Here are a few pictures of our stand at the Oriel House Easter market last Sunday.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by.
We organised a competition to win of one of our Djeco creative kits.
Here is the innocent hand who picked the winner:
Congratulations to Linda who won a Djeco creative kit in our Easter Market competition! I wonder which one she will choose…
Yesterday we sat down to test two of our Djeco creative range products: Alice (4 years old) chose the “Discover colours – Hide & Seek” pack (recommended for ages 4-6) and Clare (7 years old) chose the “Workshop – Watercolour pencil” pack (recommended for ages 9-12)
Discover colours – Hide & Seek
What you get:
- 4 paint bottles (white, yellow, red and blue)
- 2 paint brushes
- an instruction leaflet
- 8 mixing colour cards (2 for each colour/design)
- 8 large pictures ( 2 of each design)
What you need to do:
- Mix two paints until you get the matching colour
- Paint parts of a picture with it
It seems a bit simple and I was a bit worried that the whole thing would take 5 minutes… but actually, between the opening of the box and discovering what was in it, the choosing of the picture (that part was quite short actually, Pink it was, always!), the mixing of colours until it was just right and the careful painting of the stripes while chatting with her sister, it took Alice 45 minutes to complete a picture. And that was enough for her, the concentration period of a 4-year old isn’t very long.
The result was amazing:
She was then very proud to hang it over her bed.
Workshop – Watercolour pencil
What you get:
- 12 watercolour pencils
- a paintbrush
- a glue stick
- an instruction leaflet
- 4 background pictures
- 6 precut element pictures
What you need to do:
- colour in each element as instructed in the booklet
- use the brush to create beautiful watercolour effects (fade, mix colours, dots, stripes…)
- detach the elements and put them together
- stick the elements to the background
It was quite challenging for Clare because she didn’t know anything about watercolours before she started. Once she tried all the different techniques, she couldn’t wait to make the second picture and then third and fourth. She loves it now and keeps using her pencils and brush for other projects.
We definitely recommend these kits for any children who like painting and colouring.
Advantages:
- ideal for the recommended ages,
- very clear step-by-step instructions,
- includes everything you need,
- great for teaching simple techniques,
- amazing result
First of all, I would like to wish everyone a very happy, interesting and healthy New Year. I hope you all had a very good Christmas and are ready for a new adventure…
December flew by and I never got a chance to post pictures of our stall at the Lisavaird Christmas Market. So here they are, finally!
It was a cold and wet day unfortunately but the atmosphere was good and it was great to meet people and see their reaction to the Bubble Tree House selection. The kids loved to meet Santa, play in the bouncy castle and eat the gorgeous food there.
I want to thank my husband Romain and my dear friend Hilda for all their help that day and the previous days. I couldn’t have done it without them.
Now hopefully it will be the first of many markets… on warmer days maybe…
It’s been a busy few weeks…
First of all, there was a lot going on at my daughter’s school where I’m on the Active school committee. We organised an active morning when children took part in different physical activities, saw demonstrations and tested lots of different local and exotic fruits and vegetables. The kids loved the karate demonstration because they got to try some moves. I was in charge of orienteering which was quite fun too. Preparing the maps and where to put the flags was time consuming but seeing the children from infants classes to 6th class enjoy themselves so much while running to and from each point on their map was all the reward I needed. I highly recommend it to every school.
Then of course, I’ve been busy preparing for the Christmas Market in Lisavaird on Saturday. I cannot believe it’s only days away now! Remember to drop by if you’re in West Cork this weekend, it’s in the Clonakilty Garden Centre and Lisavaird Coop car park and I think it’s going to be a fun family day out. Anyway, I wanted to add some kind of decorations to the stall so I decided to make some gift tags that I’ll spread around the table. We’ve made them in many different styles and different materials. Here are a few examples of what we’ve made:
My favourite ones are these felt ones that took me forever to embroider but the result is lovely:
I’m also very excited to announce that we have a few surprises for the market:
1/ We’ll launch some new products, available only that day! Check out these amazingly cute Mimi Lutine and Belle & Boo badges:
2/ We’ll have a free draw on the day for all people who sign up for updates, with a chance to win one of our cardboard toys!
I’m very excited about the Christmas market and I hope you can all join us for this fun family day in Lisavaird!
Today, you will notice that a new product category has appeared in the “On The Walls” section: Clocks
The 3 models we have at the moment are not any kind of clock, they are Stick’A Clocks from Chocovenyl in the UK: Set of 12 wall decals, functional high torque clock mechanism and two hands.
The stickers are printed on self adhesive fabric paper (PVC free) in the UK and the designs are original and quirky.
In other news, Alice turned 4 this week and was a very happy and excited little princess!
I made some of the party treats myself and was quite happy with the result:
Flower hairband for the girls:
Superhero mask for the boys:
Alice wanted a Princess cake so we made a chocolate charlotte and decorated it like this:
I also wanted to share with you a Happy Birthday banner I made for Alice’s birthday party:
Feel free to use it if you want. I put it in a pdf so you just need to print it, cut around the flower shapes and stick the letters on a ribbon (personal use only, thanks).
All this hard work paid off. The children had a great time and Alice had a fabulous birthday.
And now I’m off to London tomorrow for the Renegade Craft fair:
I can’t wait to meet all the artists and crafters there! It will be an amazing day of arts & crafts, workshops, shopping and anything beautiful…
Have a nice weekend everyone!
I cannot believe we’ve already reached the last week in September. The month flew by… Between school starting again, different activities enrollments, September must be the most expensive month for every family, apart from December maybe because of the obvious reasons.
Anyway, the good news is you don’t need to spend much to make a beautiful bedroom for your children thanks to our beautiful new postcards:
Simply framed or ornately constructed, they will embellish your room without breaking the bank.
Here are some of our ideas on how to decorate with them:
- Simply framed:
- Elegantly held by an organza ribbon
- Let your imagination do the rest: the paper plane mobile
You can nearly see it turn around…
I have more ideas for the other models so keep an eye on the blog…
Well it wasn’t really deep and dark but we went for a walk in the forest yesterday and it was absolutely great!
I love Autumn, it’s my favourite season, and going for a walk in the woods in Autumn is my favourite weekend activity.
We had brought supplies to make glass jar terrariums (terraria?). I found the tutorial here a few weeks ago and I really wanted to try it with Clare and Alice.
They were a lot of fun to make, not too messy (just enough to be fun) and the result looks great.
August 2011 was Cork Craft Month.
Across the city and county, exhibitions, craft fairs, workshops and other events celebrated Irish and especially Cork based crafters.
This weekend, I visited a few exhibitions in galleries and the Craft Fair in Kinsale’s Old Mill:
- designworks studio
As always, I admired the work of Tuula Harrington, Rachel McKnight and other artists. I especially loved Roger Bennett’s work.
- The Lavit Gallery where I admired the little rabbits made by Christina Jasmin Roser
and the Amorous Love Spoons from Lesley Stothers.
- The Wandesford Quay Gallery where I fell in love with Anne Kiely‘s chair and cushions
It made me realise once more how lucky we are to have such talented artists and crafters here…
I hope you all had a great summer. I’ve taken a long break from the blog this summer. It’s not that I’ve been lazy, I’ve actually been working on several projects at the same time.
The first thing was redesigning my office.
The base is white:
I especially love the white floors:
I have to add this room used to be the playroom and was quite bright:
I’m now working on adding dashes of bright colours, especially yellow… Can’t wait to show you the result.
The second project, still ongoing, was to make a garden playroom for the girls. Here are a few pictures but I’ll blog about that more extensively at a later date.
I’ve also been working on my crochet techniques with lots of small little projects:
A Granny stripe blanket:
The pattern comes from a blog called Attic 24 where you can find loads of amazing tutorials.
A snail for the garden:
The pattern comes from here. It’s detailed and easy to follow. It was very funny to see this little snail come to life.
And of course flowers for the garden:
And finally, napkin rings for the girls (they use them as bracelets too):
There will be no more napkin switching with these beautiful napkin rings. Each girl chose the colour and design.
I have much more to show you for the garden playroom (plants and animals) but I’ll dedicate a full blog article to all that.
I love browsing through Etsy, the handmade products, the creative articles, their ever changing homepage, the “pick your colour” option, etc.
Today I came across this article and thought I’d share it with you as I think what Ruti makes is absolutely amazing:
This young woman from Israel uses a paper folding technique from the Philippines to create beautiful swans and bowls out of colourful paper scraps.
Her shop is full of amazing paper creations.
Now I just need to find an excuse to buy one…
