tragedy

Today is a sad day for my city. We lost one of the
historical houses in the middle of the city. This morning
I saw the fire department and police working there and
the pedestrian area was closed spaciously, but I didn't
see fire or smoke (the sky was pretty foggy since last
evening). So, I was shocked to see (from the end of the
street) that the house on the corner (where I used to buy
shoes for my son) was already collapsed, when I looked
at that closed area after work in the afternoon. This and
any other tragedies always remind me to be grateful for
what I have.

Hope, you all stay safe and healthy! *hugs*

review

I used to sew a lot for the kindergarten and also sew
some trousers for my boy as he was younger or carnival
costumes. But I never finished any project for myself
except for a pair of trousers, which didn't really fit. Yes,
fitting is one of the problems sewing things for myself.
My old sewing machine is the other problem. The zigzag
stitch doesn't really work properly (so, yay for my new
serger! :)).

In the last two days I managed to sew myself a dress for
the gig (of course after days of procrastinating :P). It's a
bit rumble-in-the-jungle way of sewing, as I didn't have a
pattern for a dress. I started with a vague idea in mind,
a T-shirt pattern and my black skirt as a model. The result
is far than perfect. I accidentally cut a tiny hole into the
top (which is luckily double layered) and I left the serger
stitches uncovered along the armhole. I didn't mind those
imperfectness since the dress is meant to be worn under a
black shirt anyway.



The gig itself went well. It was quite relaxing to have a gig
with another choir, as we had only to sing 10 songs (plus
three more as encores) instead of 16 as per usual.

Now it's time to slowly closing the year 2010. Except for
working, no more extra activities. My son is at his dad and I
will have time to review the year. Also to prepare our trip to
Holland. Finally visiting my sister again. My son and I are SO
looking forward to this! I'm still not sure, either I should
put my shop on vacation or not (there's not much activity in
there anyway lately ;)).

This might be my last post this year. So, I'm wishing you
Happy Holidays, friends! Thank you for catching up with me,
even if I was not really active at any online spaces this year.
I'm hoping to get all thing better managed next year. See you
in 2011! xoxoxo

next week...

On Tuesday Dec 21st, 2010 on 8 pm we have a gig
with another choir at the Theater. You can have a peek
of what we're going to sing (but without the band) on
YouTube now.

rocks

I listed the first of the new rocks necklaces a few days ago.
It's a simple design based on a simple idea. Like collecting
small troves while taking a walk and arranging those to get
photographed, I've chosen different glass beads ("leftovers"
from my experiments on the torch) and other kind of beads
(e.g. metalized ceramic bead) and strung them up on an
oxidized sterling silver chain.



The second of the series will be listed tonight. They have
actually both the same length (like the longer one) - just
to show that I could make them shorter if preferred, as
they have no extender on them.

amazing!

Amazing, how he caught the movements and sentiments in
lines. One of the best things I've ever seen on the net!


(found here)

Watching it makes me wanna go through the time tunnel -
back to the living room in my parent's house, where I used
to dance in the middle of the night, when the other family
members were all already long asleep...

shipping price

The German Post will mark down their international
shipping price starting on Januar 1st, 2011 - yayy!
I'm so excited about this!

At the beginning of 2010 they've made changes in their
categories, that I have to send my parcels to non-European
countries for a much higher price than the years before.
I've sent a complain email to them, explaining my situation.
Although I knew it wouldn't make a change, I thought at
least they'd know. I was hoping, that much more business,
who are using the service in this weight-range, would speak
up as well - I think some actually did and thus the future
change.



Anyway, since I'm so happy about this (and since I think
customers would actually need the change now during the
holiday seasons), I changed all my listings and am now
offering free shipping in my shop till 11/28/2010.

washi collage

Made this collage, when I had to say goodbye to my linnet
a few weeks ago. Still not a master of saying goodbye, uh?
Even worse, I guess - I could't say goodbye to this...

a trip

I visited St. Gallen yesterday. It was my first time, but I will
go back to discover more. I only had the time to visit the textile
museum (some of the antique embroideries are to die for!!) and
to stroll through the city a little bit (next time I will surely go
into this gallery to take a closer look at the lovely paintings).



Wishing you a lovely weekend :)

wreath

I trimmed two of my six lavender bushes last Sunday (I do
it in stages so that the bees and other insects could still enjoy
them too). I decided not just to hang them over to let them
dry but made a wreath. Never made one before, so I'm pretty
pleased with the not-so-perfect result. Learned one thing
while making this: next time I'll use an environment friendlier
material for binding (because of the wire I'll have to unbind
this wreath before I can throw it away one day - not so clever,
hm..?).

Hope, you are all well.

yumm...

I made a hot spicy curry with courgette, potato, tomatoes,
red onion, red chili, garlic, lemon juice, shrimps, salt,
pepper, cumin and a little bit honey. But the curry wouldn't
be complete without the fresh basil - it's not only to garnish!


with fresh courgette, tomatoes and basil from the garden :)

lost and found

I once heard a nice song while I was in a second-hand shop.
I asked the seller to write down the name of the singer for
me and she did. At home I forgot about it. In fact, I forgot
about it for about a year. A few days ago that piece of paper
suddenly came up again from somewhere...



I love her voice.

more links

Here are some links to dig, if you like to:

- My dad shared this stunning paper artwork with me today.

- If you love postcards like I do, you gonna love this.

- I just finished reading a book. Not kind of book I'd usually
pick up to read, but it intrigued me. It is a mix between
biography and idea, which is quite interesting. There is an
interview on YouTube in English, which represents the
essence of the book. The biography part is in the first two
videos and his view (or idea or however you'd call it) in the
last three videos.

- Reading that book took me further to (you might have heard
about these before, but as a non-newspaper-reader and a non-
TVnews-watcher in general these are new to me) this and this
sites. Those on the other hand remind me of the link I found
on the Etsy blog lately.

I'm wishing you a happy dig and a happy weekend ;)

family tree

As a kid I enjoyed the yearly family gathering which was held
by my grandpa. The family was HUGE! To my shame I have never
been able to remember all the names (or faces). I was excited
when my brother invited me to the family tree. I am no use in
completing the infos about my ancestors or relatives, but now
I can at least recall their names ;)

You can make your own family tree as well - it's an amazing tool!

higher and higher

Are you afraid of height? I love height, that's why I
love flying (in an airplane ;)). I love to live upstairs,
to sleep in a upper stage of a bunk bed and the list goes
on and on... But I wonder, how would I feel if I had to
stay on this balcony. The view is amazing, but I'm
pretty sure, I'd crawl on the glass floor as my knees
would tremble badly at first before I could enjoy it LOL



Last week we went to this park with my sis and her
family. This time my knees were not acting like jelly as
they did when I was there 5 or 6 years ago with the choir.
It was my first time and I was really nervous at first.
You have to concentrate yourself to clip and un-clip the
two carabiners. And with my short legs, I had difficulty
straight on the first stop of my first track. In front of me
there was a lady with her kids. I think, the boy was 11
and the girl 8 y.o. So if she could make it, why couldn't
I? I clenched my teeth and.. yayy :) The other stops
were easier as one get used to the clipping and unclipping.

If you had any chance to go to a ropes course park, I'd
encourage you to try it - it's such a great feeling to
overcome the anxiety that you might have at first! At
the end of a track you'd want to start the next till your
hands and brain finally got tired.

I hope, you aren't tired of my necklace though... ;)

babies

Yayy!! I become an auntie for a second time :) My dad
just sent me an SMS - my brother's wife gave birth to
their first son.

At this photo my son was just a few weeks old (he is ten
now - time flies!). I was SO in love with him, that I couldn't
do anything else but watching him while he's sleeping and
playing with him, when he's awake :)



I can hardly wait to see photos of my brother's baby boy.
I wish, I could meet him personally and of course all the
family, but flying to Oz is beyond my reach at the moment.
Luckily my sister and her family are coming next week
(my plan to visit them in August fell through because of
work :() - looking forward to see them!

Well, I have a new baby as well - in my shop ^_^

yesterday

I've been sanding pieces for new pieces I wanted to do
for a while. Hope to finish the project soon.



In the garden I found some scarlet pimpernel (I found
out the name after browsing the web). So sweet! But
since my garden is already full with allsort of weeds
I grab them out and plant them in a pot (they don't
seem to like it though, since they hang the heads today).

Oh, and I added these two to the shop.


Have a lovely Wednesday!

finally

Never thought framing and hanging art is a math on
it's own before - maybe because I never hung more
than four works in a group before. I'm not really happy
about the result, but at least some more pieces of my
collection hang on the wall and that should do for now
(it was my yesterday's therapy to calm me down from
being upset ;)).

update

Just a quick update: Quiditty is in the shop now.

P.S. Cross your fingers with me for Germany tonight ;)

quiditty

Better late than never..

..soon in the HelpTheGulfCoast shop (I'll give you the link,
once they list it it's up now :)).

Another way to take an action, if you want to do something
about the oil spill is either to donate or buy an illustration
at ripple.

t.t.t.

Two things today (haven't done it for a while :)):

My waxplant aka Hoya Bella is blooming - so pretty!


Sometimes I intentionally don't throw away things
immediatelly, sometimes I'm simply forgetful.
I love watching flowers withering and (except for the
paper fluff in my laundry..) I love the look of the tag
after I forgot to cut it up before the wash. It reminds
me of Rob Ryan's work, which I really adore (nothing
in compare to his work, of course! Just kind of an
abstract one ;)).

in my head

I'm not really creative the past months. In my head
there are lots of things waiting to get out. Two of them
are bugging me along my way to work yesterday -
painting portraits and a song.



I used to draw a lot of portraits. I'm out of practice.
I got some problems with the proportions and distance.
The noses look weird and even the eyes - which I always
loved to draw - don't seem right (so I don't dare to draw
ears - they were my weakness!). The pose of the girl on
the right pic was inspired by a passanger, who was
watching our window display.

Can you guess what it is on the bottom pic?

It is the Indonesian music notation. A quick way to
write down a melody since I don't have to care either
it's in C-dur or F-dur or whatever. I long to compose
a song for an ensemble, but I never manage to do it.
Sometimes I have a melody in my head, but it's gone
before I find the first note on the keyboard. Yesterday
I decided to write it down that way - at least I could
capture the base melody and some other parts.

We'll see, either it'll be a Midnight Blues - the one in
glass is already in my shop ;)

fresh week

A few pics from the past two weeks.


Something to celebrate.


What could happen when your mind is wandering
elsewhere while you're riding a bike or cooking.


Enjoying one of the last peonies from the garden.

I'm wishing you a wonderful fresh week!

alive

Hi friends! Just wanna let you know I am still alive - only
my laptop (or better said: the graphic card of my laptop)
was dead and getting a new computer was not so easy.
It took a week till I got my new computer. I'm working
with a desktop again now - no more laptop for me (it
was only 5 y.o. - what a short life!).

I am already a week behind my schedules and am still
struggling with the new OS. It doesn't support my old
peripheries and softwares - ack!! I'm losing time to
google for solutions. And of course one deadline after
another is waiting (so here I am to vent and whine -
what I often criticize on others who whine about not
having enough time instead of doing their work in that
time LOL).

No time for creating nor gardening too. I could have
had a bowl full of strawberries, if I had harvested them
earlier - the slugs and birds were happy for that fact
though, as well as the mildew (or perhaps I should
blame the rainy summer for the last.. ;)).



OK, enough venting and whining ^_^ Ironing before going
to bed should be a good meditation for today, I think.

Hope, you are all doing well.

this week

I'm working on different things at the moment. It's hard
to concentrate myself on one project, when there are so
many things need to be done. So, sometimes I find myself
out of focus.



Then I realized, I need some kind of order to get things
done. Sometimes the most boring and unbeloved things
like ironing or washing dishes can help me to get focused
again. This time it's spooling the thread I use for my
packaging (up till now I had to search the end of the
thread in the chaos, if I forgot to let it hang out after
I cut a piece of it). It's kind of a meditation (and sport
for the biceps LOL).



Last task for today was listing my new Trifiori necklace.



I don't know why I didn't make the necklace earlier.
Probably because I didn't want to let loose the beads.
I love the colors so much and I was afraid, I couldn't
re-make them. I've been wanting to make them ever
since I watched the France film Brodeuses (Perlen-
stickerinnen in German), but I couldn't find the right
glass colors (now you might understand my obsession
in mixing blue and green glass last autumn ;)).

So, today is the day. Today I'm ready to let the beads
go. I might not be able to re-make them. But I'm sure,
there will be many other beautiful colors to come.

Have a beautiful weekend, friends!

over

Yayy, my school was finally over last Friday! Now it's
time to catch up with everything else that I neglected
the past weeks - friends, shop, blogs, garden and the
housework.

Two weeks ago a girl from my class has given me some
trouts - smoked and fresh ones - to thank me studying
with her. So, today I cooked trouts in a sauce mix of
tomatoes, chillies, rhubarb, lemon, lemon balm and
parsley. Yummy!



The recipe was a modified version of my mom's recipe,
in which averrhoa bilimbi is originally used for the sauce
(my mom got the great idea to use rhubarb instead).
The fish and the sauce mix are normally wrapped in a
banana leaf. Since I don't have any (I'm still thinking
of planting a banana in my garden just to have the leaves
for my Indonesian cookery :)), I put everything in a
casserole instead.

The next task is my garden. At the moment the spiders
and ants are about to take over my garden. Look at those
garden spider babies in my lavender bush! There must be
over a hundred of spiders - yikes!



I planted carrot and peas a few days ago, but on Friday
I got some veggies and herbs (and some chocolates) from
the girls in my class - so sweet! They simply know how
to spoil me :) My garden is now full (and so my stomach ;)).

a week gone by

.. and Etsy has been working hard to improve TEast.
Now we could link our lists using a single address and the
rank of hotness seems to change into a better one, even
if there are sometimes glitches regarding to empty lists.
If they will provide a button or permanent link from our
shop to our lists, TEast would be a great tool for our own
gift guides, wish lists, etc (this is my gift guide for mother's
day ;)).

The new T is coming and the old ones will probably be
gone. While it's great not to wait until the indexing is done
on Flash, I'll be missing seeing this though - I always see
a calm face in this, which always makes me smile.



But not only on the T scene, old ones have to make place
for new things. I've been working in the garden yesterday.
Haven't planted anything new yet, but I've removed dried
plants, cut plants in shape, weeded and collected things to
photograph.


More here.

Hope, you had a great weekend.

wind from the east

Etsy has given the link to the new Treasury East. I've
played around and made four ("happy weekend", "Say
It With Flowers", "night life" and "o*w*ld?")! I've made
all lists that I had in my saved sketches while playing
around with ideas (yes, I'm addicted ;)).

I don't know, when they'll launch TEast officially. I think,
it won't be sooner than the launch time of the "new" Etsy
(the wider Etsy). There are still a lot to be improved and
think over. I think, most of the curators don't like the
idea of having a never-ending treasury and an unlimited
amount of treasuries (although it's really great, not to
wait for opening time, I like the challenge of grabbing a T
or TWest). And one thing I already know now: I'll be missing
the "old" Etsy. I like the slim look better, since my eyes
can catch most things at one glance.

My summary of the TEast experience:
1. limitation supports creativity and boundlessness
makes one dull
2. new doesn't always mean better
Still.. it's a fun thing ;)

I'm wishing you a Happy Weekend!

music

Just wanna drop this link as a reminder for myself ;)



If you could watch arte on TV, One Shot Not is up every
Thursday night. Lisa Hannigan will be there next week
among others. Remember her? She was mentioned in
many blogs last year (or maybe even two years ago?),
because of her lovely, creative videos (and of course great
music too!). I like this song underneath.



You could watch One Shot Not videos up to seven days
after it's on air. They always invited great musicians (e.g.
Sting - one of my all time favorites). So, don't miss it ;)

e-learning

I'm attending a live class about digital photography
at the creativeLIVE at the moment. They are offering
live e-classes for free, but if you'd like to watch the
class at another time, you could buy it as well - that's
how they finance it all.

Come and join us ;)

second

I couldn't resist the second paper yesterday evening.
So, I painted instead of doing my homework first. I did
do the homework afterwards and I'm satisfied with both
results.

easter days

How was your Easter? I hope, you had a good time!

My son and I were in the cinema to watch a 3D-film
yesterday. The film was much better than I've thought
(I want a dragon as pet now :P) and watching it in 3D was
worth it. As per usual before the movie started we had to
watch some ads. One of them was the short version of
this 50m Euros Chamber of Crafts' ad (not sure, either
this budget included the print ads as well).



Today I finally painted again - I've been wanting to do
it the past weeks, but was always too tired. It's done
in watercolor without pre-scribbling, thus the patterns
sometimes go wonky. But I like to put whatever came
up in my mind directly onto paper (I'd stay in the layout
phase forever otherwise - I know me too well ;)).



And now.. off to do my homework (luckily we still had
a day off today :))!

good friday

While my tulips from last week are withering, my son's
friend brought me some fresh ones as a thank.



And then they went together to pick some ramsons in the
wood. Mmm.. ramsons is one of the reasons why I love
spring :)

knitted

Amazing work, isn't it? (via Neatorama)

sunday

The weather this weekend is half as nice as on Thursday,
so I'm postponing the work in the garden. I worked with
some natural materials inside.



I don't know why I always have to do something with my
organic waste before I finally throw them away. Probably
it's part of my childhood memory - I was impressed by
the creativity of the poor people in Indonesia. They create
their toys out of organic waste and other litters, e.g. a
boot made of citrus peel and used skewers. Creativity is
unlimited to the origin of the materials.



I hope, you're having a wonderful weekend!

shadows

The sun was out these two days - spring is finally here.
When I went home from school yesterday, the shadows
of some fences attracted my attention. So, I took the
camera with me today.

Just look at the right photo - isn't it amazing, how a
simple fence could make shadows with three different
patterns?



I miss crafting so much. The school takes away a good
amount of my energy each day. So, it's Euro week at
Etsy and I only managed to add two Furry Berries in
my shop.



I hope, I'll have more energy this weekend to finish some
new designs. Hopefully the weather will stay warm, so
that I can work on the torch again. My poor neglected
garden needs my attention as well. I need a better time
and energy management, I guess...

a long day

It was a long day (after a stressy week). School, work
and choir performance for me and for my boy it was
school, visiting his friend, accompanying me at work and
choir. He took this bit of video of us (if you want to hear
and see more, you are welcome to our next concert in
summer ;)).


(Do you recognize the song? And have you found me? ;))

I'm wishing you a great weekend!

learning

Yes, I'm back to school the next weeks (started two
weeks ago)- as a student. That's why I rarely have time
to blog or do something for my shop. But I've learned
a lot and collected a few things on the way.



I didn't learn only at school. This week I've learned from
the nature as well. About letting loose (still an issue for
me) - to let go of a fixed idea, to let go of life, to let go of
feeling guilty -, but also not to give up.

In other words I've learned..

1. never try to cross over a bridge in a middle of a
heavy windstorm especially if you weigh under
50 kg,

2. but if you notice the situation a bit late, then don't
give up, keep on going, as the storm (or the bridge)
will be over (and this applies to any kind of storm
in life, I think..),

3. nature gives life and nature takes life away and
sometimes you can do nothing but to accept it.

I was walking near the forest with a friend today, talking
about death, funerals and so, as something felt just about
a meter in front of us. It's kind of a ball made of moss.
I first thought it was a bird nest. My friend rolled it and
a naked mammal baby felt out of the ball. I was really
shocked! She rolled it further more and we found another
one underneath the ball. So she rolled it further, so that
it doesn't lie on the street anymore and we grabbed the
(probably squirrel) babies carefully with the moss and put
them on the ball, covered with moss and twigs we found.
As I stood up, my friend shrieked as she found another two
babies just behind my feet. She carried them to the others.
I wanted to cry - those tiny, naked bodies, I don't think
they will survive. For a moment I really hated the windstorm..

be my friend

Remember I told you I wasn't satisfied with some felt
items last Friday? Well, one of them was the hedgehog.
I first had his felted spines "combed" to the front. It
looked cute, but somehow I couldn't find the right stitches
for him. I felt so insecure about it, that I did some sketches
last night, before I ruined everything by directly stitching
him (the bear was directly stitched without sketching, for
example).



I like the left bottom stitches best, but it wouldn't fit
the punky spines. So, I "combed" them back. It looks
less cartoon-like, but as soon as I added the first stitched
spines I knew I'd love him.



I hope to get more muses for the other items ;)

happy valentine's day!

As I wanted to tidy my workplace and opened up a box
to put a new item I'll list today, I found five small things
in there. These are three of them (the other two are
a tiny turquoise and a tiny glass bead) - perfect for today,
right? ;)

me and painting

Painting with other materials than watercolor or gouache
is something that takes me a good amount on courage
to overcome myself. I'm not sure why. Probably I had
kind of a trauma LOL

Two times in my life I've tried oil painting, but I didn't
like the result (I know, I shouldn't give up after only two
times, but I didn't have the patience). I like to work with
acrylic better (especially since it dries quickly), but up
till now I couldn't say I like the feel of it on canvas. I
have some half-started or half-finished canvases sitting
here *sigh*

Before Christmas I bought a book of acrylic paper for a
project I had in mind, which doesn't have to do with
acrylic at all (it was just discounted and has the perfect
thickness ;)). Last midnight I suddenly got the desire to
paint. I hesitated, either I should paint on canvas or on
paper and finally decided to try the paper. I'm glad I did!

It's of course a pain, that the paper rolls whenever it got
too wet, but it flattened pretty quickly as the paint drying.
I painted until the morning (I was finally in bed at 6 am,
because I of course had to grab a TWest first ;)). The
paintings - which supposed to be mixed media work - are
not finished yet. I think, I'm procrastinating the next
step, because I'm afraid to overdo them.


the skin was pretty dry from felting, that it looked like
an elephant skin - noticed while waiting for TWest ;)

I was thinking about the next step, when I saw the soft
light through the curtain (oh, what I call curtain is not
really a curtain - it's a makeshift, which became an ultimate
solution up till now..). I got a sudden muse to paint it and
I did. It's far than perfect, but I really, really love it! The
first time, that I'm really excited about my acrylic painting
and so I dare to show it here (but maybe I'd change my
mind tomorrow..).