Friday is my day: Star of the East

This week I don't want to travel far so we will go to Mugla, south of Turkey and meet Star of the East. Well one of them, the younger Estella. There is another Star too, mother Esther and they run together a jewellery shop on Etsy and not just some jewellery shop. They make amazing and different and very creative jewellery, as they announce in their shop: anything but boring! That's true! Go and see!



(click any picture to go to the shop)

Star Of The East.etsy.com

8:30 Alarm goes off, waaaahhhh way to early for me…. I stroll out of my bed to get my Etsy and coffee fix. I have to say I’m totally NOT a morning person. Check emails, convos and the girls at the EuropeanStreetTeam.

9:15 Time to take pictures of the items we made yesterday, there is always a basket full, and also always doggie on the background.

9:40 Mum wakes up so I change clothes to model a bit :) I have many fans watching me…

10:00 While loading pictures to my PC I drink my second coffee, trying my best to wake up.

10:15 Preparing packages.

10:40 Just when I’m about to go another sale at the supply shop (yaay) so quickly another package for the road.

10:55 I finally go and find out that the birds have been busy at night, YUCK

10:57 I arrive at my friends place, we go together to a drawing course

11:05 We arrive at class and start to draw…The courses are given by the municipality for very low prices, mostly women participate. It is fun and gives me time to draw.

12:00 Getting quite hungry as I hadn’t have breakfast, busy with a portrait to warm up before starting with an oil painting (portrait) next week. I go to the bakery to buy a small baguette and eat it while drawing.

13.15 Need some fresh air, the class room is right at the beach and there is a sailboat festival, an amazing view, so glad I have my camera with me (for Friday is my day).

15:30 Class is over and I go down town, first to the post office then to other errands and groceries. The post office is 20 meters from the sea :)

17:30 Finally home, quite tired and hungry so we decide on pizza

18:15 I pick up the pizza’s yummmm

19:00 Feeling very sleepy of the huge pizza so I read back, the girls of the Team have been chatty (again) 31 pages….

20:30 Time to get in action: photo editing, and new listings for all 4 shops.

22:00 Time for a warm shower (sorry no pictures in there).

22:30 I dive in our workroom to get some projects finished, I admit: I’m messy…

23:45 Some more new items in the shop to list and a little chat.

00:45 Time for my lovely book and then of to dream world :)

Wishing you all good weekend again :)

Friday is my day: Kreativlink

Tadaaa! Today we will meet "crazy" and so fun and loveable Renate aka Kreativlink. She makes the most great and creative leather and painted fabric journals and she makes us in Etsy's European street team laugh. a lot. If you haven't visited her journal shop yet, please do it now! Her books just fly from the shop...

(click any picture to get in the shop)

www.Kreativlink.etsy.com

8:26 Time to start the day. Since crazy dog has a basket in our bedroom I can sleep as long as I want. Yeah! You are jealous now, right?

Down it goes, first thing is to turn on the computer and check Etsy. I chat with the Euros and answer Convos and eMails I got. As most of my customers are in the US, they are very active while I sleep. Get some breakfast and have it – yeah, in front of the Computer.

Finally I can drag myself away (I have to fight hard each day) and under the shower it goes. Now really ready to start working. I’m cutting leather and packing orders.

When I’m finished I see that it’s already after 12:00 and the post office is closed until 14:00 now. So its only crocery shopping for now.

I take the nearest supermarket and try to resist all the chocolate and sweets. As you can see, I was good. The cans of catfood are for crazy dog. He grew up with three cats and is used to it. Maybe he’s a barking cat in real, who knows?

But now I really need some work done so I‘m a busy bee for some time. As I get bored easily, I switch between cutting, sewing, painting, paper folding, drawing and so on. Of course with little Etsy breaks all the time.

16:00 I give up hope that more sales will happen and drive to the post office.

Back home I continue working on some of the 352 started projects …

17:30 Time to start cooking. Spicy chicken. Mjum!

18:00 Hubby is coming home. We have dinner and are chatting a bit. Afterwards he makes a punch button for me. I never get them right so that‘s officially his job now.

19:30 One and only son comes home and again crazy dog acts like he has not seen him for years!

20:15 I chill out with hubby …

22:00 Back in my workroom and try to finish some journals. But it‘s hard because the challenge of our Streetteam is over and now we are all waiting for the next weeks host to appear and give us the new theme for next week. It‘s crazy and a lot of fun, I get nothing done but have tears in my eyes from laughing.

23:30 Finally the forum is quiet and I succeed to work a bit more. I have that little TV window in one of my monitors and watch silly things on the side. And I go down in the basement to take some photos in my “lightbox”.

1:00 I got to bed and read as long as I fall asleep with the light still on …

Good weekend to all sweeties!

Friday is my day:MundoGominola

Today we travel back to Spain and meet Claudia aka MundoGominola, Spanish illustrator. She has so lovely and fairytale-like girls who have thick and long neck, red cheeks and eyes far from each other. I love the colourpalette she uses, strong and earthy colours and Claudia herself is very sweet and friendly girl too.

Please visit MundoGominola shop to see more her amazing works and purchasing is of course recommendable.

:)

MundoGominola.etsy.com

930am::: I open an eye... and realize that i have to open the other eye, and take off my legs from my bed... time to wake up!

Good morning Wish! have we got any e-mails?? How about etsy?? Any sales??

brrrr aaarg, a fake sale! I have to cancel the transaction…

,

10am::: Shower and fresh!... I have a glass of milk and a toast. Yes, i know, is a poor breakfast. But i must dress and go out. It's a sunny but cold day in Madrid.

1030am::: Ready! Let's go. Walking,,,

11am::: …I arrive at my pottery workshop. I will spend there three hours! It is relaxing..

We are learning to mold hollow rounded pieces. It’s a free exercise. I'm going to do three little heads... like my illustrated characters, with red cheeks!

14pm::: A friend of mine, Dani, comes and we go together to my home. But he don´t want to appear in a photo! So you are not going to meet him ( no, I promise he is not an imaginary friend)

1430pm::: we are at home.. home sweet home. I love staying at home..

We have to eat.. I don't like to cook... so we are going to eat soup of Cocido (that my mother made for me…I love it!) and shall order pizza. Rare mix, I know!

15pm::: piiiiiiiiiii!! Pizza!

Finally peaches in syrup…

After meal we spend some time talking and watching tv…

17pm::: Dani left me alone.. He is a freelance designer and he must work! And me too..

I’m going to prepare a packaging to send. I love packaging.. I always do it slowly and carefully.

18pm::: Time to draw! Today I’m not going to work on my children book illos.. I want to begin some geishas’ drawings I’m doing for my new jewelry and prints…

There is a shop near here that sell oriental stuff and they are interested in my artwork!! Crossing fingers.. I hope they love it!

First I scan the scketch. The sketches are made with pencil and pencil colors over a yellowish textured paper… this give it an antique and warm look.

I love work with only a soft light..

20pm::: Chating with Krize. We talk everyday. About etsy, about life..about Boogie and Wish (our pets)., sharing ideas, looking for promotion… We live so far, but she is a good friend. She is a very creative and productive artist and great person, who always make me smile. Thanks Kris for all!

21aproxpm::: I continue testing colors and textures with photoshop. For the moment I’m satisfied… I’m on the right way.

23pm::: I’ve spent a lot of time on the computer.. surfing the net, reading friend’s blogs, my facebook..

Now it’s time to rest, eat something and have a tea watching tv.

1230pm::: I always go to be very late… I suffer from insomnia.

And I go to bed, but I love to read, to play with Wish, or draw some scketches… I only need my notebook and some pencils. Those hours are very relaxing and productive! I’m drawing more geishas.

2am::: Wish is deeply asleep… I'm so jealous! I’m going to try it too… Good night Wish!

Visit her blog too

mundogominola.blogspot.com

Happy and warm weekend to everybody!

:)

Friday is my day: ArtMind

Today we travel again to Belgium and meet ArtMind aka Mitsy. She is super creative person, not only in her day job but also she has time to create lovely felted necklaces (I have one)

and some fun cards to her Etsy shop, not to forget that she has some amazing clay works and she is the sweetest person in Etsy land :)

Please visit her shop

artmind.etsy.com

6u15 The alarm says I have to go to work. After 3 days of absolutely doing nothing, I feel still ill but decide to go to work anyway.

6u25 I check Etsy and wish my European Streetteam (Handmade europe) friends a happy day before I shower and get ready for work.

7u00 Lunch packed and ready to go. I always prepare my lunch the evening before. Super easy in the morning.

7u15 I have my breakfast (Nutella sandwiches & coffee) in the car. Bad bad girl! ;)

7u55 Traffic jams are predictable so I always take a craftbox with me so I can play while waiting.

8u45 I arrive at work, check my e-mails and respond to some before my creative team arrives.

9u15 Today we are designing creative craft projects for groups of children. How fun!

We discuss what we plan to do and start working.

10u00 While my team is busy being creative, I have to go and get everything ready for the educational fair that we will attend on saturday. There we promote the creative craft projects that we design to teachers of elementary schools. We will also promote some games that are ideal to use in the classroom and we will also demonstrate a new creative project for X-mas.

The projects we design today, will be shown next spring.

I do some administration first and then my collegue and I are getting all the panels, supplies, etc. ready to go.

11u30 I go back to my creative team to help. While we work we discuss our projects and give each other feedback which has proven to be a very effective way to get the right result.

We’ve been a team for over 7 years now. I love my team, they are great!

12u30 Lunchtime. I always try to go out for a little bit to get some fresh air and do some grocery shopping. There are two shops that sell olives, nuts, fruits and vegetables and it’s all very fresh. Yummy. I never fail to look at the thriftstore’s window since it’s always pretty. Too bad it reflects so much when I want to take a picture.

13u00 I spend the rest of my afternoon with my creative team. We finished a lot of projects today and we still have two more days of creating planned in the near future.

16u00 I realise I forgot to eat lunch and I eat a little vanilla yoghurt.

16u30 The last project we made is so cute: little cast fingerpuppets.

We made tiny gnomes of them! This project will be for the smaller kids.

16u45 We cleaned up the mess we made and are ready to go home.

17u45 I arrive home. I feel tired from driving & concentrating. Luckily I didn’t have to think too much today since my body is not feeling too well.

18u00 I start cooking one of my favorite meals: ‘gegratineerd witlof met puree’ which is a typical Belgian dish. You can find the step by step recipe in my blog: artmind-etcetera.blogspot.com

While dinner is cooking, I have time to take a quick look at Etsy.

19u30 We have dinner. Yummy!

20u30 After dinner, I attempt to grab a treasury but I didn’t succeed. It decided to die on me – bummer!

Then we went for a little walk around our neighborhood. I love to get some fresh air since I’ve been inside most of the day.

21u15 We get home from our little walk and I call my mom and one of my friends.

22u30 Normally I’m a night owl but since I feel so tired I go to bed early.

I squeeze myself some oranges to get some vitamine C and I hope I’ll feel better soon.

...and they lived happily ever after....



happy weekend all :)