New Stockist - The Laurel Tree

It was so wonderful to read the open and heart felt responses to my last post.  Thank you!

Today I'm excited to introduce a new stockist!  The Laurel Tree  is a new gift shop in the Mission Village area in Omaha  in the US.  It's so fun to think that my prints are in a special little shop so far away!  The Laurel Tree is stocking a number of my prints, along with many other unique handmade items.  So if you are in the area, why not check it out?! I see they are doing some renovations at the moment-so I'm looking forward to seeing the results.   I'm so happy that they are also able to send the prints of mine that they stock to US customers that need their print quicker than the time it ususally takes to send prints from here to the US - great for making sure you get gifts in time etc!

I'm so happy to be working with such lovely people!

PS They also have a facebook page here.

An indulgent trip down motherhood lane...and a little on change and identity

I realised - as I went to show a friend some photos of Yashar on the blog recently - that I am well overdue to put some more photos of Yashar on here!    This is him at our new local cafe (which is fantastic by the way - if you live in the area it is definitely worth checking out - great coffee and the owner is very much into providing delicious food with good quality ingredients - Molka in Yenikoy).

One of the questions I like to ask other mothers that I meet, is whether they think it gets easier to look after their child as they grow up.  The responses I get are very mixed!  I'm always surprised that so many people swear that it is either just as hard or that it's getting harder.  

In my own experience, I'm  finding it much easier to look after Yashar these days.  I think that this is for a mix of reasons, not all to do with Yashar!  When I first had Yashar it was a huge time of change for me - I moved from working full time as a lawyer in Melbourne to being at home full time and when he was only 3 or 4 months old, moving to Istanbul.  I was struggling with finding my direction and a new sense of my own identity.

As much as I loved being here and found it such an amazing and inspiring place to be, I did find it quite an adjustment.  I knew only a very small amount of Turkish, I wasn't used to the cultural differences, didn't know the area and didn't have any help with Yashar for the most part as my husband's family lived quite a distance away ...too far for dropping in for a few hours to give me a little break - as much as they would have liked to.  And then there was the sleepless nights, the crying... the usual exhaustion of caring for a baby I guess!

Now Yashar has grown in to this amazing little boy - smart and gentle, and by 3 year old boy standards, very well behaved!  Life has changed for the better.   He brings happiness and pure joy to my life everyday.  From simple things, like a totally unfiltered pure grin, and the squeal he gives seeing a cat on the street, or that he just decides to make me a 'present' by wrapping up one of his toys and presenting it to me.

Wow...I had just meant to write a couple of sentences!...Thank you for indulging me.  I'd love to hear what your think and about your experiences...does it get harder or easier?  What does your child or children do that brings pure happiness to your life?  When have you gone through times of big change in your life... what did you do to cope and how did it work out!?

Making Mondays: Shelves - A Very Simple Before and After

When we moved to Istanbul, we thought that we would just try out living here for 12 months (it's now been almost 3 years!).  That and the pure ease, when you need a household worth of things quickly while shopping with a small baby in tow, meant that we have a lot of Ikea furniture!

So, a little while back I wanted to make these Expedit shelves, that we had picked up in the Ikea 'bargain corner', a little more interesting and put them in Yashar's room.   So I used high gloss enamel paint (a mix of white and blue) to paint the inside of some of the cubes.  I painted them carefully, making sure to wipe off any paint that got on to the front of the shelves, and making sure that runny drips didn't form in the paint as they dried.  I let it dry for a few days.

And that's it!  Finito!   A perfect home for Yashar's favourite toys and books (I secretly wish his collection of 70's matchbox cars were all mine!!)

Sale!

A little while back I posted here about how I was changing the size of all the prints in my shop.   Well that meant that I had a small amount of stock that was in the old sizing, so...it's sale time!   I have reduced the prices on these items a lot!....much more than my usual sales.  The sale stock is very limited - to see what's available click here and I hope you don't miss out on anything you have had your eye on!

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Some making this week

The Pasha is finished and I've moved on to The Jane!

The Pasha was very straight forward - despite the lace pattern.  All I had to do was make sure I didn't lose where I was up to and it was easy! I haven't managed to take any good photos of it yet - but will soon.  But the Jane is even easier!

The pattern is also by Jane Richmond.

And these are the notebooks I made over the weekend for my sister's bricks and mortar shop Emily & Leo in St Kilda, -Melbourne, Australia.  (psss - she's having a little online sale at the moment!)  I posted about the prototypes here.   I was so happy with how they all came together. 

I've been thinking of offering personalised notebooks for the shop...what do you think?

New Work

Feeling wintery here.   This is a new personal piece I just finished this minute!

Have a great weekend!

V
xo

Making Mondays: The Pasha in Progress

Almost done with the Pasha hat I posted about on Friday! Hopefully I will finish it tonight...so more photos coming soon!

And these are some crochet squares that I was blocking last week for a custom order

...luckily I had a very helpful assistant!  (Don't worry -he's very careful with the pins)

Crafty Gatherings: Wintery Knitted Hats

Now that the cold weather has really hit here and we have a snowboarding trip planned (yeee!) I thought I might try knitting myself a hat.  I actually only rarely wear a hat a winter hat - the only time I wore one last year was when we had all that snow here - I think beanies always make me look slightly ridiculous!

So I went in search of a pattern that I hope will suit me!  I finally settled on this one:  The Pasha by Jane Richmond  I found it via Ravelry and bought the pattern there, but I now see that Jane has a etsy store here.

It's a lace pattern - which I haven't done much of before so fingers crossed.

Here is a photo of the Pasha and some others that made it to the shortlist (images are from the respective designers except for the Selbu Modern): 

The Pasha - Jane Richmond
The Jane - also by Jane Richmond

He Said She Said - Chic Knits
Selbu Modern - Kate Gagnon Osborn (image is by A Shrill Caramel of the hat she knitted - I love the colour combination she chose)

Mixed Tape

A mix of things to tell you about today.  The first is a new illustration I just finished working on (above).  The first result of my new year's resolution to work on my portfolio, spend time developing my technique and just creating!  Here is a little close up on the butterflies.

This is a gorgeous blanket that Sevim crocheted for a custom order that I sent out last week.  I love the colour combinations!  Poor Sevim has been in and out of hospital this week -  she accidentally breathed in some very toxic fumes.  So please send all your warmest thoughts to her!

A lovely lovely customer recently asked me to make my 'To' sticky address labels (that I use for all the orders I send out) available for sale.   After some very nice encouragement I thought 'why not!' So many of them are now making their way to her and I am off to list some more packages of them in the shop now.

And, finally, I spotted this tape via the Thompson Family-Life blog (love that blog!) today...isn't it gorgeous! - Image is from the Thompson Family Life blog.   The tape is from Sassy Talk Cafe - an etsy shop full of supplies from Japan and Korea - cute!

Making Mondays: Valentine's Day Cards

A quick little bit of making today for Yashar and I today...it involved glitter so of course Yashar loved it!

To make them:

1. We used the new valentine's day printable cards I just put in the shop which makes it easy to make lots of these - but you might have a suitable image or perhaps draw something yourself on some nice card stock.  (I printed ours on some lovely textured card stock).

2. I painted some craft glue on the heart using a paint brush.

3.  Yashar glittered!   I like these shaker style glitters we have at the moment - a little more controlled for when a certain 3 year old shakes out as much glitter as possible!  Be sure to put a piece of paper underneath to catch the extra glitter so you can use it again.

Finished!  This was quick, fun and simple - perfect because there was quite a few to make.