happy ~ pretty in pink ~ weekend!

Saturday evening, or better the first early hours of Sunday...

rather unsual to be posting at this time,

but so let it be since it's happening...

go with the flow...right? 

; )

I'll share bits of my day, which seem to fall under the colour scheme of dusty pinks, naturals & touches of black.

After making myself a pretty, little notebook to keep my notes inside

 and encourage me to be more organised, while reinforcing my lately failing memory,

 I had a second breakfast, inspired by the lovely post of {my farmer's friend} on her family business newly launched website.

{Citrus Organicus} is a fresh and very inviting place, with a {blog} written in Greek & English.

~ we LOVE breakfast! ~

do you, as much?

I certainly do!

encouraged by Angelica's wholesome drink,

I made a banana & rice milk smoothie, adding some walnuts & almonds, while spinkling with cinnamon on top at the end.

...added the last double chocolate crisp cookies from {Ikea's food department},

poured my smoothie in our new {pink, ceramic, gigantic glasses}

and set off at the veranda together with my new, pretty, mini notebook,

{the cover of which is laminated btw, therefore it fears no spills!}

making notes for the next days & attemping to prioritise

throughout the day, I've been practising in styling & photographing,

other times making arrangements

and other times simply capturing my working surface as it was

or combining the two,

much like in this photo below:

this was taken in the afternoon

-> I made another smoothie, this time using strawberries & rice milk.

I used the glass bottle of a previously bought juice, to store the fresh homemade smoothie in.

and then made a little red fruit bouquet, pinning strawberries, raspberries & sweet cherries 

with wooden sticks.

-> used a glass jar to put them in,

-> stuck a {scalloped round paper sticker}

which arrived yesterday together with the baking twine ordered from this {lovely shop}

wrote "take one" on it

and voila!

a little party food styling in a flash

to put together all that has been mentioned, here is what was needed:

the notebook is handstiched with the amazing coloured, waxed threads

brought from Greece.

{here} you can have a better look at them

and below and till the end of the post,

are various shots of all the elements presented

Hope you enjoy!

there's so much on my agenda to be posted

before life goes on too much and some are forgotten...

but I have no worries any more...

my happy planner  is now my right hand, 

promising for better times in time management,

 organisation & priority setting

; )

hope your weekends are delighful ones in every way you wish!

c you here quite soon!

creativity sessions 

&

 a celebration connected to the {shop} 

with offers, presents & give aways are to follow

 stay tuned or should I say...stay {domestic}? ; )

H a p p y   W e e k e n d !

[via]

P.S: the shopping list is written up on Baking Love, a print available {here}

Crafting bliss ~

 {via}

...you know, us who love crafting, do so not only about the craft itself,

but also all that it involves...

~ the materials

~ the colours

~ the possibilities

~ the excitement

~ the search

...as much as the actual creative process

{via}

and then the cups of coffee or tea while crafting always have a different taste....

~ a richer one

~ a sweeter one

~ or a more spicy one

~ whichever the case,

~ a flavour we never forget...

{via}

there is so much intellectual & emotional activity involved in crafting & creating 

hard to compare with anything else...

Pictures from my crafting {and photography of them} sessions

1st ~> today in Greece at {Apart 44}, 

with materials found in Athen's mystic corners

2nd & 3rd ~> this winter at my beloved {home & studio in Germany}

...hope you've had a lovely weekend and thank you all dearest friends of mine and regular readers,

as much as newcomers and passers-by for every kind comment that you leave.

It means a lot to me ~ Thank U!

~ a basket of happiness...

...facing the crisis...one paper boat at a time...

...well, as you might have guessed I have been busy, like very busy and my trip here, despite being 

quite enjoyable thank's to meeting and spending time with beloved friends,

 is not exactly going as I had planned.

In other words, I still haven't been lying on the beach... 

Something must be rather serious, correct?

Well, being always gratefull for what there is and what we have, rather than what is absent,

let's still do some simple arithmetics, shall we?

1 country in a HUGE economical crisis {actually flirting persistenly with bankrupsy}

1 mother + 1 father who are having a hard time facing their own truths

{therefore withholding it from themseleves and actually their only child, who in this case is their daughter = me}

1 father's pension 30 % reduced

1 minimum mother's pension which has been on delay since ONE year

1 private bussiness {institute of foreign languages} sold for less than half its worth

1 bussiness worth being deposited partialy only monthly cause of the new owner's difficulties

1 mother who is facing difficulty aquiring a new job

EQUAL about 3 paper boat garlands, for about 10 euros each, being sold daily for the next about three years in order to offer support and manage the new standard of living in Greece that my parents have to face.

Possible? ... do not know, still certainly I do hope so.

I simply feel obliged to give it a try.

I understand the amount of work it means, but then I make each and every one of them with enormous Love & Care. So why not?

...and aside from the fact that their whole process is one bringing me joy and happiness, I honestly believe that somehow...someway...they are charms of Love & Luck around our living spaces.

I trust  and would be forever grateful if you took a moment to spread the word and show them to family and friends of yours.

At the moment, they are available on line via Etsy, but I 'll see that soon you are able to purchase them via a plattform that no particular account is needed. Just a "shopping cart" and "buy" button.

If you live in Greece where I currently am, you may send me an email and we'll arrange a meeting. How nice would that be? ;)

The garlands are offered in various combinations of patterns & colours and also prepared for:

~ baptisms

~ marriages

~ parties

~ celebrations

at prices that reflect the crisis that is taking place.

I promise to be more chatty and share more of my current everyday life here soon.

For the time being I'm working every second day at the shoe shop of my dearest girlfriend's husband.

So hip hop hooray, I need to be fiding my way to bed in a while...

...leaving you with a few more pictures of the garlands having been made since this Sunday...

97 single paper boats so far...

...not bad, right? ; )

P.S1: the picture on the top of the post is the "basket of happiness" prepared today and brought to a lovely space for them to be sold...will tell you more all about it soon!

P.S2: am currently rather not interested in the mostly possible occassion that mummy feels a little embarassed and awkward with this post. 

Apollogies on behalf of Miss Truth, which as usual hurts.

....and with a big hug of positivism....

Have a gorgeous Wednesday everyone!

...we make a life by what we give...

Hello my dear all and a very Merry Christmas to you! As from today in a few hours we are officially in a Holiday mode. 

The online shop is taking a rest and custom orders are all taken care off . And besides attempting as much as possible to be doings things we love and with love, our other "Master plan" is to try to get ourselves to Rome...oh well...exhibiting a tremendous amount of patience, as the airport in Frankfurt is cancelling an incredible amount of flights. 400 just for today....let's see how many times we'll be rebooked....or maybe we'll just get lucky :)

Before I log off for the days, I'd like to thank all of you, who have been showing so much love, support and care, by reading, commenting or simply listening. I wish there was the time to mention each one of you individually and write a couple of words for you, linking to your beautiful online & creative worlds, showing just the great poeple that you are!

Unfortunately there is not, so I just trust that you all know who you are.

I wish you to keep your hearts warm, no matter what the conditions in life might be, 

as trully, I cannot imagine a quality greater than love in life.

I'd also like to share with you a sample of the things and parcels prepared by me these days, this time mostly for presents and a couple of direct, custom orders.

At this point, let me also connect to the title... (I seem to be forgetting lately!)...I don't usally quote others and I'm afraid I have no reference to this, but I recently read it here on Kim Klassen's  amazing blog and it hit right to the center:

We make a living by what we get,

and a life by what we give...

So, I do have a wish for the New Year and this is to be able to offer so much more from myself, to myself, to others, for myself and for others, too....I hope that you are still following here....

I 've realised deeply how generous life is to me and I feel that I was a little bit lazy the past year...like I was taking a small break. 

Well, I want to share myself with the world and I want to offer the best parts of me.

I wish to be blessed in 2011 with the ability and the energy to actualise my thoughts and wants.

As I'm rambling, I'm also keeping the clock in mind, cause I should be logging of quite soon....So I should maybe let the pictures speak...I hope that they are self explicative enough.

Cards and parcels all wrapped up individually according to the person they are addressing to.

They can be maily categorised in three styles:

~ white + brown paper + classic red & white baker's twine

~ brown wrapping paper + simple white paper + wintery light blue hues

+ baker's twine in minty green + handmade woolen trees

....changing into something a little bit more glamorous with these "wrapping tools"

~ brown wrapping paper + fancy golden & turquoise glossy wrapping paper (Habitat) + vintage music sheets + minty green baker's twine

and here we are....a happy mess!

and an organised version ready to be shipped or picked up.

These (and more!) are gone since yesterday....I wish them to bring lots of joy and happiness to their receipients!

 .... wishing us all a very Merry Christmas with Joy, Peace, Health, Love and Abundance!

May the Christmas spirit work its magic!

Love, 

yours,

Ivy 

~ Gifted inspiration...

Hello my dears...happy Thursday to you!...have come with just a little bit more of inspiration for you today....let's have a look, shall we?

~ our living room above, dressed in white & a few golden touches,

with the Happy Holidays banner {read the how to here}, 

among candle lights, paper boats and an angel light garland...

~ Gifted, an online Holiday magazine & gift guide, put together by fabulous Ez from Creature Comforts and generously offered to us all.

You have to look for yourselves...the one page is better than the other!

Wonderful ideas and suggestions covering a wide range of tastes.

~  My favorite craft from Gifted, chosen to be highlighted here:

A very simple, yet so charming mobile, made from a branch and white paper snowflakes.

A handmade snowfall!

Find the craft's details and more dreamy, beautiful pictures on pages 85 - 92 of Gifted magazine following the link above or by simply clicking here.

via

~ Jutta, a sweet flickr contact, is a freelance graphic designer & illustrator from Finland. She owns a home I adore, which she and her husband are renovating bit to bit with lots of care and love.

You can find out more about their little adventures on her lovely blog.

 She writes with the assistance of..... Muru, one of her cute dogs...who is btw waiting for us on the entrance saying hello. I'm sure he'd love to hear from us!

So how about hoping there?

At the same time, you can also visit Jutta's shop with her pretty illustrations and cards.

Where? here :)

via

Now look above at her bedroom with the "Handmade snowfall moblile" and below at our living room...

Don't they make a pretty nice match eventhough they belong to different homes?

That's me...always liking to find corellations between things...and people!

Anayway, I hope that you are provided with some inspiration for the day!

I'll have to leave these pages and you for now, promising to be back soon with more.

Remember that it's always lovely to be finding you here.

So if you stop by, do say hello and share some love in the comments section!

warmest of wishes

Ivy ~ xx

~ Happy Holidays!

Happy new month to all! December is here for good and Christmas just around the corner. Have you done anything special for you perhaps today?

To celebrate the official beginning of the holiday season, I took just a few minutes and surrendered myself to instant inspiration.

You know, as much as there are countless, beautiful crafts out there in blogland and magazineland, which are worthy of giving them a try and gorgeous to look at, there is nothing like simply 

discovering our own ways.

This is why this post is only a suggestion and a reminder that with lots of love, appetite for creating and the simplest, basic & absolutely inexpensive materials, we can create beautiful things.

Even without having special talents.

This craft is baby-easy!

Here are my ingredients for creating a little festive garland, welcoming this holly season:

~ white paper

~ punched out showflakes from recycled, beige paper

~ jutta string

~ silver marker

~ glue

~ handwriting

All I did was cut out stripes of white paper (using scissors that make a wavy design) in similar and not identical pieces - absolute perfection tends to be less charming, so I measure everything by the eye, allowing for differences between the paper pieces.

Then I started adjusting them on the string, one by one by folding almost 1/3 of the piece of paper each time "behind" the string, using some glue.

When I finished, I wrote one letter on each one of the banner's  little "flags".

Let me mark here that I had previously decided the message I wished to write and had counted how many pieces would be needed.

Finally, I glued a few snowflakes here and there.

 Here it is!

Before thinking of using these wooden trees as the stands of our little banner,

I was going through the drawer with the kitchen utensils looking for some solutions.

I had chosen a pair of wooden chopsticks to play the role of the banners' stands and was planning to place them inside pots with plants.

I'm mentioning this, as in case you wish to try out something similar, a pair of such trees might not be available to you.

It doesn't matter at all!

So my dears, create and be merry!

Till next post

Lot's of love and warm wishes,

Ivy ~ xx

Spice up your life ~

Good afternoon. It's Friday evening and we are staying at home....time for relaxation, cocooning and for me a nice chance to bring here on the pages of my favorite diary, some of the pictures made yesterday. 

That white is my ever favorite "colour" for the fact that it carries incredible light within it, as much as of course all the colours of the spectrum is no secret. Neither is that I love to use it as a canvas for creativity mainly in interiors which are flexible, luminous and uplifting.

So no secrets shared. Just a collection of pictures with a rather humble subject to begin with:

~ garlic & onions ~

as humble as they may be they spice up every recipe!

So lets spice up our lives a bit

with garlic

and onions

with garlic & onions in luminous white

with garlic & onions playing with sunlight

and with the simplest labels from fine, thick paper, cut with one of those "magic" scisssors in a rectangle shape, reminding of these cereal biscuits we all grew up with and loved to dip in milk (I still do by the way). Final touch, our nicest handwriting and the cutest and tiniest of wooden pegs - which you can find in this fabulous shop, soon to be with us here. 
It's rather obious, still better to mention than left unsaid, that two simplest ceramic pots in white from Ikea in two different sizes are repurposed to holding our garlic and onions, instead their original use, of sheltering plants.

And since we are in the same natural palette 

 I thought I let you know 

that these three prints are freshly listed in the shop.

Above, "Heart Circus" which you may find here

"Frozen music" photographed on the top of

Milan's Cathedral, during our Christmas vacations

two years ago, which can be found here

and "Winter walks in Mallorca", taken in the streets of my ever

favorite village ~ Valdemossa ~ during our last visit there

this past January, which is now in the shelves of our dear shop, right here

Should you like one of these prints,

you have the chance to win one of them in a 5' x 5' size of square format,

also receiving a card and envelope set with the same print, much like those here.

These three along with the other six below portrayed in the mosaic, are to your luck's disposal

over at Heather's lovely place, Gathering Spriggs. 

You may be entering the competition until next Friday, the 1st of October

when the winner will be announced.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment, stating which print you wish to receive.

Hope you are all spending a lovely Friday, where ever you might be

whatever you might be doing. And if by any chance you are reading these lines, thank you for joining me and my diary. We love good company ;)

See and talk to you soon, probably very soon

Till then be well and take care,

Love, Ivy xx

Putting music in a jar...

Hello on a Tuesday afternoon....

 Rainy day...peaceful day...crafting day....have been happily preparing some new orders for the shop and before they find their ways to the post,  I'm taking a break finally finishing this post begun on Sunday. Speaking of which, I hope you' ve all spent nice times during it and have started this new week refreshed, energised and on a good, positive basis.

Positivity...I find so much of it when creating from the tiniest of things, to being involved in bigger - decorating usually - projects both for our living spaces, for friends and of course clients. Therefore today, I thought we spend together some crafting time.

Here is what we'll make:

....but before we do, I'm in the mood for some story telling.

Clouds in the sky just bring this mood, reminding of great times with the students of the Arts § Crafts in English seminars, while sut in a circle around me during story reading breaks...

I guess I also kind of miss teaching....

So, I'll let you into the little - true - story going hand in hand with this crafting project, as they always arise as a result of instant inspiration happily striking my way.

Lovely mother of mine had arrived to visit me for the first time in our humble, little Penthouse apartment, after alsmost two & half years that I've been living here.

Two years that have marked tremendous changes in my family, for which though is not the time to talk about.

Staying focused! Back to my mother visiting me....

So she brought her lovely, stylish and kind self, along with suitcases filled with lots of.....Greece inside!

The honyiest of honeys carried in a rather large tin being part of it.

"Wünderbar mother!" I thought and said....

Now, we have delicious honey from local Greek sellers and a chance to get creative.

Since we had been keeping (miraculously somewhere in this tiniest kitchen of ours!) some of the jars of our favorite morning marmelade in order for them to be reused when the time comes - finally it did! -

they became happy holders of  golden honey.

...looking around the house, I spotted the vintage music paper sheets used for making music paper boat garlands (much similar to these) and which by the way never made it to the shop, as I kept giving them for present to friends or them bying some in the name of support, to offer as a present themselves. The summer is over and paper boat garlands never saw the shelves of the Etsy shop....oh well....talking about having to learn to be professional while working from home...ahem, ahem....

So lovely friends,

we had honey

we had jars

we had music sheets

and as my partner poitned out:

"You made music honey, right?

I guess it's true, so let's put a little music in our kitchens now, shall we?

Here is how they could eventually look, if you wish to follow the instructions step by step.

Get creative while being inspired and make similar ones, speaking of your own personal style.

Crafting is about the joy of creating, while also freeing our imagination and discovering new places inside us that wish to expressed.

The basic materials we need:

~> recycled/ repurposed glass jars

~> uncouloured,recycled, soft paper

  ~> scissors

~> stick glue

~> natural string

~> thin cardboard to cut out labels from

~> silver marker

How to instuctions...I actually sat down and handwrote the steps before coming to prepare this post.

There 's something about writing, about the things we love, while holding a pen in our hands, that is so soul soothing and a wonderful usage of time....despite us living in the era of being  fast,

I strongly oppose to that by the way...I believe in efficiency & organisation, but think that hurring to do things, while at the same time wanting (and in worst of cases being obsessed with) being better or ahead from others, simply excludes high quality, real joy and actually fullfiling ourselves and existencies through our doings.

Worry not though, there are explicitly typewritten steps just below this picture of the handwritten instructions.

This is an alternative

with a label having been created from the same material used to cover the lid.

I made this just to temporary put inside some of the materials used for the music jars while I was photographing having in mind to share  this craft here.

I actually like this more simplistic outcome a lot.

You could actually use this instead of music, vitnage sheets and write with the silver marker what the jar holds inside.

The lid of this heavenly delightful marmelade, served as  inspiration to create the cover of the silver lid of our little repurposed jars.

However, should you like simple ways and minimalistic look and solutions, keeping it plain after having removed the label of the brand, will work just fabulously.

To make the covered in soft paper lid, we cut a square piece, larger than the circle of the lid.

Better cut it bigger than smaller ;)

We then pass the glue stick allover the square surface of the paper.

We center it and attach it to the silver lid.

First the top and then  the sides.

This is probably the trickiest part.

We need to be going over every centimeter of the sides patiently to form nice folds.

We wait for the glue to dry and then cut the paper just around the edges of the lid for a clean look.

Easy part comes..hooray!

1. We wrap around the glass jar the stripes of music sheets and glue them together - just slightly will be enough - in the back there where they meet.

We tie around the jar's "neck" some natural string to end in a bow, where we will hung our label from.

First prepare your label by writing the content of the jar in your nicest handwriting  (you can decorate it by drawing some stiches all around the label's shape , too) and then tie it on.

This one is cut in a heart shape but you can do it anyway you like. I also like simple rectangular ones a lot!

Our recyvled , music, honey jars are ready and the ones in below are taking a stroll in our veranda, as the sun was shining and they got all excited when they found out that they would be all over the internet.

"Wohooo!"....they said...." we are happy to be wearing outfits we love and wish you to have much fun and great times while making some like us"

"If you are flickr and/or online friend of our god mother Ivy, we encourage you to take pictures and send them in to her...she'll be so happy to receive them!"

From the them and me:

~ Have the loveliest of days!

 May goodness be with us all ~

Love, 

Ivy xx