Front Page surprise

Last Thursday evening my shop was unexpectedly featured on Etsy's front page - my first FB feature since April!

This beautiful, calm and romantic treasury was put together by Fira from chomelkidswear, lovely fellow European Street Team shop for children's clothes. It featured my latest Pippa shoulder bag in golden mustard and aqua and the bag caught enough attention to be sold the next day...

Thank you!

Winter is here ...

... and the first snow on the last blossoms of autumn ...

... and warm, wooly slippers on my daughter's feet ...

... and more snow to come.

Days of the week

I recently did a friendly swap with Fallon, an Etsy friend who runs the lovely pillow shop Olive and two other shops with vintage treasures and supplies; and today my package arrived!

In exchange for my zippered pouch and a key chain I asked Fallon to make me a special garland to mark the days of the week. My son goes to preschool here in France and the classes are only four days a week with Wednesdays and the weekends off. Sometimes he finds it difficult to understand which day it is and whether we have time in the morning to play a little or if we have to hurry to school. So Fallon made me a banner of little houses in two colours, green for school days and blue for no school days, and she sewed the names of the days on them in French. She added a sweet little bird clip to attach to each house as the days go by.

I love the cheerful garland so much I decided not to hang it in children's room, where they don't play very often anyway, but to pin it on the wall by the entrance to our appartment, where we put our shoes and coats on in the morning. From our breakfast table we can see over the kitchen counter straight onto the wall and from now on the whole family will have our day "synchronized".

Button Wednesday

Wednesday is button day for Petronella, the creative force behind kraplap shop, who posts amazing "buttoned up" ideas on her blog every week. Today I can participate with these yummy wooden buttons that just came by post. I ordered them to spice up my bags - or just to look at them because they are so pretty, does one need more reasons?

If you want to join the Button Wednesday, post your link at Kraplap's blog.

Special announcement to Loddelina friends from outside the EURO zone:

I have changed my Etsy shop currency to euro. You will still be able to see my prices in USD, although not so nicely rounded up anymore, but once you make your purchase the payment will be made in euros to my PayPal account. This step was necessary due to ever-fluctuating dollar euro exchange rate and it will enable me to set more realistic prices for my items. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Thank you :)

Lovely Clusters

I decided to advertise my shop before the holiday season so I listed a few items on Lovely Clusters blog.

This catalogue of handmade creations is run by Rachel, who carefully arranges them by category or by colour into - lovely clusters. It is a real joy to click through the pages of beautiful, perfectly matching items, among which you can easily find a Christmas gift.

A fresh look

I finished another Pippa shoulder bag today and the winter sky was kind enough to let me take some pictures by the natural light.

I set up my photo shoot (using a piece of dark khaki paper for the background) on our beautiful old-new side table, a little DIY project from last weekend.

The IKEA side table with two drawers used to stand in our kitchen but in our new appartment there is no room for it any more. Since the table had a bit of water damage on top (from our tricky expresso machine) and the wood had turned yellow in some places, it needed a thorough sanding after which I repainted it in a brighter, pastel shade of pale aqua.

The picture doesn't show it but the day was very windy and my paint was drying faster than I would have wanted so the table ended with an uneven coat of paint and many little imperfections - it gives it a sort of distressed vintage look so I'm quite pleased with the result.

The table now stands in our living room, next to the children's corner and I hope it remains neat and tidy for as long as it's humanly possible...

Have a nice weekend!

Flashback Friday - tag me!

Tomorrow is my 20th High School graduation class reunion - I couldn't believe it was really that long ago until one of my school friends, the one organizing the reunion, sent us this picture taken in May 1990.

Don't laugh!

Ok, you may laugh, so did I...

But once you are done laughing at funny hairdos, geeky jeans and padded Tshirts, I have a little game for you: can you find me in the picture?

It is not easy so I will give you a hint: my outfit could participate in the recent Etsy European Street Team's challenge that I won - you might have to look a few posts back to find the answer...

The first one who leaves a comment saying which one in the picture am I (top or bottom row, from left to right), gets a handmade Loddelina surprise - and no cheating from those who are in the picture with me! (although I'll be happy to hear from you as well :)

Happy tagging!

Post your own flashback at Christopher & Tia's blog!

Christmas time approaches

The last christmas decorations were being hung over the streets of my town today and lights will soon be switched on - I am looking forward to that because the evenings are now really getting dark and gloomy.

Seeing those snowflakes and other winter decorations made me think of another November four years ago when I was in South Africa - skies over Cape Town streets look quite different, with elephants, giraffes and other savanna animals walking by.

Unfortunatelly we left the country at the end of November, before we could see the festive African look in person, so I found this image on flickr for you...

My day Monday

warm & brown

clockwise from top left: JurgitaMi, afra, BacaCaraJewelery, beliz82

I'm in a brown mood after having finally finished my new design - PIPPA shoulder bag .

Pippa is the younger, smaller sister of Pupa - she doesn't like to carry around a lot of stuff, just enough to go out on a date or meet your girlfriends for coffee and cake.

I find the new bag very practical - it closes securely with a magnetic clasp on the front flap and once opened, it yawns widely to make all the contents quickly accessible. Small interior zippered pocket will keep the smaller items in place.

Happy NOVEMBER special offer

November is usually a cold, rainy and, well, gloomy month - stuck between glamurous golden October and happy & merry December.

But it is also the month in which I was born (hooray for Sagittariuses!) and to share the joy with my amazing readers I decided to offer a 20% discount on all items in my shop until the end of November!

Just type this special discount code under Shop Coupon Code when you make the order and 20% will be automatically substracted from your order total.

NOV20LODD

the discount code is valid in www.loddelina.etsy.com shop until November 30th 2010

(valid for all items except those already on HOLIDAY SALE)

I will include a handmade blank Christmas card with each item so it's ready for gift giving - just add your personal message!

::: Happy November! :::

My day Monday

November chill

All items: EuropeForCharity on Etsy

Greeting cards

I like to shop for gifts on Etsy and it is always nice when the seller includes a little something extra for me in the package, knowing that I will be giving the purchased item away.

My recent customer bought three zippered pouches she intends to give as Christmas gifts - it made me think it would be a nice idea to include a little blank card with each item so buyers could add a personal message to the handmade present they give.

That little extra something for the customer who ends up giving all the goodies away will remain a secret ;) but here is how my little cards look like: I bought small lavender and aqua envelopes and put a piece of cream cardstock in each, drawing little winter birds and flowers on them.

At the moment I am trying out a new design, a small shoulder bag to add to the Loddelina family - so far the only fresh thing in my shop is a cheerful Mia pencil case, a perfect companion to this messenger bag.

What's new?

After a weekend break (with a visit to local DinoZOO with my children), it is time to go back to work!

I just finished a custom work, some decorative hearts, and added three new items to my shop: two house brooches and a zippered pouch.

Yes, I know, I'm "cheating" my way into reaching Etsy holiday camp goal by making only smaller items... But these days it is hard to sew bigger items fast enought with daylight gone by teatime... Still, more larger bags will be added in my shop in the next couple of weeks.

And to add some percpective regarding my work, I decided to join tumblr - you may find matwww.loddelina.tumblr.com! So far, after an hour of clicking around the site a bit, I have to say I like this mix of blog and social network, short and without all the unnecessary apps. Within minutes of joining and posting a few pictures I received some comments and one post got reblogged, a very friendly way to get known around the tumblr community and beyond. Keep tuned to see how this thing evolves...

*And for those of you who are wondering about DinoZOO; it is a theme parc with, well, dinosaurs and with everything you want to know about the prehistoric times - a very nice place to visit, even on a rainy Sunday.