Yellow flower brooch giveaway

We are happy to announce the winner of our yellow flower brooch giveaway!

 Comment # 18 by lakizka was chosen as a winner. Congratulations!

Yana (nihama) will contact you to verify your mailing address.

Congratulations to the winner and thank you for participation, everyone!

Yellow fabric brooch giveaway

A new giveaway on our blog today!

This lovely and elegant yellow fabric brooch from nihama  will be yours if you participate in this contest!

Jana, the owner of nihama shop creates wonderful lovely dolls, cute baby teething toys and necklaces for mothers. This is a shop for women and their children, so please visit today!

If you want to have the brooch, just follow the simple rules:

1. Visit nihama shop and leave a comment here on what you like the best (1 entry)

2. Follow/ subscribe our blog (1 entry)

3. Grab our button and place it on your blog (1 entry)

4. Share this giveaway on twitter / facebook / your blog (1 entry)

5. Follow nihama's facebook (1 entry)

6. Purchase anything from nihama's shop and come back letting know what you purchased!

Please leave a separate comment on each entry and don't forget to leave us your email address so that Jana could contact you!

The winner will be announced on December 17nd, so have fun and good luck!

Shabby chic simple decoupage box DIY tutorial

Do you like decoupage as we do? :) Today Natasha who runs Grimme shop on Etsy is sharing great and easy to follow tutorial how to make decoupage wooden box. Look at this gorgeous shabby chic piece of art that you can make on your own!

Materials needed:
1) wooden box
2) white, ivory, grey and burnt umbra acrylic paints
3) assortment of decoupage napkins
4) decoupage glue or acrylic furniture varnish
5) piece of fine kitchen sponge
6) stiff bristles brush


1. Cover the box with the primary layer of white paint. It will strengthen the adhesion between the base (box) and all further layers.


2. Let it dry and then cover the box with the ivory paint


3. Choose the decoupage napkin with the figure, suitable to the box by the size, proportions and general idea.Cut the figure out, put to the top of the box and carefully spread the decoupage glue all over it. Be careful do not to tear the cut out and to delete all the air bulbs, that can appear


4. Let it dry
5. Apply 2-3 layers of acrylic furniture varnish (dry each one before putting the next)
6. Take a stiff bristles brush, take a bit of grey paint to its tip and apply to the box's sides with the sweeping moves. Do the same with the burnt umbra paint, but try to use as small quantity as possible


7. Take the piece of fine kitchen sponge and apply very small quantity of burnt umbra paint to its side. Then press it gently to the upper edge all over its length to get the dark brown rim


8. Let it dry and cover all the box with the 2-3 layers of acrylic furniture varnish (dry each one before putting the next)

Enjoy the vintage box, done by your own hands)

Tutorial How to make a felted flower brooch

Galafilc creates amazing and unique hand felted items. Today she will share her know-how on how to create a felted flower brooch.

To create a flower we will need about 20 gr. of white felting wool, plastic bubble wrap, soap, water, dye for coloring and a wooden roller.

The first step is to lay out pieces of wool on a bubble wrap. We will make six circles slightly different in size.

The second step is to wet our wool with soapy water. We spray the water evenly all over the wool and cover it with another piece of bubble wrap. Our wool is now ready for felting. At the very beginning we roll our wooden stick over the wrap once to squeeze extra water out of our wet wool. After that we roll our wrap around the wooden stick and start actually rolling it on a flat surface. I usually roll it about 100 times in one direction and 100 times in another direction.


Our wool is semi-felted now. We take it out of the wrap and gently squeeze and rub it in our hands until it is ready. Our pieces of wool should be pretty homogeneous with fiber intact and not separating. If the wool has felted well the original size of the piece changes. Our wool circles should be much smaller in size than the original ones.

Now we are ready to start creating an actual flower. We cut out a flower from each of the circles and felt the flowers a little bit for the edges to felt and become even. We rinse our flowers well and flatten them. It's time to form a flower now. We put the biggest flower at the bottom and the rest five flowers on top of it.

To dye our flower we will need to soak it in a vinegar first. For the final color not to be super bright I usually add a few drops of black dye to my dye mix. To prepare my dye mix I just mix dye with water. I soak my felted pieces into the dye mix and warm in up either in a micorwave or on a stove. I usually let my felt stay in the dye mix for about an hour. Finally I put my felted pieces into a vinegar once more to fix the color and let them dry afterward.

My brooch flower is almost ready. I assemble all the pieces into a flower brooch and attach a pin at its back. Our beautiful and unique hand felted flower brooch is ready!


translated by TonyaUtkina

Team treasury on the front page of Etsy

This morning was beginning with great news - our Russian Artists team treasury was featured on Etsy front page! It begin to be a good tradition. This is very beautiful collection in fresh turquoise color named "Awaking". It was made by Russian Artists team member Inessa. Thank you, Inessa and congratulations all featured artists!

Spring Muses Russian Artists Team Contest

Spring is all about blooming trees and amazing flowers, first warm sunny days and positive attitudes. One of Russian Artists team members Lena Baymut came up with an idea of yet another team spring contest. The main idea of this spring content is to feature not only amazing items hand crafted by Russian Artists team members but to actually present the artists themselves. Every team member could submit a listing from his or her store featuring his or her muse.

We all love hand crafting and are always eager to share our new ideas and designs with the Intrenet community. Creating hand made items for spring is especially rewarding as spring is all about beautiful colors, flowers, rebirth and happiness!

All the submissions were available on Russian Artists Facebook Page for voting. It was again a tough choice to vote for one or another of our beautiful artists.

Russian Artists team is somewhat unique. We are all united by a common mother tongue that is Russia but we all live in different parts of the world. This contest was actually a great opportunity for us to meet each other in person. We now know the artists who create unique and inspiring art pieces in our team.

Every item submitted collected a great number of votes. Below are four who got the most votes.

1. Hand painted silk scarf Fishes by WoolGemArt


2. White mohair shawl by CozySeason


3. Medieval Style Dress by Katrinshine


4. Felted white scarf by LenaBaymut


Congratulations to our amazing winners!!!

You can check out all of the contest entries in our Team treasury.

posted by TonyaUtkina

New giveaway, a felted calla lilly brooch!

A new giveaway today - yey! Gala (galafilc) is hosting it today.

Her charming felted flower brooch just found her new owner in December and here is another gift for you today:

This gorgeous calla lily can be yours! Just follow our few simple rules to enter this giveaway:

1. Visit her shop, browse her collection and leave a comment here on what you like the best (1 entry)

2. Heart Gala's shop (1 entry)

3. Follow/ subscribe our blog (1 entry)

4. Grab our button and place it on your blog (1 entry)

5. Follow / subscribe Gala's twitter / facebook / blog / flickr (1 entry each)

6. Share this giveaway on your twitter / facebook / blog (2 entries)

Please leave a separate comment on each entry and don't forget to leave us your email address so that we could contact you!

If you'd like to see (or maybe, even purchase) more of Gala's creations please visit her shop on Etsy!

This giveaway will run from February 1 through the 11th, and the lucky winner will be announced on February 12th, 2011.

Have fun and good luck!

How to make a felted wool flower brooch

It's a perfect time to create a felted wool flower brooch. It will be a great addition to any party dress or holiday outfit. A felted flower brooch is not hard to make and it can be created at home using just soap and water.

First of all we will need felting wool in different colors. It can be purchased at either Ben Franklin or on-line at AshlandBay.


For a flower brooch I normally create a few layers of felt to make the brooch soft and fluffy. To create a layer we will need to lay wool flat on a plastic surface and wet if with warm water and soap. It makes sense to mix different colors of wool to create interesting combinations of new colors. Hand felting is a little bit like painting. You mix colors and get something amazing at the end!

For the wool to felt we will need to press and stroke it gently with our palms adding water and soap if needed. It will take a good 15 minutes for each layer to felt. When we cannot separate wool fiber any more and our layer is more or less intact it’s time to stop. Our wool has felted.

Let's rinse our layers with water and squeeze them gently so that all the water gets out. Now it's time to take a break and let our layers dry. I normally leave my hand felted pieces overnight to dry well.

Once our layers of felt are dry and soft we can start creating an actual brooch. For our brooch to be beautiful and unique we can use beads, felted balls, buttons, wood pieces and pretty much anything we can find in our home. I personally like to attach big buttons in the middle of my brooches to make them look more like flowers. Don't forget to attach either a safe pin or a special brooch pin in the back of the brooch. They could be purchased at Ben Franklin as well.

Felted flower brooches are great accessories. They add style and color to any outfit. I promise people will turn their heads when you wear a hand made flower brooch. It's so great to know that this pretty and chic brooch was actually created with your own hands!

As a member of Russian Artists Team I'm proud to present my amazing fellow artisans who create wonderful wool felted items:
AleksandraRoo
allmadewithlove
Beautyland
CityCrochet
dalmmar
frenchfelt
FunEmbroidery
galafilc
JaneBoFelt
jezek
JuliaFelt
manonknits
SilkMagic
soroka
Svetusha
VitalTemptation
YanArt
woolsolution

This post was written by TonyaUtkina at CityCrochet. You can read more about felting on my blog.

Interview with a Star – TonyaUtkina

Today our featured guest is TonyaUtkina who is a member of Russian Artists Etsy team. Tonya has two completely different shops on Etsy. In CityCrochet Tonya offers hand crocheted and hand knitted items for urban style fashionistas as well as home décor items and hand felted accessories. In TonyaUtkina Etsy shop she offers happy and bright jewelry items made of high quality Czech glass, silver plated wire and felt.

Q: Could you please tell us a bit about yourself?
I grew up in Moscow, Russia and I am still in love with that beautiful and vibrant city. It’s not only a place of my childhood but a city with history that dates back to 1147 AD and diverse, fast pacing urban life. I still have a lot of friends and family members in Moscow and go back every year. In my mid 20s I moved to New York following my husband who got accepted to a university. It was a difficult but manageable transition as New York actually remind me Moscow a lot. Later on we moved to Richmond, Virginia where I reside now.

Q: How did you pick up crafting?
I love to create things with my hands! I’ve been crocheting and knitting since I was little. Hand crafting runs in my family as my mom has a great taste and wonderful hands. As so many Russian moms back in 80s and 90s she sewed and knitted for all my family. My brother and I always had beautiful and neat clothes hand made by my mom. I remember myself crocheting home décor items, making small sculptures out of wood, creating figures of paper mache. It was all back in my childhood when I had plenty of time to just hang around and experiment. Since then I had my own kids. While observing my children grow at some point I felt a need to resume my crafting. It’s great that my kids watch me actually make things with my hands and even try helping me sometimes.

Q: What are your favorite materials?
I love glass for its brightness and transparency. There are so many things one can create of glass beads and wire. One’s creativity is pretty much the only limit. Recently I’ve discovered felting which in some sense is similar to knitting and crocheting but gives much more room for experimenting. The result can be totally unpredictable.

I’m a fan of minimalism that has nothing in common with a traditional Russian ornamental style rich in flowers, curves, swirls, stylized animal and nature images. I guess I’m not a typical Russian in that sense as I adore simple lines and bold colors.

Q: What can you tell us about your Etsy experience?
I actually discovered Etsy by pure chance through an article in Wired magazine. I really liked the idea of an independent portal for artisans and craftsmen from all over the world. Besides I always thought that Etsy layout and design is very friendly and well thought out! I had no prior experience with on-line sales and marketing and Etsy came as a sort of revelation to me. I’ve been on Etsy for a bit more than a year now and I’ve learned a tonne since I started. It’s amazing how much more I now know about the world of on-line sales, SEO and marketing!

Wonderful things Wednesday - Holiday gift guide: gifts under $20

Every year we have a Holiday gift exchange between our friends. We are pretty fluent in what we are going to buy as a gift but we have our limits: all our gifts are supposed to be under $20!

If you are trying to find the perfect gift within a budget here is the solution: shop online at Etsy! It is easy, convenient and you don't have to spent hours to find something great and wonderful which will fit your budget!

To prove that great gifts don't have to be expensive and they can be cool without breaking your piggy bank please check our collection!


1. White Christmas/ Fabric rosette statement ring by StudioElenus
2. Sterling silver handstamped Zodiac earrings by BlueberryCream
3. Organic Strawberry Facial Scrub Sample Size Natural and eco-friendly no soap vegan cleanser great for acne by Herbolution
4. Knit felted purse cellphone holder by Allmadewithlove



1. White felted wool acorns set of 5 by CityCrochet
2. Deep red flower brooch by Cushyadornments
3. Snowy Owl Necklace Polymer Clay Medallion by ArtHarmony
4. Winter House Clay Ring by Smafactory


1. Cordoba tile patchwork pot holder by RizalaYa
2. Felted flower brooch by Galafilc
3. Ornament - red hearts by AleksandraRoo
4. BLUE gamma striped felt bracelet by Soroka

Stylish things - KatrinShine

I would like to share with you a wonderful collection of leather jewelry and accessories by a very talented designer Katia (boutique Кatrinshine).


Accessories in autumnal red, burgundy and golden brown colors attract attention to themselves and touch everyone's hearts. Her creations are stunning, full of lightness, elegance and
inspiration! Immaculate execution of decorative features highlights stylish compositional solutions. The idea of these accessories is very simple - it is a stylized poppy made of pieces of leather. However, the number of possibilities in this design is simply inexhaustible!!!


Flaming red poppy is passionate and glowing, it is a perfect match for an evening dress as well as a strict business style dress. Sultry hot red can be easily combined with a summer outfit, attracting attention to the bronze glow of tanned skin.


Dark cherry color can serve as an alternative to a red poppy. Burgundy color adds a touch of mystery, magically turning a beautiful woman into a mysterious stranger.


Golden brown raises completely different emotions. Its tanned color, as if touched by the sun, suits warm and cozy autumnal jersey, mixing well with the colors of ripe fruit and berries.


A smoky blue flower has yet another purpose. Dove-colored blue brings thoughts of the frosty breath of winter, crystal mist on the tries and sparkling snowflakes slowly moving in a dance.

My felt flowers

- This world is full of splendor! - whispered out joyfully a little Snail when born to life at a spring time on a flourishing meadow.
She was so cute that every one liked her very much there. Butterflies shared their secrets with her. Every flower was eager to invite her to swing on its slender stems.



Every morning, the Snail would hurry towards the biggest and most beautiful flower in the field in order to enjoy the crystal clear droplets of morning due - the entire world got reflected in these droplets.



Later, the Flower would lull the Snail on its soft leaves singing her beautiful songs to the tune of a tender wind.
- What a happy beautiful world! - would thought the Snail, watching serenely the white clouds above.



Once a little girl came to the meadow. She sang a jolly song and picked up flowers. The most beautiful flower turned eagerly towards the girl, and didn't even notice the poor Snail fell down. The Snail got desperate and cried, and cried, and cried bitterly when the little girl took her best friend away from the field. And from her! From her...
In the city full of noise and dust, the little girl put the bunch of flowers in a vase and soon forgot about it.
On the brink of its demise, the most beautiful flower regretfully rocked its bent head and recollected the scenery of the happy meadow, the tears like droplets of due, and its dear friend Snail...




I must confess I am fond of flowers. But only when they are living, not in a bouquet. I wish the beauty of flowers shined on eternally! My flowers made of felt never fade out and always keep their shape and colors. Let us protect nature! Promoting handmade beauty is a noble way of doing it...



With kind regards -
Helene Dalmar