Down the Rabbit Hole.

''If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?'' ~Alice in Wonderland

And so it happened that an ugly abandoned armchair fell down the rabbit hole...

Down it went and its ugly paint and upholstery blew away.

Magically it became colorful and the flowers could talk and sing!

The roses had to be painted red, but please don't tell the Queen.

It ate a cookie and got a little bit rounder and bigger.

It got hearts to please the Queen of Hearts (and to save our heads in the process).

After many hours of patching, puzzling and appliqueing we created this truly wondrous armchair :)

Tadaaa! It has the Queen of Hearts...

The Cheshire cat with lots of hand embroidered details (the fur is vintage embroidery!).

Lots of flowers, tea cups...

 This chair is the craziest one we've made so far. It was super fun and we are very happy with the results. You can see more details at StarHomeStudio where this one of a kind beauty is available for purchase.

Cabinet of Curiosities

We have made some new small instant curiosities collections which will be slowly appear in our StarHomeStudio shop.
Some people might wonder what you are suppose to do with these...

They look very cool in old letterboxes, under glass domes and other kind of beautiful old cabinet of curiosities style displays.

Of most I have no idea what kind of animals these were, they just look very cool. All found naturally cleaned and sun bleached on the beach.

We are total beach hoarders, we collect so much; driftwood, sea urchins, seashells and lots of odd, stuff as you can see :)
What do you collect when you are at the beach?

Painting Hearts and Roses

I am painting a new furniture piece, and here is a tiny sneak peek. This one is going to have a theme, it will be upholstered with collages with appliqued scenes, can you guess from what the scenes will be? Does the blue white colors and the red heart ring a bell :)?

Ok then... here is a hint, where else do people plant the roses white and paint them red???
Stay tuned for the results, this one is going to be totally mad :)

Newly listed: Brass Sea Urchin Earrings

Brass Sea Urchin Earrings Special Texture, Earthy Colors by StaroftheEast
Butterfly photography Brown blue white brown butterfly rustic nursery wall art nature spring insect by LupenGrainne
landscape, beach photography, ocean waves, seascape, rocks, coastal, earth tones, beach decor by MyanSoffia
New Orleans Door Art Preservation Hall Door french quarter photograph louisiana photography fine art print by Briole

The Best is Yet to Come

Most likely you are aware of the situation in Turkey. You also most likely are not 100% sure what it is that is going on but don't worry hardly anyone is sure, and it is a total and sad mess.
These past few days people from all of the world contacted us through various places to check up on us and we are thankful for that. We are fine around here, sad and unsure about the future but fine.
The government and the men on the top are playing some extremely dangerous games with the people as pawns and them watching safely from their ivory towers.
Hopefully brighter days are coming, but for now it seems we are going to a very dark place.

But I will now continue on a brighter side as there is so much bad things going on, not only here but practically all over the world,
Just before shit hit the fan, actually the day of the fake coup I went to pick up our brand new car, yaaay! I had to pick the papers and plates from Muğla.
It is the first time that we are owners of a not second hand one, it smells new and we are making its history, which is a nice feeling. As I picked it up right before the mess we haven't really enjoyed it yet but it is nice.

This lab that you are seeing is where my plates were made :) I had to pick them up myself as foreigners get different plates which doesn't go automatically like normal plates. The manner was pretty old school and cute so I took some pictures.

Then with the plates I went to another town, Denizli, a bus drive from Muğla of 2,5 hours. It was a bit tiring all by all but I had a good deal on this car so it was worth the extra journey.
Just the night before I went we made a brand new evil eye charm with hamsa's and lots of eyes for lots of protection. I put it on at the dealers before driving it for the first time :)

We still need to sell our old car but that will be fine. Hopefully with my next blog post there will be some more good news, especially about the way things are going around here politically would be nice if there would be a turn to a better direction.
Stay safe and in peace everyone.

Newly Listed: Bohemian Lace Top

Bohemian Lace Top, Brown Lace Tank Top with Vintage Handmade Lace, Irish Crochet, Boho Top by StarsWear
New Orleans Print, Fine Art Photography, Travel Photo, French Quarter Photograph, Architecture, Wall Art by briole
Garden Wall Hook. Hummingbirds Morning Glories. Painted Distressed Blue by 3vintagehearts
Driftwood Shelf, Size SMALL by OceanSwept

Time to Celebrate

Today is my Birthday, and I picked myself a pretty black and white virtual cake from WildOrchidBaking to match our new furniture piece :)
The last finishing touches were done yesterday evening, even though it is a small piece it took many many days, but the results make me giggle.

But I am jumping to the results, lets start at the beginning...

It all started with these two abandoned ugly ducks. Clearly water damaged, and in general sad state.
Also the structure was wonky. We decided to make of the pretty front feet an ottoman, the back feet have no carvings. So two chairs would become one ottoman.

Pulling them apart turned out to be a challenge. The stuff that came out of the chairs was pretty disgusting, fabric pieces, straw, cotton etc and all in a far from fresh state.

We were left with this. The original idea was to make it square, by using two piece of the original wood connected together (a bit hard to explain). But then we would cut a bit of the carved wood, the parts that are sticking above would be all sawed off. Eventually we thought to just keep the wood as it is, and making the seat rectangular and turning the weird sticking out pieces into arm rests.

I think you are now starting to see where we are going at, still butt-ugly but a cool shape, right :)?
We used the original corners to make it stable, this little chair has so much extra stuff for stability, you could dance on it.

The pieces of wood used for the arm rests are upcycled from an old shelf,

After the added webbing it is starting to look like something.

And after many hours of scraping and sanding the ugly dark varnish you can finally appreciate the carvings, which are much prettier and more dimensional than we first thought.

Then I painted it, which I had shown last week. The painting and varnishing took me a full 3 days.

The color choice of the paint work was because of this beautiful vintage embroidery. It is completely embroidered and has gorgeous colors and texture.

Doesn't make these colors you super cheerful?

For the additional unexpected finishing touch a black and white double piping, which is really frustrating to sew and staple but gives a beautiful finishing.

And here it is (she said proudly), it is fun, colorful, cheerful and 90% made of upcycled/ recycled/ vintage materials, yaaay!

Stripes, flowers, lots of colors what is not to love about this?

I think this would be great as a vanity chair in the bedroom, or in the hallway or in the living room. Could even be used as piano chair, but most of all this is a statement piece and should be seen :)

Can't wait to paint the ugliness out of another chair :)

The chair is available at StarHomeStudio among others one of a kind furniture pieces.