New Prints!

All of sudden I have a lot of new prints for the shop!  These are some of them...

I got inspired to make these while I was designing the wallpapers a little while back.  The one above is 'home is where the heart is'.  I hope you like it!  I would like to do a similar one in another colour.  What colour would you like to have in your child's bedroom?

These two are name prints -Gentle Deer- yay!  I always love putting together the custom 'My Own Elephant' name prints, so I'm so happy to have two more name prints to add.  I think these would work for slightly older children too.

And there is also this Clouds and Doves print which I have made longer and thinner than my usual prints - I thought it suited the sky.  I don't know why, but whenever I look at these raining hearts I think of little jewels hanging down from the clouds.  This scene seems so calm to me - (which you probably know by now is my thing!) 

Making Mondays: My Website!

Well, this making mondays project is a little different than most of my crafty efforts...  I went and made myself a website (!) http://www.verityheysenkizek.com/

I have actually been working on this (off and on) since January.  And a couple of pages still need a little work, but it is at a stage now that I really wanted to show it to you!  And yes, I am slightly insane trying to build my own website I think.  I have to admit - at times it was a total pain!  I have no html knowledge so was just googling about how to do things...it took ages!  But other times it was so fun to see it coming together and now that it's almost done I am pretty happy :) 
 

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I wanted to build a site that would pull a lot of the things I am doing together in a (hopefully) easy to navigate way.  Over there you will find my portfolio (needs to be updated with the new work I am in the process of putting in the shop), links to my shop, my wallpaper designs and of course back here to the blog.

Eventually I would like to build a shop within the website - at the moment it just links through to my Etsy shop...all in good time though... :)    I also really wanted to have some clear and easy to navigate information about the custom work I do (and which I love doing!) - So there are now pages about Birth Announcements and Custom Thank You Cards, Personalised Name Prints, Commissioned Illustrations and Commercial Work.

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I guess you could still call it a work in progress, but it's getting there!  I hope you have a moment to check the website out.  I would love to hear what you think!

Sleeping on Clouds

 

Yashar's room is finally starting to come together a little - yay!  That has been on my list of things I want to do for a looooong time.  The room has a bit of a sky theme going on and so I whipped these cloud cushions up one evening recently.

I'm no expert sewer, but in case you are wondering, this is what I did:

For the grey cloud I used a fabric that wasn't going to fray much (felt would be perfect for this).  I just cut out 2 rectangles about 50 cm x  35cm, drew a cloud on one piece and pinned the two pieces together (right sides facing out).  Then I sewed (using a sewing machine) around the cloud shape I had drawn, leaving a 5cm gap open at the bottom.  I then cut out the cloud about 2cm out (a little more on the curves, a little less in the inner corners) from the sewn line.   I stuffed the pillow as evenly as I could, then sewed the gap shut.

For the blue pillow used part of an old cotton pillow case.  I cut our two rectangles about 30cm x 20cm, drew a cloud on one piece and pinned the pieces together (right sides facing in).  Then I sewed around the cloud shape leaving a 5 cm gap at the bottom.  I cut off the excess fabric and flipped the cloud inside out.  Then I sewed a line around the edge of the cloud about 1 cm in, again leaving the 5 cm gap.  I stuffed it as evenly as I could then sewed the gap shut.

Le Marche – Casa San Ruffino

Photo above from the Casa San Ruffino website (photography by Charlie Pinder)

We were so lucky to find this wonderful place to stay – Casa San Ruffino – a small boutique hotel/bed and breakfast (only four rooms) in rural Le Marche.  I didn't have a chance to snap a photo of the room before our stuff was all over the place so above is a photograph from their website.   It's a 19th century farmhouse, renovated by the owners, Ray and Claire Gorman.  It was done so beautifully, with rough stone floors, exposed wooden beams and simply beautiful bathrooms. 

The view here was so amazing, rolling hills full of sunflower fields, tractors moving up and down the other fields harvesting, birds dipping in and out of the pool, little villages dotted around the hilltops.  
 

We hired a car and in the evenings we would drive to neighbouring villages where we had some amazing food and ice cream of course!

This was in a small village we went to on our last evening where we had the most delicious food!...which of course I can't remember the name of right now!  But if you stay at Casa San Ruffino they provide you with a list of recommended local restaurants - this was a favourite of theirs and I know why - it was fantastic!

I did come to an interesting realization while I was there though…I no longer have dreams of moving to the Italian countryside and renovating a farmhouse.  Shocking I know!   It was beautiful for a few days, but for a long time or a life time I realized it’s not for me.  Phew, one less that things to plan for!...that doesn't mean I don't want to go back for a holiday though!  We loved it!  It also doesn't mean I don't want to renovate a beautiful old house...I totally do!


Do you have dreams of renovating an old house somewhere, moving to the sea, moving to another country?

Making Mondays: Limonata after Sunset

It's getting very hot and very humid around here.  The forecast for the rest of the week is 35 degrees celsius (95F) during the day, and only going down to 24 (75F) at night.  So after making this Limonata tonight I thought I should post about it straight away!  Perfect for when the sun goes down  - or when the sun is up  :)
  

I looove Limonata and was excited when I found the recipe here from the fantastic blog - Portakal Agaci (Orange Tree).  The recipe is in Turkish, but here is a slightly different version in English.  I will have to ask Hatice from Portakal Agaci soon if she minds me translating her Limonata recipe in to English for you and posting it here - it turned out exactly how I like it!  Make sure you serve it with plenty of ice and mint is yummy as well.  I also put the glasses in the freezer for 10 minutes beforehand too!

I have some more making coming up this week and also the last post about our trip to Italy. And I might even have some new prints to show you...let's see how much I can get done!

Leaving Rome, we headed straight to Spello, a little medieval town in Umbria. It was ridiculously gorgeous and we also visited the neighbouring town of Assisi.

And, of course, here are the mandatory shots of just a few of the beautiful doorways we came across. I am a total sucker for pretty old doorways!

Some of the locals chatting on the street.

We spent the last night here at a local restaurant watching the World Cup Final, which coincided with the my nephew, Joe’s birthday – who is soccer mad!

Tomorrow we’re off to Le Marche to a really special place to stay…

Italia

Ok, I’m officially back! What I didn’t mention in my earlier post is that we missed our flights back from Italy :(    It was a bit of a disaster – our tickets were non refundable etc and so we were only able to find flights back the next evening at a ridiculously expensive price. It also meant we missed two full days that I was hoping to spend working on a project…now I am finally caught up!

But, it didn’t take away at all from the gorgeous time we had. Such a beautiful, relaxing holiday! Full of some of the best things in life – spending time with family, great food, great coffee, great wine, great ice cream! So, if you don’t mind indulging me … let’s visit Italy here for a few days!

We were in Rome for even less than a day, so I used the Rome Guide from Design*Sponge which led us to the place many said to us whad the best coffee in Italy)!  Angela Liguori - who wrote the Rome Guide says  "One of the best cafes in Rome without any doubt is Sant’ Eustachio, established in 1938, in Piazza Sant’ Eustachio, 82, from where you can also see one of the most amazing baroque cupola: San Ivo alla Sapienza, by Francesco Borromini. The caffe` has the most creamy, full-experience espresso, with authentic floor mosaics and interiors from the 1930’s."   The Rome Guide also led us to Giolitti - Mmmm - the gelati was amazing!  Angela writes that "everytime I’m in Rome, any time of the year, I always go to Giolitti, for the best gelato. Giolitti has a huge variety of flavors, all exceptionally good, on Via Uffici del Vicario, 40, near the Parliament; it is in a beautiful area to walk with a gelato in your hands. It is also interesting to read the story of how it all began in 1890 and how they used to sell milk from their pastures in the Roman countryside."  I wish I had time to visit all the other places in her guide!  (She also recommends lots of book, design, art supply and paper stores).

We met up with my sister and family which was so wonderful – and Yashar loved spending time with his three cousins!

Tomorrow we're off to visit Spello - a beautiful little medieval town in Umbria!

We are back from Italy and it was so beautiful! I am rushing around a bit catching up on everything but I will be back very soon!     This is from the most amazing restaurant at a tiny little village in the countryside in Le Marche.

V
xo

A little sneek peek and ciao!

Just in case you have been wondering what I have been up to lately...this is a design I finished recently and it's huge!   It's for my new wall stickers range and is designed to be a feature piece.  I am so excited about these.  The special fabric media that we will be printing on is on its way to me as we speak so that I can finally make these available.

Its been a long time in the works...I actually don't even want to think about how long ...I wanted to make sure we had the right person to do the printing for us, with the best quality...and we finally found him!  Phew!

So now I'm just finishing off some of the other designs and getting the packaging together and we will be ready to launch! Yay!    I'm planning to get some photos of it 'in the flesh' later this month...can't wait to show you!

And now we are off to Italy for a short holiday!  I can't wait!  I will be back in about two weeks, hopefully with lots of photos for you!

Craft Gatherings: Summery Yellows

This weeks crafty gathering - a place where the best things to make (in my humble opinion!) hang out, look cool, sip on mojitos.

And in honour of the weather that has finally fined up again around here, some summery yellows:

Lemonade Favors from Project Wedding

Gerald Giraffe from Hop Skip Jump is sooo cute.  You can buy the pattern  for him and some other cuties here.

These Hawaiian Style Floor Cushions from Molly at the purl bee.

Cya!

V
xo