Friday is my day: Granny Knows Best

Hello all! Today we are traveling to Bulgaria to meet Nevyana from Granny Knows Best. Enjoy the ride :)

Hi, my name is Nevyana, an owner, designer and artisan at Granny Knows Best. I’m temporally living with my mom and my son in North-West Bulgaria, in a town called Vratza.

8:00

I barely open my left eye when I hear my 4-year old son talking loudly in the hallway. A minute later he jumps over my bed all joyful and playful. Great start of the day! His good mood is infectious and we stay a little bit in the bed laughing at nothing.

8:30

Breakfast time! Four wholemeal cookies and a cup of fresh farm milk is my healthy and very tasty breakfast. 

9:00

My favorite time of the day is reserved for my almost daily bycicle lap. I say “almost”, because I’m not a sporty girl, the bike is a great compromise for my body and my soul. I take my camera and I’m leaving town. 

9:15

Two kilometres and I’m out of town. Those are the last houses that I see. They stay behind me and look what is in front of me. Beautiful nature!

9:30

I need only 15 minutes more to reach the gorgeous rock’s gate, that have given the name of the town ("Vrata" means "gate" in Bulgarian). From both sides of the route you see enormous blocks of steep, high rock formations. This region is compared to the french rocks of Verdon, but I can’t say if it is the same or not, because I have never been to Verdon.

I’m lucky to catch a climber on the rocks with my camera in this very Friday morning. In the weekend it is full of climbers that come from all over the country, here they can find any difficulty level they are looking for. I leave the climber on his destiny and head to home.

10:00

Wow, what a relaxing moment in front of the computer with a steaming cup of green tea. I prepare a litre of it in my shabby vintage teapot and I enjoy this magical liquid all day long. I check my Etsy account, e-mail, facebook, then I dedicate a lot on internet promoting... the hard part of my knit & crochet affair. I work until 14:00 under the supervising eye of my granny from the portrait. She is my lucky mascot! I named my shop after her and I trully believe she sees and supports me from wherever she is right now.

Meanwile my son is playing manly games with all kind of vehicles and my mom is preparing the lunch. Yeah, you can bet, I’m a spoiled child ;-)

14:00

My mom announces that it is time for lunch. Mmmmm, she has prepared my favorite meal - fried peppers with tomato sauce. I don’t know why, but my mom don’t want to face the fact that I don’t eat meat and often prepares meat, like she wants to convert me. This day is a great exception, so I enjoy it without asking too much.

14:30

I hear the door bell and... what a surprise! My package with labeled tags has arrived 3 days earlier then promised. I’m so happy... that I’m doing the happy dance. The tags are just wonderful, even if they are not in the absolutely same colors as on my website. And they are more than 1000! Hopping to have as many orders as I have tags to use ;-)

15:00

I have 2-3 hours knitting session, not much today. I’ve just finished my first pair of socks and I’m in a hurry for the second one. This is a new project of mine and I can only say that I like it so much, that I will knit a bunch of socks for this winter.

17:00

My son is becoming crazy while staying in the house the whole day and we both decide that it is time for going outside. We call Damyan’s friend Sofia to come with us and head for the nearby playground. They don’t need a lot of supervising, as far as they are together, they can play hours and hours, without even noticing my presence or absence. Few hours on the playground is fair enough, so we leave exausted but happy...

19:30

We are back home and Damyan helps me to prepar the dinner. He claims for his favorite banitza, so we put all our efforts to make an yummy evening meal. Banitza is a traditional bulgarian dish, it is made from eggs, bulgarian white cheese, bulgarian yogurt and some flaky pastry. Easy, fast and very tasty. You can eat it at breakfast, lunch or dinner... or whenever you like.

20:30

The banitza is ready... and we are ready to eat it. A good company for the banitza is a glass of red wine... or moreover it is my regular evening glass of local merlot. Nazdrave! (cheers)

22:30

My son is in his bed, so the day is over for me. I like to read before I fall asleep, so I take the book for the Indigo children and I go deep into the world of those special kids. Interesting true story... that I will tell you some other time... Good night! 

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Thank you Nevyana! As for you lovely readers, stay tuned for next week's guest!
Until then... have a great weekend and be creative!

Friday is my day: Quiero

Ηello all!
Today we travel to The Netherlands to meet lovely Inèz from Quiero. Enjoy the ride :)


Good morning!
I am Inèz, owner of Quiero! I live together with my boyfriend in a little apartment in Rotterdam. These amazing pictures of us have been taken by Hanke Arkenbout, who also designed my logo.

I started Quiero! a while ago, after having worked for a couple of years in Human Resources. Quiero! is my jewelry label, and means 'I want' in Spanish. For me it means that I do what I want to do, and also that other people think 'Quiero!' by seeing my jewelry. Besides Quiero! I also work as a make-up artist.

Most weekdays I get up at 8:00, unless I've got an assignment that starts very early in the morning. Today I haven't so my alarm (iPhone 'duck') goes off at 8 in the morning.

I have breakfast with multi-fruit cruesli, some fruit & yoghurt and a glass of water, on the couch while watching the morning news. Today I also made a smoothie with banana, dates and orange juice... mmm!

8:30
I work a lot from home. This is my working room. I re-styled it a while ago.

First I made this moodboard, as you can see it's now hanging on the wall in my working room. Using the moodboard I chose the colors of the room. I painted the wall chocolate brown when my boyfriend was away for a couple of days ;)

Today I wanted to make something out of this pre-loved necklace that I got from my mother's friend.

I made a beautiful new necklace, a ring and a set of earrings out of the old necklace. I'm so happy with this result! :) 

10:00
About two weeks ago I had a market stall (together with Nicole from Studio BIG) at the 'Etsy Bazaar' at a big three-day festival in Holland; Lowlands Festival.

 I sold Quiero! jewelry and I gave people beautiful neon & glitter festival make-ups!

I planned to write a blogpost and a newsletter about it in the next week, but didn't manage to do it. I'm not so good with time-management ;) Today I really want to tick these things off my list, so I write a blogpost on foureyesrotterdam.blogspot.nl and send out a newsletter to all my friends and customers, in which I put a link to the blog, so they can read the more extensive story about Lowlands if they like.

12:00
Having a quick lunch enjoying the sun on our little balcony.

13:00
I like to take photo's with a SLR-camera. I only have an analog one. At the moment I use Revolog-films, which have a special effect on them. Yesterday I picket up a CD with developed photo's (they put them from the negative straight onto a CD, very convenient). I really like this photo!

14:00
Last week I did the make-up for a fotoshoot with photographer Sylvana van der Pluijm and model Lisanne Sanders.

While checking Facebook, my Etsy-shop, my e-mails etc. Sylvana uploads this photo onto facebook. WOW! I think this photo is absolutely stunning. So very happy with this result :)

15:00
Sometimes I also make object other than jewelry under the label Quiero! Today I make this shell mobile. I have a big one on my balcony & love the sound of the shell ticking in the wind.
 

17:00
I quickly hop into The Hubshop, which is right around the corner from my house, to buy a present. Later this week I'll visit an ex-flatmate who just had a baby, Moos. The Hubshop sells beautiful products from many different entrepreneurs (they also sell Quiero! jewelry!) from around the world, it's a great place to buy presents, I always find something nice and original there.

I am totally in love with the cute baby-shirts they sell from Stitch Junkie. They've got them with ties sewed on them, but also with the famous Dutch rabbit Nijntje (Miffy), a star, a house or a car. The ones with the ties are my favorite! I was able to buy the last tie-shirt in stock for little Moos! Lucky me (and lucky Moos, haha)!

17:45
I go to Bikram Yoga for the second time. I went there for the first time last week, and the second time within the same week is for free (very cunning, haha). It's 1,5 hours yoga in a room that heated to 40 °C.  

20:00
Dinner time! We're real foodies & wine lovers. Because we're both hungry we start off with some nibbles (manchego cheese, date- and walnutbread, some typical Rotterdam sausage and balsamic glaze) and an insalata caprese. A good glass of wine with it... hmmmmm

And to stay in the Italian atmosphere we had a simple pasta with onion, bolognese sauce, grated parmezan and home-grown basil. 

21:00
During summertime there's always about two weeks 'Pleinbios' in Rotterdam, this is a big moviescreen outside in the park where they show movies in the evening when it gets dark. We saw 'Profession: Heartbreaker'. The movie was very nice & funny.

24:00
We come back from the movie quite late, so we go straight to bed!


Hope you all have a great day!




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Thank you Inèz! As for you lovely readers, stay tunned for next week's guest!
Until then... have a great weekend and be creative!

Friday is my day: Idestudiet

Ηello all! Today we travel to beautiful Denmark to meet Pia from Idestudiet! Enjoy the ride :)

6:00 am
Good morning! My name is Pia. I am a wire art artist and my studio is called Idestudiet. I live with my husband, our two boys and our dog in a small coastal town on the beautiful west cost of Denmark. Nature is wild and rough here - not to mention gorgeous! I am so happy to invite you to follow my day. It's 6 am and I just get up – a bit late for me. I love getting up at around 5:30 am or so. The house is so nice and quiet  – a great time to brainstorm and work on new ideas. The very first thing I do every morning – this morning was no exception – is to make coffee. I admit it. I am a coffee addict! I LOVE that first cup of coffee in the morning. One of the best times of the day – 75% of my designs are born before 11 am. Unfortunately – or maybe that’s actually good – my other half is the total opposite. He is a musician and he works best after 11 pm. Means more quiet time for me in the mornings!

6:15 am
I go to my studio to check ETSY, my website, my blog, my facebook page and of course my email to see if anything needs answer. {When did I become addicted to all of this??}
  
6:45 am
Time for my morning walk. I walk every morning for about half an hour with the oldest of my sons and our dog. I am so inspired by nature so our trips are a great source of inspiration – and a wonderful time to talk with my – way too fast – growing kid. We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful place – take a look.

7:25 am
We have breakfast and afterwards I go out in our backyard and pick some roses for my studio. I love roses and they seem to be pretty happy in my backyard this year so plenty to pick from.

8:45 am
We are all in vacation mode this week, so we have decided to take a trip to the beach to gather some driftwood for my sculptures. Well, my husband and I are looking for driftwood – the kids are more interested in playing in the weaves. But who can blame them?!

As you can see the summer here has been... well, not really that warm – and that’s putting it nicely!

12:30 pm
After lunch it’s time to visit my parents house and get some more wire for my sculptures. My parents have a farm and the majority of my wire comes from my dad’s meadow. Beautifully weathered as only Mother Nature can. I love the idea that my dad has used this wire and worked with it. And now it’s my turn to transform it into something lasting for someone to enjoy. Makes me feel very connected to my dad – and to nature.

We said hello to the cows when we were there. I often wonder – What goes through their heads? They always look like they are thinking; WHAT is she up to??  Ha… Maybe they are.

3:30 pm
We had some coffee and my mom's home baked cake and then my dad and my son practiced target shooting. My son won!

6:30 pm
Back home again. We decided to make it a pizza and salad night. After eating, the kids played for a while before we read stories.  Once they were in bed I started working on some sculptures. I have a big art show coming up and I also want to add more items to my etsy store. So although I LOVE having the kids at home it will be nice with some serious work time when they go back to school soon.

Looks kind of messy, I know. I am in the middle of several projects so cleaning will have to wait until they are done!

11:00 pm
What a gorgeous day it has been. Sunshine, blue water and clear skies. Oh, I love summer. Just wish we had had more of it this year!

Time for bed! Thanks for visiting my day. Hope yours were wonderful as well!

Blessings, Pia




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Thank you Pia! As for all of you lovely readers, stay tunned for next week's guest!
Until then.... have a great weekend and be creative! :)