Paper Inspiration

The weather here has been pretty sun-less, and I just wasn’t inspired to photograph new shawls and scarves. And to be honest, they need to be ironed and fringe trimmed, which is something I can’t be bothered with right now. I’m just weaving and putting them away, and it’s starting to be a bit unpleasant. My back hurt, and the time that I am able to sit by my loom and weave is getting shorter and shorter. I feel like I’m constantly jumping in and out of my chair, trying to at least do some house work when I don’t weave, but I’m too tired for that too. I mean, I love my work, but sometimes I can’t do anything else buy lie down.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in a good mood, inspired to work, have lots of ideas, and very satisfied with the shawls and scarves that I wove so far. It’s just the pain that gets in the way…But then I received two packages in the last few days that brought smile to my face, so I thought I could share that with you today.

First I received a package from Anne Marie. She was my swap partner at “Paper Swap“. We were supposed to send each other an envelope filled with all kinds of papers to make a Junk Journal. But since Anne Marie likes to work with fabric and beads (as I do), we decided to exchange also some other stuff that we could use in other projects. So, when the package arrived, I was blown away by it’s yummy content!

So many beautiful papers:

And gorgeous fabrics, stitched hearts, inchie, twinchie, colorful art work, oh, so many beautiful things!

I can’t wait to have time to play with these goodies. It’s all so lovely and inspiring.

Another thing that made me happy was a collection of ATCs that I won at Deb‘s blog. Deb organizes ATC Swap every month, where she gives us a theme and at the end of the month she randomly picks one winner who gets all the cards. It’s fun! And the first time I participated was the lucky one for me! 🙂 So I got all of the October cards. The theme was “Pink”. Now I have these works of art as a inspiration and a memory.

Here is Deb’s ATC and a lovely card she sent me:

Then Louise (on the left) and Kerry:

Juli and Patti:

Patricia and – I don’t know the name of the other lady, she didn’t sign the card:

Lynn and Teresa:

Jada sent two:

And the last one on the left that unfortunately I can’t read the name, and mine on the right:

I’m sorry that these ladies didn’t include their blogs on the back of the card so that I could put the link, or maybe they don’t have blogs, but at least you can see the cards which are really gorgeous. If you’d like to participate, go to Deb’s blog ( I added a link ) and join the fun! The theme for December if “Time”.

Have fun everybody! 🙂

Twinchie for a Swap

Another little book, 2×1,5 inches, made for a swap at Milliande’s . I am actually hosting this swap, the theme was “Recycling”, and I thought it would be nice to see what kind of these small books we could all make with recycling in mind.

I used tea dyed linen, old maps, tea bags, handmade paper, and found objects. The cover is hand stitched, and the inside pages distressed and stamped a bit.

I hope my swap partner Kalona will like it. 🙂 Check out her work. She is so talented!

Have a wonderful day!

Beautiful Autumn Day in Belgrade

Who would want to miss going out on a day like this! This lovely weather is not going to last for long, so despite all the work I have to do, I went for a walk in the city center with my husband and our furry baby. 🙂

I hope your day was good. 🙂

Inexpensive solution

Here is an idea for a very easy to make, and a very budget-friendly little thing. 🙂 A bookmark is something we all need, right? Or you want to make a small gift for someone?  Well, you can make this in less than five minutes!

All you need is some clear packaging material, a StazOn ink, and ribbon.

I used Sizzix die boxes:

I stamped a flower and a word on a shape that I cut with Sizzix, punched a hole and added ribbon. And that’s it!

Of course, you could cut a regular bookmark shape if you don’t have Sizzix machine, you could embellish it with other stamps or paper, glitter and who knows what else, and this little thing could be also used as a tag for your journal, mini album etc. But it’s fast and inexpensive to make, which is good for me now because I don’t have too much time to do things like this with all those shawls and scarves I have to weave, and I do love when I don’t have to spend money, LOL! I think I’ll be making more of these lovelies as a small Christmas gifts for friends. What do you think? 🙂

Mostly Journal Pages

My journal(s) have been the best relaxation for me lately. In the evenings, especially while my husband was in Rome (for the whole month!), I used to turn on the TV just to listen to it, and then draw, doodle, or just cut interesting magazine pages. ( Although I don’t read magazines, my friends and family sometimes give me old ones to play with ).

Art Journal, Collage, painting and all that stuff is actually quite new to me. I started exploring these art forms about a year ago (even though I started scrapbooking a few years back, but that was a bit different), and in the beginning I had no idea what to do. Then slowly it became more clear to me what Art Journal is, and that there are no rules for how to do it. Which was liberating! I realized I could do what ever I wanted and it didn’t have to be pretty at all! I also realized that my old diaries were actually a bit “arty” as I liked to draw or glue things in them. And I am still learning. Oh, there is SO much to learn. But it is fun. And as I said, relaxing. And fun! lol! I know now that playing is very important. For me it’s the thing that makes me happy and makes me more brave to try new things, new techniques, makes me more confident. I even started showing my ugly journal pages here on my blog, which is a big step for me!

Weaving is and will always be my first and biggest love. But everything else I do enriches my life and even my weaving. So, here are my journal pages, some good and some horrible. 🙂

Unfinished collage pages, exploring colors and patterns:

An unsuccessful page:

Strange “plants”:

I do have a shawl to show you also, but the photo is so bad, you won’t be able to see the real colors, only the texture and the pattern. It should be “every shade of green” shawl, but in the photo it looks almost brownish. It’s my bad camera. Yeah, blame the camera. 🙂

I think it’s enough for one post, don’t you? 🙂

One for Her and Two for Him

When I finish working on this huge order, I will post photos of all my shawls and scarves. But I just haven’t enough time now to photograph each and every one that comes off my loom. Here are these three though, which still need to be washed and ironed. 🙂

 

I must say, if it was a bit hard to weave shawls for women I don’t know (don’t know what colors they like etc), imagine how it is with men’s scarves! I can’t go wild with colors and patterns, so I’ll just stick with neutrals. It will be interesting to see how many neutrals I can make that are still completely different. Hmmm…

Journal Pages

Hello everyone!

As you could see from my last two posts, I had a wonderful time in Rome. The only problem is that ten days was not enough! I will have to go there again. 🙂 (well, I can hope, right?)

But now I’m home, and I am so ready to play with paint! Which is probably not good because I have so much work! News is that I have to deliver not 30 shawls, but 24. That’s for ladies. But now I have to weave 30 more for men! So I will probably eat and sleep in my studio. LOL!

Anyway, until I have some nice photos of scarves and shawls to show you,here are my finally finished journal pages:

And one unfinished page:

My “Rome” journal:

The next photo shows my utterly horrible drawing, but since I decided to be brave and to show more of my drawing and painting (letting go of my “I am not good at this” fears), I will show you this one. Please don’t laugh. Loudly. 🙂

And that’s all for this post. Have a great day/night! 🙂