Friends, Football and Carpets...

We have been lucky enough to have some wonderful friends from Australia staying with us recently.  Which has meant lots of goodies brought over from my family, some gorgeous gifts, some yummy food and Yashar's first football/soccer match!  

Half the adventure was getting to out seats!  Wading through the excited crowd outside, through the barage of security checks.   Yashar was at times enthralled, at other times excited and clapping along to the different chants...and at other times accidentally kicking and dropping biscuits on the lady in front of us...hmmm

Our friends' visit also meant carpet shopping! A trip to the carpet shop is an experience in itself...all the more enjoyable if the pressure is not on you to buy!  There's the tea drinking, the flamboyant pulling out of all the carpets, the banter as the carpet salesman works his magic.  Even Yashar loved it, he spent most of the time climbing all over the carpets! - you can spot him sitting on some of them in the photo below.

As you most likely already know, carpet salesmen are notorious, so we took them to a long time friend of my husband's where we knew they wouldn't get totally ripped off!

He's a fascinating character and definitely the person I hope to get some gorgeous carpets from in the future.  A book has been written about his shop - 'In Turkey I am Beautiful'.

He served us a delicious tea while we were there - his own mixture of sage, cloves, linden leaves and blossom and cinnamon.  We were invited to walk barefoot over each carpet, feeling the texture, the softness of the older carpets, of the wool.  His style, rather than pushy and in your face, is warm and charismatic...all the more dangerous!   Despite having no intention to buy whatsoever I found myself thinking that perhaps we could have just one, and pay it off in instalments, I mean, surely we need to have one, and they are so beautiful...this man is definitely good at what he does!

After the carpet buying was done he showed us downstairs to a cave like basement where carpets covered every square inch.  He showed us beautiful pieces he had that were way beyond our slim wallets.  We asked what his favourite carpets were and he showed us the two small carpets he bought at the age of 10 with the help of his grandfather...carpets are in this man's veins!

Making..but not making making

I have been busy making, but not in my usual crafty way with Yashar.  I have been busy getting these cards and their special little packages together. And taking photos of them  - I wanted to get them in the shop nice and early for all those smart people out there that get organised in plenty of time.  I always mean to get organised early and then Christmas just seems to creep up on me!

So I really do hope you forgive me!  I'm looking forward to getting back to my crafty ways and to share it with you very very soon.  I miss really getting in to a project with Yashar and then hearing your input and encouragement about it!  I especially love seeing where the little seeds of ideas lead you in your own making.  

I'm off to put the cards, postcards, gift cards and gift tags in the shop now and then it's back to my usual making - I promise!

Some little angels bearing gifts

Here are two more illustrations I have just finished - a pair of angels - heralding good news!

You might remember, when I showed you the first illustration in this series, I mentioned that I wanted to give all the readers here a little something extra when they made a purchase from the Light Garden - a little thank you for your encouragement and support!

 So I decided that I would put in four of the new gift tags I created (which I will also have for sale in the shop early next week) with every purchase during the next two weeks from my dear readers!  I thought they might come in handy with Christmas just around the corner!  Just mention that you are a reader in the 'message to seller' box upon purchase and I will send them off on their journey to you!!

These illustrations were also inspired by the gorgeous carved wooden ornaments from the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) region of Germany.  If you are interested you can read a little more about my inspiration here.  I'm so happy with how these turned little angels turned out! 

I'm making them available either with no text, or the words 'Peace on Earth' at the bottom.  I was also thinking they would make a great baby shower gift - especially with a custom message within the print to make it really special!  So many exclamation marks - can you tell I'm excited??

I'm off to put all the prints from this series in the shop now!

Inspired by ...

In the small town of Seiffen, located in Erzgebirge (the Ore Mountains), in Eastern Germany, there is a rich history of wood craftsmanship.   In the 1800s, once the tin ore ran out in the area, miners turned to making ornaments, nutcrackers, candle holders and toys.  They became skilled artisans, developing a unique style that became coveted around the world.  Many people still travel to the area today to build their collection of these beautiful pieces.

I have warm memories of putting ornaments like these on the tree as a child and I wanted to express the wonder I felt at Christmas time as a child in these illustrations - a little Christmas magic!   The illustrations I have been showing you were inspired by vintage ornaments from this area, and by forest scenes expressing the spirit of sharing and giving.

These are two more of the illustrations from this series.   There is something I love about silvery white birch trees poking out from a blanket of snow, the wind blowing quietly, snowflakes floating down, being rugged up against the cold.   A still beauty.

Making Mondays: Papa Works for the Man Pillow Case

I interrupt illustration show and tell proceedings to bring you this! ;) This pillow case is made entirely from my husband's old shirts and suits!  I'm beginning to think Making Mondays should have a name change to '101 ways with shirts and suits' or 'Papa Works for the Man Crafts'!  (remember last weeks minik minik garland had some 'upcycled' shirt and suit fabric in it and then there was the bread bag and some of the finger puppets were dressed in shirt fabric).

Recently Yashar has been getting quite attached to a certain little pillow - he likes to snuggle up to it at bed time and if he wakes at night he carries it with him and crawls into our bed.  So when we accidentally left it at Baba-Anne's (Grandma's) we knew we were in trouble!

So the morning after an evening of Yashar asking, teary eyed, for his pillow I whipped this up.  I made it with little ties at one end so that Yashar could play with them as he is drifting off. The best part was that as soon as I showed it to him he agreed it was 'guzel' - beautiful and hugged it that night as he went to sleep.  Success!

In case you have a similar pillow emergency ;) this is how I made it:

1.  First I got the pieces ready for the front, back and envelope (the part that stops the pillow from showing at the end).   The front measured about 50 x 35 cm (approx 19.75 x 13 inches).  The back measured 49 x 35 cm (19.25 x 13 inches). The envelope was about 20 x 35 cm (approx 7 x 13 inches). I made the front piece of the pillow using a rectangle of fabric from the back part of an old shirt, which I folded in half for a little extra thickness.  I then sewed strips of blue fabric from an old pair of suit pants (I love this fabric!) to the four sides, sewing then together at an angle on each corner.

2.  For the back of the pillow case I used a piece from the front of an old shirt being sure to pick a piece with three button holes at one end (to be used later for the ties to come through).  For the small envelope piece I used another piece of shirt fabric.

3. Then with fronts facing inwards I sewed the back together along three sides (leaving a short side open).  Then I placed the envelope piece over the open side and sewed it to the other pieces, right sides facing and being sure not to sew up the opening from the front and back. I turned it right way out at this point.

4. I then cut three strips of fabric about 6cm wide and 20 cm long, folded them in half with the wrong side facing out and sewed along the edge.  I turned it inside out using a safety pin.  I then sewed the middle of each strip to the envelope material, behind each of the button holes.  After putting stuffing or an insert in, you should then be able to pull the to ends of each strip through the button hold and ties them in a knot.

I hope this all makes sense!  Feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Peaceful Tunes

This little boy is the second in this series of illustration.  He loves to sit on the moon playing peaceful songs on his mandolin.  I don't know what it is but I have a special spot in my heart for this one!

La Petite Fée de Noël

Phew!  Blogger is working again so I can finally show you some of my new illustrations - yay!  You might have guessed that I'm more than a little excited about these!

I'm planning to have a big shop update next Thursday, October 1st - woohoo!  But I want to show these to you all first.  You have all been so encouraging and supportive to me along the way so I'm planning to work out something extra for the readers here only!  I haven't worked out exactly what yet - maybe a little gift with purchase? I will think about it over the weekend and let you know!

Anyway on with the post ... This first little 'Fée de Noël' (Christmas Fairy) grants wishes for Christmas and all year round!  I was inspired to draw her after looking at gorgeous vintage wooden Christmas ornaments from Seiffen, a small town in the heart of the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) in Germany.  More on this next week!

This photo was from when I posted about the sketches I was doing a little while back - you can just spy her head and wings!

I am planning to make the print available with or without the text 'La Petite Fée de Noël' -the Little Christmas Fairy.   I think the print would also work well with a custom message in it.  I have been lucky enough to do some custom work recently and loved doing it!  More on that soon!

I hope you like her and that she grants you all your wishes!!

Good News and Bad News

Oh no! Blogger in Turkey seems to be having trouble again - possibly blocked. So if you don't hear from me for a few days that is why. :( I have so many exciting things I want to share with you - I hope it gets fixed very soon!

In the mean time I am trying to get my lovely sister to upload this and some photos because I couldn't resist giving you a peek at these. When I got them back from the printers I was so excited! He did such a wonderful job with them!

I have been busy working on these(and a few more)illustrations for a while and am looking forward to introducing each of them properly over the next week or so. I will put them in the shop once I take some proper photos of them - the weather has been miserable here lately so the light hasn't been great for taking photographs.

This is the first time I will have cards, postcards and gift tags for the Light Garden. Yay!

And by the way, iyi Bayramlar everyone! (Ramadan has now finished!) I hope you are having a wonderful break.

Friday Dreaming: Getting Organised

This Friday I am dreaming of actually being organised! We have Ramazan Bayram this weekend, some very lovely guests arriving next week and I just finished a huge (for me!) group of illustrations and have sent some of them off this morning to our local printers for cards and other goodies. I hope to show you these very soon - needless to say I am both nervous and excited ... I hope they turn out just how I wanted them too! So now I am in the mood for getting organised...I think it has something to do with all those little things I kept putting off while I concentrated on drawing...it's a good excuse!

There is an article on Design*Sponge: Biz Ladies -Time and Calendar Management that I am dreaming of being organised enough to read ;)

And of course to be organised I would need some of these from The Black Apple.  If there is a Narwhale involved it must be good!

I bought some of these to do lists for my mum when she was getting her house ready to sell...I'm sure they made everything run much more smoothly and looked gorgeous along the way!  Susie Ghahremani is such a talented illustrator and so thoughtful and friendly too.  She wrapped up the notes and a couple of other things I got and put a nice little note in for me.

Hmm, so I'm sure if I could just have these things then I would definitely be organised!  ;)

For the Etsy-ers

Woo hoo!  The 'My Own Elephant' personalised print was chosen for the Etsy Baby Gift Guide - I was am still so excited!

And online sellers and aspiring online sellers you might find this interesting.  A while back I asked a question in the Etsy forums - about people's tips and experience in turning browsers in your online shop into buyers.  This is a topic that both fascinates and baffles me at times!   I put together a summary of lots of other online sellers opinions and posted it in the forums.  Click here to have a look.  I found it so helpful (and it gave me lots of things to work on!).  I hope you do to!