Saturday, December 19, 2009

The HGTV Gift Exchange And My Easy Chair

I love the HGTV Knitting and Crocheting board’s holiday gift swap. The only rule to this exchange is that we create something with love for our swap buddies. Items are sent out directly to them so there are no extra costs involved and it’s up to you to decide how large your parcel will be.

This year I received the cutest pillow crocheted by Rachel, the host of the exchange. It just finishes off my curb found black imitation leather easy chair. I’ve had it for some years already and I still love it. I can imagine the previous owner had enough of it, but I actually like that worn out look and otherwise it’s completely intact. And it’s really super comfortable!

My receiving buddy was Mary, who actually won my last giveaway contest! So I wasn’t afraid to make her something with reused yarn from a trashed sweater.
I changed it into a warm but light weight crocheted shawl which this girl from north east Michigan will surely appreciate. This is the back.
Front.
And wrapped as a scarf.

Members of the board can see all the gift's pictures here and here. Or sign up now if you got curious or if you are looking for lots of loyal readers for your craft blog!

Monday, November 16, 2009

My Seventies Bathroom

The Seventies are back in many ways. Aren’t we crafters terribly into crocheting granny squares and such? Bell bottoms and block soles have been back and gone again but are not yet totally ridiculous. Or some arty underground fashionable people stick to them deliberately. Yet it’s the design period everybody says to hate. Those horrible colour combo’s, the giant wavy and floral motifs, free-form clothing designs… They’re absolutely not done anymore. I agree.

Yet I’m glad the cold black and whites of the Eighties have past as well. The Nineties brought colour back in, but still with too much modern straightness and chrome to my taste.

I like to mix up all styles and these days it’s absolutely allowed. Carefully dosed elements of styles we wouldn’t want to have full-on can add a fun quirky touch to your home. For me some of the Seventies ideas are absolutely the ones I love to hate. And the curbs provide me with a wide choice of style and design of all ages.

It all started in 2005 when my artist friend wowed at seeing a photograph of my mom in her home with her curtains in the back. They are a wavy motif in dark brown, beige and white and she still has them by the way. Then I knew what I wanted with my new bathroom in my freshly renovated apartment.

I remembered I still had a large piece of a curtain sample from my mom in the same style. Digging it up I found she had even already sewed the tunnel and bottom seam in. I really forgot what she had used it for, or planned to but maybe never did. So all I had to do was hang it up. The ceiling high window needed something long and narrow and this just fitted!

The egg yellow and terra brown are not colours of my first choice, but they make sense. Coming from my living room in natural wood, cream white, pale beige, wine red, soft orange and some black (Eighties leftovers of my own) you turn a corner to my half open kitchen which is in a soft yellow, cream and the same pale beige. Then at the end of this area in neutral colours comes my bathroom. Following the scheme the more pronounced yellows and browns are a welcome contrast with the reds in the living room. And I don’t live there you know, I just go there to do what I have to do.

Leaving the cold white tiles and dull granite floor intact the curbs provided me with just the additional elements to add to the colour and style.

First I found a handcrafted TP and magazine holder. I just love it how this is clearly a hobbyist's or craft class product, it must be totally unique! The brown and yellow match perfectly with the curtain, the orange makes a link with the orange (doors) in my living room.

Same counts for the giant artificial flowers. My curtains in the living are in the same red.

I keep some smaller shower supplies out of the way and organized in this hilarious soup terrine.

Then to finish it off I found a yellow lamp shade. The fixture I still had laying about from another find or second hand buy. The simple iron model is timeless and it may not be so old, but it's just the right colour.

Talking about lamps, to end I want to say something about lighting. A befriended eco-blog suggested followers to write a post about cutting down on lighting at home. The idea was to start using fewer Watts and shutting off lights where you don’t need them, but I think it’s even better to switch to CFL (energy saving) bulbs on top of that. Now I have used those for at least twenty years already. That’s how long they have been around!!!

I never use any of the strong 100W (or the CFL equivalents of those) bulbs anyway. I really hate how they flood the room with sharp light. When I need extra light for e.g. crafting I prefer to use a desk or table lamp locally. Main lamps in living room or kitchen are the CFL equivalents of 60W of the old incandescent bulbs, places where you need even less like hallway or bedroom I have no more than 40W. Actually in my yellow bathroom lamp there’s only the equivalent of a 20W. What more do you need there? For make-up I have a local extra light by the mirror.

Apart from the energy they save I love it that you only have to change CFL’s once every 6-10 years. Isn’t that extremely convenient?

But on top think this: a CFL of ‘60W’ actually uses only 11, ‘40W’equals 8!! Only please remember, once died out you can’t throw them in the bin, they contain mercury so you have to bring them to the recycling depot or a shop or collection point near you.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

My Dress Dummy II And A Free Scarf Pattern


I still had to show you a better picture of my dress dummy.

Now before I give you the secrets of this lovely scarf let me tell you how I fixed the foot of the dummy. Well very simple: with a cast out old floor fan foot and an aluminium rod, probably a curtain rod. Stuck the rod in the foot and placed the dummy over it (she has a hole underneath, rod sticks through the whole body). Done!

The scarf is crocheted in a bow or net stitch consisting of 5 chains per bow, but you can vary that number as long as it's uneven. The stitch is most commonly used for triangular shawls or net bags, so I thought I'd do something different.

For this scarf I used the small batch of mohair yarn I bought at the Queen's Day Market in 2005. I used a hook number 3,5 (mm) or D (US). With ten bows per row I got a width of about 20 cm or 7.85''. But you can make this design in any gauge you like, make a swatch if you want to measure out the width exactly. The beads are plastic with large holes. A present from a friend who emptied her attic when she moved abroad.

ch: chain stitch
sc: single crochet

Ch 40 (or any number devidable by 4) + 5. Make a sc in ch 37 (so skipping 3 from the beginning point). * Ch 5, sc in the next 4th st. Repeat from * till end of row. * Turn the work, ch 5, sc under the middle ch of the previous bow. Repeat from *. Make as long as you like. Crochet one row with 3 ch (only first bow is still 5) instead of 5 to make a straight edge. Cast off and work in loose ends.

Fringes: thread 10 (or equal to the number of bows in each row) beads on your yarn. Start to work from the sc of the last row, * ch 10, pull up one bead, ch 1 around it, ch 10, sc in the next sc. Repeat from *. End in (not under, to keep it better in place) middle ch of the 5 ch bow). Repeat on other side. Note that you're working from the upside down here and your ending is in ch number 40 of your starting chain.

The non-crafty among you can purchase the scarf in my Etsy shop.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Trash For Stray Kitties

From all the books I find on the curbs there's a number I can't list in my on line shop because they don't have an ISBN or EAN number, either because they're too old or published by Time Life or Reader's Digest or such who for some reason don't have to publish under these official rules.

Which doesn't mean nobody is interested so I kept those apart for a long time, till a while ago I found an ad from a lady on a local website asking for books to sell on markets to raise funds for a foundation that neuters and feeds stray cats. We have several stray cats in the back who've been helped that way and are being fed by people at their own costs. I love cats and think it's very important to prevent more kittens from being born in the wild. It's really hard to socialize them and find homes for them. Remember Miene?

I contacted the lady and she was happy to come pick up the whole lot. I also love helping out such small foudations because I know they don't have any payed employees and every bit of my donation (even if it's not in cash) will go for 100 % to the good cause. I know larger worldwide organizations do good work and are necessary (WWF, IFAW and such), but think a part of your donation will always go to wages (and other costs).

When the lady came to my house she brought me some curb finds of her own, how cool! A vinegar and oil set in a rack and some magazines. Then seeing my work she told me she's a jewelry maker herself and later brought me beads and broken and deconstructed jewelry she had no use for. Most welcome!



Here are some necklaces I made using wax cords I got from my new trash picking friend. See my shop here if you're interested.

She may not sell all the books I gave her, maybe even just a small part. But if it's enough to neuter just one cat or buy some food I'm happy. What local group or micro-foundation do you have near you that you could help out in such a simple way?

Friday, October 09, 2009

My Antique Matrix Printer

(Find a tutorial for simple and cost free packing bags for small items at the bottom of this post)

Meet my antique printer. It’s a Star AX-20. Yes, it’s a dot matrix printer from the last century! It’s designed for chain paper but has an option for single sheets that have to be fed one by one. So that’s clumsy, slow and it only prints text and simple drawings in one colour. But before you start laughing out really loud let me explain why I love and keep my machine from the stone age.

When I found it in the trash about eight years ago bubble or inkjets were still fairly expensive and I couldn’t afford one. So I was more than happy to be able to at least print my own letters, invoices and so on at home. Or recipes or other instructions from the internet. If the web page look makes it difficult for my machine I just copy the text in a text document first.

It’s reliable. It’s strong and sturdy and just always works. Believe me I see countless broken inkjets in the trash every week. And I don’t have to clean up print canals after not having used it in a while.

But most important: It’s very low cost in use and eco-friendly. I doesn’t need expensive and polluting ink cartridges. The first time when the print started to fade too much I searched all over the internet to buy a new ribbon cassette but with no luck. And then found a simple solution. With a bit of stamping ink that I still had I just re-inked the whole ribbon by carefully dripping the ink on while turning it through by hand.

Last week at the office when we were clearing out a file cabinet I found some blue stamp-pad ink and took it home. No honest, nobody in my department still uses stamps, it would have disappeared in the waste bin.

Now my printer prints in blue.

My printer has a relatively fine print as compared to what most people know as a dot matrix print like this example I found on Wikipedia.

With a freshly inked ribbon in fact the result of my printer is almost as good (left) as that from a modern inkjet (right).

So yes, today I have a better printer as well. A few years ago I snatched a special offer for less than 75 dollars. But as it was a model that was going out of production I already found out by now I can’t get the cartridges in discount shops anymore. Hopefully I can still find them online. But as I’m carefully saving this printer only for photo’s, my business cards and such I’m afraid some day I will have to throw out a perfectly working machine just because I can’t get the ink anymore. Doesn’t that suck? That’s how even if you take care of your stuff progressing technology feeds having to buy new things.

Last month I got my third pc in ten years at home. I never had Windows 2000 and went straight from 98 to XP. I was a bit scared my printer wouldn’t be in the list of pre-installed software anymore, but it still was! I can tell you I was thrilled!

So I’m glad my stone age printer will serve me for quite a few years to come. I also use it to print the packing slips for my second hand book orders. Books that I take from the trash and sometimes go with a profit of less than a dollar so I don’t want to spend any extra money. For the paper I use the blank back side of non-confidential print work from the office or letter sized advertising that I find in my mailbox.

My cost free printer and paper are also very useful for this:

I’ve been selling at quite a few craft fairs lately and I started to run out of my paper lunch bags to pack up my items. So I had to think of something new to create a cost free and eco-friendly packing especially for small items like my flower brooches or bracelets.

To keep in line with the character of my art, fiber work, I decided to not just fold and glue the paper, but sew the sides together. This also is done much quicker as it needs no extra folding and careful cutting!

But that looked a bit to ‘blank’ and I would still have to staple my flyer to the bag. Though I still have enough of those I thought simply printing the information on the bag would be a lot more efficient. I cut the corners of the bag to open it more easily to put the goods in.

Of course if you are inspired by this to make your own packing bags you can still use a laser or inkjet printer as well. But Googling around I found in this day and age of laser and inkjet, matrix printers are still being produced and sold. Unfortunately at a much higher price than the inkjets you can find in consumer’s shops. But think about it, it may be an advantage to have one next to your colour printer. They are more durable and cheaper in use so if most of your print work is black on white text the initial cost may be worth it. On top think of the profit for the environment. And of course you can try to find a second hand, but some of the modern matrix machines may be faster and have better options for single sheet feeding.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Zipper Tutorial

Making small purses and pouches from T-shirt yarn I encountered two problems:
1. How to machine sew a zipper in at all.
2. How to make stoppers on re-used zippers from bags or re-used zippers cut to size.

1. Problem with my t-yarn work is I could only do it by hand. The items are too small and rigid to work under the machine.

Not being happy with the results, especially when using a contrasting colour I came up with the following solution.

In fact it was simple. When the flat pouch or purse (crocheted in the round) is finished I add two separate rows of single crochet on each side. I now have two open sides and I can bend the opposite flap away and easily machine sew the zipper in.

2. Zippers from manufactured bags often don’t have stoppers at all because of the way they’re sewed in. Then again if they do or when I use zippers from reclaimed clothing I often have to cut them to fit my project so I either loose the front or back lock. In my old model I tried to tuck them away in my work the same way as in the manufactured bags using the end of the purse to lock the zipper puller.

But it’s a clumsy process, causing lumpy folds and it just doesn’t look professional. But with my added rows, before fitting the zipper in I can sew on a stopper from a piece of strong fabric, like from an old jeans.

I cut the zipper at about 1’’ longer than the project on each side or on one side if I have one stopper already. Cut one or two rectangular pieces from the fabric slightly wider than the zipper that folded make about a square. Seam all around then fold around the zipper end and sew the sides together all around. Sew a cross from corner to corner for extra strength.

And voilĂ , the zipper end(s) hang(s) outside the purse like you see sometimes in manufactured pieces.

On top you can ‘play’ with the stoppers, using matching fabric, fancy fabric, embroider them, print your logo on or whatever!

You can purchase the green purse showed here.

Monday, August 31, 2009

The Turtle And The Bathtub


A few weeks ago when I came home from grocery errands I found this old plastic hip bath which we dragged home earlier this year parked on our garden path where before I left it was still in a corner of the yard. One of those silly curb finds but the plan was to wash my large duvet in it (too large for my machine) and then get rid of it again, but I'm not sure if this will still happen this summer.

A look inside made clear immediately what had happened. The BF had found a turtle in the park, decided it didn't belong there (turtles don't naturally live in the wild in Holland) and brought it home. The tub turned out to be a perfect place to keep it in with a bit of water in the lower part and leaves and branches on the higher side.

With the BF back in the park I started Googling but couldn't find out which kind of turtle I had here. An email to the official turtle rescue centre only gave me an automated answer ('these animals don't belong here, please call your local animal rescue centre') so I decided there was nothing left to do but call the pet paramedics. Where quite disapointingly the telephone operator told me next time to leave the animal where I found it! Oh? She sent out the team anyway because now that I had him I wasn't allowed to bring turtie back to the park.

Well, Googling more I found out this: the most commonly kept pet turtle in Holland is the Red-eared Slider (see picture below). Therefore often dumped it turns out they do manage to get by in the wild and in parks, but our winters are generally too cold for them too procreate (maybe better so). However once every so many years when we have a really harsh winter they all die for sure.

Then again I don't believe what we found was a Red-eared Slider. With that pitch black head and the dotted yellow line he doesn't fit the picture. Best thing was just to wait for the rescue team. Unfortunately when they finally came they also classified him as a Red-eared Slider. I'm still not convinced. The good thing though is they were a lot more happy about our rescue than their co-worker in the office and found his temporary home in the tub quite an ingenious idea.

Now I can only hope they brought him to the right place where he was properly recognized and gets the right treatment. But if anyone recognizes our turtie I'd be happy to hear from you. Sorry the pic was a quick snapshot and not very clear, please click on in to enlarge.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Zippers

All zippers I use in my craft projects come from thrown out clothing and bags. I must have said that before. This doesn't mean they have to look old or used.

Here's another bag I just recently found. The handles were broken off in two places before the woven material of the bag even had the chance to become a little bit smudgy.

Love those pullers. On the back side of them 'CHANEL' is imprinted in full. The inside pocket has a finer zipper in beige with a smaller puller in the same style. They will all end up in crocheted bags or pouches.

First I wondered why such a great brand would produce such a poor quality bag (even though it's all manmade material), but at closer look the cuts look too sharp to have come about from wear and tear. I think one mommy's little boy or girl has been playing with a pair of scissors. Hope she came over the shock.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Yarn Leftovers - Free Coaster/Flower Crochet Pattern


Don't throw away your yarn scraps as the previous owner of this lot did! Though maybe the (presumably a) lady gave up her (knitting) hobby altogether as she threw out her cable needle as well, I think it's more likely she just forgot that was still in the plastic bag too that I picked up from the curb about two months ago.

Search the internet and you will find lots of free patterns for flowers, coasters, appliques and such. Tiny projects to use up your leftovers or otherwise keep them for little accents in larger projects.
In the first picture I can't even show all the yarn I found because I've used up some of it already. I made this set of reusable face scrubbies from one of the larger balls of cotton yarn that came with it. This set is currently for sale in my Etsy shop. You can make your own and save money on cotton pads by crocheting flat rounds of dc with a trim in any fantasy stitch you like.

If you don't want to look further here's a crochet pattern for a flat flower shaped round that I like a lot and takes only a few grams of yarn each. The design is not my own, but I translated it in English from a crochet book I had as a child and is at least forty years old. These two are part of a set with a larger variation for sale in my Etsy shop.

You can use them as coasters in a thicker cotton yarn, but thin cotton thread will make great appliques. Or, done in seasonal colours or sparkly shiny material even hang them in your Christmas tree! Weave a ribbon through if you like (imagine that here) and starch if necessary.

My abbreviations (in universal terminology; BE readers pls look up conversion charts USA>>BE):

ch - chain stitch (Dutch: losse)
ss - slip stitch (Dutch: halve vaste)
sc - single crochet (Dutch: vaste)
dc - double crochet (Dutch: stokje)

Start: 6 ch, close as a ring with a ss.

Row 1: 2 ch, 23 dc under the starting ch, close with a ss in the 2nd ch of the beginning of this row.

Tip: Find it difficult to fit 23 dc in? Make about 6 at a time then pull them back tightly between thumb an index finger, make the next 6 and repeat.

Row 2: 4 ch, 1 dc in the closing ss of the previous row; 1 ch. *skip 2 st; in the next st: 1 dc, 2 ch, 1 dc; 1 ch*. Repeat 7x from *to*. Close row with a ss in 2nd ch (of 4) of the start.

Row 3: 2 ch; 1 dc, 2 ch, 2 dc under the 2 ch of the previous row; 1 sc under the 1 ch. *2 dc, 2 ch, 2 dc as before; 1 sc as before*. Repeat 7x from *to*. Close row with a ss in 2nd ch (of 2) of the start.

Row 4: No build up with ch as before; directly 3 dc, 1 ch, 3 dc under the 2 ch of the previous row; 1 sc to the left and right of the sc of the previous row. Repeat 8x and close with a ss in the first st of the row. Bind off or crochet a loop if you want to hang it up, then bind off.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Simple Pull Up Curtain


This is my front window. As it faces the street directly (we have no front yard) I want it covered completely with a non see through material that still lets in enough light. But I also had a construction problem. The bow shape, the central heating pipes and a plasterboard placed in front of the stone wall (which they probably did for isolation and to be able to construct a windowsill, not present before the renovation), make it very difficult to hang up any kind of normal curtain rail or rod. Sorry it's not a great picture and now that it finally hangs maybe I will get inspired to paint that wall and window pane too.

The solution is a simple white thin cotton pull up curtain. I just screwed two small hooks in the ceiling borders to hang it up on. Not even electricity required; a hand drill was enough to make the two tiny holes in the thin planks.



The solution was offered by IKEA. Well, sort off. The nearest shop for me would be a long bus and metro ride away and take me at least an hour. Luckily my neighbours like to shop there and just buy and buy and then just cast out what in the end they didn't need or didn't fit after all... Yes this curtain just came brand new from the curb to me and had never even been out of its packaging. I only had to make it a bit longer which shows in the slightly darker colour at the bottom for which I used another but used curb found piece of curtain.

It's not the first time. I have IKEA slat blinds on my hallway door that had never been unpacked and (this is a very old post) that picture frame with plastic 'glass'. Just recently put a curb found Dali repro in it. Looks cool!

So what is it with IKEA? Are they really that cheap that people just take home things to try out and don't care to bring back? For me they have changed from a cool company that offers affordable modern design in honest products to a monster multinational that exploits people in poor countries and sells mass products that people don't care to keep if they don't need them for a certain moment. I'd think the crisis would change that, but I don't see much effect on the curbs yet. Don't even want to start about the pile of IKEA duvets, pillows and covers for those and towels I found.

Eh, what I really want to say is, thank you IKEA for being so cheap so I can get the stuff for nothing at all, but really, when are we going to stop wasting? Me alone I can only rescue so much, you know.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

The Swine

This has nothing to do with trash but I had to think of the incident when I was talking about my 'funny' neighbours a while ago in The Hand And The Doll.

It was last summer when I came home from work and found a little black swine happily routing in the hedges along the path behind my house.

By the time I came back with my camera the girl had come to try to bring the escaped animal home. She is not the owner but another neighbour who thought she knew where the hog belonged. It looks like she managed to get it moving!

To this day I haven't found out who the owner is and where exactly they live. Or still do live here for that matter.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

The Handbag


I found a handbag made by 'Kenneth Cole New York'. I wondered who would have ever fancied this baby blue fake croc design. All I saw were the pretty steel rings that attached the handles and so before I even Googled the brand I had started cutting them off. Well it turns out these bags go for up to around 400 dollars! Take a look here: http://www.kennethcole.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=3075304

Not that I care. The bag was really used and this is what the rings end up in.
If you want to see the listing in my shop look here.
And perhaps you remember that garden table I photographed the bag on! Look here.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Hand And The Doll

To stay a little bit with last post's theme I want to show some more display stuff my neighbours threw out.
Here's the hand again that came with the shop window doll's legs.

Here it is in the layer of black paint I gave it. If you look carefully you can also see it on my market table (second picture). It really works to draw attention to my crocheted bracelets and helps folks to immediately understand what the bands buttoned around the cardboard cylinders are for.

Now I'm still dreaming of a complete adult lady model, but I'm quite happy with this little girl. Actually I was pretty amazed when we found her and only a block away! Some neighbours I have.

It's a pity her hands are missing but I can live with that. She looks a bit funny in her oversized shirt, but I hope to use her soon to show my first crocheted little girl's clothing.

In the meantime she's perfect to show my tiny beanies. The truth is some just turned out too small for an adult by accident, but at the markets I found out that children often look at them so now I started a complete series in kid's sizes on purpose.

Monday, June 15, 2009

At The Market Again


For Change I took a picture from behind my market booth on April 5 of this year. If you want to see the complete photo impression of the Sunday Spring Market at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam click here.

This venue is at five minutes walking from my home and my only possibility to bring out all my stuff without having to worry how to get it there. Basically it all goes on a trashed Maxi-cosy style baby push cart (cradle removed) that holds two large house moving boxes and much more. If necessary I walk twice. And those boxes themselves? You didn't think I bought them, did you? One's on the left under the table holding extra paper and bags for packaging and one's on the right, nicely covered as a high rise for my tea cozies.

Covering my table is my usual curtain. Here you can clearly see this booth is a big size professional one but the sheet is still large enough. Covering the box and display board is that purple silk sheet I talked about in my earlier post mentioned above. So yes, I found it again but last year Octobre found out the hard way it's not suitable as a table cover. Too light, it blew away in the wind! The board itself is the larger version of the one I showed in my first post about craft fairs and how to cut costs taking part.

It was a lovely sunny day but April can be still chilly so in the foreground you see my winter coat - once trashed because of a broken zipper, but it closes with push buttons over that, so who cares? And it's hanging over my handy fold-up stool that I took from a renovation dumpster.

Making a high rise on your table with boxes or boards is not only good for display, it serves to hide your personal stuff from the visitors as well. On the right you see my blue thermos that was brand new when it was trashed. At home we use one of my own tea cozies of course, so in fact I believe this rescue had its inauguration this day. Next the lunch bags I use for wrapping. Then my hand/back bag. Very practical, trashed and never used probably because the ugly company logo printed on it. I covered that with a piece of crochet from my own hand.

If you take a closer look (click on image for a larger view) you can even see the old-fashioned green school notebook I use to keep my 'sales administration'. Found in a box of children's books and when this one is full I have a pile more. You can see there's a pile of shoe boxes behind the board as well. Shoe boxes are great to store small items and perfect to protect my handmades from dust and smells in the house and when I don't have to travel lightly I just bring the stuff in them. Problem is though I never buy (new) shoes, so can you guess where I got them from? And if the neighbours are really nice they leave that silky protection paper inside too. It makes the best protective wrapping for delicate work when shipped to online customers!
Here's a picture from my second market this year, June 6 at the Craftymarkt in het park. Also in Amsterdam, but a little too far to walk.

Though I could have loaded up my bicycle, the very next day I had to go to Eindhoven (by train) and I didn't want to repack from boxes to my suitcase, so I came here by city bus with my Samsonite (the bulky black suitcase gave up last year unfortunately) and a large bag on a fold up trolly. Last one being a super handy curb find I often take on trash tours as well. Light weight and fits in the bag before using it! When filled up one of those large reusable supermarket bags fits perfectly on it. Those sell for about 5$ here, but the fun (or sad thing really) is that a lot of people only 'reuse' them to put trash in, so I have a whole pile of them at home and never paid a cent. For my train travel it just held my lunch, some drink cans and extra warm clothing so I traveled pretty conveniently.

This was a very windy day and what's new here is that I hung up my wind proof flower brooch display (made from a trashed fold-up curtain) vertically instead of horizontally and push pinned it at the bottom to the table planks to prevent it from flapping. And with no boxes or boards available in the same time it served to hide my personal things.

This venue is actually at the bottom of the office where I work so of course I had to rally there for visitors and to finish this post I want to thank my co-worker Natasja who 'just' came to visit but ended helping out selling for almost half of the day.
That's her behind the booth and here's the item she chose as a reward. That means it's sold out for the moment, but still available in pink in my Etsy shop.

I have no pictures from Eindhoven yet as my camera failed that day and I'm still waiting for the shots my booth-sharer made. Next up is the Summer edition of the Sunday Market at the Westergas fabriek on 21 June, where I will be sharing with the organizer of the Eindhoven market herself. Sharing a booth is another great way to cut costs if you want to bring out your work to a real live audience! Coming up some day soon!