and then there was a shop.

I'm excited to announce that after years of dreaming and thinking and over-thinking, I finally took the plunge and started a business!
My etsy shop is filled with cute accessories for knitters and crafters. I'll add a variety of bag sizes within the next couple of weeks and I have many more products planned to add to the shop in autumn.

You wouldn't believe how much joy these two custom stamps give me. After years of doodling during class it feels rad to see my design on a stamp. I may or may not have used the stamp to add cute sheep to most of my financing notes. Whoops.

The shop is available in two languages - German and English. I ship internationally and I offer custom orders at reasonable prices. If you have any questions, please email me at marie [at] froggeddesigns.com.

Last but not least, here's a little something for my dear blog readers:

lens cap pouch tutorial

I'm one of those people who always loses their lens cap. I usually put them in my jeans pockets but then I make weird acrobatic moves to get a good picture, thus the lens cap is uncomfortable in my pocket and I put it somewhere else. Next thing I know it's gone. So today I made something using my favorite camera fabric and decided to make a lens cap pouch. It's super simple and quickly done and a great gift for photography enthusiasts!

Here's a tutorial so you can make your own:

estimated time needed to complete: 30 minutes
skill level: 1 of 5
materials: two 4x4" pieces of the outer fabric, two 4x4" pieces of the lining, ribbon, hook and kam snaps that match your fabrics.

All seam allowances are 1/4 inch.

Step 1: cut all your fabrics and sew them together in the following order: lining, outer fabric, lining.

Step 2: Feed the hook through your ribbon and secure with the hook facing in. Make sure your seam allowance is less than 1/4 inch so the seam won't show through once your pouch is done.

Step 3: Fold your piece in half, right sides facing together, and sew around all open edges, leaving an opening at the short edge to turn your piece right side out. Carefully trim the corners.

Step 4: Turn right side out and press. Sew the opening at the bottom close using a very small stitch. Tuck the lining in.

Step 5: Now comes my favorite part. Choose kam snaps to match your fabrics and put them in.

Step 6: Enjoy!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email :)
Also, I'd love to see your lens cap pouch if you decide to make one yourself.

around here

It's been an awesome week. My custom rubber stamps from simon's stamps came in the mail today and I'm in love!! There are only some minor German bureaucratic things I have to figure out before I can open my shop. I'll talk more about it in a separate post next week.
I finally got a proper solution for my broken Expedit desk. I love the shelf + desk combo but after the desk's leg broke off due to some minor kitty incident I temporarily added some desk legs my dad bought a while ago. It worked out okay but it didn't look very good and it wasn't very practical either. I finally decided to buy the Alex drawer unit. I love all the extra storage it adds to my sewing table and Lina loves sleeping on it :)

My seedlings are doing great and the first batch of zucchini plants is already planted in my parents' garden. I can't wait to harvest the first zucchinis in a month or so!!
Remember how I promised I'd try to take a picture of the cinnamon pull apart I made for our knitting club meeting last week? Well it's only a quick instagram snapshot but looking at it makes me wanna make another one. Anything with cinnamon never seem to survive more than a day around here.

lazy saturday

My kitty is having a lazy Saturday, staying in bed all day and even refusing to get up so I can make the bed. That's basically her daily routine; waking me up eeearly and terrorizing me until I get up to feed her. The minute she's done with her breakfast she goes back to bed and won't leave it until something exciting happens (either another meal or a visitor).
What a hard life...
I'm off to a knitting breakfast with some deliciously smelling cinnamon pull apart bread. Yum! I'll try to take some pictures before it's all gone - no promised though.

Have a great weekend!

around here

There's so much going on around here lately - lots of soil, fabrics and yarn!
Lina loves hanging out by my sewing machine - though she prefers sleeping on my phone than any of my new creations. In case you should ever find yourself in my apartment looking for your phone - look underneath Lina first. Also speaking of her, I've been suspecting her of playing with my seedlings for days but I've never caught her do it. Just soil on my floor or desk from time to time... I guess the picture of my zucchini seedling with one of her hairs on it proves I'm right.

Have I mentioned that I love growing plants? Like 'from scratch'? Sure, buying commercial plants and harvesting the first vegetables after a couple of days sounds tempting but I prefer growing my own plants. So far my zucchini and basil seedlings are thriving. The sorrel seedlings have yet to reach the sunlight but they are only two days old - no worries yet. Have you ever used some of those 'pop-up' seedling pellets? You pour water on it that is soaked up and you can put your seed in it. They came with the containers I bought so I figured I could just as well give them a try. I'll let you know how it works in a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow is a public holiday (Ascension Day) in Germany so I'm looking forward to a lazy day at home. My future apartment mate (she's moving in in June - can't wait!) is coming over tomorrow and we'll cook something and get to know each other a little better. It's gonna be rad to have a 'like-minded' apartment mate!! I'll introduce her on the blog once she's moved in and we know each other a little better :)

planted.

The weather is finally spring-like enough over here to start growing some plants. So yesterday I got my gardening gloves out and the seeds I bought a couple weeks ago. I always buy organic seeds because I prefer chemical-free food and also a million other reasons that you can google if you're interested. I filled this container thingy (I think it's called cell flats?) with soil outside because it's always a huge mess. I added the seeds inside because it was rather stormy outside and I was afraid the light basil seeds might get blown away.

Have I mentioned that Lina likes flowers? As in she tries everything to eat them; once I put some flowers on my fridge to keep them out of her reach and she did a crazy stunt to jump from a chair to the fridge. She becomes a cat with superpowers as soon as plants are involved!

So naturally my planting actions weren't unnoticed and soon Lina was there to expect her future food. Or so she hopes.

I planted ten zucchini seeds. My parents have an awesome spot in their garden where I grew zucchini last year and they were huge and super tasty! I wanna plant some seedlings there but I'm also planning to plant some in the garden of the apartment house I live in. I'm somewhat paranoid thought that neighbors might steal my vegetables...

I also planted some basil because, well, it's basil. It's awesome and I use it for just about every meal I make. Have I mentioned that I like Italian food? I'm gonna make some pesto this season so I'll need looots of basil! :)

So the seeds are sitting (and hopefully growing soon!) on my window sill where Lina can keep an eye on them. I've seen her stare at the containers several times as if she expects something grand to happen. I guess I finally found someone who's as excited about my little plants as I am ;)

52 craft projects // dotted knitting project bag

I have a secret: I'm a bag addict.
Nothing gets me more excited than browsing through books, looking for bag inspiration. And finding the perfect bag fabric? It makes my day.
I found the dotted fabric at ikea earlier this year. It's called 'ullgump' (who makes up with such a name for a fabric!?) and it's perfect. Awesome design, sturdy, great quality and cheap. Everything a bag maker dreams of :)

The interior features several pockets for needles, scissors, etc.
It's roomy enough for my yarn holder, my biiig knitting project, an extra skein or two and a small pouch with more knitting accessories. The measurements are 11"x11" and 6" deep.The yarn holder thingy is 5" and I wanted to make sure it fits in there well. If I were to make a similar bag again I'd probably go with 5" depth which still gives plenty of room for everything a knitter on the go needs.

I'm known for dragging quite some heavy stuff around, like e.g. my laptop. I secured the adjustable straps very well to make sure this bag will live a long and secure life.

I didn't want a zipper to harm the yarn so I simply added two kam snaps that match the fabric to close the bag.

All in all it took me three hours to sew the bag - including coming up with the design. I love spontaneous craft ideas that work out fine!

ps: If you're reading this using a RSS reader, click here and check out my new header! I wanted something fresh for spring and I'm considering re-designing some parts of the blog layout as well.
This is project #14 of 52 craft projects I'm attempting to complete in 2013.
You can see all the other projects I've complete so far here.