Happy Halloween, Everybody!
This will be my last post for Crafty Daisies for a while, however you can still follow my crafting adventures on my other blog craftevolution.
The Crafty Daisies Book Club will continue on craftevolution. The next book is Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp and we’ll meet on Wednesday, December 3rd. See you then.
Thank you to Candace, Jen, Heather, and Joy. It’s been a great year.
Simone
Stencil created using card stock and circle hole punch by pldover12
When I first got this book, I thought “Hmm, $19.95 (actually $11.61 from Amazon) not much to it for just seven techniques. ” I am now completely hooked on potato and leaf printing and have come to truly appreciate this little gem. This is the kind of crafting book I will pick up seeking inspiration and not necessarily instruction. It covers:
In addition it is filled with gorgeous pictures of completed projects and inspiration tablets that give you a little insight in Lotta’s design process.
The layout is calm and dominated by pictures. Instructional text is unobtrusively arranged in narrow columns accompanying the pictures.
The instructions are very precise and clear. Seasonally appropriate, my daughter and I first delved into leaf printing. Together, we printed up a whole bunch of greeting cards, and Elizabeth made small prints for a special notebook.
The following day I tried leaf printing with fabric paint, again with terrific results.
Next we started carving up potatoes with our newly acquired linoleum cutters. While I was working with putting together simple shapes. Elizabeth decided to channel Marla Olmstead. Her print did end up with a spooky potato impression.
Potatoes don’t last more than a day. Really. Today I carved up a new batch and printed some onesies
and dish towels.
I think what I like best about this “medium” is how forgiving it is (I know you are not supposed to play with food), and how it encourages you to work with very simple shapes.
Now, I’m very tempted to move on to linoleum printing–heck, I’ve got the cutters–but I think this will have to be tabled until next year. Too many projects, not enough time.
If you’d like to share your Lotta projects with your review, add them to the Crafty Daisies Book Club Flickr pool.
Speaking of projects, I currently have a little giveaway of the printed tea towels on craftevolution.com where the next book club will meet. On Wednesday, December 3rd we will discuss
Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp, ISBN-10: 0761139737, ISBN-13: 978-0761139737 and meet at craftevolution.com.
Reminder: Crafty Daisies Book Club–Lotta Prints, Wed 10/22
Hamburg-Schnelsen is a sedate part of my childhood town where the butcher shop is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary and my brother’s kindergarten buddy took over the family pharmacy business. So my mother was excited to tell me about a new shop on our main street. “The woman who runs it just reminds me so much of you,” she said. And that’s how I met Alexandra in her store Das Kleine Koenigreich. The little kingdom over which she presides is filled with pretty pink and blue linens, fabrics, and other treasures she crafts in her studio in the back of her shop. Of course I had to stop by for a chat to find out how she became our new-girl-in-town.
So how did you get here?
It all started five years ago when my mother gave me a sewing machine for Christmas. I had never sewn before and started to teach myself while my toddler daughter was napping. A few months later, I was leafing through a magazine and found a pattern for a patchwork blanket. And that’s when I had this epiphany; I thought ‘I’d like to make this and sell it in my store.’ Of course there wasn’t a store, but the idea became my vision statement.
How did you make the jump from a hobby to a business?
First I sold my collection out of a stall at the Isemarkt. After a while, some stores around town picked up my products, but every delivery reminded me that my original goal was to have my own shop. My first location was in a shopping mall in downtown Hamburg. I had to close it, but was able to re-open this neighborhood shop. My present storefront works out much better for me. I’m only five minutes from my home. Whenever I have a sudden inspiration that needs to be executed immediately I can just stop by the workshop.
What inspires you?
My ideas seem to strike me out of the blue, but I also read a lot of home design magazines. My personal style tends to be cozy and Scandinavian.
What advice do you have for someone interested in starting this type of business?
You have to have realistic expectation and a certain level of financial security. For example, the closing of the first location could have had disastrous consequences if I had overextended myself. In the end, although it sounds like a cliche, you have to have a positive attitude and believe in yourself.
You can visit Alexandra at her online shop www.daskleinekoenigreich.de and take a look at the linens, pillows, bags, and musical pull toys she’s designed. Google Translate can help you with the German.
Also check out my post about alternatives to business cards to promote your crafting enterprise on craftevolution.com.
I’m on the road again, this time visiting my parents for my dad’s 70th birthday (the Munich airport has a big toy store that’s open at 7:00 a.m. if you’re ever in need for something like that) , but I wanted to share these links with you if you are looking for projects for this weekend.
First off, Jeannie of whatthehay is sharing a tutorial on sewing your own cribsheets. She writes:
After finding out that we were pregnant with our first baby, I began the long and fun process of collecting all of the things that a new human needs to survive. First on the list? A CRIB of course! Beyond the crib (which we found at a consignment sale, along with the crib mattress) a baby needs crib sheets. Happily, Rosie has a talented grandma who was more than happy to provide her with many of the essentials of baby survival – a quilt (with strict instructions to USE it), a few totally cute outfits and 4 crib sheets.
Rosie’s Grandma is a sewing kind of lady and back when I was a kid, money was tight and so, well, she sewed. Beyond making nearly all of our clothes that weren’t hand-me-downs, she also devised a pattern for a crib sheet. Back in the day, people actually made their own sheets for their big beds, too, and she adapted this pattern from one of those patterns.
If you have a baby shower coming up, check out her crib sheet tutorial for a very useful, unique gift.
Secondly, I started another blog called craftevolution.com. It’s still in early development, but come visit to see some ideas for Halloween costumes based on basic sewing patterns and let me know what you think about the blog.
Just a reminder that the next book club will meet on October 22. We will discuss Lotta Prints by Lotta Jansdotter.
For more information, go to the original announcement. Can you guess what project I’ve been making?
Digital Scrapbook Papers are not only for scrapbooking. You can use them for a a lot of different craft projects.
What do you like to do with these papers?
P.S. Thank you to Meggie Cat who inspired this post with her collection of online tools and freeware.
