Inspirations: Smile! (Barcelona I)

This picture was made by Lachafa in Barcelona! 

I love the colours and the effect. She made a lot of really beautiful as well as artful pictures!

Inspirations: Smile! (Leipzig II)

With a nose!

A safe smile!

A vampire smile!

At last I found this poor smile... sniff....! 

...a little sneak (crochet)

I just wanted to share this picture because I love it!

I am making the inner rounds of some granny squares in four different colours. The pattern is from Marie Claire Idées - 250 Points de crochet. Even if you can't read french you could use the patterns :) The have the chrochet charts next to example pictures and a written description. You really don't need to have perfect language skills to translate the text! It's quite easy.

I also wanted to make some examples how easy it is to adapt a crochet pattern... but to be honest: Writing down a crochet chart is somewhat... grrrr.... it always looks so badly drawn! I'll try again in some time but right now I am too frustrated! ;)

For all of you who are searching for chrochet patterns in the net: Try to search in different languages!

German: Häkelschrift (=crochet pattern / chart)
Spanish: Ganchillo (=crochet)

With the spanish word you'll find also a lot of great blogs / sites in portuguese! Plus they show a lot of really cool and/or cute japanese and russian crochet patterns!

Inspirations: On the streets (Trier I)

A friend of me detected this cute little bird graffitis (Pochoir) in Trier! He send me this pictures. I love them especially that it seems they have some talk going on ^^

Seems that the stencil was first used with green and than with black.

A blue little fox...

Another little fox I made with the pattern from Kirie :) 

Mh... I think I need a lot more white, grey and blue shades... maybe a little violett...? Although it will take some time until I make the next fox ^^ To make the same piece several times is not my strengh. I still don't know what to make with them... maybe I'll buy her other fox pattern and make a little quilt or something like that. But like I said... now I need to make something different (I need few minutes projects inbetween! And patchwork / paper piecing / pattern sewing / things like that still took me some time :) ).

I could add some fabrics with some animal tracks... Some time ago I made a lot of stamps out of foamed rubber for different animal tracks... mh...

• the first ones
• mounted on wood
• first testing on fabric

About cookie cutters and earrings...

I have several cookie cutters I just bought (some time ago... some.... long timer ago ^^) for crafting. You see I have a lot of them twice: One for crafting and one for food. Please, never use the ones for crafting for something you want to eat! Especially not if you are working with polymer clay like me! 

I wanted to try out wheter all the sizes were useable to make earring with them. For this kind of test I used air-drying clay (a very cheap one) because I didn't want to waste fimo (polymer clay) with it. But the principle is the same :)

I rolled out the clay and just stamped it... and then cut out parts with my cookie cutters...

They take time to dry. Not only a day...

This structure was made with my wooden stamp (you maybe know it from here). You see the brown spots? It's due to the wood of the stamp :)

I love this stamp!

This was made with a piece of fimo where I just pressed some plants in it. This is now my negative stamp for other clay. But it is not too easy to use. Sometimes the clay stuck on the baked fimo... If anybody has some ideas how to avoid this: Please! I also tried some laquer... didn't worked...

After drying I painted the surface with acrylic paints. I tried out different colours combinations and layers. 

Some colours were mat and some gloss...

And of course... metallic colours...! They are so beautiful in the sun!

This one I didn't use for earrings... mh... any ideas what to make out of it?

And here you can see the whole collection. All of them went to Lachafa for a real life earring study. After this she has to give me a report about which size is okay to wear and which colours worked best... etc :) After this I'll make more of them with fimo. Polymer clay is a little bit more stable than this air.drying clay. But... it is not too bad to be honest.

A little fox!

This fox was made with a pattern which was made by Kirie. She was so nice to let me try it out! I love all her fox patterns! They are so cute :)

Take a look at her blog shape moth where she shows a lot of beautiful as well as cut and / or cool things. All done with fabric and yarn... I stumbled over her blog per accident (like most blogs are found nai? :) ) and followed her since. Especially her sewn moth is... mh... okay I am tempted to use the word cute again... but it would be a little bit too often? Also I know that not everybody shares my view of cuteness to insects (or cephalopodae for example ^^). But beside the "restricted word count" it is also beautiful :)

Ah... and please don't get it wrong: In her pattern the eyes are even! It is just not the best thing to phone and sew at the same time! I though about starting over again. It wouldn't cost too much time because the head is the first thing you start with according to her pattern. But after lloking at the different eyes I was going to like it. Just a little, little odd touch nai?

I used several light fabrics. Can you see the two different white shades next to the light fabric with the paisley pattern? I used the only two shades of white I had so I mixed cotton with some stronger linen... mh.. with the tiny fabric parts it was not the best ideas I ever had to use two different kind of fabrics. But I think I would have done it even knowing the problem.... just because I wanted a white fox! ;)

So... what know to make with it?

Inspirations: Critters (Leipzig, family garden)

Just two little pictures. Nothing more. But I like them :)

Especially the cat next to the sign! ^^

Inspirations: On the streets (Leipzig III)

Look at this signal lights! My family mentioned this one to me because it should be recorded by some fotos due to its short-lived nature. This are stencils which are just put before the traffic lights.

I was a little bit to late. The only stencil which was still perfect was the eagle. 

This one was a beer bottle. 

You see the stencil?

On the green light was a hemp leaf... sniff... was away already.

The real cool thing: The lights were still really bright and visible! 

Why not having some stencils over all traffic lights? I would love it! It would make me smile everyday :)

And a last picture: Some kind of cat :)

Buttons

This are most of the buttons I made here. Not all (not intentionally, I just forgot some ^^). I took some cardboard, stamped the obvious onto it (with my carved button stamps) and then fixed the buttons on the little cards by sewing.

On the back is my blog name :) I send them all to Lachafa. Either she can use them on her own or she can "order" the structures she likes in her favorite colours and give the buttons she don't need away (either to friends or completly strangers). ;)