A Different Perspective

We have been very busy lately and thoroughly neglected our blog! In a month our course is ending and we'll be able to relax a bit and give all our online places some much needed attention. Until then I still won't be able to update the blog often but I will do my best :)

In the mean time I wanted to share two lovely Instagram shares with two of our creations :) The first here on the top was shared by Tenderblue who has a lovely Etsy shop with knitted baby clothing. The necklace has traveled from Turkey to Portugal and will now go for a visit to Ghana, Africa! Our jewelry travel more than we do :) Below you can see the necklace a little closer up.

The picture below was shared by TheBlueRabbitHouse accompanied with a illustration of a whale drawn by her. Her shop is full with beautiful embroidered accessories and illustration.

And below a close up from our shop :)

Thank you girls for sharing these pictures :)
It is so much fun to see our jewelry from a different perspective!

Newly Listed: Sea Urchin Jasper Necklace

Sea Urchin Jasper Necklace with Pearl and Gold Plated findings by StaroftheEast
Country Landscape Photograph birds on fence pasture, morning sunlight foggy by FirstLightPhoto
Nature Photograph, Autumn Fine Art Photography, Home Decor, Living Room Wall Art by Briole
Woods - Fairytale Photography - Forest Photos - Nature Photographs - Landscape by slightclutter

Day 5 - Istanbul

With a two days delay, here is a re-cap of our final day in Istanbul. We left yesterday morning and arrived home in the early afternoon again too tired to blog.
Friday we went to the fabric bazaar I mentioned in the previous post. Our wish cam true as the weather was dry although cold and windy. We were in heaven and had a blast going through the piles of fabrics.

There were also buttons and sewing notions but we had our eyes on the fabrics. We got also a nice stash of leather which will be awesome for some special bags.

There were also a section as a flea market but we were tired and had no money :)

  And vegetables, loved the look of these artichokes like bouquets of green flowers.

We left our bags in the hotel, caught our breath and headed back in to town for some last few errands, including buying a bigger suitcase as our luggage had expended tremendously :)

Early evening mum crashed at the hotel and I went to met an old friend, Serpil from SerpilGuneysu, who had kindly invited me in her home for a few days the last time I was in Istanbul.

We had some drinks below the Galata bridge right on top of the water.

And I took a snap for the occasion :)

After meeting Serpil mum and I had a big job of fitting all our stuff in our bags, miraculously we did not have to pay overweight :)

These little pots are something we wanted to show you, they looked so funny at the side of the roads. Mum kept comparing them to urns with ancestors :) They are actually used for a meat dish, apparently this way of preparing the meat gives a very special flavor, we did not try it but asked Serpil about these funny things.

Back home we are admiring our stash of supplies and sorting them in our atelier. We love what we got and our hands are itching to start making new things but we are still recouping of the 5 crazy days we had.

These are just a part of the jewelry supplies, we also have our bags of fabric and our trophy find is this vintage hotel cabinet below, we managed to get this in the plane without problems :)
We have listed it in our home decor shop, it is a rare find and we would keep it for ourselves but we just don't have the space for it.

Beside the tangible souvenirs we have collected some wonderful memories and had a great time, it was nice to get our of the daily routine, although it was not really a vacation we enjoyed it a lot, we hope you had fun with us here :)

Day 4 - Istanbul

Today it was incredibly cold, wet and windy, an unseen weather for April, but we had no outdoor plans so it was fine. We went to the Sadberk hanım museum, which is a private mesuem of one of the wealthiest families of Turkey. The Koç family has a huge amount of companies and one of the family members, Sadberk Koç, had a big passion for antiques. Her daughter founded the museum in name and honor of her mother.

The museum itself is in an old 'Yalı' which is the name of these fascinating large wooden luxurious houses near the shore (when such a house is not at a shore it is called a 'Konak'). These are richmen houses and are worth a fortune.

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside, so if you go to Istanbul you'll have to visit yourself to see the beautiful collection of old ottoman shoes and clothing, ceramic, jewelry and more.

If you come in warmer months you can make it a day trip and come by boat to see the entire shore of the Bosphorus and a beautiful picture taking trip you'll love it :)

Tomorrow is our last day and if the weather allows us we will be going to a bazaar dedicated to fabric, oh joy :)

Day 3- Istanbul

Today was a lonnnggg tiring day, right now I feel like I'm 80 years old I guess my mum is at least 120 :) In the morning we went to Topkapi palace which is a steep walk upwards. The palace is surrounded by beautiful gardens, a total of four courtyards wiih many seperate buildings.

Each builging has intricate doors, glass and lead windows, amazing tiles, painted ceilings, mother of pearl inladed windows and closets and beautiful fireplaces. Each room has different details, the amount of hours, years of work must have been huge, but the overall feeling was cozy, unlike some palaces you could imagine yourself living in it.

I loved this gilded cage for the window of the Sultan.

The gardens look out to the sea, we has cold but sunny weather, it must be even more wonderful when the weather is warm.

The gardens are very well kept and even though it was swarming with people, not one piece of trash could be seen. The flowers smelt amazing which gave a wonderful Spring feeling even though it is much colder than usual for this time of year.

I hand picked just a few pictures of the many I took, I did not want to bore you with the huge amount f pictures :)

After the palace we met with another Etsy friend, Akif, owner of TeomanDesign, who kindly showed us around to some great addresses to buy silver supplies. We were busy for a few hours choosing beautiful sterling silver beads and supplies until our wallets were empty. We also went to the grand bazaar, the surrounding of Hagia Sophia, Sultan Ahmet and many more streets. No wonder we are feeling so old... :) I will show pictures of those places tomorrow.