An idea for favors

For those who are not familiar with the greek - orthodox traditions, let me tell you that after the religious ceremony of the baptism during which the baby takes his name and enters the Christian community, getting out of the church everybody who attended this ceremony is offered a favor with dragees. This also happens after the wedding ceremony. In past years things were traditional and simple: a few dragees wrapped in white tulle and tied with a ribbon. Now there is a whole professional branch which offers this kind of service , infinite designs and colors of favors for weddings and baptisms making it hard to choose from.

My second son's baptism was last Sunday. At first I thought I didn't want to make anything myself because I didn't have time and felt tired. On second thought I decided that it was not fair to him since I had made myself the invitations to my first son's baptism (hmm, a potential future post) , and the second one deserved to have something hand made by mum too. I just decided to go for something simple and fast.

So I bought these ready made cotton pouches in blue and ecru and some satin ribbon and satin cord in two shades of yellow.





I also found these little eye charms (protecting against evil vibes, people and actions) in a jewelry supplies store.





After I put the dragees in, I was satisfied with the color combination but I thought that something was missing.


I love monograms and I thought to make a small tag with an N for Nikiforos but didn't want something too serious. So I scanned this blue gingham fabric, printed it, cut a small rectangular piece of the paper gingham and glued a piece of the yellow lace on the bottom, and scanned again the collage.




I searched the internet for a childlike font and found Human Brown Eye which you can download here. Then my friend Maria who's a graphic designer took over and digitally pasted an orange N of this font on my scanned gingham and lace collage. Of course you don't have to be a graphic designer to do this, I am just photoshop illiterate. I printed them and cut them and ended up with these tags.




and finally with these favors.



I hope you could use this idea to make yours and I'd like to see some photos.

Turquoise earrings

Back in the eighties when big, plastic, bad taste jewelry was in fashion, a different kind of jewelry shop opened in my neighborhood in Athens. It sold beautiful, handmade, elegant, imaginative, artistic jewelry, made mainly of sterling silver and gemstones - it was too early for the mixed media trend in jewelry making. I don't want to say that I was so sophisticated that time, as a teenager I wore what most girls wore those years, but when I first entered this shop it was like entering a new world. Every time we visited with my mother, usually when we wanted to buy a "good" present, I wished that there were a lot of people shopping at the moment, so that the lady who owned the shop would delay to take care of us and I would take my time to enjoy all the fine, amazing things in there. Sometimes I believe that this thing I have for jewelry began in there. In the summer when I was 13 my mother bought me that sweet pair of earrings made of sterling silver and turquoise chips in some kind of transparent medium - resin maybe. I loved them and wore them a lot until I forgot them in the depths of some drawer. I rediscovered them a few years ago and started wearing them again. The shop doesn't exist anymore but it is amazing how fresh the earrings look after almost 24 years. And they always remind me of summer.

Ideas for handmade jewelry

Αν έχετε διάθεση να δημιουργήσετε τα δικά σας κοσμήματα επισκεφτείτε αυτό το blog για μερικές διασκεδαστικές ιδέες οι περισσότερες από τις οποίες δεν απαιτούν τη γνώση ιδιαίτερων τεχνικών :
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/jewelry/

Καλές δημιουργίες!


If you feel like creating your own jewelry, visit this blog for some fun ideas most of which don't require the knowledge of special techniques:
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/jewelry/

Happy creating!