Autumn blues

Is it just me or everything suddenly turned cold and nasty?


Mid-October, mornings are getting misty and I keep my socks on when I go to bed at night (or morning, as it so often happens, me being an owl-type of person).


More blues inside and for some reason I cannot find enough energy to radiate optimism and belief in glorious future. Very non-marketing, heh?


I blame it on the autumn blues and I'm going to stick to it, at least here.


So, news from the shop will be quite cold and unenthusiastic, too. Nothing much happens. A handful of new views every day (hey, one item is at 99, one more and I can celebrate! A friend of mine tells me that the sales will start once I hit 100 and that statistics don't lie - hell, I hope he's right:), an item renewed once every few days, but that's it. Pretty monotonous.


Well, there's a new banner popped into both Etsy and the blog (which is here! here! scroll up to the top and see for yourself!) - I seem to finally be getting hold of graphic programs. A side effect of web design course. What do you think? At least now it shows what I actually do.


I also started work on a website for NoKitschProject. I have quite a clear idea for the whole thing set up in my head and I will get there eventually, but with the autumn atmosphere smashing my head to pieces it's going slowly, oh sooo slowly. Making a website is a simple affair, but it's unbelievably time-consuming. Also, after some point, very repetitive. And I'm waiting for some inspiration to come up with the words that will be just right, not some nauseous cliches or pure marketing bullshit. Quite tricky.


As I said, I'll get there eventually.


I'm also halfway through photo session for my new zodiac jewelry line - I have about a quarter of the pics, but can't bring myself to move and finish it off. Autumn blues again, and the fact that I'm fighting an endless battle with my camera does not help, either. I want to put them up on the web in one go, so that the collection stays whole, so I cannot move until the photographic task is done. I'll get there eventually...


Shame, because I'm quite curious if the zodiacs will be liked. Hell, I'm a bit low hope-wise these days, and I'm losing belief in value of what I do. I know I shouldn't (how come that people doing cruel, nasty, soulless things NEVER seem to hesitate?), and I know this too shall pass, but I'm only human.


That would be the end of autumn blues for today, thank you very much. Hopefully I will write again soon and in a better mood. Hopefully I won' t need the spring to arrive.


Oh, above you can see another pic from my playful session with Vanda. Quite something, eh?

Turning cross stitching funky

Hey, I guess I've found my mission :).


I came across couple of posts here and there saying "nah, cross stitching is not groovy and no fun" or something along these lines and it caused a big wave of rebellion rising inside my head. Might be just my stubborn nature, but I tend to resist being put into any kind of sorting drawer, be it with regards to my life or my work.


So the big thing I want to say is - cross stitching is only a medium. It's a way by which we can express ideas, just as writing or sculpting or painting. You are given a way of transferring images onto canvas and then it's up to you. You can dream of the wildest images, you can change shape of the canvas, you can mix it with any other materials you want - sky (and your imagination) is the limit.


Once you get past the "stitch by pattern cross by cross" phase, you can create your own patterns as you go. I can, anyway. The longer I work with this medium, the more ideas come my way, and the fresher, the more innovative they tend to get. I don't have enough words to express how big an adventure this can become. There are few limits if you are brave enough to follow your own vision and this is made tangible in the items created.


You think cross stitching can be only employed in making nice and boring wall hangings? I'm here to prove you wrong. Have a look at pictures of my pieces somewhere in this blog, or make a quick detour to my shop to see for yourself. I invite you also to try for yourself, to play with your canvas, with your colours, with your ideas.


And do come back to have a look at my new ideas as they grow.
They are happy to be seen.

Handmade business cards

I wrote some time ago about my plan of hand-making my business cards.

I seemed to have been a little jinxed on that, because whatever only could go wrong, went wrong. I won't go into details, after all being deadly boring is not my ambition here. Today's announcement though is - I've made it!

I did not manage to do one single thing, which, as you can see, is - MAKE MY MIND UP :)

Then again - do I have to? I didn't very much like the idea of making x copies of exactly the same design, I would probably snore off halfway through. But what if I focus on colours/font (fancy way of saying 'my handwrite') as branding and leave a bit more space for imagination with the flower bit?

Truth 1: When put together, they look fairly consistent.

Truth 2: I enjoy diversity very much.

Conclusion: They pass.

Flower hunt

You may have noticed how I'm using flowers (or generally plants) as props in my photo sessions for presenting my cross stitched earrings. I tried it at the very beginning as a random idea and I was swept off my feet by the beauty, so I kept on going in that direction.


I take my pics one at a time. One day, one flower, one picture.


Now, I bet that's not the most efficient way of getting the pics and if I was doing that in any employment, I would've been fired for procrastination ages ago.


But then each single picture has a story to tell. It may not be important to anyone but me - but hell, it IS important to me, full stop.


At the beginning I was happy with a humble daisy straight from a green patch in front of my apartment. I've kept those pics online because a) there is nothing wrong with a humble daisy, just the opposite b) it illustrates earlier step on my journey.


Then I became a bit more ambitious (and after all there's only so many flowers growing on a streetside lawn) and desired to go for something flashier. First of all, more colour - I've noticed that bright flowers help to bring attention to my product and gather more views. Also, I wanted to have a different flower accompanying each pair - I put a lot, lot, lot care into crafting each one, so I wanted to take an individual approach here (as opposed to assembly line treatment).


Yet, the flowers don't fall from heavens (well, if they do, they never decided to materialise themselves in this area :) and I'm bloody broke so I can't simply go to a florist's and make my pick. Another task was added to my list - flower hunt. Hedges and flowerbeds in my area were my first source, but I'd drained it pretty quick - after all landscapers don't have poor crafters in mind when doing their job - so I had to re-adjust my observation skills to include mental notes on what flowers grow where (and when!).


Jasmine on the picture above is my loot from exactly this type of a hunt. I noticed the bush more than a year ago, when desperately clinging to any scraps of nature and beauty on the way to the office I worked for at the time. Jasmine is pretty special to me, so it stayed in my memory and the time of its blooming coincided with me opening the shop this year. Synchronicity? :)


I nearly missed it, even so. I knew the flowers are up there, but couldn't get myself to actually moved my ass and go pick them. I thought I'd miss it due to good old laziness... but then one day I actually did go for a walk in the jasmine area and here they were - late bloomers!


Here it is, my flower-hunt loot, and here's me, crowing with pride :).
Or joy, more like it.

Supplies from around the world

Now, I bet I will get chastised by all the eco-conscious out there, but at least at the moment a good story is more valuable to me than environmental consciousness. Feel free not to like it if you so choose.


This story is to wonder about two things: how ideas materialise on their own if only you hang on to them and how each part of my new small project has a big story to tell.


I've been toying with the idea of making some business cards. Putting aside all the business advisors screaming it's a complete MUST, I felt that I want to have a little something with my name on it in case someone asks where to find me. I could write on a scrap of paper, but I will be much happier to give away a little pretty card instead.


I looked for ideas for a while, or, to be more precise, marked the project as 'open' and waited for ideas to flow in. And, slowly but surely, they did!


Now, I don't want to go into too many details - first of all, not to spoil the surprise, but also I have a feeling that the whole process, although unbelievably magical to experience, would be plainly boring to read. I'll just say that my supplies include an unusual gift from my sister from years ago, one thing travelling to me from Australia even now, another from UK and another freshly bought on yesterday's trip to Northern Ireland (man, that was a long drive..). Every single thing I'll be using in this project has a big story to remind me of and I'm sure it will change the energy of finished cards.


Well, I guess the only thing left to do now is to post the picture of it when ready. I'll try to do it in few more days, but I have to ask you for a little patience there.

And the answer is....

I was driving through Oughterard, Co. Galway, focused mainly on the road in front of me, when my passenger shouted - hey did you see the bells?

What the hell? I thought. Bells? Are we passing a church or something? Or was it a huge botanical speciman, big enough to spot from a speeding car?

A stop was ordered, a parking found and we went to investigate. And bells we did find! Huge pair of wind chimes, hung from two ancient trees in a roadside mini park. We tried them out and they sound just as well as they look.

What an extraordinary idea! I have no clue whose - if the maker or the idea giver ever happens to stumble upon this blog, I would be happy to hear from him/her. I bet there's a good story accompanying this one!

So here's the pic to answer my riddle. Note the troll bridge in the background!

Road trip discoveries

I've been driving around Ireland quite a lot recently.

First of all, I bought my first car and I'm enjoying the newly acquired freedom of travel. New possibilities opened up, but then - speed of moving around means that I'm not able to see things I would see if travelling on foot. Shame, but I believe some sort of equilibrium exists and I might find it one day. The best of both worlds...

My other reason for travelling is the endless hunt for inspiration and experience. Even if I'm not back home with a new idea (or materials!) for a project, there are always memories, little pictures in my head that are at least that tiny bit out of ordinary. And since I'm trying to be good and take my camera along (see my promise few posts back), sometimes I manage to actually transfer one of those pictures on the screen for other people to see.

So what IS pictured above? I'm wondering how much can be guessed based on the picture alone. The perspective is quite unusual and might make the riddle more challenging. If you guessed - ha, congratulations! If not - let me explain it all in the next post, more conservative pic and location included.

She sells sea shells...

Still fighting with a bit of creative block (probably caused by too much time spent in the Big Busy World. Did you notice how this can kill any creative urge? If you did - you're sooo like me:).

But the time flies, and I start to miss the feeling of doing something with my hands. The first line in my collection - earrings - is done. Amazing how they got me burning, but when their time of fulfillment came - the ideas just stopped flowing. So now I have twenty-odd pair ready, half of which is up on the shop website, half still needs putting up (check it out from time to time, I take pains to update it every day or two), and the only things left to be dealt with are photography/marketing issues. Quite gripping in their own right, but with a completely different vibe.

I miss the other, trance-like feeling of actually MAKING something. I try to fill the gap with impromptu domestic projects - like baking a cake, for example. Last night - apple/peach shortbread tart, brimming with cinnamon and raisins, adapted from a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (check out his inspiring book The River Cottage Cookbook - I carried it with me even for field trips, at least for few good days) - yummy. And I enjoy it immensely. But still - I think the time gets slowly ripe to start on another finger-fiddly project.

I don't want to disclose too many secrets before anything is actually done, but just a bit to keep you hooked on - the ocean looks like my most likely inspiration. I've started on a series of hunting (mataphorically speaking..) - gathering expeditions, travelling all over Ireland from beach to beach, searching for different flotsam and jetsam specific to a particular area. Got good few handfuls by now (hopefully I'll manage to follow up with some pics soon) and there's more to come. Next destination - Coral Beach...

And of all that I'm planning to create something beautiful.

But for now - shh, let's not frighten the inspiration away! Let's allow it to mature in warmth and silence to see what will emerge!

Devil in detail...

Have a quick look at the pictures of the same pair of earrings two posts down and tell me what you think.

I bet I know what you think - hell lot of a difference, and the devil is in the detail...

I thought long and hard on how to make my pics more attractive.
The effect you can see above. Worked?

The white background is actually a shirt I wear very rarely - nightmare of washing snow-whites! - but I love the texture of fabric. Very old fashioned it feels to me, but in good sense. Makes me think of all the delicate, innocent things in the world (or am I stretching it too far?).
Anyway - works great as a background for pics.
White seems to work better - any photographer could probably tell me why, I can just conclude based on my own trials and errors.

Next thing - I got some feedback, and from two different people as well, that the golden-headed pins are a nice touch. So, let's get wild and add some more! There's only one extra at the picture attached, but on other... Let's say I was quite generous:)

And finally - flower power:) Leaf picked straight from the public lawn in front of my apartment, when coming back from shopping for groceries. No such a big hassle! And the effect - stunning!

Actually, I had this weird thought: my earrings are not needed in the picture at all. Nature itself is so perfect, so beautiful, that any additions are only unnecessary clutter.

What an un-marketing thought:) But hey - let's just say it's my act of appreciation of the Earth with its bounty.

4 items up on the shop website now, all with better pics. If you want to have a look, feel invited to check them out here.