Happy Halloween!

A winter gray feature

Watching the splendor of golden yellow outside my window all afternoon, it was a nice change to discover this lovely silver and warm gray Treasury made by Heidi of RedChair.

She has included my wooly Malina purse with flower applique in her sellection - it is so deliciously cozy, I think the smile on the cat says it all...

Thanks, Heidi!

October gold

I love October, when it gets all sunny and warm again after the first serious rain and cold of late September.

Now, close to Halloween, the gold comes pouring down from the trees and the bright yellow and red leaves fall against the damp black asphalt. Anywhere I turn there is a picture perfect scene, the Nature posing for the last time before it puts on it's winter makeup.

Chocolate!

Well, there was no time (or particular talent on my side) to make me a 1st Etsy-versary cake yesterday but I did treat myself to this cute little box of Lindt chocolates. Mmmmm.

Lindt has a line of pretty mini sized praline boxes in pink and brown that are perfect for a gift - even if it is for oneself...

My first giveaway!

Today is exactly one year since I've joined Etsy. I heard about it from a pottery making friend of mine - for a while I was just a curious observer and three months ago I opened my own shop.

To celebrate the 1st anniversary I'm giving away one of my home decoration hearts - The Strawberry Heart. It measures 12x12 cm (4.7 x 4.7 inch) and is made of raw silk in fuchsia pink and dark orange, adorned by beads and organza ribbon. You can hang it on the door, use it as a Christmas ornament or offer it to someone special.

To enter:

1 leave a comment under this post

2 blog, twitter, facebook about this giveaway (and post a link with your comment so I can visit)

Start following my blog (optional, but you might not want to miss my next giveaway...)

The giveaway ends next Monday, November 2nd (midnight CET).

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UPDATE (November 1st)

The deadline of this giveaway has been extended to Friday, November 6th.

All it takes to enter now is to

1 leave a comment under the post

2 tell me which item from my Etsy shop you like the most

3 keep your fingers crossed...

A new listing and a new Treasury feature

My to-do list is shorter for one entry - today I have completed my new zipper pouch and have just listed it on Etsy. The Bella pouch is made of Basque handvowen linen canvas which I've already used for the Love Hope Peace tote.

This time I used the thin red line on the striped canvas to perch a small machine embroidered bird upon. I adorned it with some off white cotton lace and added a thin black leather cord with wooden beads on the zipper. I intend to make some more of these pouches, perhaps featuring other woodland creatures.

Today was also a day for another Treasury feature - this time it was Julie of meiguidesigns who was kind enough to include my Sakado wooly backpack purse in her yummy mocha inspired collection. I love the way she combined all those shades of coffee and cream with different textures.

Thank you, Julie!

A feature in a ByHand spotlight

Today my Open your heart decorative ornament was featured on ByHand - a social community web page for handmade artists and buyers.

Glenda, one of the members, has included my heart in her ByHand spotlight. This is a member curated selection much like Etsy Treasury list, except that Spotlight doesn't expire but gets lots of views and tweets, also with the help of some blogs that feature ByHand spotlights - like ByHand Gallery and Shop ByHand.

A very interesting source of lovely handmade items and an efficent way of presenting one's work to broader audience, definitely worth joining!

Thank you, Glenda!

Bird lover's birthday bag

Another birthday invitation for Gaston, another gift project for Mom...

The bag measures 23 x 29 cm (9" x 11.5") with 40 cm (16") handles

This time the invitation came from Fabio, a quiet boy nexdoor, who just turned 6. I was planning to go to town and find a nice book on nature, his favourite subject. But in the few days I had before the party there was no opportunity to go book shopping so I ended up making another tote bag.
Yes, I know, Fabio is a boy, but if Tinky Winky from Teletubbies can have a bright red feminine purse (vintage even), then a boy can have a nice book/gym shoes tote.

Unlike my son, Fabio doesn't care much about dinosaurs, robots or big construction machines, but he does like birds. I used the printed canvas with birds and branches from Ikea and cut the pattern out so that I got a bird on the front and solid black colour on the back (I used another bird print on cotton for the lining). I then machine embroidered his name in red thread and used red cotton rope for handles. At the end I hardly had time to take some pictures before I had to wrap the gift and off we went.

Fabio loved the bag. And he got enough books from other children...

My newest listing: Ola 'Christmas' bag

Ola tote bag is now available in my shop

I made this large wooly bag a few years ago, just after I've moved in with my husband (to live in a small town in Borgundy, France) and was trying to get into the Christmas spirit in my new town, new country and new life.

At the local fabric shop I found many inspiring pieces and this lovely wool melange in green&brown made me immediately think of some sort of ethnic embroidery in red, green and brown. I sewed it into a large A shaped bag with a doubble front pocket, a pattern that had been very popular among my friends (or, shall we say, pre-etsy costumers).

The red corduroy shoulder straps and inside pocket give this bag a very christmasy look and that is why I decided to list in now, before the holidays...

Photo opportunity

Today was a gorgeous sunny day and as much as I was planning to sew I just had to seize the chance of the strong enough light to do some indoor photography.

It was about time I revamped some of my shop pictures, my previous ones of the black evening purses were just not good enough to show them properly. So instead of choosing a fancy background, props or plain white paper that makes the contrasts too strong, I used a warm light grey paper for my base and backed it with plum purple shade that made the black stand out just enough without killing all the shades and shimmers of the fabric.

I will renew these listings and keep my fingers crossed that my little black evening purses bring some new sales...

A strawberry chocolate feature

My Chocolate love decorative heart has been featured by Melissa on her The Speckled Pear blog amongst all these yummy brown and pink items - makes me want to grab a piece of strawberry chocolate and a glass of milk...

Thank you, Melissa!

Pins and needles

Just a few lovelies I found browsing through Etsy shops today.

Top left: laurabucci (these sweet buttons made me look for some actual pincushions), top right and bottom left: two pincushions from namolio (I couldn't decide which one I like better, the are like Summer and Winter) and a cute little felted one from quintessentialquirks (bottom right).

Succesful treasury hunt

Last night I managed to curate another Treasury list on Etsy - I had such fun making my first one and was so excited it made the front page that I wanted to try again.

This time I chose chocolate brown, ivory and pale purple items, trying to match them by hue, texture, shape or motif. Some of the artists are among my favourites and some I've found when searching through the colour tags.

Grab the button

... and spread the love!

I've added a Loddelina blog button on the left for you lovely readers to take, copy, paste, link, apply, attach and glue anywhere you want. You can link the image to this blog's address www.loddelina.com or straight to my Etsy shop.

If you want, let me know if you've used the button on your site, I'll be glad to come and visit.

To thank you for your trouble I am preparing a giveaway for the end of October, when I'll be celebrating 1 year since I've joined Etsy...

Yey, another Front Page!

I was casually checking my Etsy shop yesterday evening when I noticed my Love Hope Peace tote on the front page! It was Etsy admin that chose the items and as far as I could tell my tote had a different tag keyword in common with each of them.

The exposure made views and hearts of this item multiple six times and my other purses also got some love from the viewers...

Thank you, Etsy, you have made my evening!

Winter wonderland

Last Thursday, exactly a week ago, the weather in Bavaria suddenly turned extremely warm for this time of year. During the day the sun became almost unbearable, my children and I waited until late afternoon to go play in the sandbox and even then we were all in our sandals or barefoot.

Well, it has cooled down a bit since then...

I'm off to look for my hat and gloves!

Augsburg, this evenig

Warm and wooly winter

I checked the Treasury list yesterday to see when the next opening will be and gave up when I saw it will not happen before 3 AM...

But someone was up late and lovely Maggie from UK, who runs Etsy shop englishpreserves, has included my grey Malina purse in her Warm and wooly sellection - a perfect remedy for cold and icy weather. Thank you!

Photoshopping the afternoon away...

I took this picture of Lily at the playground the other day - she decided to explore a small wooden hut in the middle of the sand box and I was just fast enough to switch on my camera before she peeped out the little house's window.

There was no time for adjusting the settings, composition, focus, like with most children's photographs and automatic functions on my camera gave the picture dull, bluish hues. On top of that the sun beam that came through the door of the hut made a bright distracting pach on the wall behind Lily's head.

This "Ha!" moment was too precious for me to waste so I spent an hour or so behind the computer today trying to clone stamp the patch away - at the end I converted the picture to black and white to get rid of the strange colours and cropped it a bit. All I have to do now is find the right frame...

New Ada city tote

I've just listed another Ada tote bag, my shop's best selling design (a nice way of saying 'my only sold item so far').

This time I have added an aubergine purple trim on top and a creamy coloured zig-zag trim on the bottom of the black patch. The three vintage buttons are a bit different as well, with one in cream and old gold and another in purple (or is it plum, I never know) with a small flower in the middle.

Bring on the cold weather!

The last post from the Etsy stalker curators Beatrice and Violet brings this amazing collection of neck warmers, scarfs and cowls - just in time for me as the weather turned cold and rainy over the weekend.

I love the little pink mini scarf - so simple and cute (even if one doesn't like pink one can imagine themselves wearing it in another colour).

I've always regretted not knowing how to knit - these great designs make me want to start learning it straight away...

My chillout zone

The thing I love most about living in Germany is biergartens. These simple Bavarian restaurants that offer drinks and food around lunch hour and in the evening, always include a garden, where, thanks to new gas heaters, one can eat well into the cold season.

My favourite Augsburg biergarten is Kolperhütte, just 10 minutes away from our house, a nice stroll through the park along the bicycle path, no cars or motocycles, only dog walkers and mothers with strollers. The biergarten opens around noon, just in time for me to stop for a latte machiatto after Lily has finally fallen asleep in her pram. I like to sit in one of their striped lounge chairs and slowly sip my coffee while I read some magazines (OK, they are glossy gossip magazines, but I like to put my brain on standby every once in a while...).

Sometimes, when I don't feel like cooking on a Saturday and the weather is too nice to stay inside, we take the whole family to eat at the biergarten - during the summer they had live music playing every afternoon, in football (soccer) season they switch on the big screen TV and beer bills go sky-high...

Going out this evening?

my temporary Etsy avatar...

I've opened a Sale section in my shop today and decided to offer an approximately 17 % discount on little black evening purses.

On sale are Malina satin purse with silver embroidery, Lina velvet purse with golden lace, Mala small over shoulder purse and Moni satin drawstring pouch.

I've also played with my Etsy shop avatar a bit, I sometimes notice in forums that people use it as an advertising tool, I wonder if it realy helps...

New heart for my shop

I have been so engrossed in working on some new bag designs that I've completely forgotten about listing my hearts...

There are only two left, this one is called The Tree of Love and features a beaded wire tree on raw silk in deep red and plum purple. I thought it might be used as a christmas ornament so I've written the tags accordingly - it gave me an idea for some other christmas designs, but that is all I can say for now...

Ah, Paris...

Today I feel a bit nostalgic, looking through some old photo albums (well, picture folders, to be exact).

It has been a few years since my last visit to Paris but this pictures bring me straight back - the night we went to visit the Eiffel tower (but have never climbed to the top, the lines were just too long...), that summer afternoon when the sun came out after the rain and drew a magnificent raibow over the Arc de Triomphe, that unusually warm october evening when we dined in one of the tiny streets of Montmartre...

I hope we can go back soon!

Sunday treasury feature

This morning one of my hearts, the Winter romance, got featured in this lovely In the Mint'ime Treasury West by JemmDeeCreations. Mirna, who owns a jewelry shop on Esy, made this stunning minty fresh collection of items in lovely frosty shades of pale blue. Thank you!

And this evening my Cool, Calm and Collected treasury made the Front Page! I noticed it by accident when I checked my sellection and saw some FP related comments underneath - waiting in my Etsy conversations box were some encouraging convos as well so thank you everyone for liking it so much!

Love, Hope and Peace tote

I managed to list a new item today, the LOVE HOPE PEACE tote I have been working on for the past few days.

I got this gorgeous striped linen canvas from my mother in law, who bought it on one of her trips to the Basque country. It is hand woven and very hard to work with as it unravels quickly and has to be securely stiched together - but I think the results are well worth the effort!

I was struggling with naming the shades of brown and grey on this fabric, they are so specific and the pictures never show the true colours. With help from Etsy forum readers (I find forums a great way of getting feedback) I will rewrite the item descriprion a little but will do it tomorrow, it is getting late and I'm off to bed...

Curator apprentice

I have just managed to snatch my first Treasury!

This warm grey and teal combination has been going through my mind for a few weeks now - so I made a sketch of it on Etsy's poster sketch page and waited for the right moment...

Today it finally came, the number of active treasuries was around 350 when I checked and then I waited for the magic No. 332 while I played with my daghter.

Curating a treasury is fun and pretty easy with so many amazing items one can find on Etsy - I hope I have another chance soon.

United colours of electricity

This a bit angry looking robot is in fact an international traveler's plug adapter - it features a standard German socket (also compatible in many other European countries) and five different plugs that are used in Italy, Switzerland, UK, Australia and USA.

The adapter is one of many gadgets and gizmos my husband is packing tonigt for his business trip. Yes, the world has gotten smaller, but also much more complicated...

My creative space

I've been working on some new designs lately, trying out the freehand embroidery foot on my machine again and setting my mind to holiday season...

Here's a sneak peek of my working place (that is what I call a small corner in the dining room) and some new totes I'm trying to inject with christmas spirit. I HOPE I'll be able to list one of them by the end of this weekend - and only then I will have some time to look through that copy of Vogue that has been sitting on my desk for a week...