5

Pablo turned 5 on Sunday:)))))))I feel terrible for posting only now, but I felt exhausted the day after the party and yesterday have been all day outside the house.



It was a loooong day.....and we even earned one hour due to the winter time change.
I spent almost 8 hours in the kitchen preparing 2 cakes, pizzas and some other yummy stuff for the party.



We had a kids party in the same place as the last year and I just had to make another version of my Dinosaur volcano cake from the last year. The second cake was sort of the sea world cake. They loved it and had so much fun with decorating both cakes;)



It was a great party and I can hardly believe that my son is 5 now. Already!!!





With love, Katarina

"Romantic"

Yesterday, I was so wowed when I saw the Etsy's front page with my dress/set featured.



It was one of those treasuries created by the etsy admin, as my item was found using the search term "romantic".

It is this dress/set that made it;)



I thought that I might post an e-mail I got recently from Mary, mom of beautiful Bella, to whom this set was created. She bid(sorry not sure if this verb is regular or iregular as bidded sounds odd) on my latest costume as well, and wrote me this:

Dear Nina,

This a gorgeous set. I wouldn’t even look at it the first few days it was up- for fear of falling for it. Your work is so detailed and spunky. I know you enjoy making children’s clothing, but I’m afraid you’re never going to get as much ($) for it as the time and ($) you put into it. I mean, that last set you sold to me was so detailed, versatile, and creative, that an adult outfit of the same nature would have netted you much more, financially. Grownups are willing to pay big bucks for something they can wear over and over (children grow so quickly).

I even think, that you could be an elite costume designer for any Broadway stage set or movie. The tone of a story is so sparked by the vivid quality of apparel! I think, that when one conveys to you their ideas, you’ve an uncanny ability to capture the essence of their mood and make it concrete; you could set any tone you wanted with your enticingly flowing thematic works.

However, it does seem that you lead a wonderfully balanced life – creating art you enjoy and raising a beautiful family. Perhaps you already have it all figured out! And, I do so enjoy owning a couple of your dresses for Bella to keep and cherish, and perhaps share with her children one day. Take care. And, even if I get outbid, I hope you will always know how much your creations inspire me.

Fondly,

Mary


Thank you again ETSY and thank you Mary!!!!
Great weekend everyone:)
Katarina

Ruffles galore

For those of you following me and trying to read my blog, you may remember this post. That time, I remembered to take pics of my ruffles, before cutting them to shapes, to make lateral inserts on my popular gaucho pants.



So, this time, I did it again. I take the shoot, before it was too late, as a few hours later they become this...part of the pants;)



Park slope fabric line is sure to be one of my favourite lines by Free spirit and I was so happy to made this little whimsy set for one of my loyal customers, who became a great friend as well and you can see her lovely DD, Poppy modelling in a few of my designs in the above mentioned post;)



This set is on its way to UK, to her and I hope she will love this one as well. This time, I accompanied it with reversible apron that I firstly designed for this set



It also made me remember that in that march/april period, just before Easter this year and before we went to Bari, for a family visit I had lots of those "Ruffles galore" orders and some of them were shipped from Italy. And one of these, that I have totally forgot to upload pics before and also share some lovely pics I received afterwords from a customer is this - Mother and daughter matching set.



Beautiful Hannah, mom to small Hazel, asked me to make the set for her as well as for her beautiful daughter and I was challenged for the first time to make the adult set as well, that will be as fancy as those for the little ones, featuring all those ruffles.



I'm sorry that I don't have the picture of Hannah wearing the pants as well, made with all those whimsy fabrics, but here are the pics before the sets were shipped away.







Here is the accessories set I made for Hazel.



With love, Katarina

Fall splendour

It seems that we had time to feel fall only for a few days, as now it seems that winter is here. So cold, gloomy and not very inspiring weather outside, and I can call ourselves lucky, in confrontation with some people living in the parts of the world, being attacked with storms and weather catastrophes.



So, wanting fall back, I have uploaded some pics from my camera taken at the beginning of this month, mainly at Fruska gora, were we spend our weekends (when the time allows;)









We have enjoyed new puppies, aren't hey cute?









Some yummy fruits;)







And here are some pics of kids for the end







Wish you a wonderful week, Katarina

Mess on my table

A few days ago, after sewing and making some headbands I realized I made a huge mess all over my table and room. I was enjoying one of those "creative chaos" moments, that I talked about in the previous post/last question in the article



Gathering crochet flowers with fabric buttons, looking for the perfect match, is one of my favourite embellishment "tasks".





I just love to use the for many things, either hair accessories or garment details;)



As you can see, I have tons of these and constantly making new buttons, with new fabrics, so if you need some, don't hesitate to contact me, I would gladly list them in my IwannaBE etsy shop

xo, Katarina

Sensa magazine feature

Thanks to Jana Orsolic , who prepared this great feature for the Sensa magazine I was chosen to be among several featured artists, participants of the "Take away fashion" event/exhibition in Serbia.

The article talks about the Take away fashion events in Serbia, organized by Kulturni front or Ljudmila Stratimirovic, creator of the project. I have participated at this great event a few times, and blogged about that, but this last few times, due to the vacancy of time, I just couldn't afford myself to applicate for this event. Hopefully next time;)


The article is in Serbian, of course, and here it is in Serbian:
1. Tvoje sarene tezgice na Modi za poneti specificne su po tome sto su prepune stvari za male smizle. Divno je da se neko uhvatio tog super zabavnog posla i oplemenio nase trziste unikatnim stvarima za devojcice. Toga ovde gotovo da nema uopste.

Stvaranje unikatnog nakita i aksesoara za devojcice je zaista zabavno i neograniceno polje igranja i kreiranja po pitanju izbora boja, oblika i materijala. U poslednje vreme, sa dolaskom brendova poput "Zare", Accesorize-a" i "Okaidi-a", mislim da je i nase trziste obogaceno takvom vrstom ponude, iako u masovnoj proizvodnji, sto je sigurno ono u cemu se razlikuje nesto sto je unikat-handmade i nesto je je serijski proizvedeno i dostupno u velikim kolicinama.

2. Tvoje kreacije uvek su fino prezentirane, propracene lepim etiketama koje nadopunju i lepo kompletiraju sve te pazljivo osmisljene i izvedene stvarcice. Tako ceo komad bude do kraja cakum-pakum a i drugima pokazes da je paznja poklonjena do najmanje sitnice. Da li te je na pazljivo osmisljavanje prezentacije nateralo strano trziste na kome si cak prisutnija nego ovde?

Hvala na lepim recima;) S obzirom da sam zavrsila graficki dizajn, mislim da mi je ideja o vaznosti prezentacije krajnjeg proizvoda i "total dizajnu" nesto sto sam verovatno naucila skolujuci se, a mogucnost i iskustvo predstavljanja svojih radova na stranom trzistu me je samo naterala da pokusam da jos vise obogatim svoja znanja u plasiranju istih - gde je fotografija skoro presudna (govorim o uslovima virtuelne, internet prezentacije, gde rad na zalost, ne moze da se vidi izbliza )

3. Kako izgleda vasa kuca? Da li ste zatrpani sarenim tkaninama, masnama i jastucicima za igle?

Ja to volim da definisem kao kreativni haos. Sigurno da jesam zatrpana materijalima, ukrasnim trakama, dugmicima i slicnim stvarima od kojih moze da se stvara modni predmet, bilo da je rec o garderobi ili ukrasnom detalju-aksesoaru, to je nesto sto me inspirise i sto mi je neophodno u radu, ali isto tako sam zatrpana crtackim priborom, papirima i knjigama iz oblasti dizajna i umetnosti, jer i to predstavlja nesto bez cega ne mogu da zamislim svakodnevni zivot.




And here is the translation, using Google translator in English:

1. Your colorful booths at the "Take away fashion" are specific in being full of things for the small ones. It is wonderful that someone caught this great job entertaining and enriched our market with such unique things for girls.
Here we almost don't have such things.

Creating unique jewelry and accessories for girls is really fun and unlimited field for playing and creating with waste choice of colors, shapes and materials. Lately, with the arrival of brands such as Zara, Accesorize and Okaidi, I think that our market is enriched with that kind of offer, although in mass production, which is for sure the difference in comparison of something Handmade and unique and something that was a serial produced and available in large quantities.

2. Your creations are always finely presented, accompanied by beautiful labels that recharge all those nice and carefully designed and performed stuff. Therefore, the whole piece is at the end an eye candy, showing the attention to the least little things. Does designing and displaying things for the foreign markets (where your work is more present than at our market)made you think about the whole presentation?

Thanks for the nice words:) As I finished a graphic design, I think that the idea of the importance of presentation of the final product, and "total design" is something I probably learned during my education, while the possibility and experience of presenting my work in a foreign market is just something that forced me to try to accomplish the knowledge in presentation of the product- where the photographs are almost crucial (talking about the conditions of virtual, internet sales, where work unfortunately, can not be seen up close)


3. How does your house look like? Are you buried with colorful fabrics, notions and needles?

I like to define that as the creative chaos. I am surely buried with fabrics, different materials, ribbons, buttons and similar crafty stuff, indispensable for creating and crafting, whether it is the clothing piece or accessories, it is something that inspires me and what I need for work, but I'm also buried with drawing supplies, papers and books about design and art, because it represents something without which I can not imagine daily life.



Have a wonderful week, Katarina

Magical kingdom

There is a huge launch going on on Ebay, including 100+ designers. There was an entering fee of 10$ for each designer and it was going for raising the fond for the great prizes, and the first prize is a 2 days Disneyland trip.



You can check all the listings by searching AMK boutique on ebay and HERE you can check mine, mermaidish inspired, as you can see;)


xo, Katarina