Hotel Fox

While I was killing some time before going to bed, I came across pictures of this amazing hotel in Mamiko's blog.

Hotel Fox is in Copenhagen, Denmark and each of the rooms inside have been decorated uniquely by different artists from all over the world. It's extremely expensive to stay there, and would probably be hard to sleep there due to the decor. But it looks great, doesn't it?

The La La Theory

I arrived home today to find that I'd received a letter from Katie Haegele, who writes under the pseudonym of The La-La Theory.

Katie has an impressive collection of writing in various forms, such as poems, zines, creatice nonfiction and even a newspaper column. All of this can be found on her website.

My favourite is her found poetry. Found poetry is the rearrangement of a random or 'found' piece of writing in order to give it an entirely different meaning. It's not something I've tried before, but I really love the idea of playing around with the wording to make something mean the complete opposite of what was intended.

I found Katie on the Cut-out and Keep website.

I emailed Katie and she offered to send me some of her things in the post and, in return, I'm sending her a package which I am in the middle of making. More on that later...

sweater skirt.

I sold some things on eBay and bought this skirt from DDA




Buy Handmade!!

Bagz

As part of my contract for my new job I have to work a few nightshifts each month. I was really dreading it at first, but it hasn't been too bad as it gave me time to finish off my first hand-knit bag!




The pattern that I used didn't have a pocket, but I thought it looked a bit plain. I think it turned out well!
I didn't really think about the measurements stated on the pattern tho, and I feel like the bag is a bit on the big side.
I'm thinking about unravelling it and making the bag half the size, but I wanted to show my first attempt =)

and another..

I found another photo!

For about a month between December and January this year I wasn't working. I'd just left an awful job and was waiting to start a new one. I had a lot of free time on my hands and spent a lot of it reading or making things.



My mum jokes that if anything stays still long enough that I'll sew felt onto it. I had these plain purple sillow slips on my bed looking dull and decided to make them look a little more interesting. I used the lid of a vaseline tin (again) to make the 'leaves' and hand-sewed the lot. It took a night and a day to finish, but I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Heart-felt

I'm slowly collecting all of the things that I've made over the last few years and trying to get them photographed so that I can stick them in here. It's not as straight forward as I'd hoped it'd be.

Anyway! Here are some more things that I made a while back for Firebrand Boy.




When trying to think of the sort of merchandise I could make with felt I came up with the idea of these felt envelopes as cd sleeves. I measured and made a paper templates from which I cut the felt, then sewed the edges together. I made the sleeves in five or six different colours, but my favourite is the torquoise-blue. The polaroids which were in a previous blog were used as inserts for track listings for these sleeves.

I've sewn a lot of little appliques, too. It was one of the first things I did when I first started using felt.




This one I made for a card, which ended up being used for some of the Firebrand Boy things.
I like how lame the shapes and stitching is.

Etsy love

I'm pretty sure that by now everyone will have heard of, and fallen in love with, Etsy.
I'd like to give the creators a huge kiss. Before its existence, buying handmade was something only those with a ridiculous amount of time were bale to do, as these are often the projects which have little or no promotion.

Etsy has created a space where handmade items can be bought and sold, which is a great approach as now everyone can get involved. And that's the way craft should be.

The Etsy labs are a great source of information and for ideas for things to make.

I have a few favourite sellers who , even if I'm not looking to buy, I just like to look at their space.

FromJapanWithLove is a Canadian living in Japan who sells lots of amazing Japanese products and ships worldwide.
I especially love her collection of buttons and paper cuts. She's also a super-nice girl.
Kawaii!!




KupKup
is the fictional character who likes to find treasures in the bottom of the sea, but can't swim. His creator resides in Spain and makes these amazing little scenes made entirely from felt, along with buttons, brooches and stationary.
KupKup is my favourite.


apak is the combined efforts of two people to create really simple but amazing prints. I've bought a few of their cards before and they looked so great that I wanted to put them on my wall. A lot of their prints have a really washed out, sunny look about them. A lot of their work is created using Gocco (more on that later).
Alive!