Closed!

Im going on vacations for a few days. We will be trying to enjoy -hopefully without rain- the Ardeche, in France.

I will be back with lots of new goodies in mid June!!!!

While it rains

Well, that was it for spring apparently. For the last couple of days we have had nothing but rain, rain and...yes, more rain.
Gloomy weather means to me staying home and trying to do something creative. I had some wool laying around, bits and pieces from other stuff I made some time ago, so I had to transform the raw materials into something new.

These are much easier, faster hand felted bowls. Smaller in size and rougher the shape. I like them. My friend Reya taught me how to make them in our first felting day a few months back. I decided to experiment a bit with adding yarn to it like chenille and some hand spawn two colored yarn I brought from Argentina a few years ago (to work with in a loom).

My mom sent me a bag of goodies full of (candy and) buttons. Hand made buttons: wood, leather, hand painted ones. So I used a hardened leather brown leaf button for one of the bowls, and some wooden and matching green buttons for the other one.



...that is just a beautiful yellow poppy from my garden!




Here, the leaf button (made of hardened leather) sent by my Mom (which means that this bowl then, is international! :P )


They are both now for sale at my Etsy shop: www.florcita.etsy.com (there is something going on with blogger and is messing up all my links, so please, copy and paste on your navigation bar!).


Thanks for coming by!

Cards

Because life is not made just of wool and clay... there is also paper. And I love paper. Always have. For my birthday a few weeks ago a got a great gift: 70euros to spend at my favorite shop... a Paper shop.
I love drawing but I was never properly trained. When I was a kid I attended all sorts of painting classes but they were more... free painting. I was 5 so rules of perspective didn't quite fit in my world. For a long time I went into a Miro phase. Everything was colorful and resembling a Miro painting. Not on purpose, but...just came out like that. When I move to the Netherlands, maybe to reflect my inner confusion and mess, I went into a Pollock type phase... standing on top of ladders in the garden and throwing paint all over the place. I found that so incredibly therapeutic!
These days, maybe because I have to slow down and look at the things, small little things that my son points at, I'm drawing a whole lot of fantasy creatures... mostly birds.. or "jujus" like Seba calls them. A deformation of the word "voegel", bird in dutch. They sound similar!

Anyway, I uploaded a whole lot of cards yesterday at my DaWanda Shop. Blank cards with little drawings or collages. I mostly work with Caran d'Ache acquarel pencils these days. I love them. This swiss not only make accurate watches! Also good pencils!

So, here a few... go by my shop if you are interested!


This is Arnaldo. He is deeply in love and waiting... flower in hand.


And this is Anastacia... check out those heart filled feathers! She is not desperate but... she could do with a little loving as well...

Apples!


Dotty leaves:



A philosophical "juju"



Crazy flowers:


Pio pios:



And many many more! There are more detailed pictures at my shop, Florcita.
Please do visit...And have a nice weekend!

Bowls spree!

Yesterday a company came over to work in our house. This is a very old house which, when we bought it, had been left untouch since it was built in 1948. It was fun and a challenge for us to bring it to these days and age, and we are still busy ... but everything has been done with our own hands which takes longer. There are certain things, like insulating your walls, that one just can't do. We dont have the equipment. So, these people came, drilled 150 holes on the outside walls of our house and then, through them, filled the gap between the outside and inner wall ( each wall is formed by two single brick walls. In the middle, air...till today) with terlgopor little balls.

While this was taking place, I couldn't leave the house. So I took out my wool, water and soap... and worked on some stuff.

I've been meaning to do some felted bowls for the etsy shop I'm setting up (I don't want to have the same items on both Dawanda and etsy's shop). I just grabbed 3 different wools: La Plata broken white, red merino (love it!!) and some Gotland Island grey. I added to the mix some red linen fibers and some cotton yarn I had laying around.

Making bowls is an experiment in itself... adding stuff, shaping it...and then hanging it to dry. This is what I came up with:



Individually:

Crossroads bowl



Dots bowl:



Nerves bowl:


Red melting bowl:



So, what do you think?
By the way, they are now for sale at my etsy shop: www. florcita.etsy.com

Painting Porcelain

For a long time now, Ive been wanting to give porcelain panting a try. Last week I had -finnally!- some time to go to the shop and get some material. The good thing about this products is that if you dont like the design you've made, you can easily take it out with a sponge and warm water. When you are happy with your drawings, you let it dry for about 4 hours and then you fire it in a home oven at about 170C. Let it rest...and voila! Done! They are even dishwasher safe! Once fired, the paint wont come out. Im afraid however, even though I haven't done it myself, that if you cut on top of the drawing, it will get scratched... I have the feeling!

Anyway, after drawing half of the cups and saucers we own, I finnally came up with the following, which are now for sale at my DaWanda shop, Florcita.

Candle holder

Today I went to my ceramics class and I picked up some of the ceramic pieces I made a couple of weeks ago, before the spring vacations here in The Netherlands. I love this class. I learn so much from Maud (Maud's Keramiek Atelier en Galerie), and she is so encouraging and talented herself!! She is one of the first -and few- teachers I've ever had that shares everything. That doesn't hold back knowledge. Those aren't real teachers. You have to have it in your heart to pass on what you know. Share.
But anyway, this is not an entry about that class but about the magic of ceramics and glassing. It's pure chemistry. One might choose a pot of a certain glaze which you've already tried and liked, but the circumstances in the oven at a couple of thousand degrees, you just can't control. The chemical combinations in the oven between ones pieces and the ones from the rest of the class make every time, a unique explosion! So when things come back to you, you might be surprised. And that is just fine... magic!
It is the case with this little candle holder which I made thinking on our camping trips. I wanted something simple where I could put a little tea candle when we stay up at night watching the stars and having some wine. I don't want a lot of artificial light, just something small.
So I made this... I had chosen a glaze that imitates a bird's plumage, but... it turned out -due to the Pandora's box an electric oven is- as a bit of a tiger, camouflage pattern. I love it anyways!

Opening up

... and here I am. Opening a blog to match my shop, Florcita, in DaWanda.
In the coming days I will finish giving this blog some shape and I will start posting regularly. It takes some time to get everything together and between work, all the internet activity (which I fondly call PR), family and crafting... errr...day is over. When do I sleep?? Should I give that vice up?
Anyway, I will be back!