiful catalogue that she had received and I remember thinking (I think I might have even commented about it) how I love the Zara Home catalogues.


There are no Zara shops in Australia yet :( So I thought I would post a few little photos from their Winter catalogue for all the Australian Zara lovers. (And sorry the catalogue is much better in person...so to speak).

I wish I had a cupboard like this and a bathroom big enough to fit it in!

I was so happy when I was looking through the catalogue again to think that my print of the rabbits snuggling up with the blue background would fit in the photo above pretty well.

And my 'I heart hedgehogs' print would be right at home in the room below - can you see the little hedgehog on the side table? So cute! And I love that crochet cushion...ah...I definitely need to have more kids purely for all the cute girly stuff I want to get my hands on!
And I like how low this couch/chaise lounge is - I am actually seriously considering getting rid of our couches all together and just having lots of cushions on the floor! Yashar would love it!

7 things I love

I hope you are all having a gorgeous weekend. The lovely Joyce from Pattern and Perspective recently passed on the 'Kreativ Blogger Award' to me. Thank you! The award requires you to post about 7 things I love. I'm going to keep mine short and sweet.

1.Family - but you probably already know that.

2. Creating - ahhh, I'm guessing you already know this too.

3. Old buildings, wooden furniture, handmade.

4. Nature - simple beauty, trees, dappled sunlight, rolling waves, relaxing at the beach, the fresh cool of the forest, the stars, lying on the grass.

5. Books- the stories, the design, the texture, the illustrations, the photographs, snuggling under the covers and reading.

6. Art - the creativity, the history, unique perspectives, the beauty of life.

7. Good food, good chocolate, good coffee.


Here are a few things I love!


ps sorry, as always, I'm breaking the chain here, but if you want to see what some very talented people are up to please have a browse of the links in the left sidebar. Thanks!

A Mixed Show

We were lucky enough to make it over to Beyoglu to have a look at the exhibition Karisik Sergi - 'Mixed Show'. You can find out more about it in this post on Rose Deniz's blog (one of the artists featured in the show). I loved the beautiful vibrant colours that Rose used.

My husband likes to describe the area we went to as a mess of beautiful buildings. Many of the buildings are crumbling. There is plenty of things going on in the area - some 'cultural', some interesting, some seedy. It is definitely a place with plenty of atmosphere.

A present for me?!

What is clutched in that little hand? Could it be a present for me?

It was my birthday last week and Yashar gave me a beautiful necklace made by Riki Inukai from RikiCraft on Etsy.

Riki has a workshop in her home in Takarazuka, Japan and made this using a real apple geranium leaf. She explains that she painted the leaf with PMC, a fine clay that becomes 99.9% silver when fired. The process sounds so interesting and I love the necklace!

It also came in a gorgeous package with some cute little notepaper as an extra treat. Lucky me!

**The gorgeous photo of the pendant is from the RikiCraft shop on Etsy.

In the spirit of 'free-ness'...

I thought I would continue the theme of free things with a link to this great project called 'Feed Your Soul: the free art project'. The project is being organised by IndieFixx and has some cute little prints ready to download and many more in the works.

My favourites so far are this one by Mandy Sutcliff (from Belle and Boo)



And this one by Jessica Rose


I had a look at the upcoming schedule and am also looking forward to the contribution by Ryan Berkley (Berkley Illustration).

Yay! Free art!

There doesn't seem to be any tradition of card giving here in Turkey. In fact, the whole time I have been here I have not seen a single card given, received or for sale. So I was so so happy when Keryn sent me over some of the gorgeous cards from her business gryb at home. They are made using Japanese fabrics and are just so pretty! Thank you!

Keryn's blog is also a favourite of mine, with beautiful photos and great finds.


And while we are on cards and great finds, here are some of my favourite cards for the upcoming big L day (although I am more into year round loving!!)

2 from Sweetbeets

Octo love from Pearl & Marmalade


Valentine Invader by Anemone Letter Press

Just when I had given up hoping...

(and had thought that the Turkish postal system had struck again!)...a heavy package arrived from Canada.



A little while back I asked for help finding a birthday present for Yashar on etsy and, after getting some great ideas, I ordered some wooden toys from Diamond Isle Treasures.

In her book, The Creative Family (on my reading list at the moment - I'm halfway through reading it), Amanda Soule encourages choosing toys that are beautiful, simple (to evoke imagination and creativity), and that are made of natural materials. And she says that "Finding toys that will hold up to lots of use and play - versus poorly made toys that will break easily - will encourage your children to value human work and experience over consumption." These toys fit so well with this approach.

The look and feel of the timber is gorgeous...so much more satisfying than a lot of plastic toys (although some of the plastic toys we have, especially the better quality ones, are lots of fun). Yashar has already spent hours stacking and unstacking the blocks, pulling the wagon around, giving me the blocks one by one with a huge smile on his face. I hope these toys will be around us for a long time.

And a little more from Sweden

Just wanted to post one last thing about the trip to post...well actually I just wanted to show you a few of the cute little things we picked up in Sweden.

We went all out on the souvenirs ;) This is a packet of crisp bread - love the packaging and we discovered Yashar loves chewing on it. And then there are the tins of 'Makrill'...which lucky brother in law will be getting those in their Christmas stocking?? (hehehe).



And a cute little wooden helicopter for Yashar of course.