Back to work

After coming home from our short holiday in Slovenia, a fresh shipment of zippers waited for me at the post office - no more excuses, it's time to go back to work!

Sunny, warm October days in Ljubljana and dying blossoms in my mother's garden are now just a fresh inspiration for new creations.

See you soon!

Inspiration: France

Being an expat in France has its advantages - and I am not only talking about more than 350 varieties of cheese...
I mostly enjoy observing the local architecture, especially windows, shutters and doorways, and am always discovering charming details, be it in larger towns like Besançon and Dijon or small town houses in my neighbourhood (Pontarlier).
Here is a collage of images, taken by me in the last month and posted to my Instagram album.

Have a great weekend!

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Življenje v Franciji ima svoje prednosti, pa ne govorim samo o neštetih vrstah sira - zelo rada opazujem metstno arhitekturo, predvsem okna z očarljivimi polknami in vhode v stavbe, pa naj bo v večjih mestih (Dijon, Besançon) ali našem malem Pontarlieru. Tule je izbor slik iz mojega Instagram albuma, posnetih v zadnjem mesecu.
Lep vikend želim vsem skupaj!

Springtime inspirations

Spring is officially here and I am attracted by bright colours and bold combinations everywhere I go. Here are a few of my most recent colour inspirations...

Beautiful blooming forsythia on our way home yesterday afternoon

Who doesn't like baloons?

And who doesn't like flowers...

Some gorgeous fabrics at the curtains store

(Visit my Instagram album to see more pictures)

Enjoy your Sunday and don't forget to set your clocks if you are in a daylight saving time zone!

Autumn inspirations

  Japanese anemone - I love their delicate stems and simple blossoms

 Shiny, gorgeous wild chestnuts - I used to dye my hair that colour back in highschool :)

The prettiest side of rain

Blogger on vacation

I am spending my summer vacation in Slovenia; plenty of rest, catching up with old friends and sightseeing around Ljubljana, my hometown. A lot has changed since I moved away and it is always fun to discover new things as I visit my favourite spots.

Loddelina is taking a break at the moment, buying supplies, making some sketches and looking for fresh ideas. I plan to add some zippered pouches to my shop as soon as I catch my breath :)

It has cooled down a bit in the last few days with rain showers painting the skies dark blue and beautiful clouds scattered all over the horizon. Here are some impressions from the past week:

 Walking up to the Ljubljana castle ...

... as big stormy clouds gather above.

Street musician on a coffee break.

New art installations in old town's cobble street.

 Lunch at the market place (mmmmmm).

And later that day street lights slowly light up.

:: :: ::   Have a nice weekend!   :: :: :: 

Custom work

I finished my special order and sent it to its new home today. It is another version of Leelou bag, small satchel made from black denim and golden upholstery jacquard.

Instead of cotton webbing, I used the same fabric to make bag's adjustable strap and finished the warm look with a cream coloured ric rac trim and a piece of lace.

Thursday is also farmer's market day and this time of year stalls are full of young onions and fresh garlic, bound in beautifull small bouquets. I bought one just for decoration because I rarely use fresh garlic in my cooking (I prefer dried one; it has less "side effects" and gives the same aroma to dishes...).

And here is our Pontralier with its windows & shutters ...

... including my window with two recently planted boxes of zinnias.

This month's inspirations

Zinnia flowers waiting to be planted in my window flower box

Neighbour's garden poppies against the dark blue sky

My children's crayon shavings

And here is a bag I made for myself recelntly (yes, on very rare occasions I do make stuff for my personal use).

First I meant to use it as a shopping tote in which I could bring home bread and other dry groceries but now I mostly use it to carry parcels to the post office. I wish I could take it for a walk more often but when I do, I do so in style...

Winter impressions

The weather these days has been cold and windy, there is a promise of new snow in the air.

In spite of freezing temperatures, my parents' garden offers many interesting sights:

snowdrops waiting to open in the next sunny spell,

lifeless branches that will turn into a summer explosion of foliage,

frozen air bubbles in a water filled garden bucket

and my favourite, delicate lace on dried hortensia blossoms.

Reset!

New Year's inspirations, clockwise from top left: 2011 calender from camillebellet, zippers from zipit, buttons from dizzyizzysupplies and the inspiration jar from thedancingwren.

I'm back from family Christmas holidays in Slovenia;

I brought home some new sewing supplies, some fresh ideas and hopefully enough motivation to start working on some new designs for 2011!

But first I have to sort out the inevitable mess the house gets left in each time we go away for a long time - and then: sewing. The shop needs some more Valentine's day items and after that it's time for spring inspired bags.

Ready - reset - go!

Sunday inspirations

New snow on juicy winter berries - a feast for hungry birds...

Happy Sunday!

Heart in the gutter?

Beauty can be found in most unexpected of places.

I discovered this heart shaped, mason-like symbol on one of the gutter grids near our house while playing outside with my children. What could be more fun than throwing pebbles through the grid and waiting to hear the sound they make?

Happy autumn!

The colours of Alsace

Last week my husband and I spent a couple of days in Alsace - the home country of storks.

We stayed at a budget hotel in Colmar (and rather spent the leftover money on delicious food) and on the second day drove a few miles further north to a small vine - growing town ofRibeauville. It is just as beautiful as Colmar but much less crowded so we could enjoy our walk and take pictures without ending up having (too many) tourists in them.

Everywhere we turned there was a podstcard-perfect view and at the end we couldn't say which house, street or doorway we loved more. Even with the harsh midday sunlight, the pictures I took with my tiny camera still came out ok.

The flowers and the colours of Ribeauville are an endless inspiration - may they spice up your September creativity!

This week's inspirations

Flowers on the windows of a nearby house,

at the local farmers' market

and a bouquet of flowers in my bedroom.

Inspirations: Besançon restaurants

This week I intended to add another batch of zipper pouches to my shop - the fabrics have all been cut out, the perfect zippers, trims and buttons chosen for each colour; but when I started sewing, my machine made a weird noise and all the stitches came out crooked. I tried changing the needle, oiling the machine, I checked the screws and the settings over and over again, but nothing helped. After I unravelled the stitches a few times (oh, how I hate doing that!) only to realise they will not look any better the second time, I gave up.

I will have to take my machine to a repair shop (I have to find one first) before I can list any new bags. In the meantime I can show you a couple of interesting crafting ideas and inspirations I came across on my walk around Besançon last week.

This metal frame for a restaurant menu board is covered in old pieces of cutlery - odd spoons, forks and knives can be always found in flea markets and once polished they make great accessories. There are many shops on Etsy specialising in finding new life to silverware, I especially like SpoonerZ.


And I like this wall display (also in a restaurant - it was lunch time, what can I say), made of simple wooden boxes, painted on the inside with cheerful colours and attached to the wall. The boxes contained leaflets, tourist guides, books and other interesting information to leaf through while waiting for the table.

I will be on a lookout for some more creative inspirations next week - I might even make it a regular blog post...

Colours and textures

Since I started working on the Loddelina label again, I have been carrying my pocket camera around with me in order to capture sudden inspirations or unexpected colour combinations and textures I might come across. Nature has the best ideas!

Having walked through the same park past the same trees for two and a half years I only now noticed the beautiful tree bark I pictured in yesterday's post. Here are some more images I've made over the past few months - hardly leaving my house.

sea of purple

birdhouse on a birch tree

tree lichen

cherry blossoms

The colour of July

I've been busy these days trying to take nice pictures of my handbags to post on Etsy when I finally open my shop (time has been in short suply lately, not much sleep...). 

Here is one of my bags, Malina Hotpink, paired up with a picture of a beautiful rosebush I took the other day on my way through the city - Augsburg is full of lovely flowerbeds and they are exspecially vibrant in July...