Saturday 23 December 2017

An upcycling workshop with plastic bottles and more!

Hello everyone!
Hope you are doing fine and having a great time making last minute Christmas preparations.
As for me, it has been a very creative period craftwise.
First of all, I had the chance to be a workshop animator of an upcycling workshop which was organised by Caritas Luxembourg and was hosted by TheOfficeSarl. In this workshop as I have previously said, I had to show the participants how to make Christmas ornaments out of plastic bottles.
The materials apart from the bottles were quite simple and easy to find at home: Glue, beads, nail polish,ribbons and of course fire that transformed the bottles into very lovely Christmas decoration.
The participants showed great enthousiasm and the results were really very impressive!
Have a look at their creations:








The other two animators Stylianee from what.eve.wears and Anay from Anaydesigns made also some great stuff with their own reusable materials. Stylianee and her team made Christmas wreaths from metal hangers and old clothes and Anay and her group made festive earrings with fabric and strings.
Have a look at their soo very cute creations:


The super talented Stylianee!




And a young but super talented participant!



Anyway, it was a very fun and creative Monday evening, we were all very excited and anxious to have another upcycling event in the near future.
Hope this happens soon!
So that's it for now
I wish you all a merry Christmas full of love and joy!
Till next time
Take care
xxx
Dimitra


Monday 27 November 2017

My latest obsession... Plastic bottles!

Hello everyone,
Hope you are doing fine!
As for me, I am good and feeling very happy because I finally have the chance to have my diy equipment back from Greece so all the need to be creative has gone through the roof!
All this time, my mind was full of inspiration about new materials and new ways to express this creativity, but without my tools and supplies the ideas remained just ideas.
One of the things I was most eager to try was upcycling objects and giving them a new life.
Apart from that, I was at a point where going back to using metals for creating jewelry (which is mostly my diy field) was almost out of the question. Being a mother of a toddler and not having an extra room in our appartment to use it as a craft room would definitely create an unhealthy environment for my girl.
 As an alternative, I could use the garage of course but the weather conditions in Luxembourg are surely a no-go at this time of the year (Brrr too much cold and humidity!).
So after a lot of surfing on the Internet I decided to try and create jewelry with... plastic bottles!
Yep, you read it right the common plastic bottles which are used for water/tea/juice containers.
This method is really simple and so much fun to do! Besides that, all this upcycling and creating objects from humble, cheap materials has -as all of you may know- become a great trend but mostly it has become a philosophy and a way of life. So, zero waste movement is very popular also here in Luxembourg and I am really glad that I now become a part of it.
Before I show some of my creations that are going to be sold at my Etsy shop shortly, I would like to inform you that on the 18th of December I will be one of the three workshop animators on this event and I am soo excited about it!
 In this workshop, which is organized by Fashion Revolution and Caritas Luxembourg , we will make Christmas ornaments with plastic bottles, glue, ribbons, nail polish (!),  beads (and the help of the fire of course!) so all my Luxembourg followers please come and join us for a fun evening, full of creativity, finger food, drinks and above all the Christmas spirit all around us!
At this point, I would like to thank the very talented Stylianee from what.eve.wears for giving me this great opportunity to be part of this lovely workshop. Thanks again Stylianee and keep up the good work!

So here is a glimpse of what we will do at this workshop





Οne, small, colourful family...

and here is a look of some of the new pieces of jewelry I'm working on right now.

Work in progress...
Work finished!

Still working on this right now...
Hope you like them, I am really really curious to read your comments...
Till next time
Take care,
xxx
Dimitra


Monday 24 July 2017

A light DIY modern, rock inspired mirror


Hello everyone!
Hope you're doing fine.
Well it's been such a long time that I did not post anything here (from January -thaaat long!) and this happened for a number of reasons: First of all, as many of you know, my family and me moved to Luxembourg. That is not an excuse you may think. Yeah, probably you' re right but the thing is I do have a lot of stuff to be occupied with here (as I like to say 'such a small country so many things to do').
Second of all, some months ago I opened an account on Instagram and I am pretty excited about it, so I post most of my activities there which is something I enjoy because I prefer photos do the talkin' at this moment in my life.
Last but NOT least, I have no diy/jewelry making activity right now due to the fact I have not brought all this equipment here since we moved in such a great rush (we had to find an apartment, move and do all the paper work in less than 2 months!). This is something I missed terribly and now that I return to Greece for vacation I am going to fix it pronto (Oh yes, all the craft equiment is going to be triumphantly reunited with its anxious owner!).


Nevertheless, I did manage to do an one and only craft this period of time because I had to 'fill' an empty wall. The wall decoration in rentals -here in Luxembourg- is a pretty complicated story since the renters are entitled to do very very tiny holes on the wall (or not at all at some 'strick landlord' cases).
So, I wanted to create a very light mirror fixture because I could not hang the heavy mirrors I had at home. Moreover, I had to use all the beer caps I kept all this time which were in fact quite lovely and extraordinary (pink elephants, cherries, dwarves, guillotines (!) and many colorful logos from a number of different Luxembourgish, German and Belgian beers).


To make a long story short, I did a light and modern mirror with very few materials: Just a mirror, a good glue,a hanger triangle hook and the beer caps, of course.
First of all I had to see how many beer caps I needed in each beer cap circle I made (I also tried to put them in a way that no identical cap was next or close to another).


Then, I glued one by one, the one next to the other, and I made the first circle of the mirror frame.
After that, I glued the second circle quite close to the first one.
I waited for about a couple of hours (that of course depends on the kind of glue you have -make sure that it is a strong one and also do not use a glue gun because it 'll make things messier than easy. I for example used this one which proved to be great for the job).


Finally, when I was pretty sure that the beer caps were very steady, I glued the triangle hook at the back of the mirror.
And there you are!
A light, easy to make, modern, rock inspired mirror!
I'm ready to read your comments.

Till next time
Take care
xxx
Dimitra


Friday 20 January 2017

A fresh start in Luxembourg

Hello there,
Hope you are doing fine!
Well me, I'm having a great time in the new country that my family and me have moved to about four months ago: Luxembourg.
I know I should have written more about all of this earlier, but  I preferred to curb the enthusiasm and express my feelings when I have a pretty good picture of it (well as much as anyone could have of a country in such a short period of time, that is!).
So in a few words what can  I say about Luxembourg? I just looooooove it!
It's a beautiful country with an amazing natural beauty and a fairy tale atmosphere in almost everything about it!
And when I say everything I totally mean everything.
From the landscape to the architecture of buildings (from the ones of the Medieval era till the most recent) as well as the country's public administration in all fields of life (which is something that looks like a fairy tale to a Greek!).
No wonder  why this country is supposed to have such happy inhabitants in global ranking!


Here are some photos from some short walks and trips we have had in various towns, villages and sights.
I promise there'll be much more!
Till then, take care!
Love,
Dimitra


View of Grund from Le Chemin de la Corniche -"Europe's most beautiful balcony"

The ArcelorMittal Building in Rue de la Liberte


The Vianden castle

Place Guillaume II at Christmas time

Christmas market -Golden lady






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