Affichage des articles dont le libellé est etsy. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est etsy. Afficher tous les articles

mercredi 13 octobre 2010

A fight against the skies...

Today, I tried to defy the obvious celestial will, and I failed miserably. The skies were black an grey from threatening clouds... and I wanted to take pictures - pictures of pictures, in fact. In the end, I gave up and just scanned them. there's not so much room for composition or accessorizing, but there isn't much room for white-balance-hair-pulling either.



This linocut I mentionned previously is now up for grabs ! There will only be one like this !
And below is another print now to be found in our shop. It's an intaglio print (meaning the ink is in the grooves of the plate before pressing). The hand-drawn image was acid-etched on a zinc plate. The picture was printed on an ivory velin paper. On a print, there's always some room left on the paper around the plate. The paper is wet when is is run through the press, to it takes the form of the plate and the area around it stays a little raised after it dries. That's something you will only find on an original print. (Lithography is another story, but don't expect me to talk a lot about it - as I said before, it's not my thing)

La Cinq Fois Belle

Between January and June, I kept most of my work focused on fairy tales. this one is an illustration for a greek tale, "The five times fair". It's similar to Snow White, except there's no evil step-mother, there are two jealous sisters instead. And the one telling them that the youngest sister is the fairest of them all is the Sun.

samedi 12 décembre 2009

This blog just got a lot more interesting... *sarcasm off*

Not posting much lately, right ? The reason for that is currently sleeping next to me - he obviously decided to start the night early after babbling all day. :)
Let's see, what happened over the past few weeks... I took care of little G. I had my second printmaking workshop, printed a few more editions from the Medusa print I showed you last time. I took care of little G. I put up the Christmas tree. Took care of little G. Designed and printed the birht announcement cards (what ? Two months late ? No way ! Where did the time go ?) Took care of... See a pattern ? *broad grin* I have things in the works but it's taking me ages to finish them. And then, when I meant to take a few pictures to show you around my current life and even maybe *gasp* list something new... then... my digicam gave up the soul. And I still haven't ordered the new one - well I guess that's on the menu for tomorrow.


(I have my secret Santa's present under this tree, but I'll be strong, I'll wait until Christmas !)

But so that this doesn't sound like a pity party - which it frankly isn't. Really, I do have rough days when the kid is cranky for 15 hours straight, but today was amazingly good ! - well, so that you don't think I'm just drowning in exhaustion and post-partum depression, I have to thank the lovely lovely people who bought Christmas cards from me ! I have only 7 left, total, so if you want some grab them QUICK ! Lady Darkstone is coming on Tuesday and wants to buy some as well, so some designs will just be out of stock until next year !
Now to further assess that I'm on a roll, I am going to leave the kid in his father's care and grab my knitting needles for a last minute Christmas present. AND if this goes well, I might even open the "Knitting and Sewing" section of our shop in a few weeks (I'd say day, if it weren't for the kid and the looming holidays and assorted family visits).

dimanche 22 novembre 2009

Prints vs. Printmaking and a Question

... also titled : "I'm EXCITED !"

One of the good things about getting a kid is that I can get a small allowance to stay home with him for six months after my maternal leave. Which I AM going to do. That will take me to about the end of the schoolyear. A whole schoolyear without work... That means I was finally able to take some classes at the art school. I had my eyes set on a nude drawing class for years (my Grandma was kinda kicking my butt on this one but it always clashed with my work schedule *sobs*), and when I started scheming this art classes plan after I got pregnant, I saw the art school also offered a *printmaking class*. AWESOME ! I wasn't able to attend the first two courses but yesterday I was able to leave the kid with his father, leave the house and just worry about learning printmaking stuff and doing art for four hours.

Medusa

I was just experimenting with drypoint on plexiglass, without a real plan, but I'm already really, really happy with what I got. Now I have to buy some materials for the class... this is also my entry for this week' EST challenge, "Mythology". My only problem being that I'm not sure I want to put the first print I'm really happy with up for sale. :s

Gizeh, WIP

This is from the "prints" category, although it won't be technically a print, but a reproduction of a digital creation. I hope to finish it sometime this week. All the work with ink and paper is done, all that's left is the computerized magic.

And since we're talking digital, I'm begging for and advice from the crowd. My digicam is dying, and I want to upgrade to a DSLR. I want a Canon, because I want to be able to talk, get advice, compare and try lenses with Argyronete and our friend B, who both have a 450D (if I recall correctly). I'd need a standard lens, and maybe a macro one to take good macro pictures for the shop (and because macro is FUN :D ). Most of all, I'm hesitating between the 500D (which seems like a step up from the 450D, and isn't tha tmuch more expensive anymor) and the 1000D (which is a bit lower-class compared to the 500, but also a lot cheaper, so that I could splurge more on lenses). What do you people use ? What would you suggest ? I'm taking non-figurative pictures and some landscpae pictures when I'm doing the one-picture-a-day-thing (I've stopped trying to call it a 365 project until I actually manage to do one year in a row), close-ups of the items I'm putting up for sale, and well... baby portraits. Soon to be kid pictures.
My current pet peeves with my old Ixus, beside the fact that I have to hit it every time I turn it on to get the screen to work, are :
- no personalised adjusting of the white balance,
- horribly grainy pictures without natural light.

mercredi 18 novembre 2009

Fishy dilemna

Under the sea
I drew this for last week's EST challenge but wrangling four kilos of screaming monster prevented me from finishing it in time to submit. And now that I can take a step back to look at it, I'm not sure anymore what I should turn it into. My original plan was to make the blue very light and use the pattern for a writing set. But I'm starting to think it would work great as a print as well. What do YOU think ?

mardi 17 novembre 2009

Christmas before Christmas

As I mentioned previously, I got a very, very lovely package from the Shop Swap &Blog. My package came from Amy from VintageFern, and I was soooooo excited when I found it in the mailbox !!!!
A package ?
I was so eager to open it I couldn't wait until I got back home, I opened it right in the car !
What's inside ?
Hmmmm What's this ?
What's this ?
A set of pretty pretty cards ! In some of my favorite colors, that's even better !
Cards !
And a big tote for me and even a awesomely cute onesie for G !
A tote and a lovely onesie for Gabriel !

Can I say awesome ? A-we-so-me ! Go have a look at Amy's shop and at her blog. I just adore her textile creations !

Let's see what she has to say about herself and her creations...

I am a stay at home Mom to 3 beautiful girls and I am very lucky to be married to my best friend.
I started my business because I love creating and I need to be busy. It's really just more of a hobby for me, it's just a plus that I can make money with it. I get to do what I love best, being creative !
Not sure if I could say just one favorite online shop, I love Etsy !

Thank you again Amy ! I wish you lots of success with your creatiosn on Etsy !

jeudi 12 novembre 2009

In lieu of an apology....

... I have been silent for a looooong time, and I owe at least one post to the "Shop Swap & Blog" organized by Pattie of Structured Chaos. Bad, bad blogger !

2009-11-12 My creative space

But look I managed to take a picture of my creative space ! Which, in turn, means there IS such a thing as a creative space, that is, something else than milk bottles, feeding times, diapers and falling into bed whenever the kid sleeps.... I can barely believe it.
Theses are the cards I had printed for Christmas and that I've started putting online on Etsy. It's a first batch, so I only did 25 of them and I'll see which designs work best. Actually, 10 of them are already taken (I just don't know exactly which ones), so grab some quick if you want them !

If you'd like to peek into other artists' creative spaces, check out Kootoyoo's blog !

samedi 17 octobre 2009

What to do on a week-end

It's already Saturday evening, but that doesn't matter much in the end when you're on maternal leave and your husband is on vacation, right ? Except for groceries shopping, all days are about the same. Yet I'm stealing Karuski's idea and posting what's on the plate for this week-end.
- buying fruit and veggies and chesse - done, thanks to the Home Geek
- having Lady Fi, her husband and Mel come over and be all awww and aaaaaah over Gabriel - done, and happy to have seen them
- pick up some more baby stuff - partially done, still need to go to the store for a scale
- list one item in the shop - done. For the first time ever, I'm putting an original for sale. The Happy Hippo print will come later.
- take care of Gabriel
- get some rest
- get some creative time if at all possible - well, a blog post is already something, right ?



This drawing was actually done before I left for the hospital, but I didn't have enough time to list it. It was my challenge entry from, wait... two weeks ago ? Something like taht... The theme was "This is for you", and this was an hommage to Renate from Kreativlink. Funny whimsy meets some degas-esque inspiration...

lundi 5 octobre 2009

Monday Moodboard - a little bit of sunshine


It's grey out there, but here you have a splash of color ! By JKphotography, ZsBcreation, JuliaFelt and Binkaminka !
More moodboards ? Go check Fleur Fatale's blog !

dimanche 4 octobre 2009

A quiet weekend

The Serpentaires workshops haven't been very busy those past few days. Just a quick get-together for some tea and a chat, Lady Fi has been busy with some website designing and sewing custom orders, and I have mostly been waiting for the little alien to decide when he wants out of my bump, not sleeping at night and sleeping through the day.
During one of those sleepless nights I finally took the time to correctly set up our two other shops besides Etsy. So now we have a lil' shop on Zibbet, and a french shop with a blog on ALittleMarket.



Les ateliers Serpentaires n'ont pas été très actifs ces derniers temps, juste une petite causette autour d'une (ou deux) tasses de thé. Lady Fi a entre autres été occupée par la création d'une charte graphique pour un site web, et des commandes de couture, et j'ai surtout attendu que le petit alien se décide à pointer le bout de son nez, entre insomnies nocturnes et siestes diurnes.

J'ai mis à profit l'une de ces nuits sans sommeil pour enfin me pencher proprement sur nos boutiques en dehors d'Etsy. Nous avons à présent très officiellement une annexe sur Zibbet, et une BOUTIQUE EN FRANCAIS avec un blog attenant sur ALittleMarket. On nous en avait déjà fait la demande, il suffisait de trouver la plateforme qui nous plaise. Merci à Chichiboulie de nous avoir montré le chemin !
Cela veut surtout dire qu'à partir de maintenant, ce blog sera entièrement en Anglais et orienté vers nos boutiques en Anglais. Pour le blog en Français, c'est désormais par là !

lundi 28 septembre 2009

Monday Moodboard

Today it's all about Black and white !

Berniolie, palepink, Babongo and Vaisto
More moodboards ? Hop over to Fleur Fatale's blog !

vendredi 25 septembre 2009

My creative space...



... is a day late, I know, I know... I actually took the pictures yesterday, but after a busy afternoon I didn't feel very well in the evening, and just vegged out with my knitting and pencils (okay, so that's not technically vegging out... but still).



Two big changes ! First, the antique craddle. Isn't it pretty ? We're still waiting for the mattress, we had it custom-made and it should be here next Thursday. The craddle was in a really sorry state when we bought it, but my Dad is an awesome woodworker and redid the damaged pieces, you can't even spot them now !
Second, you might notice it's the first time I post a picture of my computer desk from that angle. The reason being I can now open the window right next to said desk and step out on the balcony ! We replaced the old window and door with two big sliding doors. now I can show you the big mess that is my work area... I just need to have all that inspiration around me, the pictures, the materials and the projects in progress. I know some artists can't work amidst chaos, but I can't create without it.
As usual, see more creative spaces (from yesterday) on Kootoyoo's blog.

Proof that it works : two new listings in the shop. The Autumn print has been waiting for me to photograph it for some time, now it is finally online. Then comes another World Wonder, the Pharos lighthouse. I really have to thank Baahar for this wonderful challenge theme, it keeps me inspired ! I'm working on a third print on that subject and it has brought me so much... I'll have to make a separate post about it.



I do have to thank all the wonderful euro and UK peeps who included us in treasuries lately. It's been amazing to meet so many adorable and wonderfully talented people through Etsy. Thank you so much !

mercredi 23 septembre 2009

Sweet treats - Argyronete's Kougelhopf

Yesterday autumn still seemed to be there (it's gone again today, we're back to summer and my feet complain about it. A lot) and I was craving some hearty food. Out of the blue I took a recipe I had been lying around for years and never came around to actually trying out : traditionnal Kougelhopf by Argyronete. I adapted it to make it in the breadmaker (no hand-kneading = less physical effort for me = good !) and this is what came out of the oven !

2009-09-23

Looks yummy, right ? It is !
And here's the recipe, with breadmaker :

Take
one big handful of raisins
a glass of alcohol, kirsch is best, rhum works
225 grams of butter
6 eggs
375 grams flour
10 grams yeast
2 tablespoons milk
10 grams salt
75 grams sugar
some almonds

Cover the raisins with the alcohol and let them aborsb it for a few hours.
Mix a little bit of sugar, luke-warm milk and the yeast. Let it rest until it has doubled in volume. ou can also use dehydrated baker's yeast in the breadmaker, just add it to the flour then.
Cut the butter in small dices, put them in the breadmaker. Add the whole eggs, the flour, the sugar, the yeast, the salt. Make sure the salt does not touch the yeast. Let the breadmaker knead the dough until it no longer sticks to the sides of the dish. Then drain the raisins (you can keep the alcohol for another maceration), add them to the dough and let the breadmaker do its work once more.
Put in a well greased Gugglhupf form. Let it rise for half an hour. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180° Celsius.
Bake for 40 minutes. Take out of the oven, out of the form, and add powder sugar on top. Yum yum !

In Etsy news, we have been featured on another blog ! See some of our articles on Crafted by Design's Monday Mentionables - although we aren't Monday... :D Monday or not, it's still really nice to be featured, thank you Kerianne !)

lundi 21 septembre 2009

WOOHOO !

I'm super-duper-mega happy ! I just won the European street team weekly challenge on Etsy. The theme given by Baahar was "Seven World Wonders", and the Babylon Print won. I am soooo happy ! Can you tell I'm happy ? Because I really, really am !
This means it's up to me to host this week's challenge. So the new them is...
...
*drumrolls please*
...
LIFE ON MARS !

A short reminder of the "rules" for newcomers:
The deadline is next Monday 21:00 CET. It has to be something created for the challenge or at least finished and listed in this week. It can be showed somewhere else. Please, take at least one picture from your creation, upload it somewhere on the web and send me the link as convo on etsy.

And the entries already started rolling mere minutes after I announced the new theme !


Meteorite Necklace, by LeelaBijou


Life on Mars adjustable ring in moss green enamel, by FleurFatale


Life on Mars, Leather Journal, Suede, by Kreativlink


Traces of the past necklace, by Happyment


Life on Mars Heart Padlock Chocker, by dinafragola


Evidence of life on Mars keyholder, by barbarix


Mars Craters Red Crochet Beret, by heileen


Life on Mars Neck Warmer, by kraplap


Mars Earrings, by bijouxdellostregatto


Life on Mars felted bag, by ingermaaike


Life on Mars earrings, by gr8jewellry


Life on Mars bracelet, by staroftheeast


Black-white nuno scarf, by creationsbyeve


Life on Mars dangle earrings with black wooden beads, by karuski

Monday Moodboard

We're entering autumn today.The sun is hiding behind the clouds here in Grenoble, but I have found a little autumn sun online...

samedi 19 septembre 2009

A girl's day on her own

So what's a girl to do when her husband has deserted her to go to a wild party in the South ? (don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow, I'm just jealous because I'm not allowed to travel that much with my bump and will as a result enjoy neither the party nor the faboo chinese food there. Jeaaaalous !!!) Let's see.
Work on some picture editing and listing new stuff in the shop.
Draw a little while the computer busy computing stuff too heavy for its little brain. (My computer is a bit slow. He understands things quickly once you've explained them at great length)
Do some more scanning and picture editing.

Babylon, WIP

Think about taking care of the laundry.
Draw a little more while the computer thinks big long thoughts by himself.

Pharos, WIP

Decide to have a cleaning frenzy rather than have lunch.
Have lunch eventually. After the whole downstairs area has been cleaned, that is.
Spend some time rereading a teenage favorite. Think I should work on some illustrations from that text.
Get phone calls by Mom and Stepmom. None of those are ever short. Answer copious amount of questions about the little alien inside the bump.
Realize at some point in the afternoon that project warm bath has been forgotten. Apply oneself to said project.
Hop to home decor store to pick up a new picture artefact, as shown below. Well, I couldn't decide on which one, so I got two.

New props

Forget about the laundry. Actually I think that happened a few steps earlier.
Come back home ravenous.
Discover that the nearest pizza place is still closed. I think they are taking Ramadan month off. Wish I was a muslim for a short while and knew the dates of Ramadan this year so that I could order pizza again - I think it ends today ? Am I right ?
Settle on a big plate of pasta with tuna and parmegianno.

Comfort food


Eat in front of Sex and the City. A girl has to take every opportunity to make an evening truly girly when she's home alone.

2009-09-20



So this is my entry for this week's EST challenge, "Seven world wonders". I am *dying* to be allowed to do metal engraving again but acids are just a big no-no until the baby's born. So the design of this piece is very much inspired by my Grandma's and my own style of metal engravings, only I did it in black ink and digitally added the color. I quite like the result. I felt pretty inspired by the theme, I chose the hanging gardens of Babylon because luxurious foliage and exotic birds are a theme that regularly popped up in my Grandma's work, so it almost natural to have my own take on it. But now I want to push this further, hence the other drawing, the Pharos lighthouse, where I am trying to infuse nautical and egyptian elements into this style. It's also very interesting because it makes me work on coposition in a way I'm not used to. Now I just need to find ideas for the five remaining wonders of the ancient world ! *laughs* I have a weird addiction for working in series, even though I don't always get to actually finish the series.

New stuff ! Exciting ! Yay !!!

The title about sums up how I feel about the new line we're currently introducing in our shop. Yeah, I'm *that* excited about it. We have kid's birthday invitation and birth announcements lined up right now, with more to come and wedding invitations to be added.

Pirate

Ever since I started working on our own wedding invitations, I got addicted to designing those. I'm very happy that the next month will provide me an opportunity to design another - a birth announcement -, but I have to many ideas to just narrow it down to one. So here it is, the new Serpentaires line of customized, print-your-own wedding and children stationery !

Rose Fairy

We dedided to go the print-your-own route as this is the greenest way in terms of shipping and also the most cost effective we can offer to our customers. Of course we are very, very much interested in any form of custom work in this line. Not just mere personalisation of an existing design, we'd be thrilled to work on a design from scratch following a client's desires !
The first ones will be in similar soft watercolor tone, but we have many more ideas. Stay tuned for more, including work by Lady Fi !

lundi 14 septembre 2009

Old school

Enchanted Forest - print

That was the theme for this week's EST (European Street Team) challenge on Etsy. I've had a blast working on the previous entry already "Enchanted Forest" (see above). Below is the entry for this week. My fingers have been itching to sew lately - there's not much I can sew for myself right now, my water-melon-muggling time is coming to an end in about a month and baby sewing isn't half as fun as costumes.
Or maybe I was just looking for an excuse to make a few rag dolls (like several of you guessed). I just love making rag dolls. This one turned up a lot simpler than the victorian kitties I previously did. It was fun buuut... I think I'll go back to the over the top ones, they are even MORE fun to make, and they feel more unique.
I present you Margot, the old school girl. When I think old school, I almost immediately think of tartan. Don't tell Margot, but I'm jealous of this skirt of hers. I can't wait until I've dropped my watermelon-shaped alien and I can make myself a tartan skirt out of this fabric.

Margot 2009-09-14 Margot

"Vieux jeu", c'était le thème du challenge de l'équipe Europe (European Street Team) sur Etsy cette semaine. Je m'étais déjà bien amusée avec le défi de la semaine précédente,"Forêt Enchantée. Voici ma participation d'aujourd'hui. La machine à coudre me démangeait ces derniers temps. Je ne peux pas coudre grand'chose moi tant que je suis en mode matrioschka (plus pour longtemps), et coudre pour le bébé n'est de loin pas aussi amusant que de faire des costumes.
Ou peut-être que j'avais simplement besoin d'un prétexte pour coudre une poupée de chiffons. J'adore les poupées de chiffons. Celle-ci est beaucoup plus simple que les chats victoriens que j'ai pu faire précédemment. Je me suis bien amusée avec maaaais... je crois que je vais revenir à des choses plus élaborées pour les suivantes, c'est encore PLUS rigolo à faire et plus "spécial".
Voici Margot, une jeune fille adorable et un peu vieux jeu. Le thème me fait tout de suite penser à du tartan, allez savoir pourquoi. Ne le dites pas à Margot, mais je veux la même jupe qu'elle. Vivement que l'alien qui me squatte le bidon soit sorti pour que je puisse m'en coudre une !

mercredi 9 septembre 2009

Green + Happy

Right from the beginning, we have aimed at producing stuff with the lowest possible ecological impact for a reasonable cost. The balance is tricky to find, but we truly do our best to use eco-friendly materials and processes whenever we can. Choosing our paper plays an important part in this, and we are lucky to have found a local recycled paper producer who does an amazing work. If everything goes according to plan (I'm a little cautious here as we've already had many err... issues), their work should get used in our future tarot deck.

2009-09-09

Dès le départ, nous avons visé à offrir des produits avec un impact écologique minime pour un coût raisonnable. C'est un équilibre délicat à trouver, mais nous faisons vraiment de notre mieux pour utiliser des matériaux et des procédés aussi respecteueux de l'environnement que possible. Le choix du papier est un point essentiel, et nous avons eu la chance de trouver un fabricant local de papier recyclé qui fait un travail superbe. Avec un peu de chance (je suis prudente, vu le nombre de... petits soucis que nous avons eu), nous utiliserons son travail pour notre jeu de tarot.

Aaaand... I'm extremely grateful, we have been featured in a Treasury West ! It's our first time ! *happy butt wiggle* Thank you so much Gr8 Jewelry ! (who, BTW, really does an amazing work !)



Eeeet... toutes ma reconnaissance éternelle à Gr8 Jewelry (qui au passage fait un travail superbe) pour nous avoir incluses dans un Treasury West ! C'est la première fois ! *youplala*
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