Get the Look Vol.6

It has been a few month since I posted a Get the Look post, and in the mean time a few inspiring pieces were added in our decor shop.
The picture above is of course very appealing to me with both a big map and a globe light, love the butterflies too. We have a few vintage maps in the shop and a globe light too!

What a way to welcome your guests, or to come home. Not everyone has the luxury of spacious hallways but I like it when there is more than just a pile of shoes to welcome you. A chandelier gives a luxurious vibe and of course is handy to see where you are going to. I think our vintage chandelier would look fabulous in a hallway, or any room for that matter :)

Macrame was so 1970's but it is back in a big way, and some are really huge and amazing.
While I like doing it I don't think I will be knotting curtains, it might drive me crazy/ier and we can't have that happening :)
So a smaller macrame project but with shells, of course.

 I love everything of this house, especially the mid century chairs (although white wouldn't be my choice) and the bronze bird statue. We have a very colorful mid century chair in the shop, and there is my driftwood bird statue, maybe not so elegant, but I like him, he has character :)

Back Home :)

We're back home from our long but delightful trip from Northern California. We arrived Monday evening after a 3 airplane travel and a total travel time of more than 30 hours. It was kind of hellish but we survived :)
We came with 8 (!!!) suitcases, two carry-alls and two hand bags, and one bag with snacks, a total of 13 pieces of luggage. Yes, we paid a lot of money for excess luggage ;)

Our rental car was exploding, filled to the brim, when we went back to SF airport.

During the 4 hour drive, mum had to sit with a bunch of globes on her lap. In San Francisco after checking in to our hotel (close to the airport) we went to our 70th or so thrift store to get one more suitcase for the final items. We couldn't do it earlier as we wouldn't have fit in the car :D

Checking in with so much luggage was a challenge, we had to push each two carts full of luggage for about two miles to check-in, at 5 o clock in the morning, without breakfast. By the time we were checked in we were already exhausted.
But eventually we arrived, all suitcases arrived too and we got them in our car which was at the airport, it took some puzzling but as our own car is a little bigger mum didn't need to have a suitcase on her lap.

I'm sure you are wondering what the hell was in so many suitcases :)
Well a total of 19 (!!!) globes helped for the bulk :)

More than a 100 books helped for the weight!

Loads of tins helped in general ;) And will be used for jewelry.
All tins were filled with semi precious stones and treasures for new jewelry pieces.

And the remaining was filled up with a huge pile of vintage embroideries, trims, yarns and fabrics with a few vintage dolls, you get easily 8 suitcases full enough to burst :) We also got some clothes (all thrifted, we did not buy anything new, eco friendly shopping :) ) and some fun things for ourselves.

We have been catching up with orders and trying to clear out all the stuff.
My globe collection doubled from 19 to 38, most have a place already, kind of crazy but I love it :D

Yes I even managed to color coordinate them :)

We'll be making new things soon, missed making things and we have lots of new supplies to work with and are full of inspiration!

Get the Look Vol.5

A little different Get the Look this time. The inspiration is my own picture and I decided to look up all the props I used :)
The shelves are from our shop, this is made out of two pieces so it can be used differently like bed side tables for example.
If you don't have enough color themed books, they are actually available in bundles arranged in color.
But if you like this look, here is what I found:

This beautiful vintage clock from AtelierVintage25.

Love this cute little globe from thelittlebiker. This one is cute too, and here another one and you have a collection of three :).

Here is a cute wooden train, mine is vintage from a flee market in Amsterdam and I have had the bus since childhood, I found a bus on Etsy too including passengers :)

I found the exact same ship as ours, only this one is not painted which I might like even more than our painted version :)

And finally a cute planter with a cute plant and you've got the look :)

Lake Tahoe and the Great Republic of Rough and Ready

This is my last post about my stay in America, even though I could make more :) Together with Juliette we went to Lake Tahoe for one day. It is not far from Nevada City and it is a gorgeous place to visit.

About 3/4 of the lake is in California and 1/4 in Nevada.

The entire road there was in the mountains among the trees, it didn't feel very foreign from the Turkish road funny enough. Except that in Turkey most drivers do not much bother on traffic rules while there drivers are super polite and do follow the rules :)

We were in luck with both the lovely weather and the reasonably quiet roads, apparently it often gets very crowded but we could drive around the Lake without much problem.

There are lots of camping places around the lake, wooden cabins and hotels.

We got to enjoy some breath taking views.

The weirdest part was crossing the state border from California to Nevada. Nothing happens, it is just that some laws are entirely different. In California you have no Casino's, but as soon as you cross the border Casino's are popping up every where! Also in California smoking inside is strictly prohibited and I even saw lots of warnings at front doors to smoke 20 feet (or some even more) from the door. In Nevada you can smoke everywhere, as if it is the 70's, very odd :)

A big bonus for me was that I scored two globes in thrift stores at Lake Tahoe! I had visited quite some thrift stores in other towns but had no luck so far.

As you can see my collection is starting to get impressive :)

Another day we passed the Great Republic of Rough and Ready. Yes, a republic, and it is perfectly normal if you have not heard of it :)

The first established settlement in Rough and Ready was made in the fall of 1849 by a mining company from Wisconsin, known as the Rough and Ready Company, during the California Gold Rush.
The town declared its secession from the Union as "the Great Republic of Rough and Ready" in 1850, as it suffered the effects of general lawlessness and a growing resentment for the government having imposed a Mining Tax on all claims. So the Great republic (of 3000 people :)) was largely to avoid mining taxes.

The Great Republic of Rough and Ready lasted only three months as the world's smallest nation. As July 4th approached the citizens began to prepare for the festivities, only to be told by the Nevada city saloons that they weren't Americans! Worse, they refused to sell liquor to these 'foreigners'! On July 4, swept by a patriotic fervor-and an abiding thirst! Another meeting was held and the town gave mass consent to immediately rejoining the Union.

People had to pay to pass the town, excuse me the republic :)
A crazy piece of history!

There was also a little street built to show how the republic was back then, in a smaller scale than real life. I found this whole thing so odd and funny and was very surprised when Juliette explained it to me when we passed.

An Artful Upcycle Project

Sometimes my mother comes with crazy ideas, ideas I do not appreciate (right away), some do not pan out but a lot of craziness turns out to be quite brilliant. This project is one of the good kind :)
I painted this oil painting back when I was going to my drawing course. It is not really the style I normally paint and was my first portrait, so it has a lot of room for improvement but it was just a step to learn. I thought about improving it but somehow never knew what to do with it and I didn't want to ruin it.
So here come mum's crazy idea: 'make a bag out of it'.
my first reaction was raised eye brows and probably scratching my head, but it eventually worked out.

Tadaaaa! It was a challenge sewing it. Unlike fabric, painted canvas is very sturdy and can not be turned in side out. It was pretty hard and each step took some figuring out but I am happy that I have a crazy mother, and am happy with the result :)

I've made it with leather details, and a baroque style lining, it closes with a zipper (I was glad that I managed that!), you can see more pictures and details in our bag shop StarBags.

I had cut out the canvas from its wooden frame, leaving me an empty frame which could have been used again by stretching new canvas, but I have attached vintage style map printed leather to it and am using it as back drop for some of my bigger globes :)
We offer this type of world globe printed leather in our supply shop, in case you want to make something like that too, but this leather is also perfect for upholstery, bags and more.