Frankfurt

As most of you know, I´m born German although I have lived in Scandinavia for the past 16 years, and my family still lives in Germany. So last week I went down to Kassel, my hometown, to celebrate my mum´s 70th birthday. And I even took a little trip further south to Frankfurt to visit an old friend and explore the city a bit more.

 The most distinctive feature of Frankfurt is without any doubt the impressive skyline of the city that is both unique in  Germany and gives you the feeling of actually being in America. The city is the financial Capital of Europe and seat of the European Central Bank, and most of the skyscrapers are inhabited by big German and international banks. What is more, Frankfurt is home to the second largest airport in Europe, so the population of the city is very international and you find lots of museums, exhibitions and cultural events of all kinds.

I wanted to explore the craft and design scene a bit, and found that Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen and the area around the Brückenstrasse houses lots of interesting small shops run by independent designers or art co-operatives. My favourite one is called "Ich war ein Dirndl" and offers a very interesting selection of handmade clothes, art, accessories and stationary.

  When I´m visiting shops like this, I´m always searching for inspiration of how to present my products. Whilst I feel I have developped my own very distinctive style over the years in my work, I still struggle to present it when taken out of the context of my own shop. The right packaging and presentation is so important to make the product appealing to potential buyers and make them pay the price you deserve for your handmade goodies, and it´s even important to tell the story behind the product.
 

I found these small notebooks made from vintage paperware very intriguing, nicely wrapped in compostable cellophane bags and the story printed on the sleeve. Well done, so I bought a couple of them, makers are called "June and August" and you can find them on facebook.

 I even liked these pictures from the same shop very much, a clever combination of vintage fabric and quirky print - just what I like! I´ll buy one of these next time I visit I think.

Another shop with a very interesting concept is Designe, Kleine! in the same area, where designers and makers can hire a box for 20 Euro per month to display and sell their creations. I might actually approach them and give it a try, just to test the German market!

 "Designe, Kleine!" offers everything from quirky stationery over textiles, jewellery, ceramics and glass in the shop and it´s in shops like these where you find the best presents.

After my little shopping round we walked along the river Main to the Liebieghaus, which was built in 1896 as a retirement home for the Bohemian textile manufacturer Baron Heinrich von Liebieg. The city of Frankfurt acquired the building in 1908 and devoted it to the sculpture collection. The museum includes ancient Greek, Roman and Egytian sculpture, as well as Medieval, Baroque, Renaissance and Classicist pieces, and works from the Far East. 

 You even find a very cosy cafe in the backyard, with a lovely selection of cakes that I can only recommend to visit should you guest the city. 

Well, that was all for now - see you soon :-)

Train in Vain ;-)

I have been very busy the last weeks as I had to get everything ready for my summer shop in our vintage train carriage. I opened last thursday and I´m really happy with the result. I painted the table, bench and steps I use to display my bouquets of flowers from the garden in a nice lavender-blue shade to make it look cosy and inviting to visitors.


The rough style of the carriage creates a very interesting contrast to my handcrafted textiles and jewellery and the venue has a nice shabby chic feel to it.


My worktable with jewellery and accessories in the corner.


Vintage linen and tableclothes and in the mirror a peek of my vintage dresses.


Dainty summer scarves and my embroidered jewellery.


We had a heat wave the last couple of days, so there weren´t particularly many customers yet - everyone was at the beach I suppose, but I hope more people will come around during the next weeks. My summer shop was mentioned in one of the Danish lifestyle and interior mags, they had even put two nice pictures in, so I hope that´ll give me some extra customers.

I´m also exhibiting with three other artists in my friend Tracys gallery, I´ll post some pictures of that exhibition soon - the three other girls make fantastic stuff, too.

That was all for now - enjoy the summer!

Busy times and new opportunities!

I´ve really been busy these last weeks! My parents visited us last week, which was really nice. I had such a great time with my mother, she is a creative mind too and we made jewellery together, went shopping and chatted a lot. And she ironed all the clothes and linen that had piled up for weeks in my laundry basket.... Here´s a picture of us, doesn´t she look gorgeous? She is 66 years old, who would believe that! Hope I have inherited her good genes!!


I´ve been stressing around a bit, I have to deliver my work for the first exhibition on friday, I open my own summershop in the train carriage the 1. of july (and the carriage still has to be cleaned, some of the furniture I use for displaying my work has to be painted and there are some reparations to be done on the boards of the carriage) and then there is also the exhibition at my friend Tracys gallery....

Anyway, I managed to finish two re-vamped vintage slips and made a couple of headbands using some of my vintage millinery flowers.


I even found the time for a little brocante tour last saturday. Here are some pictures from the first place we visited, an old farmhouse that used to be a pub in a tiny cosy village - so typical Danish!



They had mostly old china, glassware and silverware, but I managed to find these beautiful old tins and the funny small forks.



We decided to have a cup of tea in Ebeltoft, a small town nearby, and popped around another antique store. As you maybe can see in the picture, it´s quite a shabby venue, but packed with all kinds of vintage stuff.


I rummaged through a basket full of all kinds of small items and found these nice old pearlnecklaces, beads and jewellery findings. Great stash to re-use in my work!


After that we went to the café, and on the way I discovered that in one of the old warehouses someone had opened a combined studio and vintage clothing shop. Of course I had to check it out, and I found a nice black dress from the 50ies, quite hard to find in bigger sizes so I am really enthusiastic about my find!! The owner, who is a painter, actually recognized me, she had been at my summershop. We started to chat and she asked if I was interested in doing a vintage fashion show with her at the local festival the last weekend in July and I said I was indeed! We agreed we would show both vintage dresses, my re-vamped vintage slips and tops and my handcrafted textile jewellery. Quite exciting, I´ve never tried that before.

And, there are more good news: she actually rents the studio for a very reasonable sum and told me the owner was interested to rent out more of the space, so I´m going to meet him on thursday to discuss the possibilities. My plan is to gather four or five artists/crafters and use some of the space in the warehouse as a combined studio and shop. By sharing the rent we can keep the costs low, which is important, because Ebeltoft is heaving with tourists from June to September - but the rest of the year it´s more or less dead, so you have to earn your money during the summermonths.

Well, as you can see - lots of things going on at the moment - I´ll keep you informed ;-)

Oh - about the peacocks - they actually belong to a farm outside our village, the people haven´t had them long and obviously the peacocks decided that it was time to take a closer look at the surroundings ;-).

Busy Springtime

I can´t believe it´s three weeks ago I published my last post!! But it´s so much to do right now -my parents are coming next weekend, so I had to tidy up the guest room and I even moved some furniture around and re-arranged some of my still lives. Here you see a collection of ceramics made by a friend of mine (and my cat eye glasses from the 60ies - I love them!!).


I also gave my beloved collection of vintage jewellery a good clean up and picked some flowers in the garden - the result turned out nicely I think.


There is still a lot of work in the garden, although I have to say the garden really looks great this year, espacially my vegetable patch. Took this picture in the greenhouse today, lots of flowers waiting to be planted in my flower tubs.


I have been a bit frustrated lately because I can´t exactly say that I sell massively well on etsy... I really make a big effort to network, take good pictures and upload new items regularly, which is quite time consuming, because I both have to supply my Fleur de Boheme shop with my own work and my Extravaganzza shop where I sell vintage clothes and jewellery. I sold my first handcrafted pieces a couple of days ago to Canada, the lace scarf and matching brooch shown below.


Of course that was nice, and the vintage shop is doing slightly better, but still....
I find two things difficult, the first one is to get enough traffic on the sites and the second one is the fact that I live in the most expensive country in Europe (probably one of the most expensive countries in the world) and I feel I just can´t compete with American prices at all!! We pay 49% taxes in Denmark, the prices for food are hideous and supplies are expensive too! I like where I´m living, but I find the fact that everything is so expensive really hard to accept!

Anyway, I reduced the prices on most of my items on etsy a while ago to see if that would make a difference, and I want to ask you a little favour: Would you take a look at my shops and give me feedback concerning my pricing?
I booked a few showcase spots to increase shop awareness, and the storque and accessories showcases were quite successful and gave me new followers, whilst the vintage showcase was a flop I would say. I also tried two snatch a treasury many times now because I think that´s a good way of networking, but it just seems impossible!

My newest item in my shop are these whimsical flowerbrooches - they´re almost like butterflies and I really like the picture ;-)


Well, to finish the etsy talk - if anyone out there has more tips concerning how to become a successful etsy seller, I would be grateful!

Talking about my work - I didn´t get done too much but I finished another brooch and I am now working on a bracelet, both for my summer exhibition - that´s the reason why they´re not in my etsy shop yet ;-)


Last year I started an education in creative embroidery, it´s a mixture of short courses and distance learning and it takes three years. I did the second module a couple of weeks ago, and now I have lots of projects to finish before the next module in september. The topic of the last module was nature, and one of the pieces I did was this embroidery inspired by birchbark. It includes printing, different layers of fabric, machine and handembroidery. I´m not sure if it´s finished yet, I might embellish it with beads in some places.

I even saw a fascinating exhibition while I was away for the embroidery course. It featured the work of the Danish artist Marie-Louise Otte who creates the most scrumptious ballet costumes made of paper, gold leaf, svarowski stones and other vintage materials. I hope to be able to write more about her next time and to show you some pictures of her amazing sculptures - I´m waiting to get her permission to show pictures of her work here on my blog.

I can´t give you any update about the article in "Isabellas" yet. I bought the newest magazine and was sooo disappointed because there wasn´t any article featuring interesting craft and vintage shops in Denmark - until I found out that the article is first due in the next issue which doesn´t come out before july ;-)

So, enjoy this lovely springtime - see you soon!

Springtime

I think it´s time for me to write on my blog again - I´ve been so busy in the garden I haven´t had time for much else really. We have a huge cottage garden with many roses, hortensia, mixed borders, fruit trees and a big potager where I grow our vegetables, so there is plenty of work in the spring - but I love being out there digging, sowing and planting! My granny had a big garden and I loved being there as a child, the garden was next to a big field full of pansies that belonged to a nursery nearby, and pansies still are my favourite spring flowers.


Every spring I´m so looking forward to see the fruit trees in full bloom, and I especially love our old japanese cherry tree with the beautiful pink flowers that look gorgeous with the ferns in the border in the background.


My next garden project is getting chicken and building a little hen house, I think it´s so cosy with chicken in the garden but we have to build a solid hen house and chicken yard as we have many foxes around.
I even want to show you a picture of our three horses, they are grazing on the little field by our house right now, but soon they are going to their summer grazing - I´ll miss having them so close and looking at them while I´m gardening.


Although I have been very busy in the garden I managed to do some creative work, I´m still working on the Marie Antoinette theme that is going to be exhibited in the summer. The first piece is a pendant, made of vintage lace, tulle and applique, some of them hand dyed, and embellished with pearls from a vintage pearl necklace, glassbeads, a mother of pearl flower and hand embroidery. I´m not sure about the chain yet, might be either vintage lace or beads and pearls - I have to play around with some ideas!


I also made this neckpiece, a combination of vintage lace and a beautiful hand dyed vintage applique adorned with lots of glassbeads, pearls, sequins, mother of pearl buttons and hand embroidery.


A couple of days ago, something really exciting happened! During the summermonths I have a little shop in our old train carriage where I sell my craft work, vintage dresses, vintage china and tablewear and things from the garden - flowers, jam etc. When I checked my mobile, there was a message from an editor of the Danish interior and lifestyle magazine "Isabellas".


She asked me to call her back because she had found my website and asked if I could supply her with some pictures of the shop as she was writing an article about craft- and vintage shops in the countryside and wanted to include me!! I sent her some pictures of the shop and my work and now I cross fingers she really writes about me - that would be so fantastic as it is a great mag and would give me some extra customers!

Last not least I was awarded the lemonade award by lovely Nicki from "Curious Me" (http://nicki-curiousme.blogspot.com/) - check her blog, it´s full of gorgeous pictures and beautiful crafty things! It´s my first award and I´m really happy about it - thank you, Nicki!


A Lemonade Award is given to bloggers that you feel show a positive attitude and/or gratitude. Here's how it works:

1.Put the logo on your blog or post
2.Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great Gratitude and/or Attitude.
3.Be sure to list and link your nominees within your post.
4.Let them know they have received this award by leaving a comment on their blog.
5.Nominate your favorites and link to your post.

These are the blogs that I want to nominate:

1) oldflowers4me (http://oldflowers4me.blogspot.com/)
2) The Silly BooDilly (http://thesillyboodilly.blogspot.com/)
3) Hens Teeth (http://hensteethart.blogspot.com/)
4) Boboho (http://tracy-boboho.blogspot.com/)
5) Roses Radishes and Rubbish (http://rosesradishesandrubbish.blogspot.com/)
6) Edera Crocheted Jewelry (http://edera-faerie.blogspot.com/)
7) Kaylovesvintage (http://kaylovesvintage.blogspot.com/)
8) Katinka Pinka (http://katinkapinka.blogspot.com/)
9) Babaprincesse (http://babaprincesse.blogspot.com/)
10) Sticky Kitten (http://stickykittenz.blogspot.com/)

Well, I´m off now to do some gardening ;-)

Home Sweet Home...

I recently set up my flickr photostream and my God, it´s addictive!! But I still found time for a little bit of shopping, bumped into this great flower-fairylights in the local shop and had to have them! They look nice draped around my tailors dummy with the vintage slip, don´t you think?

The cupboard is a fleamarket find that I´ve painted in a nice pale yellow shade and the scarf is a gift from my friend Tracy.

I made some more pictures of our home and my favourite vintage goodies for the flickr site.

Here you see a corner of our living room. On the blue cabinet a collection of beautiful ceramics made by my friend Laila Witt. The painting is the work of another friend of mine and the lovely vintage Chinese lantern was given to me by my generous and dear friend Tracy who had found it during a holiday in Brighton.

Some vintage goodies from my studio. The mirror is a fleamarket find as is the beautiful tin, the doilies and the vintage pearl necklace. The metal lace in the foreground is just stunning and comes from France and the other lace is a mix of ebay and fleamarket finds.

I have to show you this, too. It is a vintage angel from the 20ies and it comes from my home country, Germany. She looks like a beautiful fairy as she looks down from the top of my vintage Dutch mirror. I found her on ebay, the picture was quite bad so I didn´t really know what I had purchased befor the parcel arrived and oh so happy I was when I saw her! Look at the teeny tiny candle!! The seller had a blond version too and I´m so cross with myself I didn´t buy this one too!!! I guess I just have to enjoy the one I have.

The last two things I want to show you is recent work - I don´t want you to believe I´ve been lazy! The picture above shows my latest cuff. It´s built around a piece of vintage jewellery and made of layered silk and lace and embellished with a vintage appliqué, pearls of an old necklace, glassbeads and hand embroidery. The cuff was inspired by Sophia Coppolas film "Marie Antoinette" which I recently saw again.

This brooch is inspired by "Marie Antoinette", too. It´s made of a lacy vintage serviet ring combined with hand dyed tulle and embellished with lace, sequins, trim and beads.

If you want to see more, check my flickr photostream. See you soon!

Creatures of Comfort

We had such a lot of snow in the weekend, it was amazing! Went for a walk with the doggies on saturday and it was all so beautiful and calm with the forest covered in snow. And then... saturday night.... it suddenly became 3 or 4 degrees above zero and today everything has gone!

If I can´t have snow I want it to be spring! We have a lovely conservatory that we do not use in the winter because it is quite expensive to heat it up during the dark wintermonth, but from March onwards we can sit out there on sunny days and oh what I´m looking forward to it! It´s like being out in the garden, everything is flooded with light and I love sitting there with my embroidery or crochet work!


Talking about spring and happy days, I want to show you one of my favourite artpieces, this lovely creature made by the British artist Julie Arkell which truly makes me happy every time I look at it! I purchased it some three years ago when Julie was exhibiting at my friend Tracys gallery, and it is safely placed high up in the shelves between my merry vintage English china as Gustav, our Border Collie Mix, has a sometimes unfortunate love for everything made of paper.... I even had the pleasure to meet Julie and her lovely husband as she was staying here in Denmark to be present at the opening of the exhibition, and what a great and inspiring person she is! She works with paper maché, knitting, embroidery, vintage fabric, ephemera, buttons and beads and her intriguing work employs naivity, sentiment and nostalgia. She really creates a universe of her own with her part human, part animal creatures and I find her work both very eccentric and very English - in the best imaginable way.


A book about Julie Arkell and her work has been published in 2004 by The Gallery, Ruthin Craft Centre and it is not only a fantastic visual experience but very interesting reading, too. The book is called "Julie Arkell: Home" and it is packed with pictures of her amazing work and her cosy studio. I regularly flick through it because it is a never ending source of inspiration. Julie does not have her own website, but a lot of sites have featured her work so you should be able to google her if you want to see more!
The picture also shows a collection of my vintage buckles and the dusky purple belt I made a couple of weeks ago - the colour goes perfectly along with the book cover I think ;-)


I even want to show you some of my own work, I did these embroideries before christmas and it is the first time I have incorporated mixed media techniques in my work. I was inspired by Beryl Taylors book "Mixed Media Explorations" that I had found while surfing on amazon and considered interesting enough to order. And what a good decision! Beryl is an English artist who moved to the United States a couple of years ago and her work is very detailed and combines lots of different techniques that inspired me to do the pieces shown in the pictures.


The embroideries are based on paper that I have either painted or ironed metal foil on and consist of many layers of organza and tulle fabric combined with cut out details from vintage doilies, waxed paper, vintage buttons, beadwork, some gold glimmer, metallic rub-on and hand- and machine embroidery. In the piece shown in the picture above I even used puff up paint and medallions made of friendly plastic imprinted with a stamp. I enjoyed so much working with these different techniques and I plan to make a whole series of small embroideries based on those techniques using details from vintage doilies, buttons and maybe jewellery findings. The problem is as always - time!!! So many projects and ideas buzzing around in my head it´s hard to get everything structured not to talk about getting it realized!! Some of you might be familiar with the problem.....

Treasure

Today we went to Ebeltoft, a small town nearby, to do the weekend-shopping. I popped around my favourite vintage shop and how lucky I did so!! As you can see in the picture, I found treasure! A whole stack of beautiful doilies, four fantastic old tins (I specially love the small square one in the foreground), a rhinestone buckle and some nice buttons, beads and pearls from a vintage necklace.
It is such a nice shop, and the owner is so friendly and cosy to chat with. What a great start to the weekend!


I have been a busy bee this week and continued
working on my different button projects.
We have a big dining table and it is a
complete creative mess at the moment, as the picture illustrates ;-). The workspace in my studio is simply not big enough for this kind of work where you need so many materials at hand all the time.


I have almost finished my seafoam breeze cuff and only need to line it, I´m really happy with the result and of course I want to share the picture with you! The subtle shades of aqua and turquoise combined with splashes of pink, yellow and orange make me think of relaxed summerdays on the beach - I´m looking so much forward to it! But right now we have temperatures below zero so the prospect of jumping into the cool water seems very far away....


While I have been working on the cuffs suddenly visions of kitschy, candy button rings emerged in my head, and of course the idea had to be carried out immediately! I think the rings are very funny, they have a fabulous kitsch appeal to them and they make quirky and eyecatching accessories. Three of them are for sale in my etsy shop, the other ones are going to be sent to a craft shop in England that is interested in stocking my work. I even have to finish some brooches that are going to be sent to England, but I am waiting for the broochpins I have ordered. Good thing is, if the rings should prove to be popular they are not as time-consuming to create as many of my other work and I should be able to make some money on them ;-)

Apart from all this I am working on an art event together with my friend Tracy Nors (check her blog tracy-boboho.blogspot.com for her great artwork and her website www.boboho.com to see and read about the hottest interior trends). We want to launch a pompom project, inspired by Elvis Robertson, and after having contacted her we hope to be able to turn it into an international event. I am going to write more about it next time, maybe someone out there wants to join in? In the meantime, check Elvis` blog www.pompomproject.blogspot.com

More buttons... and doilies!

Yesterday I got another parcel filled with the most scrumptious vintage buttons, so I spent the last two days making this merry cuff. I first layered pale purple wool-fabric, tulle and hand-dyed lace and then embellished the cuff with lots of buttons and glassbeads. The lining is made of vintage liberty fabric. It was a lot of work but I enjoyed every moment! I called it "Purple Rainbow Cuff" and I have actually decided to keep it for myself - I just love the purple and pink shades and think we will have many happy hours together!

I am now working on another cuff in blue-green-turquoise shades that is going to be called "Seafoam Breeze Cuff". This one will be for sale in my etsy shop, so keep looking there if you are interested!



I even made another piece for myself a couple of weeks ago, the scarf you can see in the picture on the left. I dyed vintage doilies in shades of green and pink and crocheted a black edging around each of them. Afterwards the doilies were sewn together by hand. I used mohair yarn and the fluffy effect creates an interesting contrast to the cotton doilies , but I have to say that cotton yarn works better and gives a stronger scarf.

It is incredible how the doilies change character when dyed and used in another context. They make a truly bohemian accessory and the scarf is my favourite right now!



If you like vintage stuff and bohemian style, also in interiors, you have to take a look at one of my favourite websites: Lyn Gardeners Empire Vintage, www.empirevintage.com.au/

Lyn is an Australian stylist and her home and shop have been featured in several interior magazines like Elle Interior. To me she is a real style ikon with her characteristic big hair and unique style. Her vintage universe is very feminine and sophisticated and she uses nothing but authentic vintage furniture, fashion and curiosities in her work.

I love her big hair and still try to figure out how she styles it, having dark curly hair myself I would love to adapt her hairstyle!! I think she uses a hairpiece and her hair is only just below shoulder-length whilst mine is waist-long which makes it harder to create that fluffy "bird nest" of hers!!