Snow in Paris: it is roly-poly time!

If Paris is a beautiful town, it is even more under the snow! Also Fifi, which usually hates the cold, is unable to resist to the fascination of snow!! Here in the photos around, she is playing in the unrecognizable park aside the Louvre completely covered by the snow... and her new game is to catch an iced ball...

 

 

The cold has some positive sides also for me: indeed, hot chocolates, croissants beurre and pains au chocolat become compulsive pauses during the afternoon in order to warm me up. Also people around become more pleasant than usual. The snow and the cold spread a kind of happiness all around, and people appears really funny muffled in pillowy down jackets from which only the face pops out. Especially kids are turned into sweet and milling bundles and look like little Roly Polies: those dolls that right themselves when pushed over.

Thus, I have taken inspiration from this first snowfall of the year to produce these fluffy brooches in fabric made with the shapes of this cult toy, which is able to contain both sweetness and determination at the same time. Actually, the nevelashka or venka-vstanka is the Russian version of Roly Poly: in Japanese is called okiagary, meaning to get up (oki) and arise (agari). This characteristic has come to symbolize the ability to have success, overcome adversity, and recover from misfortune.

I have created 10 different styles for these brooches, with different hairs and different cloths. Actually, I used my favorite fabrics!! By this way, you could find your favorite one, able to warm your heart during this cold winter!

They inspired me to make also a hand carved rubber stamp set with which to create uncountable colored Roly Polies! Stamps also gave me the opportunity to do some paper stickers with the shapes of these dolls in the blue and red version. I hope you like my creations, you can find them on my etsy!!!

Le tourbillon

Love is maybe the biggest adventure in human life. It is like a "whirlwind" that shocks our feelings and our beliefs. For that, I think that this song, "le tourbillon" is able to express for the better this feeling: at the same time it is something unpredicted that happens of our life and that changes it irreversibly as a whirlwind... I would like to dedicate this song, performed by the fascinating Jeanne Moreau in the Truffaut's film Jules et Jim, to all lovers...

As within a month it will be Saint Valentine's day, I made a couple of special sets of hearts (fun jewelry and a stamp) to use to express the feeling of love for our beloved. I hope you like them, check them out on my etsy!

 

Stamping around in Paris

I have often written that Paris is a kind of inspiring muse for me: not only its landmark, its monuments, its panoramas... but also its air in the streets, the smells of bread coming out from boulangeries, its melancholic grey skies, its bruising atmosphere in the cafés... 

 

 

These are some of the pictures that I have taken during my walks with my indefatigable dog, Fifi! Thanks to her, I am discovering again this amazing town, even in its hidden corners that very often disclose to me new and unexpected artistic and poetic inspirations!

 

 

And I have dedicated some hand carved rubber stamps to my muse!! I have made 8 stamps inspired to this town, which represent L'Arc de Triomphe, Le Sacre Coeur, Le Panthéon, Le Moulin Rouge, La Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, Les Pyramides du Louvre and a Tree (this one useful to represent the parks!). You find them on my etsy, with which I have also made some paper stickers. I hope you like them!!!

Customized stamps roll

This is a quick little post to show some of last customized stamps that I made for some of my readers, I hope you like them! If you would like to commit me your personal hand carved rubber stamp, do not hesitate, it is sufficient to fill up this form and to send it back to me for having an estimate of the cost!

These stamps inspired to the Moomins were made for Isabel, a fan of this amazing Scandinavian fairy tale... 

Or the logo of Petite Purls, a cute website-magazine about the cute things, ordered by Brandy.

Or also these Petit Prince stamps made for Zayenne. Thanks a lot to all of you, I was very glad to carve your new unique stamps!

NEW: Fairy tales felt mascots tutorial!

In order to go ahead with the thread that animated this blog during the last times, I am very glad to announce you my new e-book-tutorial dedicated to fairy tales! Actually I prepared a quick tutorial to learn how to make fun and easy-to-do felt mascots inspired to my favorite fairy-tales: Pinocchio, the little red ridding hood, Alice in wonderland, and Snow White. You can find it on my etsy, I hope you like it!!!

 

 

During the Xmas period I will be away and I will be back in January. During this lapse of time, only my tutorials will be available on my etsy because they will be delivered via email. And I hope that, if you do not know yet what to offer or if you are late in finding your last gifts, you could try to produce a felt mascot using my tutorials... I wish you a funny happy xmas!!!

Special Xmas Giveaway. The WINNER is...

Randomizer decided that the lucky winner of the brooches that were presented in the last post is the author of the comment n. 5, Fann Saw, who loves the tale of Cinderella... Please Fann Saw, contact me as soon as you can to arrange the delivery of your set of brooches! Thanks a lot also to everybody whom has tried the chance with this giveaway...

Special XMAS giveaway!

As you may know, more than to make my own rubber stamps, I am also a compulsive collector of them! And, in my personal collection, one of my best favorite stamp set is this Decole's Otogicco one here below! I love it very much, I find the way in which it revisited the tale of the Little Red Riding Hood so cute!

And I took decision to produce some felt brooches with these cute stamps and to organize a special giveaway for them to make a special xmas gift to the readers of my blog! Would you like to try your change and to win these brooches? Rules to participate are very easy:

  

Write a comment from now to the 9th December at 13h00 (Rome, Paris etc. hours) in which you declare which is your favorite tale. If you'd like to add other details, such as the reason of your choice or who was used to tell you this tale, they are very welcome! To each comment I will assign a ascending number (1,2,3, and so forth) and randomizer, as usual, will find out the lucky winner!  good luck!!!

Fun cute jewelry sets for Xmas gift

This Xmas, I have made a couple of fun jewelry set to become the perfect gift to make happy a special person. Serious and precious jewelries are so boring... instead I prefer to embellish outfits with a touch of cuteness, in order to spread all around the joy of a funny and smily style!!

 

 

These are completed sets with earrings, a brooch and a necklace, in two version: one with a lovely bear and another one with a smiling cloud. They are special productions, I realized them with some glittered FIMO, and only one exemplar of each one exist. So, if you are interested hurry up on my etsy!