New in the Shops

Brown Sterling silver Sea urchin Earrings with Pearls

Ethnic Tribal Necklace - Secret Hiding Place, Vintage Bottle

Sterling Silver Seashell Ring Eye of Shiva Shell

The Birds Bring the Sun Bag - Vintage Embroidery and Patchwork

Pearly Butterfly Keychain / Bag Ring

Opal Swirl Necklace - Soldered metalwork

Jasper and Onyx Ring Brass Bezel Ring Stone jewelry

Istanbul - Day 6

(Map source at DeviantArt)

Istanbul is the second largest city in the world by population, and keeps growing every day. One of the many things that makes it unique is that it is partially in Europe and partially in Asia. Water is an important part of Istanbul as it goes right through the city.
There are bridges that connects Europe to Asia, but due to the amount of people there are also ferries as public transport to cross the continents. So people who live in Asia and work in Europe cross by boat everyday.

Some of the bridges do not only have the function to cross rivers, on top dozens of men catch fish every day.

And under the bridges are fish restaurants to eat right near the sea.

New buildings keep popping up to accomodate the huge amount of people but Istanbul has a huge history so you can easily come across palaces, churches, fountains and amazing details of centuries ago.

It is definetely a city to visit, but not for just a few days, you can spent months discovering new places every day, best time is Spring and Autumn when it is not too hot but it is always crowded :)

Istanbul day 5

I was too tired to blog yesterday, so here is an update :)
First stop was to an old friend, Kristin, I showed her shop a few years ago in the mean time she moved to the shop next door which is twice as large.

Kristin has great taste and the entire shop is full of amazing items, both made by herself and also other artists. You can find her shop Evihan at Çukurcuma Caddesi Altıpatlar Sokak Beyoğlu - Istanbul. She also has an Etsy shop.
 

Our next stop was a boat tour of 2 hours to see all the palaces and old buildings built near the shore.
I think these pictures speak for themselves...

We took the short version of the Boğaz Tour, there is also a longer version which takes about 6 hours, if you come to Istanbul I would definetly recommend you take either one of them as you can see many hidden places with a great view, these tours are also very cheap so a great way to treat yourself.

Today is my last day in Istanbul, I will be returning home tonight, last post will be tomorrow.

Istanbul - Day 4

Today was another day in Eminönü, for more supply shopping. As I forgot to take pictures yesterday I made sure to take some today.

This is the Spice Bazaar, inside is mostly spices, lokums, dried fruit but also gold jewelry and some gift shops. When you go through this Bazaar at the other end is the place where you can find lots of beadshops in all kind of places.

A shop with lot of seafoams as natural cleaning material and dried vegtables.

And here is Eminönü, but as mostl places in Istanbul it is extremely crowded and hard to stop and take pictures, this happens with 17 million people in one place :)

Lastly I found these street artists have very interesting outfits, not sure of their origins, my best guess is Peru but correct me if I'm wrong. Their music was extremely soothing and relaxing.
 

My Friday Night Outfit

Sea Urchin Ring - Rare Brown Tuxedo Sea Urchin Ring by StaroftheEast
Brown Leather Floral applique Purse, Messenger bag, studded leather bag by EightSeasons
Brown Leather Flower Shoe Clips by FeathersFly
Nuno felted blouse Chocolate by Kadabros

A perfect outfit for a night out in Istanbul :)

The rules are simple; make a fun outfit with items from Etsy (you can include one of your own items) with the mosaic maker or photoshop orPolyvore. Post it on your blog with the links to the featured shops, and add a link linking to this blogpost so that your readers can see the other outfits as well, this way we will all be connected :) You can then add your mosaic here below by clicking on the 'add a link' button so that everyone can see your outfit here as well, you can leave your link till Saturday evening.

Istanbul - Day 3

Here is a funny story, since the protests for the park, other small protests happened too, ways for people to make a statement. One of those is painting stairs in the city in rainbow colors. Istanbul is build on 7 hills, therefor there are many steep streets but also often stairs. Usually these stairs are grey. About one week ago a man desided to paint one of these stairs in a cheerful colorful rainbow, to bring some color to the street but also as an act of freedom and hope, and as a symbol of unity of different kind of people believing in the same thing (in this case a better government for Turkey). The same night the municipality of Istanbul painted these stairs back to grey. Of course this made people mad :) And as people got mad the next day the municipality painted the same stairs back in a rainbow. This act inspired many people and now not only in Istanbul but also in many other cities you can find these cheerful colorful rainbow stairs, here is one of them :)

Today I went for supply shopping, I was too tired and my hand were often too full to take pictures, hopefully I'll remember tomorrow to take some pictures of Eminönü, the beads heaven.
After that I met with several Etsy sellers, we had coffee and home made lemonade at a cute café and chatted about Etsy, handmade and politics.

From left to right Funda from FundaDemircan,  Serpil from SerpilGuneysu, Nesrin from Nikacollection, Pınar from Toosis, Aslı from Afra, Enhar from LoveJoyCreate, Sema from BeyazDukkan and me.

It was lovely to meet you ladies :)

After that Serpil took me to an old harbour which now is only used as a bistro café, a wonderful place, incase you come to Istanbul it is the old 'Moda İskelesi'.

A nice way to end another exhausting day :)