Blue book paper roses in a hand-knit vase

Winter shimmer blues, pearly whites and lovely book paper - - - a great color palette, don't you think?

Stylized roses, peonies, daisies - all comfy together in an upcycled glass jar dressed in a hand-knit organic cotton jacket.

Plastic Bottle Lights

Can you believe that these beauties are made from recycled materials? Soda bottles, to be more precise.

The creator is Sarah Turner, an award-winning eco designer who likes to make beautiful items from waste materials.

I'm in love with her work!!!

See more of her lighting fixtures in her Etsy shop.

Amazing!!!

Paper Flowers in Egg Packaging - Emerald Version

Green roses - the very first I've ever made - are packaged neatly in a re-purposed egg packaging and will go to a very creative bride named Heidi.

These flowers (12 in total) are part of an emerald book paper flower collection for a special summer wedding.

Made from emerald papers in matte and shimmer green.

You can see the book paper flowers bouquet here.

Green Orange Paper Roses in Re-Purposed Packaging

Give a plastic egg packaging a second life by letting it house pretty paper flowers.

In this case: half-a-dozen green and orange paper roses.

Use them to cheer up a small vase, to adorn gift boxes, as bookmarks, as napkin rings or anything else you can think of. The package also makes a charming gift in itself.

See my pink paper roses in an egg box, too.

Paper Roses in Egg Packaging

I've been hogging plastic egg packaging for a few weeks now and this weekend I've decided to use it for storing pretty paper roses.

I made these from pretty pink paper with added wires and paper leaves. They are about 2" in diameter - perfect for decorating something small, like a vase, or a gift box. Or as wedding favors.

I also use them as bookmarks :)

The packaging used to hold organic free range eggs coming from a local farm and I don't think I'll switch to other eggs any time soon. The only thing I didn't like about my eggs was the plastic packaging, but now, after finding a second use for it, I think I like them even more :)

Plastic Sea Creatures

Ever since learning about the Texas-sized garbage patch in the Pacific a couple of years ago, I have been a bit paranoid about how much plastic and other trash we all contribute to it. Life without plastic may seem impossible, yet there are people and websites that offer alternatives.

So, as little as this effort is, for the past 2 years (after I first bought my favorite shopping tote made from recycled plastic bottles at Trader Joe's - $1), I'm happy to say that both my husband and I have greatly reduced our need for grocery store plastic bags. We now have 3 such shopping totes which have been used on EVERY food shopping trip to the store.

And we always try to buy food stored in glass containers and loose vegetables instead of using those thin plastic bags to separate them from the rest of the food items in our cart. We pile it all together in our Trader Joe's bags (mushrooms, scallions, apples, bananas, zucchini etc) and sometimes we put the parsley bunch on top to make it picture-perfect - so proud that we told eager bag-people "No, thanks. We'd like to use OUR bags!".

Yes, this is a miniature effort on our side, yet we feel infinitely happy about it (and, let's face it, a bit condescending, too).

Yet, somehow, there are still several plastic bags around our place.

Sure, we can easily toss them and maybe (but most probably not) think how they'll float from ocean to ocean and choke seals along the way... or we can try to find a way to re-use them .. maybe as an object of art.



Helle Jorgensen is a wonderful artist, and she also had a similar scare!! Knowing that plastic debris kills marine life, she asked people to send her their used plastic bags. She uses these bags to transform them into plastic yarn. Out of this plastic yarn she then knits sea creatures - and such wonderful sea creatures - it's absolutely amazing!!



See her blog here, and her sea creatures gallery here.

She is such an inspiration!!!

Paper Flowers as Wall Art

This is our living room wall.

I'm at my paper-flower-making stage right now, where I love creating more and more things out of paper, that I have overwhelmed my studio and have started claiming the whole apartment :)

You can now find these gorgeous flowers/wall art in my Etsy shop.

Paper Flowers and Butterflies

Last week was a pretty busy week for me and my little Etsy shop.
I sold 7 listings of paper flowers and paper butterflies on Etsy in one go - something that thrilled me beyond words!!

So, I spent the last 4-5 days (ok, mostly nights and weekends) stamping, cutting, and embellishing more than 40 butterflies and flowers and then packing, wrapping, and sending them (in a snowy blizzard) to my customers. It has all been such a joy, that I really look forward to getting more sales in the future.

Still, these have been the sweetest ... :)



Some of the paper creations went to embellish gift boxes for special birthdays, weddings and baby showers, and some will become favorite playthings for 3 beautiful girls.

.........................................

What's new in my shop?

Take a peek!

Little Paper Flowers

I'm into paper-flowers-making mode these past few weeks, and last night I came up with these tiny (1" - 1.5") flowers that can be perfect for scrapbooking or card-making.



They are made from designer paper with inked petals (red ink). I used white mulberry paper flowers for the centers and added green leaves.

You can find more paper flowers in my Etsy shop. And I've also made a few butterflies, so I'll try to make a post about them over the weekend.

- M

Paper Scraps Flowers

These flowers were made from paper scraps that I had left over from making some big-as-palms paper peonies and roses (from the other day). I saw the little pieces and decided to reuse them to create something pretty and with a purpose. So, on my next gift-giving occasion, this flower will be the first to go to some dear person with a birthday, anniversary or just because it's Tuesday :)

How to make this flower?

Simple.

You'll need about 20-25 cutout petals in the shape of hand-drawn almonds. Glue 6 of them by the tips and add 6 more at the back, then keep gluing more petals until you've made a flower. Fold each petal to make it fluffy. Play with it.

Use a pretty button for the center, or if you like sparkle, you can glue a rhinestone dot, or anything else you like.

And that's it.




I like to add safety pins to the back of my flowers or bits of wire so they can be easily attached to ribbons, boxes and so on... Just a tip :)

p.s. You can find this flower in my Etsy shop!

Pedal power lights Copenhagen's Christmas tree

A brilliant idea: Copenhagen’s annual Christmas tree this year will be lit up with the help of bicycles.

Danish citizens can ride the 15 bicycles in Copenhagen’s City Hall Square to create enough power for the 700 LED bulbs that adorn the 17-meter-tall tree.

You can see the Christmas tree and the effort here.

This is one of the several features in City Hall Square that will transform this civic space into an environmentally-friendly arena from December 7th to December 18th.

Hopefully, this will help bring attention to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) occurring during the same time period in Copenhagen.

Read more about it here.

Natural Ornaments

Holiday decorations can be especially beautiful when they're handmade AND all-natural.

Check out these ornaments, kissing-balls, wreaths and other decorations made by Allison from NHWoodsCreations.







She collects natural products either from the woods or her NH garden (such as, pine cones, foliage, flowers, bits of wood, etc) and uses them to create her designs.

I'm a big fan of her orange garland and her apple and pine cone wreaths. They look pretty festive, don't they?

Pretty Cards - ReCycled, ReUsed

I've been browsing though my holiday spam mail these days, and since some of the catalogs I've received had cute images on them, I've decided to re-use some of them, and create interesting holiday cards for my family and friends.

For example, the blue-red-white card above was made from blue colored card stock and some Netflix flyers I got in the mail. I thought the little ornaments on them looked too fun to throw out, so instead, I cut them out and made 2 cards (see the yellow card next to the blue one).



I made the other cards using cutouts from a Paper-Source catalog. I added touches of glitter-glue and glitter gel pens do add some sparkle, a few snowflakes, butterflies (left over from my wedding), lots of little pearly and jeweled accents, and voila ~ one-of-a-kind holiday cards!



They're green and unique, and they're going to the special people in my life.