Our Creative Space...

We have a new toy, it is something that mum has been wanting for a long time and finally we could afford it. It is the Eclips electronic cutting machine, which cuts leather, vinyl, cardboard etc by simply putting it in to the machine and choosing the shape you want.

We have lots of lovely colors of fake leather and I have been cutting them up and want to rivet those shapes together to make a bag, I think it will look super fun :)

You have to put the material you want to cut on a sticky material, thin paper didn't work out well as it got stuck, but thicker material worked fine. One down point is that the stickyness goes away almost right away so if you are thinking of buying one, also stock up some spray glue to spray it as without it the material get stuck and it becomes a cutted mess.

We are also planning to use these kind of things for packaging, for a fun and festive finishing touch.

Our Creative Space...

For online sellers packaging is a never ending topic. While some only see it as a protection for their often long journeys others make art pieces of their packages.
With our sea urchin items we have to buy strong and expensive boxes to be sure that everything arrives safe, we also do our best to make it pretty. But with larger objects it becomes harder. I showed you a way to recycle boxes here and here is an additional post.

For our bags we often use boxes, and for smaller purses bubble mailers. But we also have the very big weekenders which don't fit in a box. So for the very larger purses or for those who simply do not want to fit in anything we have been wanting to make nice bags to sent safely but also for the owner to storage the weekender or purse in to keep it clean.

We found a beautiful starfish embroidery pattern for our sewing machine and loved the outcome.
Under the star we wanted StarBags written under it, for a nice and professional look.
Bernina's users manuals should be some sort of crime, a huge book that is totally not understandable, it could have been much clearer with less words and more actual descriptions. Anyway as the manuel was no help I got what I wanted with a little snooping around on the machine.

Pretty cool, don't you think? While typing StarBags I also found a way to make the word roundish which I like alot.

And here is the result, a nice classy bag and in it is a weekender, it closes with strings and is a super strong double layered fabric, perfect to avoid dust and dirt when you are not using your StarBag :)

See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Our Creative Space...

This post is a kind of follow up of last week's creative space.
If you sell online one thing is always very important, which is packaging. Not only should it look inviting it also has to make sure that the item survives its long journey.
Pretty boxes are expensive but beside that not all boxes available are good for your purpose, especially if you sell and kind of sized items like us it is hard to really have all the boxes available. We have dozens of boxes but still not always do we have the right size.

When that is the case, we recycle boxes, which is super fun and rewarding. We do not throw away any good sturdy box, no matter how much writting and stuff they have on, as long as they are clean and strong they are perfectly fine to use again. Not only boxes from incoming post but also packaging of detergent, new phones etc, if you look in another perpective you recieve lots of useful boxes very often. Just be sure to tear of addresses of others for privacy reasons, but also duct tape as glue doesn't like tape.

I buy large pieces of a kind of fabric paper at the local upholsterer, they use it to cover the buttoms of chairs etc and it is cheap but looks nice and is large, I prefer black so that it covers writting etc of used boxes. You can also use a craft paper, an extra bonus is to use a kind that fits your shop, logo etc. Then I hand stamp them with starfishes to match our business card.

Apply a thin layer of a normal glue on the first part of the box.

Press firmly the box to the paper, and to avoid it from slipping attach a few cloth pins.

Continue with the second part of the box, make sure that the paper doesn't rimple and do each part one by one if you rush it will be a terrible mess :)

After glueing all the large parts you have to cut of the parts that won't be needed. Each box will need a bit of a different method but once you get the drill it is easy.

Fold and glue the sides, like gift packaging to finish it of prettily.

Fill your box with a layer, we use the paper we mentioned last week.

Add your product.

And add another layer.

Close the box and shake it firmly, be sure that the item can not move as movement can damage it.

Now time to pimp up the box!

I use some ribbon and a sweet flower, these constantly change according to the supplies we have at hand :) The ribbon also holds the box closed so no need for ugly tape, all materials are recycled or eco friendly and can be used again!

See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Our Creative Space...

This post is not about creating, but is something that we use and wanted to share with you.
To package things other than jewelry, we use old shreded paper.

Not any shredder will do. There are different types indicated by security levels. Level 1 makes ribbons too wide and coarse for this purpose. Level 3 and higher make confetti sized shredding, you don't want that.

What you need is a shredder of level 2. That makes fine ribbons perfect for packaging breakables. They are light weighted and fluffy, much friendlier than peanuts or bubble plastic. The shredder was about €40, and since than, every bit of paper gets repurposed :).

See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Lovely Package

A while back I was again lucky to win a give away, this time at Fleurfatale's blog. I won a beautiful handmade booklet with gorgeous paper and a great eye for detail.

Beside the book, the packaging was really smashing reminds me again that packaging is almost as important as the inside of it! I can imagine that Fleurfatale is also doing a great job in packaging her lovely jewelry! Thank you Fleur, I love it!