New Illustration Work

Recently I had such a great time working on an illustration for new etsy shop owner Secda! I created a large illustration for her and then used the illustration to create 4 shop banners for her - one for each season.

While I was creating the illustration, Secda sent me some photos of her creations and the illustration was very much inspired by them - they are so cute! I hope to do a proper post about Secda and her creations soon!

Above is a detail from the larger illustration and below are the four banners.

Her creations are all decorated hangers (wall hangings) with cute little bags attached to them - hence the hanger I put in as part of her shop name.   Some of my favourite designs of hers are here and here.    I love that little shawl the bear is wearing in the second wall hanging!

I took the opportunity to work with colours that were a little brighter and eye catching than my usual illustrations and I loved it!  One of my big goals this year is to start to experiement with colour!   Still soft and gentle...(because that's what I love!) but exploring all the beautiful colours out there.

So more on Secdus's shop soon, but in the mean time if you want to take a look at one of the banners up close and in action and to check out Secdus's shop click here.  The shop is just getting started but I have a feeling it will be a hit!

Making Mondays: Eggplant Fritters

Because we don't have an oven, when Yashar and I do some cooking together it's all about fritters. This time it was eggplant, but zucchini fritters are also favourites. Plus it's one way to Yashi to eat some vegies!

Yashar plays the part of chief button presser, pourer and mixer!...and his favourite part is cracking the eggs!

The recipe we make is based on these Moroccan Egplant Fritters I found on recipezaar.com.  We have changed it a fair bit (and it changes every time we make it depending on what we have at home and what I'm in the mood for!).  So I'll give you our rough version here:

1 large eggplant (this time we used two of the small round ones as they were freshest at the market - but we actually usually use 2 of the small thin ones)
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 eggs
2 cups of breadcrumbs
A small handful of kuş üzümü (small currants I think)
Some sultanas - if we have any
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
Half teaspoon of cinnamon
Salt and pepper
1 cup flour
I often also add some nice cheese that I have blitzed in the food processor.

2 extra cups of breadcrumbs

1.  Fry slices of eggplant in olive oil until soft and golden.  Blitz in food processor.
2.  Blitz old bread in food processor to make breadcrumbs.  Also blitz onion and garlic.
3.  Mix all ingredients except the second lot of breadcrumbs in a large bowl.
4.  Make small patties (the mixture will be pretty soft/runny) and then roll them in the extra breadcrumbs.  The breadcrumbs make them extra cripsy and tasty - worth the extra effort!
5.  Fry until golden.

I like to have mine with lemon and yoghurt (Turkish/Greek Style) or fetta.   Yum!

New Work: A Recent Commission

I loved working on this illustration!  I recently had the opportunity to work with Ayse Tolga again - who I had previously created cards for that were then in InStyle Home - yay! (You might remember the cards from this post and how excited I was about the press in this post!)  This time I created many more cards, ready for when the baby is born and also this illustration to help welcome her little daughter in to the world.

Ayse wanted me to create a very large illustration that was similar to my Snuggle Up illustration, but to also include a father rabbit and with 'Welcome Can Yael' in the print.  I loved the idea and set to work to make sure it was ready before the baby was born - yikes that was a deadline that couldn't be missed!

The photos above show a little of the process and below is the finished illustration.  I was so happy with how it turned out.  I got it printed as the size was way larger than my archival printer and we chose such a beautiful paper that just seemed to have the tiniest bit of sparkle to it.

I hope you like it!  And how are you all anyway?  I feel like I haven't been able to catch up with everyone and their blogs etc lately.  Hopefully soon!

Making Mondays: Letter Collecting

This morning I remembered a project we did back in University (when I was studying Graphic Design - before I swapped over to law and arts with a politics major...yes, it's been a winding road to get here.  Now I dream about how amazing it would be to go back to Uni to study fine arts/illustration!  To be able to spend all those hours creating, experimenting, honing technique would be amazing). 

I digress.  We did a project that involved taking photographs of various letters around the city and then using those to spell out a word.  So I thought this would be a great way to spell out Yashar's name and some numbers - especially as he is just at the very beginnings of recognising the shapes of numbers.  We managed to get some great ones - but still have plenty to collect.  Quite a few of the apartment buildings around here have old hand painted signs for the apartment names which I love.

When I got back to write this post I did a little googling and found a site called Create Sticks and Stones that  does a similar thing that you can order except the letters are formed from found objects.  I think this is such a nice idea!  The site has some gorgeous photos that will get you inspired! ...or you could just buy one from there! :)  This is one of the examples from their website.  I think the forms they have chosen are so beautiful and unique.

But for us it is another work in progress!

Etsy Goodness

The Christmas goodness continues here...I have been wanting to show you some of the gorgeous gifts that we (...ah ...mainly Yashar) were lucky to receive.

One of my awesome sisters ordered this one through the Ecozee for us and it is so so cute!!  And it has been getting lots of cuddles from both Yashar and I in the cold evenings here.    I love the idea!  It uses an upcycled wool sweater sleeve as the cover with a little tartan owl on it and the hot water bottle is a cute mini size that is perfect for Yashar.  I managed to take the photo on the left just as the sun was going down and the photo on the right is taken from Ecozee's shop.

And speaking of Etsy goodness - I was lucky enough to have two of my items featured on the Etsy front page last week - yay!  Double the goodness!  I couldn't believe it!  The first had the 'Make a Wish' print:

And the second had the Peace on Earth Angel:

Making Mondays: The Love Boat

These were hugely inspired by these cool Valentines airplanes made by Abby Glassenberg over at While She Naps and by all the miniature valentine making going on - like the adorable miniature heart garland and envelopes and packages over at Maya*Made and the 'world's smallest valentines' featured on design*sponge.  Wow, that's a lot of links!

They are little 'love boats' for Yashar's playgroup friends that we are meeting with to celebrate Valentines day this week.  Cute!  I'm imagining lots of cute card giving and hugs! 

These are the traditional paper boats I think.  I didn't know how to make them so I found the instructions on Origami Kids very helpful.  It has a little animation of each step which made things very easy!  The folding was definitely beyond Yashar's 2 year old skills, but he loved the end result!   We made them using pages from an old magazine which was nice and colourful (and as you have probably guessed by now, I love making 'green' things).

I also printed up little banners to fly off the end to send a little love from Yashar.

I hope you are all having a great start to the week!

A moment between a mother and her baby

This is one of the things that has been keeping me busy lately. I had a lovely lovely client that wanted me to create a painting of a mother and baby. She also wanted to include the names of the mother (Deniz) and the soon to be born baby Ayse, that she was giving the painting to. The mother, Deniz Akkaya, is a well known model here so I was able to read in the papers that little Ayse has now been welcomed into the world!

For the painting I wanted to capture a quiet and gentle moment between a mother and baby.  These are some pictures of the process and the finished painting.  Unfortunately I didn't get a good photo of it :(  It has been so dark and overcast here and then when it was framed I just had a quick chance to snap a picture with lots of reflections from the lights at the framers.  Anyway, hopefully you can at least get a feel for the painting.

I loved working on this for so many reasons. One of which was the chance it gave me to express my own feelings and experience with motherhood (not that it was all quiet moments – hehehe!) but I remember the feeling I had seeing Yashar sleeping peacefully when he was so small – the love and the wonder and a deep feeling of contentment.

Making Mondays: A scarf in progress

So, clearly I have a very loose interpretation of Mondays...but here we are anyway!  With all the weather we have been having like this lately -

...I was in the mood for knitting something cosy for Yashar.  And sometimes when I have a lot on (I'll show you what I've been up to soon!) I just need to sit down with a good movie and do some knitting...I find it so relaxing!  Are you the same? 

Anyway despite the huge amount of handknitted things Yashar has (lucky boy!), he could actually do with another scarf so I settled on this pattern that I found at It's a Stitch Up. 

It is actually really straight forward - really just knit 2 purl 2, but staggered on the rows to give the diagonal lines.  The only thing I have trouble with (as usual!) is remembering where I am up to in the 8 row pattern.  I ended up tying on a little marker at the end of each row so that I could just count the rows from the marker when I lose my place.

I'll show when it's finished!