Nest Decorating & Designs by Tamar

Charmed

Today was a rainy day, the kids were off to friends,Ronen is writing a documentary film proposal, I spent the morning doing endless house work and walking in circles around my work table unable to sit down although I have a bunch of wholesale orders to finish, I'll do them tomorrow, today I really felt the urge to make something new and this is what came out, two hopelessly romantic  Charm bracelets...where does this come from? I have no idea...

Voila! Here they are and also posted for sale in my Etsy shop:

Emma

Lucy

notice the cute little roses I used? aren't they sooooo pretty????

Saturday love

I woke up today feeling great, everyone said it will take about 2 weeks and they were right! had a wonderful morning, the sun is OUT, I managed to go to the hairdresser yesterday so I got a hair cut and a little color and the best of all is that I lost 8 lbs.!!! nothing like a little surgery to shake those pounds off...
Here is little silly photo of me I took this morning, I don't know why I look tanned,must be the light.

I was working yesterday on an order from Australia, some of you may remember I was making these little mini Dream catcher ornament sets for Christmas, well my client asked for them again so I made her new ones for Spring, they came out sooooo cute! Ihad to make more , they are only 3" big, made with fabric scraps and vintage buttons, just like the bigger version, I sell them in sets of four in my Etsy shop

Have a great rest of the weekend! xox

Good news and sad news

Well I didn't take the weekend off after all, instead I continued producing totes, filling some wholesale  orders, finishing up lots of work that was piling up and why? because I am going into surgery Thursday morning, that's the sad news...I need to have a Hysterectomy,I still can't believe it, it refuses to sink in...I've been thinking if I should post this or not and decided I should mainly to get you girls to get your yearly check ups and not be lazy about it!! some stuff came up during my regular yearly PAP that needed immediate attention, I am still trying to figure things out, it will probably take a while to process but the good news is that I will get to keep my ovaries which will not send me flying into a full blown menopause just yet.
I should be up and about in a week or two, my Dr. says a month but knowing myself I can't keep still for very long...I was also thinking how lucky I am to have had 3 beautiful children and how  my womb  did such a wonderful job carrying them.

So having said all that life goes on and here are two new totes posted in my shop

This is a small tote, I call it the Cutie-Pie Tote:

and the Paris tote is much bigger and has a vintage white bead chain with charms on it including the Eiffel Tower...Ah Paris!

have a charm-ing week!

Spring Tote 3

Yep, I'm still at it, here is todays creation. Printed canvas in two contrasting patterns.

matching canvas pouch with vintage green zipper

and to top it all off, a  cute wristlet

The tote and pouch are sold as a set, the wristlet is sold sepratley. Available in my shop.
I am definetaley taking the weekend off...

Spring Tote 2

So here is todays tote, just finished it late last night, heavy weight wild flower print cotton on the top, mint green heavy weight cotton on the bottom,pink polka dot lining (my favorite) great big pockets inside and out, full interface makes it super sturdy,double white stitching everywhere! Voila!
Available in my shop.

A Tote a day?

That's my new goal, maybe not everyday...that is a little unrealistic, after all it takes me much to long to make one... but every 2 days maybe? I seriously need to stock up on my Esty bag collection. I am currently working on two fabric totes, I love being able to combine all those exciting new fabrics I got for my spring-summer 2008 collections, I especially love mixing contrasting a mis-matched fabrics, delicate flowers with bold graphics, pink and green with circles of brown, at first I made a simple one fabric tote but I found it very boring and sort of looked like lots of other stuff I see around, but I think that I now am finding my own "voice",I hope you like it, it's available in my shop

Stacking up

                        
Stack of new spring tissue holders, originally uploaded by nestdecorating.

Stacking up on Spring tissue holders, begone hay fever!

Bold statements

I am not usually attracted to very bold and modern fabrics, I tend to lean towards the girlier stuff, flowers,roses,aqua and green, or an eclectic mix of bohemian prints and colors, sort of like our house I guess,but sometimes I just feel this urge to do something different,I found this interesting patterns at the fabric store and thought that maybe on a small scale it will work well,I wouldn't make anything really big from it but I love the way the Art  pouches look in them, I did softened them up a bit with a surprise pretty pink lining....


Art pouches are something I grew up with, my mom was an artist and my dad is an architect and pouches like these would have been a great hit in my home, my parents could never get enough paints,pencils, crayons,brushes,markers and my dad was crazy about Rapidograph pens.
I recently made a few for my kids to take school and ended up with tons of orders from their friends,now I know what to make as birthday gifts...

of course I couldn't help myself this weekend and made a few matching cosmetic and tissue holder sets from some new imported and much too expensive sweet cotton fabrics I just got in.
Pink set

blue set

all the pouches are for sale in my shop, by the way check out my new shop banner!

On a different note, I drove my son yesterday to the Charlotte ferry, he was visiting a friend on the NY side of the lake, it was such a beautiful crisp and perfect day,I couldn't help but think how lucky I was to live in such a beautiful place, I had to take some photos to share:
Charlotte's beautiful covered bridge

a few friends by the side of the road

Classic Vermont scenery

Have a great week everyone xox

Shrinky Dinked!

This weekend I discovered Shrinky Dinks, I don't know how I missed out on this, probably because :
A. I was a little too old when it came out?
B. I don't have crafty daughters
C. No one told me about it
D. It's a crafters secret?

I was standing at Michaels staring at these strange packages with a weird name, so I called a friend who almost burst out laughing when she heard I don't know what they are, apparently every 2 year old has been doing this for like 30 years now....????so, I bought them, 3 packages to be exact....Oh my God!!! I love it so much! I spent (we spent, the boys loved it too) the whole weekend making stuff out of them.
It's not so easy making some really beautiful stuff and it took a lot of research to come up with little creation that will look like apart of me and my new spring collections, but I think I managed to make some I like. Here they are, a few new pieces of jewelry for spring, all available in my Etsy shop

Peony charmed

Hippie chic

Indian inspiration

My very favorite, a long chain with many flower and stamp charms

I am totally addicted. Must run to  make some more....

Full house

It's snowing and snowing, this year is turning into a real classic Vermont winter, here are a few scenes from our front yard:

sweet husband plowing (our dog Nana is patiently waiting for her walk)

That was on Thursday, yesterday Ronen left to work in Israel  for a month again,he is finally finishing a documentary series his been shooting forever, I don't seem to be able to get used to these long separations, the kids are not little anymore so it's not difficult physically but we miss him so much! a month is such a long time!!

I went to sleep very early last night and woke up this morning to a full house, all three kids had friends sleep over, I am amazed at how they all found what they needed, mattresses,pillows,blankets sheets...just another reminder how they are all growing up so fast. I made them all pancakes (my small contribution...) and I am off to bed (again) to finish my super fluff,highly enjoyable book "The Undomestic Goddess"

friendly Saturday morning:

I started writing articles for a sweet little magazine here in Vermont called :
Vermont Homestyle my first article is about renovating kitchens on a budget, I became truly specialized on this subject after working with many clients and redoing my own kitchen ...should be fun and hopefully few more Vermonters will get to know my work, I need more clients!
Etsy wise things are a bit s l o w , but I am continuing to work on many new products,I found some wonderful fabrics (expensive)but I couldn't resist so I bought a little of each and here are some photos of more new pouches for spring:

A wristlet from a gorgeous heavy weight cotton:

a cosmetic pouch from a lovely Chintz

an art pouch from a lovely piece of "Laura Ashley" fabric, I worked at "laura Ashley" on Madison Ave. in Nyc for 4 years while I was going to Parsons, this was in the early 80's...I was so crazy about that stuff then, and still am in many ways...

They are all available in my shop.

Wonderfully productive

New pouches for spring 2008, originally uploaded by nestdecorating.

Here are some new pouches for spring ! I have been working a lot this week, I decided to use a softer interfacing on my new pouches and totes, boy what a difference! they are nice and sturdy but also soft at the same time I just love the results!
I am stocking up and using these quiet times to design and redesign a few new items for the store, is anyone else experiencing slower sales these last 2 weeks?

It's snowing hard outside so I guess this weekend will be spent working and cooking! we are going to a birthday party tomorrow for my husband and 3 other friends,HAPPY BIRTHDAY sweetie! The party should be interesting...it's in a beautiful country house up in the mountains in Charlotte, which is about 20 min. away, I am baking a yummy chocolate cake and really looking forward to it! February is birthday month, my son Mikey will be 13 on the 14th, he was born on Valentines day! How cute is that?? we will be celebrating his Bar Mitzvah in June.

So here they are, some of my new spring pouches all available in my shop

Pink retro pouch

Aqua retro pouch

Aqua pencil pouch

and a new line of modern looking longer pouches/pencil cases

have a great weekend! xox

New spring products

I have been wanting to make new Dreamcatchers and Fairy crowns for spring for a while now, lying around the house this week recovering from a  mini procedure felt almost like a mini break and gave me the time to do just that! So I re designed them, re thought the bead work on the hanging strings and re named them with all my favorite girlish names, of course they all sound like they just walked out of a Jane Austin book but that's exactly what I love!!!!
I also wanted to thank all you sweet people who left me such nice comments and emails about the Decor8 article, thank you all!!
I  signed up to the Dawanda web site and my husband is working on building me my own web store , anybody have experience with a yahoo store web site? does it work? sell well? we thought we would give it a try...not sure I like the idea and their graphics and colors ....very basic...hopefully soon we will be able to afford a real site and not a template...
so here are a few of new Dreamcatchers, all available in my shop:

 

I am also working this week on a completely different product, inspired by my sweet neighbor Kate who has a beautiful 2 year old daughter and just gave birth to her son, she reminds me of myself a few years ago managing 3 little ones, with one arm holding one baby, another pushing a stroller and the third on me in a sling...anyway, I made these giant baby pouches, I found the softest flannel in very cool prints and they are big enough for a diaper or two and a box of wipes, or a snack and bottle, or even as a traveling pouch, when you have your first child you are so into all the gear,by the time I had my third baby I got so sick of giant diaper bags all I wanted to do is minimize the gear,grab a diaper and stick it in my own bag. so here is a way to do just that! (available in my shop of course...):

and on a last note, I was in the book store this morning and found this gorgeous Interior book by Anita Kaushal , check it out it's perfect!
http://www.amazon.com/Family-Home-Love-Life-Style/dp/030739445X

have a wonderful weekend! xox!

A new year

This year started with a wonderful visit from my brother and sister in law and my 3 adorable nieces, they live in Israel and decided to take 6 months off to tour and hike South America, my little nieces are 12,9 and 6, and I can't begin to tell you what an incredible adventure this is, a giant outdoor school room,they are starting their trip in Argentina, from there they will be crossing over to Chile and then to Antigua Guatemala, if you read Hebrew you can follow their trip here:http://schechners.blogspot.com/. while the girls were here we spent hours crafting, making giant pom poms, baking pink cupcakes and I  basically tried to get in as much girl activity as I possibly could....but then I got sick with the flu....and was (and still am) bed ridden for the last 2 days of their visit, so annoying,we had so many  plans!!!
Thank you Lili my sweet sister in law for taking over the kitchen and basically cooking for 10 people for the last few days! I don't know what I would have done with out you...
In the midst of all this I myself am planning a trip to Israel to visit my family and friends for a couple of weeks and not log after I get back it looks like my husband is off again for 3 weeks of work...
I did manage to make a couple of new bags last week, working with 10 people around is actually very satisfying....everyone has something different to say....can you believe I actually didn't go stir crazy?
This one is a shoulder bag with a tie closure made from felted beads ans linen string

also a ton of new magnets including some new ones of Tokyo...

many new ones of Paris after they where wiped out of my shop this last holiday season

and some of  the NYC subway map, oh how I miss you NY....

and my own personal favorites, the textile collection

All available in my Etsy shop.

My head is exploding with ideas for spring and in February I will be participating in the Poppytalk Hand Made Market place! I am so excited about this! in the meantime check it out, it has a beautiful collection of shops and designers.

A touch of sun

Today I felt I need the sunshine, you hear a lot about sun deprivation up here in the snowy north but I personally never really felt it before, I got up this morning thinking, OK this is crazy, there was no sun up here in Vermont for a month!!! I swear I was standing by the window looking out and the sun came out!!! and it turned out to be a gorgeous day, not too cold, simply beautiful! so the sun is shining and my husband is back after what seemed to me like the longest month ever, happiness is back in our household!
to celebrate all this I did two things, I baked a chocolate cake from this amazing recipe, I will post the recipe sometime this week.
Then I sat down and made some new pouches with a touch of sun on my mind...so here they are:

I love this whimsical fabric, it's white cotton with an Indian-meets- British- country  mix....

the inside is the cutest polka dot fabric, very retro...and the beads are glass

This is also a cute retro looking fabric with tiny flowers in the prettiest shade of light aqua:

and finally bigger polka dots with the above fabric as lining

I also wanted to share with you the newest addition to our Art wall, a print by Betsy Walton  purchased from her Etsy shop.
It's truly gorgeous, thank you Betsy!

can you see it there...? it's the one in the middle, I really have to much stuff...

by the way, the pouches are available in my Etsy shop.

Happy New Year to all of you!!! kisses and hugs from ALL of us here in the Schechner household !!!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Chores,errands and general tasks

I can't believe it's the 8th already, December is flying by and I am in whirlpool of tasks,errands,orders,sewing and have a general feeling that I am not doing half the things I set out to do. It has a lot to do with my hubbie being away, I am very spoiled by us doing everything together,we are a great team and manage to get all these tiny annoying things out of the way, splitting up errands, dividing the cleaning (he does the vacuuming and bathtub which I hate!) and we split up cooking diners which I can't do it every night, it's gets to boring....I did manage to fit in some Hanukkah cooking and made a giant amount of Latkas that were devoured in 5 minutes by 3 hungry boys! 
Note to self:
must clean,do laundry,cook (not pasta or Latkas)...

I did take some time last weekend to decorate the front door:

and took a picture I love of our snowy front yard:

This week I am styling and producing a fun photo spread for the "Burlington free Press": Stocking stuffer gifts for kids, I already started my store rounds and found some fantastic stuff, I am focusing on color, creativity and general cutness! I will post it here after it gets published.

Here are a few things I managed to make this week in between orders (and instead of cleaning)

A tissue holder cozy

I also sell them in a set of 3

don't you love those great colors?

and finally, I found some great heavy double sided Cath Kidston gift paper so I made a whole bunch of Country kitchen magnets, the other side is the polka dot print in the backround, they too are in the shop

next post I'll let you know if I finally managed to get my life together....

Giant snow bunnies

Saturday morning is always a good day to look back at the passing week. Thanksgiving came and went, we were on our own this year with all of our friends hosting families or away, so I decided not to get a turkey since one of my sons is vegetarian, one hates chicken (weird right....) which leaves us 3 with a giant bird....instead we thanked with an Indian meal complete with home made Chapati, Ginger sweet potato and Coconut milk soup, Curried chicken Masala and separate curried tofu dish and rice with chestnuts.
Was yummy!
and then it snowed! finally! is there anyhting more beautiful then waking up to a snowy day?
The boys climbed up Bolton valley and did a little snowboarding and massive fun.

When I look at these giant kids it's hard to believe how  much they grew this year! Daniel is 6'!!...

I also did more sewing, especially more pouches, they are so fun to make! I am very proud of this one, I used two different velvets I have

and the biggest meditation of all for me is making jewelry, I love it and never seem to have time to actually sit down and make some, also the beads are so expensive....!
Here is one I made last night, I really like the little pearl and smokey Czech bead on the ends,which I  love to wear on the bottom. This necklace is long, about 15" it hangs right between the breasts.

both necklace and pouch are in my shop ,the photos didn't come out so well, too much sun today in my favorite photographing corners, maybe I'll try new ones later, but for now I'll just curl up and read my book...:)
Have a fantastic week!

Busy weekend

Well remember the snow prediction last week? It didn't happen,not here anyway, it snowed all around us,in the mountains in other towns, but not here, Cars were coming in from everywhere with huge piles of snow on their roofs, everyone was talking about the first snow....we were so jealous!!!

I had a super busy weekend, sold more then 20 items and had 3 wholesale orders!! yey!! It felt so good to have things move along this way, I was fulfilling orders and was busy at my work table the whole weekend,poor kids, I didn't even have time to cook! but they happily ate frozen pizza... then on Sunday I sat down to make some new pouches and came up with some I really like. I have a beautiful piece of Kenzo velvet, I first bought it to make a pillow but decided yesterday to make pouches out of it,this way I am spreading the cheer....:)

then I experimanted with using ribbons on the pouches and came up with this:

and this:

and finally something completely different,a few pouches with some great Ikea canvas fabric I just bought lately, personally I love these the most...

I posted them all in the shop, I hope they sell well.

Sunday

Here in Vermont once Halloween is over you begin to feel winter in the air. We woke up this morning to a chilly 32F (oC), clear blue skies and piles and piles of leaves to rake,we did some yesterday and today thanks to my sweet son Jonathan who cleared the whole back
lawn making these little Andy Goldsworthy piles

we are now leaf free...

I made him a super special Jonathan sandwich:
Whole grain bread
Dijon mustard
Cabot cheddar cheese (Hunter's favorite)
Tomato (the last from the garden turning red in a brown paper bag...)
Alfalfa sprouts
Thin 2 egg omelet
Chili peppers

it was gone in 2 seconds...

one of my favorite scenes of all times is the whole neighborhood out raking their lawns. With snow just around the corner I changed all the bed linens to flannel, we switched the screen windows to glass and rearranged the wood pile bringing a few logs in for the fire place, Ah the sweet smell of a fire burning...Can you tell I love winter???

Here in my studio things are cooking up for the holiday season, I made a new Dreamcatcher with lovely holiday colors but I kept it simple so it can be used all year round

And a little cuteness, a tiny 3" dreamcatcher ornament, it's a actually a mini wreath and I'm in love....I'll be making more of these little babies these next few days:

in the meantime you can find them here in my shop

A great week to all

xoxo

Paper

I promised myself I will sew this week, I got some amazing new corduroy fabrics in pinks,oranges,reds and greens but every time I decided to start cutting I sat down and made some new cards. I love making cards,I love the graphics, I love creating new shapes and using my stamp and wood cut collections from all over the world, and when there is a holiday coming up I am really loving it...

Here are some of my new holiday cards

my new color collection:

some of my new mini colorful paper cards:

and finally some of the new gift tags with linen strings:

All available in my shop

xoxo to you all

Something new

Finally I've been managing to keep myself away from distractions and just work work work. I have a whole collection in my head and it's truly great to be able to start seeing it slowly emerge  from random pieces of fabric to actual stuff!!!! I bought lovely very fine printed corduroys for the winter bag collection and some great canvasy looking fabric in Fall colors (I did however sneak in a piece of aqua blue fabric with pink roses,totally summer I know,but I swear I couldn't help myself....)

Here is one of the new totes I made this week (this one was sold but I making new ones) I've been adding these little felted bead thingy that will be hanging from the handles of all my bags I think it's wintry and fun...

I love the inside fabric of this bag , I wish I could get more but I can't remember where I got it, any idea people? I think I got it this summer (it's hard to live with a frazzled brain...) anyway, the fabric is cotton with a creamy background and pink roses, the contrast with the corduroy is very fun.

This is one of the big tote collection I am working on, it started out as a commissioned school bag I designed for sweet 16 year old Sidney, complete with a zippered pouch ( for pencils or cosmetics) and great inner and outer pockets for all her school gear, it developed into a whole line and I making them now in flower printed corduroys and more printed canvas (see B/W bag on the bottom of this page):

Hopefully they will be in the shop by Friday.

Here the other black and white printed canvas tote ,I love they way it came out, it's so elegant and funky at the same time....this one is still available in my shop, the felted beads didn't look good here, it's too elegant.

but the inside is kinda fun....pink roses on a yellow background with some of my stuff modeling the pockets....lip gloss,pen,pencil,my favorite little colored paper notebook from the paperchase collection at Borders and my cell phone with colored tape on the antenna beacause we ALL (5 of us) have the same phone....

A pocket or two

No we are not finished with the kitchen yet, life has gotten a little easier though, the cabinets and counter tops are all in place and we actually have running water in the sink, yeay!!! thank you my genius husband and you to Chris his genius friend! we are now working on the floors, turns out to be quite a job, especially around the edges ughhh!!!!
I did however manage to squeeze in some studio time between the kitchen, a giant pile wholesale orders and two new interior decorating clients.
I was staring at my ugly folder shelf, I keep a folder for each client with all the relevant information and suddenly eureka! why don't I make a pretty fabric pocket to keep all these plastic folders in? turned out to be very cute and functional and looks so much prettier on the shelf! I made some for sale too and they are available  on etsy.




I also found some fantastic flower printed fine corduroy so hopefully this weekend will be able to sew up some new bags...
have a great day!

Small Magazine

It's out! the new September issue of Small Magazine is out! and guess what's on the cover? my fairy crown!!! How exciting! I made a special Fall fairy crown with a soft brown and baby blue tulle just for them,it will be available in my shop this weekend.

I also made a new flower pin in Fall colors which you can see here

that too will be available this weekend.

As I was browsing through this lovely issue I suddenly saw that my good friend Davina is also featured! Davina is a fantastic photographer and was such a delight to see her page in there,check out her children photos here.

Our kitchen project is moving along and we will be finished next weekend hopefully...so is my book project, with all the photos for the presentation due next week,ugh....so much work....

Thank you so much Charlotte and Yvonne for posting my Dream catchers on your beautiful blogs! I made a new one yesterday called "Baby Girl" , it's a very soft and light,with a  pink and white ribbon.

and finally my new monthly article for the Burlington Free Press is out, this time the subject was decorating your dorm room on a budget