Luloveshandmade

My Booth at the Trend Mafia Market 2011

December 18, 2011

Hello eveybody, happy 4th Advent! :) On the first weekend of December I sold my handmade things at the Trend Mafia in Berlin, a market for everything handmade. :)
I was having my own booth and I have been waiting to finally share some photos with you for so long! :)
I already went there last year after I had just started selling on DaWanda, but I wasn’t really successful. This time, it was completely different! :) I was well prepared and my range of products has become pretty wide. I offer lots of items for daily use and my products have become better and better (such as my sewing skills have improved :)).
I’m so thankful for having the best friends in the world, because otherwise, this day would have been more stressful for me! Flo drove me to Berlin and helped me to carry all my items and my friends Hanna, Anja and Sarah came to visit me and to keep company with me. <3 Anja and her boyfriend brought me the cutest Dalmation balloon (which attracted lots of children :D) and Hanna has been staying with me nearly all day. <3
I was soooo nervous when I started decorating my booth and I wanted it to look perfect and to reflect my style, so I thought a lot about how to organize everything. I made all price tags by hand and I wanted my decor to be appealing. :) When the first customers came, I was full of adrenalin. :D
I got LOTS of compliments concerning my products, people got sparkling eyes when looking at my products and I was completely overwhelmed. :)
Each person who bought something got a little paper bag with handprinted Christmas ornaments, my business card and a little chocolate Santa. Lots of people took my business cards and I sold a total of 11 differend items for a total of 75€. I was so proud, because this time, I earned the money I had to spend for the booth’s rent, for the gas for coming to Berlin and I even made some profit. What is more, the following days after the market, my statistics on DaWanda nearly exploded and I sold a lot more online. :)
It was such a great experience and I had soooo much fun seeing the people’s reactions when looking at my booth and at my items. It’s such a great feeling that people like what I do and admire what I have created myself with a lot of effort and love. <3 I’m really proud of myself and this Sunday has been one of the best days this year. :)
So here are lots of photos so that you can see how everything looked like! :)

Hanna and I have been taking photos all afternoon and she perfectly portrayed me and my booth. <3

I’ve already sold this cute owl pillow. I wrote all tags in German and English so that everybody was able to understand them.

This day was simply awesome! :) Here you can see Flo and me chatting. He’s the best, he totally supports me and helps me to achieve my goals whenever I need him. <3

Although I’ve been selling lots of mugs on DaWanda, at the Trend Mafia they have only been admired, but not a single person bought any of them.

I had bought this pretty, white etagere to display my brooches. I love white plastic items (it’s even made from recycled plastic :)) and I can also use it to decorate cupcakes. Moreover, I used some enamel bowls to display other items.

Flo and Hanna have been keeping company with me. :)

I like this photo so much!

Do you see the Dalmatian? :) The ‘lu loves handmade’ banner is made of paperboard, I made it last minute two days before the market while Anja and I were watching O.C. California on DVD, because I didn’t have any banner.

I love those mugs! :) I know, I haven’t invented this trend, but they are so much fun. :)

Here’s again the wall behind my booth. I was happy that I could hang up my bags to display them so that everybody could see them. :)

Wow, lots of photos, but I hope that you were able to get a good impression of what this day has been like. :) I definitely wanna do this again next year, although it includes a lot of work and time for preparations. :)

Has any of you been selling at such a market? :)

Wish you a lovely Sunday and enjoy the last week before Christmas! As you can see, today’s the first day in December I’m not sharing a Christmas post, but my Blog Party is nearly over. I wanna share one or two remaining posts the following week and then I’m gonna post a summary of all Christmassy DIY posts so that my new readers (Hello, welcome here!!! ;)) will get an overview. :)

Thank you for reading,
Lu <3

Everything Else

Embroidery Wall Hanging

December 17, 2011

Hello, everyone!
My name is Allie, and I run a little blog called Of All The Nonsense. I’m quite honored and
excited to be a part of Lu’s Christmas Blog Party. Today I’m going
to show you how to make a quick and adorable holiday wall hanging!

For this project you will need:

–
An embroidery hoop. [I chose an oval-shaped hoop, but you could
choose any one you like.]

–
Fabric for the background.

–
Three triangles cut from mismatched fabrics. [Mine were between 1.5
and 2 inches in height.]

–
A sheet of sticky-backed felt.

–
Embroidery floss in the colors of your choice.

–
Scissors.

–
An embroidery needle.

1. Before
you place your fabric in your hoop, trace around the inside of your hoop
on the back of your sticky-backed felt. I forgot to do
that beforehand and had to take my fabric out!

Once
you’ve finished with the felt, place your background fabric in
your embroidery hoop, and line up your triangles wherever you would like
them. I used a couple of pins in each to help hold them in place.

2. Using
embroidery floss in the color of your choice for each triangle, stitch
around each one. I used a simple running stitch.

3. Once
you’ve stitched all around of your triangles, stitch a small trunk to the
bottom of each one. I chose not to fill my in, but you could fill
yours in if you like, using a satin stitch or something similar.

4. After
I finished with the tree trunks, I thought it would look cute to stitch a
small star to the top of the middle tree. To do this, I
basically just made small single stitches in the shape of an asterisk.
You could even stitch a star to the top of each tree, if you like!

5. Now
it’s time to finish off your wall hanging. I finished it by trimming my
fabric closely to the back of my hoop. I know that there are better
methods of finishing off embroidery hoop pieces, but this has generally worked
well for me in the past. [If you know of any other methods, please feel
free to share!] Do make sure you pull your fabric tight before
trimming! After you’ve trimmed your fabric, remove the wax
backing off of your felt, and lay it sticky-side down in the back of your hoop,
covering your stitches.

6. And
there you have it – a super easy and adorable wall-hanging, that you could even
leave up all winter! I love this project because there are so many
different designs you could do. If you make one of your own, I hope
you’ll share photos!

Thank you so much for having me, Lu!
It’s been such a joy!

Happy holidays!

xo, Allie

***

Oh, it’s so pretty! :) I’m so thankful for all the lovely ideas all of you have been sending me. :)

Thank you so much for participating, Allie! :)

Lu <3

Merken

Everything Else

Recipe: Gingerbread House

December 16, 2011

Today’s guest blogger is one of my beloved girlfriends, Anja, who writes a blog called aentschie and who sews the cutest toast iphone cases in the world. <3

***

I have been making two
gingerbread houses and my loved ones Lu and Sylvio got something to nibble. :)
Such a delicious house can
be made easily:

You need:

– Gingerbread
dough for the house

–
Lots
of sweets for decoration

– Icing
sugar

You have to use your
favourite gingerbread or cookie dough and then you have to cut out the parts of
the house (front, back, two pieces for the sides and two pieces for the roof).

Bake the dough according to
the recipe, let it cool down and buy lots of sweets and icing sugar.

Sticking together the
pieces of the house is a bit tricky. It works best with melted sugar (caramel).
Be really careful, because it’s extremely hot and you can get a burn blister.
:(

When everything sticks together and you’ve tested the house’s sturdiness, you can get started with
decorating your house (and because then you later don’t see how leaning it is
;)). Use icing sugar and liquid (just like you want it, you can either use
water, or juice; I prefer lemon juice (white) or cherry juice (red)) to mix the
icing. The icing has to be really thick so that it sticks well and does not
drip. An injection bag works best for applying the icing to the house (you can
also use a freezer bag with a little hole in one corner!). Finally, decorate
the house with sweets to your heart’s content! :)

The houses look so
delicious!
I don’t like recipes and
indications of quantities that much, but in case you have any question
concerning any detail, feel free to ask me. :)
So just try it out, such a
house is an awesome present idea!
I wish you a lovely
pre-Christmas period!
*aentschie

***

Doesn’t that looks cute?
Thank you for sharing, sweetheart! <3
Lu

Everything Else

Felt Gingerbread Man

December 15, 2011

Hello! This is Ashley from under those neon lights, the best blog to ever exist in the entire history of the
world… the world ;)

I hate Xmas and refer to it as Xmas because
I hate it so much!

BUT I do LOVE to make and decorate things,
so of course I love to wrap presents!

Here is a little idea to make a present a
little extra special and handmade!

You will need:

Scissors

Embroidery Thread

A needle

Buttons

Felt

Ribbon

And a teeny little puff of polyfil

First:

You need to cut out a gingerbread man shape.

You can trace a cookie cutter or make your
own shape. You can even make a gingerbread kitty or a gingerbread house
or a gingerbread owl or a gingerbread… you get the idea.

Make sure you have two identical pieces of
felt.

Second:

Decorate!

Give him eyes, some frosting, shoes,
buttons, maybe a beard or mustache…. but NO SMILES!!! Because of course
we hate xmas! ;)

Third:

Sew him up!

Make sure you leave room to attach a little
ribbon and to fill him with a little bit of polyfil. You want him to look
well fed, not fat, so don’t overdo it!

And lastly,

attach him to a present with a ribbon, bow,
or yarn!

The best part about this little guy is that the
recipient can use him to decorate their tree next year!

***

Yay, so cute, thank you for sharing this, Ashley! :) Lu

Merken

Everything Else

Handmade Doggie Bow Tie

December 14, 2011

Hey, are you in mood for the holidays? :) I thought Mogli might look pretty with a little bow tie for Christmas (isn’t he the cutest? :)) and this is why I sewed him this one. It is made from red cord and I used a velcro to close the collar. The fabric is really soft and thus, the collar is extremely comfortable and doesn’t bother him.
I think it’s soooo pretty and that is why I also listed it on DaWanda. Yay, I immediately sold one after listing the item! :)
What do you think? :)
Wish you a nice day and come back tomorrow for the next guest post for my Christmas blog party! :)
Lu <3

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