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!

Sorry!

Sorry for the lack of posts and pictures of new creations recently!  

I’m still excited about the silk-screen printing but I still have not heard back from the girl who is supposed to expose my images on my screens.  To be honest I’ve not finished any bags recently because I want to print on them.  I do have a small mountain that are started and waiting for prints, many others that have all the bits but aren’t started and yet many more that still need matching linings or zippers. So as soon as I get my images I can get started. I now have all the paints, clips, squeegees, etc.  I’m actually getting very impatient and am very keen on getting started.  I promise to take pictures of my first attempts and post these, even if they aren’t very good I think that it will need some practice.  It looked very easy watching my sister to them, but then, she’s been doing it for 10 years!

In the mean time I have actually starting working on a correspondence course that I had started years ago in interior architecture.  I thought it best to take the opportunity of some free time to actually try and get it finished.  It’s been nagging me for years, as all I had left to do was the final exam.  So, I’m now trying to actually do it.  It’s a lot more work than I had even imagined but I had already done soooooo much work, it would be a pity to loose it all.  It’s very interesting though the problem was that I had really felt overwhelmed by it all.  Now I’m just trying to do one step at a time.  Plus I have the benefit of being able to ask Susanne, the owner of ‘designe, kleine!’  who is also an architect to help me when I get stuck with the program.  This is a great advantage!

I’ll let you know how I get on!

Thanks for being patient with me!

What’s in your bag? (continued)

Today we have some pictures from an art student in Mexico! 

It is so cool to be receiving all these pictures and to find out that women all over the world are participating. And that we all carry way too much stuff around with us.

Contents as written by Alex from Mexico, he sounds like a very funky guy to me:

My Zara bag its just amazing, because its like a magical bag: everything can be inside! The size its just perfect, and its sooo old. Very resistant.

*My Che Guevara notebook.

*Keith Haring agenda.

*A little coin purse. Coin purses for men are the most practical creation for us! All those coins haingin around your bag and pockets are just annoying.

*A lot of notes from shopping. 

*Photos for all my school proceedings.

*A button of a boombox. It fell from my t-shirt.

*Pen

*Madonna’s Confessions On A Dancefloor. I was on exams period, and this is some kind of amulet. It’s silly, but I feel comfortable when I carry with me.

*My beloved Canon T70, an old reflex camera for capturing all kind of moments with that Lo-Fi effect.

*Funky sunglasses Hudson Sporting Optics, vintage sunglasses from the seventies.

*My iPod, full with dance music.

*USB

*My phone… Its just like my third hand.

*This issue odf The Revista Iberoamericana de Comunicacion, a very interestig magazine with essays about details of popular music. Its just amazing.

*Water. In my city, temperature raise to 45º Celsius. I dont know how much is that in Farenheitt, but certainly its very hot.

*Wallet, made of shark skin. Its a present, I prefer fabric things!

What’s in your bag? (continued)

Cool, someone sent us pictures of their bag and content.

Morven is a British student living here in Frankfurt and even created her own bags.

 

Content; as written by Morven:

-typically for a student are notebook and pencil case – my design
-mint humbugs, taste yummy and make a nice breath, and a forgotten chewing gum, clinging to crumbs in my bag, gosh, I have to start cleaning out my bag more often
-mobile phone bag (my creation) with mobile phone inside
-a little purse (sewn by me) holding my lip balm and passport, as I do not have an identity card, as I’m British
-my frog queen wallet, also one of my designs
-hankies and a small pill box for the occasional pain, especially headache, reading all the stuff for university puts strain on the eyes
-a flyer for an exhibition of one of my friends www.all-eyes-on-you.de

Well, in my opinion she is seems ready for anything and everything life will through at her.  Thanks for participating and sharing with us. I wish you lots of luck with your exhibition!

What’s in your bag?

Back in March when I did the poll and competition I had a few great comments about what people were carrying around in there own bag.  I though we should try it again.  Here’s a picture of my bag, obviously one of my own creations plus it’s content.

 

In my bag:

• purse/wallet
• super old mobile – but it still works so why change it?!?
• box of staples as an example to get new more
• post card of sofia with my sister’s flight details
• advertising card for some free open air shows this summer
• keys
• labello for dried lips
• pen
• one of those cheap hotel combs

It would be great, even a little funny if everyone would participate.  Why not leave a comment with the content of your bag. Or even more better and loads more fun, send me a picture at: info(at)alex-original-handbags(dot)co.uk.  I will upload it with your comment and what you tell us  is in your bag. I bet it will tell us a bit about the person. Me, for example, I’m very practical and in my bag are only things I use and need.  But I bet there are plenty of people out there with loads of junk and funky things, which actually would be much more interesting!

I hope many of you will participate.

Blogparade

Startings tomorrow I shall be participating in the DIY Blogparade.  What is it, you may ask?  Well, it will be loads of fashion-bloggers, doing what they do best, writing about fashion and ‘do it yourself’ projects.  For me this will basically be a continuation of what I always do, as I create and produce all of my bags.  But this will give me a chance to link up with some cool and funky people.  So be sure to pop around often in the following week to see who else will be participating. 

As promised

As promised last week, here are a few pictures from last week’s fair, Lokale Helden in Wiesbaden.  As I said in my entry about the event ‘Disappointent’ I loved the location and thought my stand looked great, especially as I was just next to the DJs.  The only problem was that we had no visitors.  To be totally frank with you, I even complained to the organizers.  I wasn’t the only one who complained either.  I wonder if they will actually do something about it though. 

 

  

It’s actually thrown me much more that I thought it had.  If your read my comments I had said that I wasn’t going to fall into self doubt as no one had sold well that day.  But it still has made me rethink the whole thing. I think that I will concentrate more of my energies into getting some shops to buy at wholesale from me, rather than participating at all the fairs I can find. 

So if you own a shop, why don’t you contact me for a wholesale price list  

Or if you know a shop near you where you think my bags would fit with their stock why don’t you let me know the name of the shop

And the winners are…..

Well, I thought Ramona’s comment yesterday on the ‘only one more day’ entry, about simply picking the best three comments was a really good suggestion but that was waaaay too difficult!  There are soooo many great ones.  Though I would love to highlight economyclass’ comment as in made me burst out loud with laughter! She was one of the few to use my suggestion, to tell me/us what weird stuff she had in her bag.  We’ll have to use that idea again!

economyclass’ comment:
‘Hi Alex. Love your bag designs, keep up the good work! I don’t tend to carry weird stuff at all but for a couple of days this past week I have had a few avocados and bananas. Though to be honest it’s not a good idea to carry squishy stuff in a nice bag…for obvious reasons ‘

So in the end I stuck to my original idea and used a randomizer.  I put in the total number of comments, 1 being the first comment and 65, as of this morning, the last. I’m really impressed with the amount of comments to be honest, it’s a lot more that I had hoped for.  Plus the information I have collected from the poll will be very helpful to me.  I understand more what people want to see and wear.  Though some of the information will be difficult to be put into practice, for example one of the colours people wanted to see bags in was turquoise. I love the colour, but the last few times I’ve been out to buy material I have simply not found any.  Another difficult one will be making diaper bags, I have no children of my own, therefor don’t understand the needs.  But loads of friends are having babies so I will have to talk with them. 

Anyway, I’m going on and on and I bet that all you want to know is who won! 

So the winning numbers are: 11, 23, 42

Which relate to:

Corina with the following comment:
‘I don’t own one of your bags yet but hopefully soon I am lucky this year!!!’
All I can say is that you definitly are very lucky this year!!!

Maite with the following comment, though I sadly couldn’t read it:
‘Me encantan tus bolsos. Siempre tengo que llevar la cartera, llaves y mi pequeña bolsita con mis imprescindibles de maquillaje.
Lovely bags. All of them are beautiful.’

And finally Katarina:
‘I’m hooked on originality, and very much admire your work. Well done and keep up great work!’

Here is the ’screen shot’ of the winning numbers: 

So I shall be in contact with these three winners and hopefully in a little while, will have the chance to post pictures of them wearing their new ALEX – Original Handbags!

Only one more day!

This is just a short reminder that today is your last day to have your say in my handbag poll and to add your comment. 

Tomorrow, March 31st, first thing in the the morning I shall be picking three lucky winners and getting in contact with them for their addresses so that I may post their prize.

I’ve been thinking about how to do this fairly, short of having to write all the names on little pieces of paper and using a hat. My best idea so far is to use an online randomizer.  So basically the first comment would be number 1, the second # 2 and so on, in the randomizer I would then put in the maximum number and let it pick three numbers.   The first three numbers it picks will be the winners and will also be able to be checked by you.

What do you think?

Do you have a better suggestion?

One site I’m considering is the following: Truly Random Number

Another one is more advanced and actually gives you the chance to pick 3 numbers in one go: Research Randomizer

Let me know what you think before it’s too late.

Good luck!