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I came back to my stay in Lithuania and found out this set of watercolour paintings. I am just addicted at and fascinated with documents about nature. Especially the BBC ones like Planet Earth. See my Animals Pinterest Board.

Easter

I am always so happy when Easter arrives. Not because of the violent habits that come with it here. But because of the joy of rebirth, new beginning, spring of new life!

"Christ was reborn, rejoice!"

Toy Pillow Houses

I've started new crafting project and I am so fond of it right now!
I would like to make more and more of these houses, but I have to sell some at first, so I will not be swallowed by them. We live in very small flat and it's not easy to store object that demands even small space for long time.

I like how they can be squeezed and how you can cuddle with them. They look really well as small village.

I just love my Houses.

(Well they are availeable on my shop on Etsy or Fler.cz )

Collage Challenge

Collage is what I am working on last weeks. I like the structures and patterns working together and the touch of plasticity that it creates.

inspirational pool:

collage board on Pinterest

Alison Worman

Sarah Andreacchio

With Love to Pinterest

I really wish to take my Pinterest boards and print them to a small book of interesting items...
When I'll have money to spare, I'll go and do it!

Winter-land

I've add new listing on my shop on Etsy. It's from series of winter landscapes. It's my goal in last weeks to somehow catch the atmosphere of it.

I have pictures with now snow,
with snow,
with trees,
without trees,
just coloured winter atmosphere,
sketches,
collages,
paintings...

not all of them fits to my seeing of the land in winter, but some of them are quite close. It's hard to do it and avoid the kitschy sentiment.

Quilting with Pinterest

My husband finally made us a bed. It's fabulous thing from oak and steel. It's so comfortable to sleep on it,'s hard to make the bed as long as we don't have any big blanket to cover it with.

So I dived in to world of quilting. I used Pinterest as my source of inspiration (what else to use, by the way!). And I indeed found some!

Now I am fighting with the precision. Even with the ironing I simply cannot get the squares fit perfectly together. But than I look at the really old quilts made in hand and I say: "What the hack!" And I make it as it comes.

It will be just perfect thing to cover our new bed with.

Inspiration:
Quilt Stuff
Modern Day Quilts
Crafty Blossom
Pinterest "patchwork"
Pinterets "quilts"
My Quild Board

Where do you go for inspiration and advice to this sort of thing?

Spring Trends

Etsy starts to fill up with spring fashion trends. I just picked up some from my favorites.
Soft, natural, pastel tones... flowers in the garden.

1: SleeWay scarf; 2: Riordan Roache dress; 3: Vintage shoes from golden ponies; 4: Shirt of Okymmik; 5: Vintage shoes from CharmingGypsyVintage; 6: MyAvoniea vintage dress; 7: monicaus cardigan

Ear Treat

They are called First Aid Kit and you can remember them from fabulous youtube cover version of Fleet Foxes. And now I saw this video.

This winter is like this: kind of "fairy" ...

Enjoy.

 

Etsy tutorial - product photos

I still experiment with photos for my Etsy shop. I don't have any superb camera, so I have to work with what I have. And that's Nikon Coolpix S5. Although this thing works surprisingly well, still I have to do lot of work before the photo is "Etsy compatible".

What I used:

I was taking photos in my kitchen in the morning. It has south light so it's filled with sun in the morning. That's nice, but not useful for photographs. Rays of light mess with the exposure and although it seems beautiful in reality, it can't be captured well on the photo.
So I had to do this:

After I adjusted the light in the room, I had beautiful set for my product photography. The green fabric I used to cover the table had to be ironed, of course. I had to sprinkle it with water and roll it for a while and than, when all the fabric went wet, I ironed it quite well to almost perfect flat shape.

And now the camera. I have small tripod, so I've put bucket on the chair and than the tripod on it. It's quite effective (although, in the end, I wouldn't need the tripod at all).

I used 0 or -7 exposure and frankly, I just snapped the pictures automatically as the camera measured it. It looked pretty well on the display, but what a shock, when I put it in my computer!

this is, how the original photo looks like:

Etsy recommendations towards the product photos are to use white background, to make pictures as light as possible, preferably use nature light. Well this photo is obviously too dark. 

I use Linux system Ubuntu 10.10. So I chose Pinta Image Editor to adjust the photos. It's great program similar to Paint.NET which I like for it's pure simplicity. Using "Levels" tool I adjusted brightness and contrast so the final photo looks like this:

I had to do this operation with each product alone, it took me about 3 hours to work it all till the end and I am still not satisfied with it entirely. But I can use them for my shop:

Pillow Houses

What do you think about them?