Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Upholstering Hobby

Today I came across a wonderful website about upholstering and it awakened my proclivities to start an upholstering project again. Hopefully this year we will move to our new house, so maybe I´ll get the chance. However, this is to look back at my very short upholstery history.

Regular conference chair in Ikea home decor fabric.

Old artificial leather sofa and armchair turned into a warm inviting set of furniture thanks to Waverly Sun and Shade collection. These three pieces took me and my husband three months.
PS: By the way this picture is one and half year old now and the little creature on the red sofa died two days ago, so it is quite a sad reminder. We already miss her very much.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Patterned Papers

Lately, I haven’t been designing any new patterned papers but for your information I do so sometimes. I love to think in collections when doing so. Some of them were printed as fabrics as well. I have the papers printed with a professional printing company however; they are released in limited editions only. I usually choose to print them on an ofset white matte paper of 200g/m2. Each set includes 4 papers of A5 size (14,85 cm x 21 cm). Sometimes they are patterned on just one side, sometimes they are double sided. Occasionally I get printed larger or smaller formats.
It is a great and unique source for scrapbooking and paper crafts. With every collection I try to come with an easy craft to present the patterns and it is always a challenge for me to do so. It also makes me happy when I get feedback from my customers and see how they used my papers for their own projects. It is really exciting and I appreciate that.
If you are interested please see my previous collections.

Currently, there are two collections available.
Noria – Inspired by Norway
Remember the Wooden Horse? One is made of it.
And you could have actually seen a light blue color
combination of one of the four designs on my fabric.

Purple Rapsody – Contemporary Color Combo Set.
The damask inspired theme was printed on fabric as well.

And a few examples of what you can do with the papers.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

DRAWING AND DIGITALIZING

I never studied art professionally, except common lessons on a high school and one semester of drawing course under Folk Conservatory of Ostrava. I know I have inherited some talent from my grandma and it was her who as far as I remember was teaching me to draw, as well as other crafts like crocheting, knitting and embroidering. I never desired or dreamed of becoming an artist in terms of drawing and painting, however lately I found it entertaining to draw here and there and modify pencil sketches in a computer which is fun and interesting. As I am simply into designing of patterns it is a wonderful thing to combine my drawings with my repeated patterns. I love that.
That´s why you could have seen my recent pictures offered for print and sale at various places. Most of all I get the pictures printed myself and sell them at a Czech craft server but you can get some through my Etsy shop too. Then, you can choose to have them printed yourself through Zazzle, RedBubble or CafePress. The pictures are available as cards and prints to be framed. Sometimes there are additional options like prints on canvas or T-shirts etc.
With my love for fabric design it is possible that some of these pictures will be printed on fabric. But you know there are too many ideas and too little time. Anyway, I do wish to try to sew stylish bags with these prints on. I think it would be great.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

My few seconds on American Show

A designer buddy from Spoonflower informed me they displayed my winning fabric on some American Show. How cool is this? Watch till the end and find the needle in the hay.



T-shirts

I know this is an unusual thing. But I have to make this exception and mix a little bit of politics into this craft-design-sewing blog.
I designed a very simple poster with a clear statement of my heart in a few languages. Should you find it interesting and close to your heart too, feel free to visit my Zazzle shop and get yourself a T-shirt with it too.
I want to quit the EU.
I don’t expect and I am not willing to have long or any discussions on this topic. That’s not the purpose. It is just what I want to declare and I want to give chance to others to do the same if they wish to.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Wooden Horses

Wooden horses antiqued by Renchinchay
From time to time I need to experiment with materials and crafts and simply try to work on something I haven’t done before. So it was with these wooden horses two weeks ago. I asked my friend to cut the horses out of raw spruce wood for me as I do not have tools for it myself.
To be honest, I didn’t really know what they will look like. All I wanted was to cover the wood with patterned papers and antique the horses to create a stylish old-looking home decor.
I used both my own original designed papers and some leftovers from my favorite Amy Butler design papers. I knew it would work but I was surprised at how cool it looked with different pattern. I made two pieces so far, so a creative play with more patterns and colors is yet to come.
My husband helped me and drilled the necessary wholes for the tails and eyes. It is a wonderful thing, to do crafts with your husband. We enjoyed it. I used yarn and pieces of wool to make the tails while the eyes are made of special washers and beads.

Family Time in Podhradí

See the cookies
Now and then I and my husband make a trip on weekend. It takes only about 40 minutes from our hometown to get to the mountains and there are other beautiful places to visit in our region. It is true I must have been to some of them for numerous times but I don’t know how about you but I desperately need to go behind the city limits quite regularly in order not to die in this civilization. I love nature, hiking, biking, taking pictures, simply being out. I simply need to be refreshed.
This spring is dragging our feet. It seems like it hesitates to come. It is still quite cold and we have some rainy days now. Three weeks ago we took my mother-in-law and my husband’s grown-up daughter with her step sister and went to Podhradí. There is an old camp site but it was still closed. My husband used to have a tiny cottage on water there a few years ago. Due to some problems with local fishermen he had to leave it, so there it stayed for years without maintenance and today it shows ravages of time. He wished to go looking at it and spend some time there. So we did, walking around and roasting some sausages which is a typical thing to do here in the Czech Republic. It was a great time.

Monday, April 12, 2010

I am a Spoonflower Winner


Last week it was a very exciting time as I won the Spoonflower fabric of the Week contest with one of my latest fabric designs. It was really a nice surprise and actually, it made me to set up this English blog which I have been hesitating to do for quite a few years of my blogging in Czech - my native language.
The Retro Spring Garden design is available for purchase at Spoonflower. Notice that I made a few variations of it in other colors too and the theme has two accompanying designs, so you can purchase a whole yard of it with three different but combining patterns at once.

Who am I

Hello and welcome to my English blog,
My name is Renata and I come from and live in Ostrava, the Czech Republic.
I have two dogs, wonderful husband and I believe in the most wonderful person I ever met, Jesus Christ.
I am a designer, crafter and sewer. I love singing, playing keyboards, composing songs, hiking, swimming and many other things like eating chocolate....
You can find some of my art at RedBubble or Zazzle. And finally, Etsy as well.
You can purchase my original designs printed on fabric at Spoonflower.
I am a member of music band called Nad čarou.
I attend church Jednota bratrská (Moravian Church)...
...and I wonder...if you have any question, please feel free to email me,
Rencha


make custom gifts at Zazzle