5 new (to me) amazing zines to read

More than three years have gone from my last post about zines! 

Can you believe it?

I was addicted to zines reading in the past and, though I still love this kind of self-expression form, I haven't bought (and reviewed) one in years.

I was surfing Etsy some days ago and I had the idea to look for some zines that appeal to me (you know, I need something to read this summer, expecially because I've recently discovered that I love to read near the sea).

I found a lot of new (to me) zines I like. 

Five of them are amazing, in my opinion, for their topic, or the style, or the quality of the illustrations.

I haven't bought them yet, because I'm still doing some researches, but I decided to tell you something about them, just to spread the zine love :)

These zines are about some of my favourite topics:

• plants
• cats
• being a woman
• being an introvert

Want to know something more? I'm introducing them to you!

1. Winter wild, a zine about plants life in winter, by Kriski

I love the topic, but most of all, the style of drawing and lettering. So tidy and organized, but funny and modern.

The colours too are lovely, among my favourites!

And it's a big zine: 20 pages to look and read!

Kristyna Baczynsky, the author, says in the description: this book is a blend of writing, research, drawings and comics about ten different plant specimens; all drawn in detail for identification. An illustrated selection of historical, scientific and mythological facts.

It sounds good!

2. Self love zine, by LollieWorley

First of all, you can download it in .pdf, if you like!

Very good! Expecially for people who don't like to waste paper and like eco-friendly solutions like these.

The topic is amazing: self-love, a thing a lot of people need to work on.

Inside it has a cut&paste style I really like: it gives to the zine a handmade look, very well arranged here.

3. Illustrated women in history, by Apalelandscape

The one with the most professional look in this selection.

It looks so well organized and rich in text! It's more similar to a printed book than to a zine, but I appreciate it the same, because I like to read other women's stories and to be inspired by them!

21 biographies of talented women inside!

And (shame on me!) I know only a few of them.

4. Cat state of mind, by Nathalie Moore

I love cats! Not only mine, all cats!

And I also do my best, here and then, to draw their lovely faces and tails and paws, but I'm not so good in cats' drawing! -___- 

(I go on and go on filling my Moleskine with flowers!)

So it's very interesting for me that in this zine there are 20 pages of doodles about cats' world to be inspired by. And the title is quite funny for all people who know cats and do their best to read into their mysterious minds.

The author is Nathalie Moore (click to go on her blog).

5. Creativity for introverts, by BusyWeekends

This one is part of a serie of zines dedicated to creativity into the life of introvert people (like me). You can start from here or from other zines of the serie.

Great idea + cut&paste style I love + very interesting topic.

Don't you think they are lovely?

All these zines have english text.

I'd really like to found interesting zines in italian, too, but I haven't found nothing remarkable yet. Zine making is not common in Italy, probably because we have been too busy in making different kinds of art for centuries, ahaha :)

Let me know in the comments if you know italian good zines

AND/OR

if you have zines to suggest me (you know what I like to read: crafts, books, nature, art, eco-friendly life, travelling, growing as a woman).

Creativity lately - crocheted boookmarks (+ a book)

Yes, this blog is about creativity, too! 

Eco-friendly and nature-inspired most of the time.

But my creativity went a bit unheard lately, because of my two jobs and my need to grow as a tourist guide (my dream job, you know, not far from becoming reality).

Of course I missed the solo moments when I am in the very good company of my sewing machine, needles and thread (and/or zippers, buttons, metallic hardware, crochet hooks, yarn and much more).

So I tried to carve 10 minutes out of the day, here and there, expecially to finish started projects for the shop.

With mum's help I finished some crocheted bookmarks with charms (started during Christmas holidays!).

Aren't they lovely just because gift ideas?

This one in green with a horse is for S. (he loves horses!):

It's super simple, because, hey, it's for a man! 

Only some rows of double stitch (not sure it's the correct name in english, sorry!) and a horse: it comes from a bracelet mum bought for 1 € some years ago; I saved the charm for my man waiting for the right project!

More complex and feminine crocheted bookmarks found their place in the shop. Here they are:

My favourite is the cream boookmark with a fish:

It's 100% recycled and has that rustic + romantic look I love (perfect for my shop). 

There are also:

- 1 red bookmark with a shell

- 1 in peach with a dragonfly

- 1 in turquoise with an owl

Because all my creations for the shop are nature oriented, I decided to add only charms with animals!

I had some doubts about the price but I thought that 7 € + shipping is good. What do you think?

Are you wondering about the book in the snapshots?

It's a lovely autobiography by Marc Chagall ("La mia vita" is its title in italian, "My life" in english). 

If you like this artist like me, this book is a very good reading to understand something else about him and his art. And it has amazing illustrations by the author himself (who else?).

Highly recommended!

Book review: Stitched blooms

Look what is on my bedside table right now!

A lovely embroidery book: "Stitched blooms" by Carina Envoldsen-Harris.

I won it thanks to Pam's giveaway and received some days ago. 

I'm reading it in bed, making dreamy plans about what I want to make using Carina's patterns and following her suggestions.

After some pages about basic embroidery notions (different stitches, tools, colours theory and other interesting things) the book shows and explains in details 20 (twenty!) embroidery projects (some of them are sewing+embroidery projects). 

In the book you can find the patterns to transfer on fabric for each project and other additional 300 (!!!) patterns you can use on other projects of your choice (printable thanks to a CD included at the end of the book).

Isn't it amazing?

The book is about a theme: flowers and plants!

And all in it is 100% Carina's style: colorful and fresh! I love it!

My favourite project is called "Botanical art":

Embroidered flowers to frame and hang on the wall... such a great and unconventional idea! 

I also love the luminaries (made by Hanna's mum, too), the baby quilt, and some leaves similar to paisley (you know that I'm a bit obsessed by paisley and I'm looking for the perfect paisley motif to embroider... these leaves are quite good to me!).

And this motif is so beautiful:

Carina embroidered it on a case, but I'd like to use it to decorate a table cloth or bed sheets. 

I like this kind of embroidery pattens, modern and clean. 

This is my taste. 

But, if you like something different, the book is full of more complex and "lively" designs, as you can see by the cover or in this Pam's review.

The book arrived just in time for Christmas, like a gift :)

A very good book :)

02 OTT. 2013

02 OTT. 2013... this is what my new stamp says today!

 

 

Yes, another post about tools, after yesterday post. It's to thank S. for giving me this (totally unexpected) lovely gift :)
 

I'm so happy to have it to "write" the date into my moleskine everytime I want!
I've tested it today, early in the morning, before starting to write down some interesting notes from a book I'm reading these days.
Good way to start a day! A warm and sunny october day :)

And, together with my new stamp, I want to let you look into my moleskine's page and on my desk.

The page was white, but now, after an intense writing session, it's full of black&green words:

I often glue images I like (from magazines, etc.) on the pages, because I like to decorate the space when I write, expecially when these images say something to me.
I'm gluing a lot of birds recently, because I decided that birds are symbols of my dad for me (he was an expert of these little creatures).
I'm working a bit about this symbol, now, drawing and making collages. Believe it or no, I've almost finished a bag with birds! :)

On the desk I also have an interesting book about Palermo's churches (for study) and a pink flower my little niece gave to me as a gift (it is my new book mark).

What is on your desk today?
Have you some new tools you want to share with me?

Saving happy memories in a photobook

 

In January I've been very busy in a photographic/family project I really loved!

I made and ordered a photobook with all my favourite photos taken during 2012! The perfect project to start a new year in a more conscious way of what you had by the previous year and what you want to go on having in the next.

 

I'm posting about it only today, almost 2 months later, because I couldn't take good photos of my book. But after some other bad attempts I decided to give up: you are going to see bad photos, my friends, sorry!

 

It is a Blurb photo book.

I made using their free and online Bookify software.

To  be honest... I started donwloading Booksmart from their website, because it has much more layout possibilities and so on.

But I understood that it was a bit difficult for me, a very beginner in this kind of things, so I switched to Bookify soon.

 

 

Bookify is simple to use, but it doesn't give you the possibility to have fun with layouts and grids like Booksmart. It puts only one photo in a page.

And my idea was to fill the pages (and covers, too, as you can see in this first shots) with grids and collages of small photos, because I had a very big amount of pictures to put in the book.

 

A big problem for me... but, hey, big idea... you can alway use Picmonkey! :)

 

I used this free online tool to make all the collages and grids I was needing and then I saved it in my laptop.

Each collage counts as a single photo, so I could go on to the second step: upload each picture (made of multiple shots) on bookify!

I jumped over the obstacle, eh eh!!!

Yes, this process is a bit time consuming and muddled, but it gave my the possibility to have what I want!

 

 

The book is organized by month.

Of course you could make year-books organizing them in different ways: by theme, random disposition, etc.

But I like to be "chronological" in this kind of things. I like to see time and seasons passing away like in a well-constructed travel.

 

 

I didn't add explicative text to my pages, because images speak clear to me and I don't need written notes!

 

S. really liked it and we decided to make a photobook every year. We strongly believe that saving happy memories is important for a family.

And digital photos are always in danger if saved only into our laptops and other devices that can crash without warnings!

And, the most importan thing, making a book is... funny!!!

I hope this post is inspiring you to try! :)

Simple happy things in January

Some little things that made me happy in January!

Because little things are the best in giving happiness and keeping memory of them is a great help if you want to live a happy life :)

 

January's simple happy moments:

- Giving a place to my new handmade friends... the bathroom is the best place for a fish, do you agree?

[Before you ask... the doily is handmade by mum; she can crochet, too]

 

- Wearing my new skirt at a little friend's birthday party

 

- Crazy sewing because it's almost Carnival and I'm an aunt :)

My 5-years-old niece needed help for her dresses (fairy and clown) and of course my sewing machine is always ready to work.

 

- New ideas knocking on my brain after a confusing time of silence: they involve embroidery, animals and linen. Not bad!

 

 

- Be inspired by the latest issue of &Stitches, a beautiful indie-publishing in .pdf about embroidery. Each issue collects projects and inspirations around a theme, and issue n.5 is about woodlands, so I couldn't resist and I bought it. Lovely!

 

- Drawing in bed on my moleskine with my usual brown pen, but also with a new one I purchased recently: it has green ink and I'm liking how green+black make a handsome mix on the white page (green+black+white... a great color combo not only for art making!). I'm drawing faux postage stamps, because creative obsessions are die-hard:

 

 

- Spending a lot of time in my computer removing useless files to make space for other things and finding a diary I wrote on a word file some years ago and totally forgotten.

I read it and jumped back to an important and busy period of my life, when I started to work and I was spending a lot of my free time as a scout-chief.

I had sweet memories reading it, but the diary surprized me a bit: in the period I had a job, money, love, friends, energy and a lot of other amazing things I haven't now (and often crave), but I wasn't so happy as I'm now.

 

- Making and ordering a blurb photo book that sums up my 2012 in dozens of photos! A big and time-consuming project! I can't wait to receive my 40 pages book!!!

 

- Finished to read "Les miserables" (it took long time!) and now I'm considering to watch the movie at the cinema.

 

- Made two bags for my friend Francesca and worked on new designs for future bags for my shop (I like to draw by myself the patterns for my bags)

 

 

- Sold three bags this month and decorated the envelopes with my foxy stamp, as usual:

 

 

 

A photo book ("my creative family" serie)

Happy new year!!! :)

I hope you have spent this magic night in good company.

I did!

My sweet friends were with me and S. :)

And we saw together amazing fireworks!

I'm opening the year of my blog with a post about "my creative family". I want to show you what my brother gave me as a Christmas gift: a handmade photographic book about handmade clothes into a handmade case :)

A 100% handmade gift, ah ah (and I love it!).

He realized it together with her girlfriend and some other creative friends: among them a girl who designs and sews the clothes worn in the photos (her name in the last photo - back cover of the book).

On the photo they wrote by hands funny things in english (so you can read it, you're lucky! :P). A lovely project!

Every kind of self-publishing really excites me!

This is my favourite page:

I really like the message in the back cover ("because a handmade thing is definitely handsome"):

Yes, It's true!

This little book (printed at home in ten copies) is saved into a fabric case closed by a zipper: Costanza made it and my sister-in-law decorated it with that heart with a cross.

This is probably one of the best gifts I received this year!

Plants in winter + a lovely book

Each season os full of life, even winter. And gardening lovers (like S. and me) know well that autumn and winter are precious periods to enjoy new plants and get ready for spring and summer.

 

Recently we planted a lot of bulbs in our little garden (wild hiacynts - from my parents' garden - and callas, but some tulips bulbs are waiting for us, too): they will be ready to blossom for spring!

We also saved seeds for next year and S. worked a bit around our olive and orange trees.

 

I had some to do with houseplants.

A lovely cyclamen with pink flowers came in our home recently, as a gift from a lovely lady:

 

This is the first time in my life I have this kind of plant and I had to read here and there to learn how to take care for it. Now it is outodoor and it seems very happy to be there, in the cold.

 

When I was still living with my parents I used to buy a hyacinth bulb every winter. I love this flower and I liked to see it growing day after day and bringing colors to our lives when outodoor was foggy and dark (typicall winter weather in northern Italy).

Now I live in the south, where sun is constantly with us even in winter, but I don't resist to hyacinth the same!

I bought one: the florist promised a red flower. Fingers crossed!

 

 

Today we will transplant it in a bigger and more proper plastic pot.

 

Our orchid lost all the flowers at the end of the summer (so sad but part of the game). Now it's growing new roots and even a new branch and a flower! *___*

It's a good orchid!

And it's in good company now, since a new orchid came in the home some weeks ago. It is a neglected plant, almost abandoned in a dark office in the building when S. work. So bad-treated that it "collapsed" and started to need supports to stay in its pot:

 

 

S. decided to bring it at home to save it (with his colleagues' permission, of course!). Now it is loved :)

We are trying to mantain it straight thanks to avanguardistic methods. :P

 

 

Good luck, sweet orchid!!!

 

There's also a new succulent plant with us, too. A tiny tiny plant I found on the ground during a recent walk. Now it has a new home: a yogurt plastic pot :)

 

 



There's a lovely book about gardening and houseplants, if you are interested, and I'm re-reading it right now: The virgin gardener by Laetitia Maklouf (translated in Italian with the funny title "Smalto, rossetto e pollice verde" = "Nail polish, lipstick and green thumb"... yes, it's a book for women!).

It's full of amazing and simple ideas to take plants in our lives, in each season and in unconventional ways.

It's a good reading, believe me!

Bedside table

 

On my bedside table today:
- my Moleskine journal (Le Petit Prince limited edition),

- Les misérable

- Elle

- an envelope with this zine inside

- Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

- handmade basket full of things, like artsy pebbles

- handmade doily (by AuntFran)

- a lamp

- my snowflakes ornaments just finished!

 

 

What is on your bedside table today?

Is there something that makes you happy like my ornaments make me?

Is there a sweet memory of a loved person?

An amazing book or a quiet place to write down your thoughts?

 

Please, tell me!

:)

The perfect t-shirt for a book lover

Yesterday I had some free time and I finished a t-shirt I started last month and put in the un-finished projects' pile because of a problem in its sleeves.

They came out a bit "fluttering" in their borders and I really dislike them!

I was so disappointed -___-
 

But yesterday an interesting idea knocked on my mind: I decided to fix a slim elastic band on the back of each sleeve's border to have a gather (a thing I really like in clothes) and adjust that ugly flattering.

I had no idea if it was a good thing or not, but I tried.

And now I can say... "problem solved"! Yay! :)

 

This is my new t-shirt with gathered sleeves:

 

The colors of this fabric are not my favourite, but I purchased it for the pattern of letters and words. I found it perfect for a girl like me, a girl who likes books, calligraphy and all sort of written things.

I made the perfect t-shirt for a book lover, don't you think?

 

 

This t-shirt comes now that I've started to read a huge book I borrowed from the library last thursday: "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo.
Oh, how much I love big books, full of words and adventures, on my bedside table! Almost like how much I love words on my t-shirt! :)

 

 

I'm sure you're going to ask: "Why are you still making t-shirts? October is almost finished and it's chilly!".
Well, here in Sicily weather is still warm and sunny. I'm writing this post wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts *___*

So I'm sure I can wear my new t-shirt for some weeks. It's a bit crazy, but real!
But I'm planning some clothes for winter, too, and I'll show them for sure when finished!

 

Draw what you read - some summer readings

Do you know "Draw what you read" Flickr group?

You can add drawings of the books you are reading or you have at home.

I've already written that I find this idea absoutely lovely!

 

I've just uploaded three photos of the covers of some of the book I read this summer.

 

"Auntie Mame" by P. Dennis, a book I found boring!

I know it is considered a sort of masterpiece in the USA and it is appreciated by a lot of people all over the world, but, uhm, not by me.

It disappointed me a bit, but I decided to draw its cover the same:

 

 

"Le grand Meaulnes" by Alain Fournier:

 

 

It's a fascinating novel and I loved it, although I'm not sure if I've really understood it or not. The curious thing is that I found it in the pages of another book, "Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter" by Simone de Beauvoir:

 

 

My Moleskine notebook's pages are full of black&white things right now.

I haven't written too much recently, but I filled some pages with black ink drawings. I'm sharing it in next posts I decided to title "Horror vacui" and "Obsessed by alphabets". So stay tuned, if you're interested!

 

This summer I read other books I haven't draw. One of my favourite has been the short novel "Il taglio del bosco" by the italian writer Carlo Cassola.

Dahlias!

Tiny sprouts of dahlias came in our house last May.

Mum gave them to me at the end of my last visit and I carried those tender things in a plastic yogurt pot during the air travel.

Then we transplanted them in a big pot and, noticing they weren't growing enough, in a corner of our (desert) garden.

And little dahlias grew and grew and now they are giving us beautiful flowers.

Aren't they amazing?

Another (totally unexpected) dahlia is now colouring a small pot of wild flowers we sowed this spring.
I admired it yesterday while sitting out of the kitchen in the late afternoon, enjoying fresh air (after another super hot day) with a good company: a new book and my Moleskine journal.

After the sunset S. came back home and we had dinner in the same place.

We eat outdoor every evening, looking to our plants and enjoying fresh air coming from the country.

A romantic place, isn't it?

All these little things make me love summer :)