Matryoshka "postage"

Since I discovered the wonderful world of the craft punches, I definitively have a new addiction. Amongst the various shapes with which you can cut paper thanks to these amazing tools, I discovered one able to cut little postage stamps, which is actually candidate to become my favourite tool...

This new tool gave me the inspiration to carve a special matryoshka hand carved rubber stamp for producing a huge quantity of little postage stamps, usefull to embellish your diary or your paper correspondence; you can buy a set of these russian doll postage stamps on my etsy, where you can find also a new matryoshka rubber stamp. I hope you like them!

A sweet return...

The rentrée, word with which French people defines the return to work or to school after the summer holidays, is something quite tricky for me. In a certain way, I guess it is a kind of little trauma with which we have to cope each time when, after almost two months of absence, we cross the threshold of a house semi-abandoned, covered by dust and occupied only by withered plants. What is, indeed, more unnerving than to have to leave the harmonious sound of birds and cicadas, which accompanied our summer awakenings, and come back to the odious and anxious sound of alarm clocks and of traffic jams downstairs in the street? What is more awful than to find ourselves again catapulted into a crowd of sweaty and not-really-good-smelting people in the subway, after that we get used to breathe the fresh and sweet smell of marine breeze?

For being able to afford this horrific situation, a great help is represented by candies and sweeties, such these very tasting cupcakes! Hopefully, Paris provides a wide range of sweet consolations to modern-life frustrations: this city could be considered as a flavour Mecca, plentiful of little temples of sweeties that offer all of what our palates (and our eyes) need! Indeed, these little cupcakes are, more than delicious, really cute, to the extent that they inspired me a new collection of rubber stamps! I've taken decision to hand carve a set of cupcake rubber stamps, which you can combine in different colours and flavours, with which to decorate all your letters, diaries, dresses and so forth... until when you will be able to make sweeter the harsh return to work! And, in the case of rubber stamps, with zero calories!! You can find this sweet cupcake collection on my Etsy... I hope you find it tasty!

Spoonful - a happiness companion!

Coming back in Paris after my Italian summer, I've found in the mail box a really cute surprise: the 5 issue of Spoonful! Indeed, I'm very glad to announce a new collaboration of mine in a really cute project, the "Spoonful magazine": an edition project that, for using the words of its website, is "a short and inspiring little publication which, in light of our insanely busy lives and increasing ‘oh no, I must find time to read x’ can be finished by the end of a train ride. It’s quick to consume, beautifully soft, & after reading will genuinely make you smile". Spoonfulzine is available for sale here and here, please check it out!

One of central ideas of this zine based in Sidney, Australia, is that the editor asks at each issue to some selected illustrators or artists to make a representation of a random selected object. For this issue, Spoonful has chosen the "Old Oak Tree": and I was very excited to produce my own interpretation of this emblematic tree. Following my personal taste, I produced this tree with the use of hand carved rubber stamps, as shown below...

In order to produce this tree, I hand carved tree different stamps, each one representing a layer of the final outcome: the wood, the leafs, and finally also the acorns... the assembling process of it is illustrated in the following photo... I hope you like it!

And the winner is...

As promised in my last post, I'm glad to announce the lucky winner of the giveaway: the randomizer, as showed below, has chosen the comment n.17, Cceluikidikiest! My congratulations!! So strange, in Italy we often believe that 17 is an unlucky number, but not in this case! Cceluikidikiest please take contact with me via email for providing me your address for the shipping of the cahier...

Special Giveaway: win a copy of the Etsy France Cahier!

As anticipated some days ago, I'm glad to launch here a giveaway to win a copy of the limited edition of the "Etsy France's cahier de vacances". The Etsy France team, indeed, during this summer has turned its blog in a kind of booklet for crafty activities, to which I've also contributed with some sticker to print out. This blog is now became a cute little book and one copy of it will be kindly sent from the Etsy France team to one lucky reader of this blog. How to win it? Follow the rules of this competition!

Rules of the giveaway: leave a comment during next seven days. Each reader can leave only one comment and to each comment I will assign a number in ascending order (1,2,3, and so forth). At the end of the week, the next monday (on 15th august 2011), I will use randomizer for choosing the number corresponding to the winner of this competition. Then, the Etsy France team will send the copy of its cute and funny cahier to the winner randomly chosen! Now, try your chance leaving a comment!!!

Amazing Gemma's stuff

Some days ago I received some wonderful surprise gifts from Gemma Correll! It was really fantastic to unwrap the pack while discovering all these amazing items: a couple of pins, a post card à la française, and a cute wooden pug brooch! This last brooch has become my favorite one, with which I love to decorate my summer dresses... thank you very much Gemma!!! She's done a complete series of these amazing wooden brooches, you can check them out on her stunning shop...

Stickers for Etsy France's summer cahier

The Etsy France team had transformed its blog during this summer in a cool cahier of activities: each day, they post a different idea for making funnier and more crafty this summer holidays. And I'm happy to announce that today they featured me and some stickers that I've designed especially for this amazing etsian initiative!!! You can tale a look to the post concerning my activity here and download the pdf with the stickers designed by me here. Once downloaded, it is sufficient to print it out upon a self-adhesive paper sheet: with these cute stickers you can decorate fruits, bottles, and make funnier your summer parties or your snacks!

And, this cahier is going to became a printed booklet soon... indeed the Etsy France team is going to publish some limited edition copies of this amazing cahier: in the next post I will organize a competition for winning one exemplary of them, so keep reading to win!

Summer embroideries

During these holidays, I am experiencing new ways of expression and new hobbies as well... and actually I'm trying to come into the amazing world of embroidery! I'm really fascinated by this art and during this summer pause I want to take advantage of my spare time for learning it. I've brought a lovely book from Paris with instructions and a lot of cute patterns, and today I've taken decision to get started... here's you can find some photos taken while the work was progressing and some others that show the outcome: here's my first little hot air balloon embroidered by myself!!

Moreover, once the work was finished I used this montgolfière to produce a little fabric pin with which to decorate my sea bag: I'm really looking forward to go ahead with this new passion and to embroider new subjects soon!

Handmade Summer Skirts

Before leaving Paris, I was strolling around in order to find some gifts to bring with me for my family and friends here in Italy and, into a shop, my attention was attracted by a wonderful brand, bobo choses, that, unfortunately for me, makes cloths only for children. I suggest to all moms that are reading this post to check out also their blog, because they produce such really cute things for the little ones... In my opinion the designs stamped upon these cloths are really amazing and funny, and I suddenly thought that it would be really great to create some rubber stamps with these logos in order to decorate some skirts that I'd like to wear during my holidays!

Indeed, with rubber stamps you can decorate, more than paper projects and diaries, the fabric in order to reproduce an authentic pattern onto a fabric. With a stamp, using a special ink pad for fabric, you can form a texture with your favorite logo, as showed in the photos of this post. And with this very personal fabric you can make your cloths, such for instance a skirt. Here you find also a free-pattern for producing a skirt with your favorite rubber stamps... you can try to produce it during these holidays, I hope you will have fun with it!!

Happy summer!

As someone of you maybe has seen, in my etsy shop there's still my hand carved rubber stamp tutorial for sale... this is because I moved in Italy for my summer holidays! Don't worry, all my hand made creations, such as hand carved rubber stamps, felt stuffs, bags and spats will be listed again in september, when I'll be back home... for the moment I want to wish you an happy and sunny summer!

And before leaving Paris and my tools to carve, I take inspiration to the world of draws for child to make a last summer-like stamp: I was already breathing the air of the Mediterranean and imaging me swimming into the sea during my holidays! I was really looking forward to be here...