Tea'n'Balloons

Homemade Happiness.

Today I was inspired! by Johanna's blog and her post on garlands. I decided to make one of the simple ones to decorate my room, supporting the spring-feeling coming up here in Istanbul. It's really easy to make a garland, I did it like this:

1) take a carton, cut out a triangle with two same length longer legs as a stencil.
2) choose paper you like (left over wrapping papers? or coloured, patterned, I think even newspaperpaper would look nice, oh, and plain white for the garden?) and use the stencil to make as many triangles as you want for your garland.
3) fold each triangle along the short side aprox. 1 centimetre to the back. cut away the small overlapping corner parts right and left.
4) lay a twine into the fold of the first triangle of your garland and fix the fold at the corners with a stapler (>> staple free stapler).  Try to fix the twine inside the fold by stapling, if possible.
5) go on with the next triangle. and the next one. and the next one, and the next one... aaand finally hang it and be happy :)

If you want a free hanging garland, you should cut ot diamonds instead of triangles and fold them in the middle. I guess in that case it's easier to glue the halfs together instead of stapling.

Filly.

"And here, where the practical and the precious come together, was where my heart led me." says Filly designer Emily Christensen. We can see and wear that in her spring 2011 (above) and fall 2010 collection (below). Oh and:

HIGH-WAISTED FOR-EVER!

***** update: FILLY launched an online-shop ***** Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! *****

Dizzy Dazzling.

by Diana F+ and me

FAA.

I am not exactly positive about featuring H&M again...
but I have to write about their Fashion Against AIDS collection because I had on my mind and loooved the idea of a unisex collection for a very long time already.
A sportive collection like this one is probably the easiest try for unisex, but anyways. A unisex collection seems more than boyfriend look and more than just a fashion experiment to me. Somehow it is about gender equality, without abolishing distinctions. It puts the indivisual (haha, thanks typing error) person and style in focus, not girly or boyish. And to promote safer sex is definitely something adressed at all sexes. Use a condom!

And even though this collection is not sustainable in an ecological way you will do good with your money, as 25% of the sales go to HIV/Aids projects around the world. The collection is available in H&M’s Divided department from 26th April.

Lights out!

via here

On march 26th, 20:30

Lights out for Earth Hour 2011.

"This isn't an energy-saving act. It isn't intended to save an extra hour of energy to use later on. It's to spread a message."
(quoted from Pikapal1's comment on the short version of the beautiful Earth Hour 2011 Ad) 
This hour won't change the world, but it raises awareness and shows us once again that people all over the world can work together to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Invite your friends and family, light some candles and have a wonderful dinner. And debate how to go beyond the hour (<< click on it for inspiration)!

Ahh, and definitely listen to Santigold:

Natures kid.

images by Ryan Mc Ginley. visit his website, he has many other beautiful images and a series called "Somewhere Place" that'll make you look forward to mild summernights.

Orange mood.

Today Istanbul showed its friendly face and sent some sunrays. This made it much more enjoyable to walk to the "100% Ekolojik Pazar" (Organic Food Market) and it also allowed me to sit on our balcony and have a tea in the sun. Just in a t-shirt! The day before yesterday it was snowing. Crazy, but that's for sure: I won't complain :)

(the mosaics are the fascade of a house in my street, all images taken by me with my phone cam)

Sunny tittilation.

Some pieces from Bodkin SS 11. My favourites are the beige Twister Jumpsuit, the orange Trillium shorts and the grey Twister Swimmsuit. OH, and of course the worn out boots, wich are naturally not part of the collection :)

About Bodkin:

Handy(wo)man.

Architect Le Van Bo from Berlin designed furniture you cannot buy, but build. His intention was to create classic, high quality furniture using ecologically recommendable materials - for low money, so that even people living on Hartz IV (german welfare) could afford it. It's not only the cheap chic, but especially the DIY aspect that is important to Le Van Bo:

"I was depending on welfare benefits for many years myself. With my Hartz IV furniture series I want to encourage people to - literally - take their lives in their own hands and really build the things themselves. Because like this you develop such a sense of achievement that afterwards, so do I belive, you will be able to master other things as well." (quoted and translated from here)

Above: The Kreuzberg 36 chair (Kreuzberg = quarter of Berlin, 36 = price in Euro for the material) is my favourite. If I just needed chairs...
Below: The 24 Euro chair. As well in the series: the SiWo-sofa (SiWo for single apartement), the piscator table and the Berlin stool.

The construction plans fit on one page each and are available for free via email, for the request just send your motivation, location and where you heard about the project. And afterwards images of your built furniture (optional). 

(images are excerpts from the catalogue to the exhibition "Perspectives on in/ outside" and taken from here)

Baltic gewaltig.

As beautiful as it might look - unfortunately it was fucking cold and me in skirt and tights  - so I did not take the time to fall into deep meditation over it, but just had a quick obligatory gaze (is gaze and quick a contradiction?). The Bosphorus is nice and all, but the Baltic sea is where my heart is.

Colour explosion.

I'm back in Istanbul and back with some fashion! I put together my first collection on polyvore and named it CE - colour explosion:
The block colour trend is huge for spring/summer 2011. Especially the combination of orange and pink found a lot of attention in magazines and blogs. Beside the bright and intensive colours, the pieces are held rather simple and straight and clean cut. This makes them perfect to survive more than one season. >> That is already sustainable. But for the CE collection I only chose pieces that have more aspects of sustainability - they are made from recycled materials, from organic cotton or from vegan leather or ...

Ecofashion does not have to be pale! Colour with conscience.

CE - colour explosion

I will use polyvore more often in the future and you can go there anytime you want and check out all the stuff I "clipped" (kind of imported or marked in(to) the polyvore library) from all those many eco-fashion-shops I sort through every once in a while. On one hand some of the pieces will of course represent my personal wishlist but on the other hand I will try to represent a good overview about all the fascettes eco-fashion provides.

Birdies.

I love birdies. Those printed on shirts and plates. Or made from porcelain. Yeah, the kitsch ones. Like pink they catch my eye and I don't know why.

Luke Stephenson's "The Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds" allows me to indulge in birdies without bashful feelings - his bird portraits are no kitsch, they are just beautiful.

Carla Carnival.

On my sisters wall I found this cute polaroid pic of her (in the middle) painted as a clown. It was a project with her art-class in highschool. Those right and left are from Luke Stephenson's series "The painted Faces".