See you soon!

Change is in the air.

I will be taking a break from ‘Alex Original Handbags’ for a little while. 

I won’t be doing any sewing and so will have nothing to blog about.

I’m moving back home to Quebec, Canada I am both excited and scared.

If you want to be contacted when/if I start up again then simply send me a short mail.

Otherwise pop back around in a couple of months to see if there’s anything new.

Thank you all for your support over the last couple of years and thank you also for all your lovely comments.

Christmas

I know that it’s far too early to be thinking about Christmas, I mean it is only July!  But I came across this blog and just needed to share it. It is the most banal idea ever and the guy looks so bored.  But at the same time it is so funny… Though maybe he wouldn’t like me saying that. 

I simply thought that it might you smile

And I think that we all need to smile more!

Click on the image of ‘Lars’s Holdhaus Christmas Sweater Collection’  to see all of it.

 

Two of my favourites!

New Round Handbags

Here are a few more hand-printed bags; all of these are already in my shop:

I’ve also finally tried some different images.  So I have more to share with you, not only polka dots.

I really like these flower prints, I based my drawing on the lining from this bag and I really like the final product. It almost looks like lace.  What do you think?

I plan on trying out yet more of my images this afternoon, that’s if I can actually wake up.  I’m really struglling at the minute, maybe I should have another cup of coffee…

New Messenger Bags

I got a little carried away with the polka dots. But there’s a reason for it, I think they looked so good! I hope that you will all agree.

Here are a few more hand-printed handmade handbags…  Or should it be hand screen-printed handmade handbags? Ouch!  Or simply handmade handbags? Or again, why not, funky hand-printed handbags? Or hand-printed bags? Though it’s nice and short, it doesn’t sound as cool now does it.

Anyway, here are loads of new one of a kind messenger bags! I printed all of these myself before sewing them.  The colours of the prints and stitching matches the lining.  I am soooo proud of these and am totally motivated again. I am now looking forward to trying out some of the other images.

Handprinted Denim Messenger Bag

Black Messenger Bag with White Polka Dots

Denim Messenger Bag with White Poka Dots

Brown Messenger Bag with Blue Polka Dots

All of these are available on my website, where you can also see a better description of each as well as more pictures, of the lining, for example. I hope that you will find one that you must have

Polka dots

I’ve finally had a successful go at printing and am SUPER happy with the results.  Though I must admit that it was a very messy affair.  I had wanted to take  pictures when in the middle of it all, but it was simply not possible. I was completely overwhelmed.  It was much more difficult than it looked when I watched my sister doing it.  I actually managed to drop the squeegee in the the paint, not once but twice. I had paint EVERYWHERE! 

Here are all the bits drying:

And here are a few of the finished bags:

  

I must admit that I am really proud of them!  I love the way that they have come out, they are even better than I thought they would be.  The messenger bag also has some ribbon that I got when in Sofia.  The two round bags have the prints and matching stitching. 

I look forward to using the other screens with the other images too, but they all need to be put out in the sun for a while.

Two hours later…

Two hours after writing my last entry about how much I needed some sunshine this is what my balcony looked like…

Yes, this is the exact same spot on the exact same day!!!  And yes, those are actual rain drops bouncing off the table!!!

 

New printing set-up (continued)

Straight away this morning I put my first screen of threee out on the balcony to dry.

The problem is that today of all days it’s overcast and threatening to rain which is totally annoying as it’s been beautiful sunshine for days. But now that I actually NEED it, it’s hiding.  Every few minutes I go out to the balcony to check the weather, the clouds seem to be getting darker and thicker.  I just don’t want it to start raining, I mean it shouldn’t affect the screen at all but I just don’t want to take any chances, especially after what happened yesterday. All I want is a couple of hours of bright sunshine so that I can finally start printing. Please…

New printing set-up

Yesterday evening we finally picked up my screens from the workshop and ever since then I’ve been super impatient to get started.  Sadly, this morning I had to go to work, forcing me to wait even longer.  Finally when I got back this afternoon, I set everything up, following the notes I had taken when my sister was here a few weeks ago.  Next I picked which bags I wanted to print on, as well as which images I wanted to use first. Then I mixed my paint, as I wanted a slightly different blue than what I received.  Before printing directly onto cut out sections of actual bags, I practiced on some paper as I didn’t want to ruin anything.  Sadly this is when things started going wrong.  I’ll tell you one thing, it certainly isn’t as easy as it looks. 

New silk-screen printing set-up: the screen is clipped on to a hinged bit of wood so that it can be lifted easily.

New silk-screen printing set-up: with a few on my images.

New silk-screen printing set up: with everything set and ready for printing.

Luckily I could skype my sister, a master printer, for help.  Everything she said, helped.  The first problem was a simple one, I had been doing it too slowly, as a result the paint would smudge. So I started doing it quicker and using the squeegee at a better angle, and straight away the images started looking quite good.  The screen was very sticky though, making it difficult to use, which she said was rather strange.  But we didn’t think more of it as the images were looking ok.  So, I moved on to a bit of scrap material, again not to ruin anything important.  You could barely see the image on the material, but at least there was no smudging.  She suggested adding more pigments into the paint. So I removed all the paint from to screen in order to mix in more pigments. It was when I was cleaning off the screen that things went wrong.  Basically the whole image started ripping off.  She said that that was really NOT normal, and that it sounded like the image hadn’t been ‘cooked’ enough onto the screen…  She suggested putting them out into the sun for a day or so to ’cook’ it further. This means that I have to wait longer

What annoys me though is that I paid the girl to do these for me, but I don’t think that I have the patience to get her to redo the whole screen again seeing as it already took so long (near a month) to get these done.  On top of that it was my favourite image, one that I had drawn myself. Let’s hope the weather is sunny tomorrow so that I can hopfully start in the afternoon.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Heaven

Pure heaven for any crafter!  Or any want to be crafter!

Here are a few pictures my sister took when we were in Sofia - see and read more about our trip here.  She took these while I was trying to pick some ribbons and buttons without buying the whole shop as it wouldn’t have fit into my bag   What a variety, What choice.  There were actually ribbons and boxes of buttons from the floor to the ceiling! It was actually rather overwhelming.  On top of that the shop assistant didn’t speak a work of English…  or French… or German…  But it was all sooooooo cheap especially compared to German prices.  I could go back to Sofia just so that I could go back to that shop, oh and maybe for a few more of those nice ceramic bowels…

 

 

 

Happy Canada Day!

Being in Germany I often forget about Canadian holidays and celebrations.

But I just had a talk with my mom who reminded me that today is the 1st of July and therefore Canada Day.

So happy Canada Day to everyone who are still living there and to all of us living abroad!