Red star

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been working on a new bag design.

Some of my friends have made observations about my shop lacking a smaller cross body purse one wears when one doesn't want to carry around much more than bare essentials; others have said they don't like it when a bag closes with a flap that needs to be constantly lifted up when you want to take a peek inside...

So what is the solution? Hopefully this new Loddelina design, a small sized hipster bag with adjustable strap, with almost flat shape and a magnetic snap closure. The bag has a large zippered pocket in the back plus a small interior pocket for a phone and metallic D-ring for attaching keys.

As I was drawing the bag, starfish came to mind again so I decided to try a black denim version with bright red corduroy applique - army green shoulder strap gives it a unisex look and since tomorrow is May 1st, labour day in most European countries, the red star seems only appropriate...

The new hipster bag will be listed in my shop tomorrow.

While I was sleeping ...

... my little house brooch made it to the Front Page!

It has been a really long time since I was featured on Etsy FP so I am very grateful to Erin, talented jewellery maker from TheSilverDog, for having included me in her Tiny Pieces of Art treasury. Little yellow house got lots of hearts and so did some other items in my shop - a happy change from otherwise slow Etsy month.

Thank you :)

In other news, I am currently working on another design, a small crossbody hipster bag - flat, simple and practical. I might even consider a men's version...

Happy Easter!

Spring comes late to our part of the world so we get to enjoy these gorgeous tulips in the nearby park and all around our town at Easter time - in my opinion the municipality gardeners of Pontarlier really have a great sense of flower arranging...

Have a great weekend,

see you soon!

More colour!

I decided to combine two of my favourite fabrics, vibrant corduroy in fresh, spring colours and patches of striped canvas from Maison d'Artiga.

The result are these (so far) two Maia zippered clutches, one in red, pink & purple combination and the other in robin egg blue & yellow mustard. I lined both purses with cheerful floral prints in matching colours and decorated the zipppers with handmade polymer clay beads.

I love saturated hues of these new purses but somehow their true colours don't always show in the photos of Etsy listings. I thought my computer screen was to blame so I opened several photos in different programmes - it turns out Etsy makes all pictures look duller and less sharp compared to same pictures, published on Flickr, Facebook and other places...

Other fellow Etsyians confirmed that it is the case in their shops as well. So for future listings on Etsy I will have to push the contrast and saturation up in PhotoShop and sharpen all the images.

:: same picture on Etsy and in PhotoShop window ::

Are any of you having the same observations? Please share!