Excited to be part of Modamo.KreARTiva Concept Store.

On Wednesday night Modamo.KreARTiva Concept Store opened in Mostar and I am very excited to be a part of it. They are calling it 'a small shop, full of style' and that is what it is!

Everything that is for sale in the shop has been handmade in Bosnia and Herzegovina by young, up and coming artists and designers. They are selling everything from clothes, bags and jewellery to paintings and amigurumi dolls! And that is of course where I come in. I feel very honoured to have been asked to be a part of this new exciting adventure and to exhibit and sell my work alongside that of some very talented people.

It is great to see creativity being encouraged and celebrated in Bosnia and Herzegovina and I look forward to seeing how this adventure unfolds.

Plush Team Summer Challenge

After a lot of busy months I am so happy that I have managed to make something for this month's Plush Team Challenge. The theme is 'Dessert or Desert' and I decided to combine the two and make a cactus ice cream! I drew a little picture of the idea that was in my head, and a few hours later, after some unravelling and re-doing, I finished it!

The perfect desert dessert. The cactus ice cream cornet.

It's Fat Tuesday!

Today is Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, or as we call it in England - Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day! Here in Bosnia and Herzegovina they call it Maskara and their tradition is to do 'trick or treating' like we would do for Halloween. I'll wait and see how many of the kids we know knock on our door tonight! We will be observing the British tradition of eating pancakes :)

As the Plush Team we are celebrating this day by doing a Mardi Gras themed plush swap. Mine still hasn't arrived - but I haven't been to the post office yet today so maybe it's waiting for me there... This is the plush that I sent to Jen of FuzFrenzy.

Cactus Love

If you're looking for an original, cute valentine's gift for that special someone, look no further! There are now plenty of cute little cacti available in my Etsy store. You can find this little on by clicking here!

Meet Judith, your perfect desktop companion, guaranteed to bring a smile to your face even on the most difficult of days. Give her to someone special in your life so that they remember you every time they see her cute face! She is a great gift for those plant lovers who just can't keep a plant alive, but need a little life and light brought into their office or study. She would also be happy to be an ornament on your bookshelf or mantelpiece. 

Sandy is a plant who will never die! Perfect for those of us who don't have green fingers, and those who do! She would be a lovely gift for that special someone. Or, if you want to keep her for yourself she would very happily be an ornament on your bookshelf, desk or mantelpiece. 

And in this week's news...

We went snowboarding again today and I really enjoyed it! I still can't quite believe I can do it - I know I'm not going down any steep hills or anything yet, but I didn't think I'd even have the guts to step on a board so I'm very happy :) This is a video of me today.

In other news, on Friday I bought some new shelves to try and bring some order to the mess in the craft corner of my bedroom!

And it's time to get busy making a Mardi Gras themed amigurumi for our Plush Team swap next month.

Nerdy Nora

This is Nerdy Nora. If you want to meet her in real life then make sure you're at the Plush You! opening night at Schmancy Toys, 1932 2nd Avenue, Seattle on 12th October at 17:00. Click here to go to the facebook event page for more info.

Posting Parcels

I seem to have got out of the habit of blogging - I guess life has been busy and I haven't had much time for making and baking. But in the time I have had, I have been getting things ready to post. This is my first parcel I sent off to PlushYou containing 2 lovely amigurumi dolls. Yesterday I sent a parcel to my Plush Team swap partner and hopefully today I'll send another parcel to PlushYou - just need to make time to put the finishing touches to that doll... And talking of PlushYou, there's an interview with me which went up on their blog last week. You can see it here.

Amigurumi Beach Friends

As a kid, a lot of my summer holidays were spent on the beach in France. As a tribute to those days and as my entry to the Plush Team Beach Challenge I present to you Monsieur Le Starfish and Monsieur Le Sandcastle! If you would like them to brighten up your day and bring back happy childhood memories of summers on the beach, they are available to buy from the Plush Team Shop.

Busy, busy...

I haven't blogged for ages :/ sorry about that! Time just seems to fly past at the moment! Just so that you know I haven't been lazy, here's some of what I've been doing lately. This is the beginnings of Monsieur Le Starfish who I am making as part of the latest Plush Team challenge.

And this is the beginnings of a dog which will be an accessory to one of the dolls I am making for Plush You 2012.

Crochet Caricatures

This is something I made recently as a custom order. I always find caricatures harder to do if they are of people I know well - is that strange? This one is of my sister and my little niece!

Photo Challenge 3KCBWDAY2

This is Eco Bunny, and he, like me, lives in the beautiful country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Unfortunately some of the countryside in this beautiful country is messed up by rubbish - plastic bottles, plastic bags and other stuff like that. Eco Bunny is made from and stuffed with plastic bags and is leading the recycling revolution in our neighbourhood. Here he is just across the street from our house in a pile of cardboard boxes.

Here he is again in the bombed out house across from our house.

And once again visiting another pile of rubbish. Unfortunately these pictures only show the bad things about Bosnia and Herzegovina - but for the photo challenge I think they work! But - please take some time to look at some of my other blog posts where you will see how beautiful the country really is, and if you ever get the chance, you really should visit!

This blog post is for day 2 of Eskimimi's Knitting and Blog Week.

To nominate my photos for the photo challenge prize please click here.

To see more photos from today's photo challenge copy and paste the code 3KCBWDAY2 into google.

Colour Lovers

This week I am taking part in Eskimimi's Knitting and Crochet Blog Week . Today's theme is 'colour lovers'.   This is a picture of my wool stash and you can see I have plenty of colours! The top left shelf is the skin tone colours, top right is eyelash yarn for hair, then yellows and greens, blues and greys, reds, oranges and browns and last of all pinks and purples. 

I often start making an amigurumi by choosing 3 or 4 balls of wool in a colour combination I like and then finding a complimentary combination of eye colour and the colour of felt around the eyes. The personality of the doll then develops from those colours as I make it.

Looking back over the dolls I have made I've discovered that this combination of skin, hair and eye colours is the one I've used most often. It's funny because, if I'm asked, I always say that pink and purple are my favourite colours, but when I asked a friend to do a critique of my Etsy shop recently, one of her comments was that there wasn't enough pink in it, and I looked in my wardrobe the other day and realised that most of my t-shirts are green. I'm starting to think that perhaps pink and purple aren't my favourite colours after all! 

What is your favourite colour?

3KCBWDAY

Another happy customer!

 This little bunny found it's way to it's owner today. It's always nice to receive positive feedback from customers.

 He always travels prepared, with a carrot in his bag. If you'd like to have a go at making a little carrot yourself then click here to go to my tutorial.

Not the skull, just the pitcher and other stories...

Today's theme for Fresh Stitches Design Week is 'Trouble Spots'. Yesterday I told you that I am trying to make an amigurumi version of this picture for the current Plush Team challenge. I showed you how I'd done the skull and ended by saying 'next step - the pitcher'.

The pitcher is definitely a trouble spot! It's such a weird shape, it is going to be really hard to make it in 3d. Here's a sketch where I've tried to imagine it flattened out. I've only drawn 2 sides - the third side will be even harder!

 I've decided to start with the base as an equilateral triangle and build it up from there, making each side separately. Does anyone have any better ideas or other advice to give?

And in today's other news, the circus is in town! If you look carefully you can see a black blob to the right of the first megaphone - that is the backside of a monkey! Yes, a real monkey, tied to the roof of the van as it goes through town advertising the circus. I took the photo quickly with my phone as it drove by which is why I managed to miss getting all of the monkey. Some things only happen in BiH! (well probably other places too, but not any places I've been too.)

This blog post is for Day 5 of Fresh Stitches Design Week.

Skull and Pitcher

The Plush Team Challenge for March and April is to make a plush self portrait or a plush still life. When I read the words 'still life' the idea came into my head to try and make an amigurumi version of a Picasso still life painting. I looked on google images and decided on this one - The Skull and Pitcher.

 So far I have only made the skull - here are my workings out in my notebook. I'm not really sure if I will succeed in making everything - it's harder than I thought!

The skull has turned out ok-ish though. Next step - the pitcher!

This post is for Day 4 of Design week by Fresh Stitches.

Introducing Gertie

Gertie spends a lot of time wandering and thinking. She is a bit of a loner really, but she's ok with that. By wandering she has seen a lot more of the world than the other bunnies from her town. They all know she's about to go off again when they see her pack some carrots into her bag, sling it over her shoulder and start off down the main street. Lots of the bunnies secretly wish they were as brave as her and could see the things she's seen, but instead they just wait in anticipation for her to return and tell them tales of places far away. Gertie is available in my Etsy Shop.

What are you working on?

This is my current 'work in progress'. I'm quite excited about how she's going to turn out. What are you working on at the moment? Post a link in the comment section so we can all see!

Shopping

This has been a good week for me and Etsy! I made 2 sales, and one of the dolls sold just minutes after I listed her!

                           
I've been adding something new to my shop everyday this week - and there's more to come. So if you like what you see here, why not pay me a visit at outoftheframe.etsy.com :)

Modamo.kreARTiva is still being talked about

There's a short article about the Modamo.kreARTiva craft fair that I was part of in December in this month's edition of Crna Ovca magazine - and the picture in the bottom right hand corner shows my table! Click on the link to view the magazine online.

Back from my travels

I've been in the UK for the last 3 weeks visiting friends and family, something I do every year, but this year all my outoftheframe amigurumi dolls came too! I took them to Brighton Craft Fair and to 'an evening with Matt and Rowan' and as a result a good number of them found new homes in the UK.