A teddy world!

Last summer my friend Tatiana invited me to participate in Teddymir exhibit in St. Petersburgh, Russia. The exhibit's opening was on October 29th, 2015. It seemed so far away that I didn't even want to think about it. However by the end of summer I had a mini collection of amigurumianimals and I decided to exhibit them.

So I signed up! The organizer, Tatiana, did a lot to promote the exhibition. The whole city was awaiting the opening. It was in perfect location, at the artists street in the center next to Palace square. It was also a perfect time since the exhibition continued for the 10 days of school break.

Here are a few participating teddies:

You can choose a teddy or other toy in any style. Teddy Frida and teddy Dali:

Here is an area with large teddies. You can hug them and have your picture taken:

Here is a shelf with my toys:

 

Every day there were teddy workshops. Drawing, felting, clay sculpting and even teddies cupcake decor!

I fell in love with teddies so I took part in a workshop and made one tiny one too! Mine is last:

For both those visiting and taking part in the exhibition there were competitions and prizes. I took part in Tourist Teddy competition with my Lion, Monkey and the Fox and submitted some photos of my toys in well known tourist locations:

This was a great event. If you'd like, you can participate or visit the one next year!

If you are not in the area but would like to participate, your handmade toys can be submitted by mail.


Story by Natalia (PetsLair)
Translated by Nadia (LuNaViFelt)

Giveaway, handmade fabric necklace from CherryGardenDolls

A new giveaway today! This cute handmade fabric necklace from CherryGardenDolls is great to wear during warm summer days.

It can be yours for free if you will participate in our giveaway - just follow these simple rules to enter:

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

2. Heart  CherryGardenDolls shop (1 entry)

3. Pin or like Miss Cherry`s  doll on Pinterest (1 entry)

4. Follow/ subscribe Russian Artists blog (1 entry)

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

6. Follow / subscribe/ like  CherryGardenDolls facebook / blog / pinterest (1 entry each)   

7. Share this giveaway on twitter / facebook / your 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 more of  CherryGardenDolls   creations please visit her shop on Etsy!

This giveaway is open world wide and will run from April 22 through the May 22 and the lucky winner will be announced on May 25th, 2014.

Keep updated! Even if you do not win, you will get a personal 20% discount code for miss Cherry`s dolls!

Special Gift for Drew Barrymore

Beautyland by Irina Kupryukhina with the association The Artisan Group is excited to announce that they were recently selected to gift some of their jewelry and accessories products in an exclusive collaborative gift bag, prepared especially for celebrity Drew Barrymore and her family.

One of the gifts is a set of earrings and a bracelet with white Swarovski pearls, gold seed beads, and gold orchids. They were created professionally in her home studio, set up by Irina.

Beautyland was created by Irina Kupryukhina about four years ago. She specializes in jewelry and accessory design. The main focus of her work is the creation of felted accessories from natural wool, gemstone jewelry, and jewelry for special occasions. Her accessories are popular not only in Oregon and the US, but also outside the U.S. All items are unique and are in a limited edition. Irina constantly searches for creative ideas and studies new and different techniques.

 Take a look at Beautyland shop on Etsy. Here you will find a great selection of unique artisan designed custom hand made jewelry. All pieces are Irina Kupryukhina's original designs utilizing thousands of beads that she has mixed using semi precious stones, pearls, high quality glass, crystals and wool. Every piece is handmade for you and your special event.

To learn more about Irina's products please visit Beautyland, her shop on Etsy.

Crochet nursing/ teething necklace giveaway results

We are happy to announce the winner of our crochet nursing/teething necklace giveaway!

Comment # 46 by ali was chosen as a winner. Congratulations!

Julia (bysiki) will contact you to verify your mailing address.

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

Crochet nursing/ teething necklace giveaway

This giveaway is for a wonderful nursing / teething necklace. Yulia, the hostess of this giveaway and the owner of bysiki shop on Etsy, will let you choose from one of three necklaces if you win!

 

 If you'd like to participate in this giveaway and win one of  three nursing necklaces, follow these simple rules:

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

2. Heart bysiki shop (1 entry)

3. Follow/ subscribe our blog (1 entry)

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

5. Share this giveaway on twitter / facebook / your blog /stumbleupon (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 more of bysiki creations please visit her shop on Etsy!

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

The winner will be announced on February 4th, so have fun and good luck!

Valentines gift tags giveaway results

We are happy to announce the winner of our Valentines gifttags giveaway!

 

Comment # 5 by Albina was chosen as a winner. Congratulations!

 Tanya (zarabezbazara) will contact you to verify your mailing address.

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

Interview with a Star, Yaroslav & Natalka from ReComputing

Today we'd like to introduce the Recomputing shop to you, a geeky project on Etsy.

We are a family company of husband and wife Yaroslav and Natalka. The ReComputing shop was opened in October 2011 but Natalka already had her Skrynka shop. So we wasn't new on Etsy.

What would you say makes your shop unique?
The idea of ReComputing is to make cute geeky things through recycling broken computers hardware. As Yaroslav worked with computers for a long time, we have plenty of broken hardware at home.

What is the most important about your work?
We think that recycling is the great way to save our planet. And we are proud of ourselves that we are involved in such an important thing.

We are trying to make usable things. Our product isn't a cute stuff that you put on the shelf to admire. We make the key chains, jewelry, bookmarks, and we are planning to make clocks, coasters, magnets, business card holders, etc. We don't plan to stop on one category and have so many ideas! Our only regret is that there is only 24 hours in a day!

Do you have a favorite item you have made?
Yaroslav's favorite item is a microchip necklace and Natalka like almost all items made from blue circuit board.

Name 3 things you can’t live without?
Our amazing little son, each other and our dreams.

What do you want to tell our readers?
We'd like to wish health and happiness and LOVE to everyone! Don't forget to wish everyone you care about a happy Valentine's day!

Valentine gift tags giveaway

We are offering you a very romantic giveaway today. These heart shaped gift tags are perfect for a Valentines or for any romantic gift you will make during the year. Tanya (ZaraBezbazara) is the hostess for this giveaway.

 The first set of 15 tags you can see on this photo:

 The second set of tags you will choose yourself when you visit the ZaraBezbazara shop.

So you will receive 2 sets of tags total!

Only one person will be selected so please follow these rules to be a winner:

1. To choose the second part of your gift visit ZaraBezbazara`s shop, browse around, and leave a comment here on what your favorite item is. (1 entry).
2. Follow / subscribe our blog (an entry).
3. Grab Etsy Russian Team's button and place it on your blog (1 entry).
4. Share this giveaway on your blog / facebook / twitter (1 entry).
5. Follow ZaraBezbazara`s livejournal - Russian language only (1 entry).
6. Follow ZaraBezbazara`s facebook / twitter (1 entry each).

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

The winner will be announced on January 21st, so have fun and good luck everyone!

A Dragon giveaway

What could be better than having your own small-size dragon in the Year of Dragon! Especially when it is given to you as a gift!

Well, today we are offering a surprise dragon giveaway.

A little dragon is being made for you by Antonina's (Wonderlandinhabitant) right now! The dragon will look similar to this one:

 It might be a boy or a girl, or have some different accessories, it all depends on Antonina's imagination. All we know is that is going to be a cute dragon made with love and just for you!

Antonina is a maker of wonderful Waldorf dolls and toys. Take a look at some of her creations:

 ... looks like her secret are these two little helpers!

Visit her shop and you might want to adopt one of her Wonderlandinhabitants. They are so cute and just waiting for a good home to go to.

 Here's how you enter for a chance to win this:

- Visit the WonderlandInhabitant shop, take a look around and leave us a comment of what your favorite item is (1 entry per comment)

 - Favorite Wonderlandinhabitant shop - 1 entry

 - Follow our blog - 1 entry

- Subscribe to our blog via RSS - 1 entry

- Grab our button and place it on your blog - 2 entries

 - Blog about this giveaway - 2 entries

- Tweet about this giveaway - 1 entry

- Leave a link to this giveaway on Facebook - 1 entry

- Follow  Wonderlandinhabitant on facebook - 1 entry

- Purchase anything from Wonderlandinhabitant shop - 7 entries. Leave us a comment on what you purchased.

- Subscribe to Antonina's blog (in Russian)- 1 entry

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

The more entries you submit the more chances of winning!

A winner will be chosen by Antonina using random.org on January 13th and we will announce the winner on our blog.

Vintage at AGardenCottage

What's vintage for you? For me, this is collection of memories.

A vintage item is the item that is more than 20 years old and is valuable to you or others.

When I buy vintage items I look at things that I would like to have myself. But here is the catch, just because something is old does not make it valuable or collectible. What's make it valuable is it is something rare, something desirable, people want it or it touches someone's memory of good days gone.

I am a collector too, that's why I opened my AGardenCottage shop on Etsy.

Look at these buttons. It is so hard to find quality mother of pearl anything now but these vintage buttons have a wonderful marbling opalescence in them. These buttons are a way to bring the beauty of the past to a garment made today.

 Another good example is your holiday dinner. You can use many different serving utensils for your guests or you can really dress it up with something that your guests have never seen before like this gold strawberry salt & pepper shaker. 

 You could use something like this or another vintage set made by Oneida that will dress up your table.

 When your guests see your treasures it will become a topic of discussion and compliments. Believe me, we kept the same strawberry set for ourselves for our Thanksgiving dinner and everyone was asking about it.

Vintage or antique items have always been popular. Since the 1950's when mass production really got started it has made collecting cheaper. Now everyone can afford to collect or buy items that they are interested in.

I am shopping for items constantly and I have hundreds of items that are not listed yet so if there something you are looking for let us know because I may already have it or I will look for it.

My warmest Holiday wishes to you,

Tanya at AGardenCottage

Decorative wooden box giveaway

This lovely wooden box from Modern101 shop can be yours if you will participate in our new giveaway!

Just follow these simple rules to enter the giveaway:

1. Visit Modern101 shop, browse her collection and leave a comment here on what you like the best (1 entry)

2. Heart Modern101 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 Modern101 twitter / facebook / blog / stumbleupon (1 entry each)

6. Share this giveaway on twitter / facebook / your blog /stumbleupon (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 more of Modern101 creations please visit her shop on Etsy!
Iryna's collection of old fashioned decorative items is great for the home decor or a farm style wedding!

This giveaway will run from November 27 through the December 9th, and the lucky winner will be announced on December 10th, 2011.

Gift box DIY

Hi!

My name is Natalka, and I'm running Etsy shop Skrynka. Today I want to show you how to make a beautiful but durable boxes for your Christmas gifts.

Recently I've made a few Christmas cross stitch ornaments. I needed durable yet beautiful boxes to ship them to my international customers. So I've made square boxes from old carton boxes and wrapping paper and this is how.

First of all, you need to measure your gift.

I needed to make a 5-inch square boxes that were 1 inch tall and the lids for them. The lid has to be a bit larger, so it is a 5 1/8-inch-square box that is also 1 inch tall.

Now we must calculate the size of wrapping paper. The paper will be square in shape. And here is the formula to calculate the side of the square:

1.4* (side of the box + 2*height of the box)

So, the size of my wrapping paper square is 1.4* (5 + 2) = 1.4 * 7 = 9.9 inches.

I rounded up and used a 10" x 10" squares of wrapping paper to wrap my boxes.

Fold the corners inside.

Before placing my bottom box onto the wrapping paper square I attach 2-sided adhesive tape to fix it in place.

Then I put it on and fold all 4 sides of the box.

Than I glue central square.

And fold 2 of corners again.

Then I fold the excess paper inside the box just like on the photo below.

And fold another 2 corners.

The bottom of the box is ready.

Repeat all steps with another wrapping paper square and the lid and our box is ready!

Using my formula you can make the square box any size with your favorite wrapping paper.

Happy holidays!

By Natalka Skrynka.