oskah. shop update

3 NEW PRODUCTS IN STORE

Tea Towel

I recently designed this tea towel and had them printed up. They are for sale in my shop! And not just a tea towel; stick one in a frame and hang it in your home.

Zig Zag Wall

I have been loving zig zags on interior walls and features recently. So much so, that I did it to one of walls in our hallway at Bethanie (above).
Here is some zig zag inspiration:

Special Edition Oskimo

I originally made one of these Oskimo couples last year as an engagement present for two of my friends. Just recently another two of my friends got engaged and I thought this gift would be perfect for them too. As I was making it I remembered I had a wedding anniversary coming up and so I made one as a gift for my husband which included a little blonde beard for him. I am considering doing an Oskimo family in the future.

Christmas Craft

Oskah may have seemed quite quiet recently...thats because I've been very busy crafting Christmas Presents for friends and family and I couldnt possibly have ruined their surprises! But now it is Christmas, the crafty cat is out the bag!

Me and my husband, Matt, have been doing pyrography onto chopping boards and wooden spoons, typography onto mugs (thanks design mom for that one!), making our own chai tea bags and spiced hot choc, painting perpetual calendars, knitting hats, sewing cushion covers, cutting hearts out of maps, putting brownie mix into jars and burning mix CDs...and now, we can relax!
Happy Christmas to you all!

Frame the Place you Love

I saw this done somewhere before but using a map of the whole of europe. I decided to do it for our friends Tim and Jane but using a map of their local area (of which they are very passionate about). They loved it...I have plans to do more for other friends!

Rabbit Cushion

A rabbit cushion for my friend Anna!

Perpetual Calendar

I have come across a few versions of this before and decided it ought to be simple enough to make. We got some wood, cut it into 3 cubes. One cube is used for the months of the year and the other two for the dates of the month (hint: the six doubles up as the nine!). We painted the blocks white and then using a black POSCA pen, we added the typography. A great 'look at my cool office' sort of gift.

Pyrography Wooden Spoons

Since discovering a pyrography pen, we have literally been pyro-ing all wood in sight! Having done chopping boards, my husband, Matt, moved onto wooden spoons to go with my Aunty B's Brownie-in-a-jar! We did these for some little people that we know...they will need some adult assisstance but I think it will be fun for everyone involved. We attached the customised wooden spoon, along with an illustrated version of the recipe, to a clip jar full of the dry ingredients for the recipe.

Chai tea and Spiced hot choc

For some of our Christmas gifts this year we made our own chai tea bags and spiced hot chocolate mix. For the tea bags we used strips of organza, a sewing machine, de-caf black tea leaves, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and chilli. It tastes delicious and is such a refreshing winter beverage. I did two spiced chocolate recipes; white chocolate and ginger and dark chocolate and mixed spice. You melt the mixes into hot milk for a hot chocolate drink that is simply divine. We packaged some of these teas/hot chocs along with monogram mugs to complete a very home made, affordable, fun-to-do, great to recieve (hopefully), christmas gift.

Knitted Hats

I have been churning out baby/toddler hats on my size 4s, mostly in the style of these two below. Other colours include green and white stripe with either red or pink ribbing and pom pom. I also did one that had orange ribbing, a yellow pom pom and a block of purple inbetween (inspired by the bold colours of Annie Larson).

Monogram Mugs

I came across a great idea for customising mugs from design mom; monogram mugs.
I used a slightly different porcelain pen and I just scribbled all over the back of my print out in pencil instead of using graphite paper. I didnt do the bake in an oven bit either. I used the same principle for a plate for my niece too.

Customised Chopping boards

Having discovered a pyrography pen in our office, I couldnt resist having a go. As I was wandering around a very large, blue and yellow Swedish home store recently, I noticed some very cheap plain wooden chopping boards for sale...perfect for my experimentations! Here are the results:

Shoe Rack

Recently I have become a member of Pinterest which is essentially online scrapbooking...brilliant! Anyway, I was facing a shoe storage problem here at Bethanie so I typed in 'shoe rack' on Pinterest and found a great idea using a pallet. As pallets are a personal passion of mine, it just had to be done.
I attached some shelving brackets to prevent it from falling forward.

Measuring Stick!

It was always a tradition growing up in my family that when a child has a birthday their height would be recorded. As my family have moved around quite a bit, we have always used a wooden stick to record these measurements upon, so as we have moved, the stick has moved with us. Obviously, as we all grew up and left home, this tradition faded. However, my family has now grown considerably with the addition of many grandchildren and my mum and dad have re-instated this family tradition for them. As my parents are very settled where they live and its unlikely that they will move, the stick has now turned to a thin section of wall in their kitchen.
When I was over recently, I decided to re-vamp the measuring 'stick' to make it more of a feature.

Diamond Wedding Celebration

I recently got back from a trip to the UK where I was able to gather with lots of family members to celebrate my Grandparent's Diamond Wedding Anniversary (60 years)!
To contribute to the occassion I made some personalised bunting and a commemorative plate. The logo I designed consists of a diamond ring with the letters g+g in the centre (G&G is what all the grandchildren call my grandparents). Below the ring are two leaves from an oak tree and 1951 is when they got married. Around the edge of the plate are 23 acorns which represent their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Ashers Ice Cream Factory

I currently have some of my family visiting me in France, including my gorgeous nephew, Asher, who turned 2 yesterday.
We decided to throw an Ice Cream party to celebrate the occasion and spent the last week making and preparing decorations, ice cream, aprons, hats, games and a cake of course.
The weather, unfortunately, didnt hold out and so we ended up having to move the party indoors...but we still had lots of fun!

Ice cream flavours: Confiture de Lait (home made), Rhubarbe et Gingembre (home made), Chocolat, Pistache and Café.
The birthday cake; Chocolat Orange Beetroot cake...mmmmm! (here's the recipe)
The factory workers, ready to go!
The birthday boy!

More photos here!

for baby

Recently 2 of our best friends had their second child, Eponine. We love her name so much that we decided we should make her this to go up on her bedroom wall. We cut it out of MDF and painted it white. It measures roughly 100x30 cm.

Family Portrait

A while ago I blogged about my embroidered portraits of myself and my husband. I mentioned in the post that my plan was to frame the portriats in embroidery hoops and to also do one of our daughter, Pixie...well, here they are!

Evian Bottle Lights

I was given these trendy little evian water bottles (designed by Paul Smith) about 18 months ago and straight away I knew I wanted to hang them in a cluster over lights in our hallway. Finally, I have done it! The reason for the delay was because in order to hang them, I needed to cut the bottoms off and the only tool I had for this task (Ephrem's Bottle Cutter) didn't seem to be cutting them so well. So there began the epic search for a tool/facility that would achieve the desired slick cut. The only tools my research led me too were far too expensive, I also went to several glass cutting studios, tile cutters and heavy duty machinary-hire places...all to no avail. I even tried the old tie-string-round-the-bottle-and-set-fire-to-it method which some people assured me would work, but it didnt. Eventually I decided to give my Ephrem's Bottle Cutter one last go. I managed to get 3 good, but not quite perfect, cuts, which I am very happy with.