Dresses

My daughter is visiting her grandparents for some days. This leaves me with lots of time and of course, I've made long lists in my head of projects i think I can do these days. Of course, I never get to the bottom of these lists and they also change on the way. -But it's still lovely to have time for experimenting and to try out new ideas.

Yesterday I made dresses for my daughter and my niece. The elephant fabric is bought on a flea market last autumn. They used to be a pair of quite tired old curtains and have been waiting to be sewn into something new and fresh.

I just love it when I can replace something that usually would be bought new, with a redesigned and handmade item! My niece is going to get this dress for her birthday in January. Since she is four and doesn't have a blog, hopefully she won't find out...

The dresses are made from a pattern from a great book on redesign: "Brukt på nytt" by Kathrine Gregersen.

Norwegian Christmas (with an international touch)

I bought two new ornaments this Christmas. From Etsy, of course! Nothing beats Etsy holidays!
Super cute Christmas dog ornament from LittleandbigK, Australia.

My children did the decorating of the Christmas tree. As usual.

Fish On Earth from La Pomme, France.

The holidays have so far been lovely and relaxing. I hope you are having a great time too!

Do you have any homemade or eco friendly Christmas ornaments this year?

House of Foundation

You are now able to buy bibs and t-shirts from Strand redesign at House of Foundation in Moss, Norway.

Winter (on and off)

Winter's been a bit on and off lately. This is the view from my house some days ago.

These cute winter cards are drawn by Gunnlaug Moen Hembery.

My peony tea towel. New print on an old linen towel. You find one in both my shops. My Epla shop. My Etsy shop.


A custom order I made yesterday; key fob with penguins.

Marieflyfly's frosty necklace. She has both an Etsy shop and a shop on the norwegian site, Epla.

Christmas decorations

Imagine having a collection like this of vintage Christmas decorations...
I found the photos in Mikkidesigns shop on Etsy earlier this year. Unfortunately, they don't have anything like this in their shop at the moment.

But in Tinsel and Trinket's shop they've got all sorts of lovely, old and charming Holiday decorations!

Great items from www.epla.no

Disse flotte produktene er fra nyåpnede www.epla.no.
Redesignet ring av gamle tallerkener fra På nytt!
Tyttebær såpe fra Ultimate Organic Soap.
Redesignet hval av gamle ullstoffer fra Blåbær.
Eikeløv øreringer fra Echoes of Norway. (Echoes of Norway also has an Etsy shop.)

Sustainable gift wrapping?

My daughter has been sick with the flu this week. Since she was really sick for only two days and the pig flu situation means that sick children need to be kept at home for seven days, we've had time for some fun too.
One of the days, we spent wrapping gifts. When we receive presents, I keep the undamaged paper and save it for next Christmas. So it's always a puzzle to see wich presents that match the various pieces of paper.

This year I've also made some reusable fabric gift wrap bags. My hope is that they will sirculate and save wrapping paper the coming years.

The camel card is made from a gift box wich came with some clothes one year, and the cat card is made by sewing some printed scraps onto some cardboard.

What is your most eco friendly gift tip?

Etsy finds in grey and white

It's been a grey week. Now it's started snowing, so the grey is slowly turning white.
These are my current favourites on Etsy. I just adore these cute flower buttons from Artmind!


And I love the bags from Cleverscene! Redesigned suits, so stylish and elegant!

But most of all... I feel strongly that I need this necklace from VerreEncore. Somehow I've started feeling that I can't face the holidays without it.

Shop update

I've started lsiting my new organic and comfortable t-shirts in my t-shirt shop: http://www.unnistrand.etsy.com/

I will list more tees in the coming days.
Photos: Astrid Kristiansen

And here's the story behind my Teacher from hell t-shirts.

Happy friday with a pink candy bib!

I wish everyone a nice and lovely weekend!

The Scarlet Letter

Thanks to Vintage Scraps who put me in this truly lovely treasury!

The teacher from hell

This is the latest print from my studio. It's printed on one of my brand new organic t-shirts. Yay!
As you might know, I teach 16-18 year old students. They are in the habit of fighting for their civil rights. One of them is "#1 The right to go home from school early."
(Other rights: , #2 The right to use Facebook during lessons, #3 The right to eat during lessons and #4 The right to put on make up during lessons. And there's many more, of course.)

Back to #1. The most basic one, I think.
Particularly in the start of a school year, they try this one out with passion. They tell me how early the other classes are allowed to go home. (Most students they know are left out 20 minutes early, and once, there was this class who where sent home at 12.)

And they are actually telling me that if I don't let them go early, there will be no seats left on the school bus, and therefore, because of me, they will have to stand on the bus all the way home. And why can't I just let them go home early like all the other teachers does?

This is when I tell them: "Well, that's because you've got the teacher from hell."

So, being a teacher involves taking unpopular decisions. Sometimes you have to be the teacher from hell.

EPLA

http://www.epla.no/ is a new Norwegian marketplace for handmade goods, so the following information will be in norwegian.

Epla er et nytt nettsted for kjøp og salg av håndlagde ting!
Epla ble startet av Siw, Torunn, Morten og Rakel fordi de så behovet for et norsk nettsted hvor man kan kjøpe fantastiske og håndlagde ting.
Det vil bli stort utvalg av ulike produkter, klær, kunst, mat og interiørartikler med mer.
Epla åpner 16.november. Les mer på nettsiden deres!
Jeg kommer til å være med fra starten med mine STRAND-produkter. Både redesign og økologiske t-skjorter.

Du kan også åpne din egen Epla-butikk! Les mer på http://www.epla.no/.

Her er eksempler på noe av det du kan få kjøpt på Epla:

Peony

Don't you just love peonies?
The print on this zipper pouch is from a charcoal drawing I made of the peonies in my garden.

Saturday night in the house

It's Saturday night and I'm the only one awake in the house.
Someone's been playing in the livingroom...

Fall in Italy

We went to Bergamo in Italy last weekend.

Everything was lovely...