Tse Moana

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Creative Pursuits

Friday, October 9, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

20151002_234514Kim got me this gorgeous colouring book for my birthday. It’s called Animorphia by Kerby Rosanes and has a lot of animal and nature things with tiny doodles in and around it. I’ve started colouring in it this week.

Nice, and relaxing. Felt tips going smoothly over the paper. Spotify on in the background, or maybe some TV that doesn’t require undivided attention. Tea at hand. Even some baklava one of those evenings. Perfect moments like that.

20151003_015037I’ve started with the interior cover pages. The right page is now done, the left one is in progress.

Earlier this week my cousin’s baby was born. Mom and I have making a fun little gift basket for the baby and the parents. As part of that, I’m making a hanger thing. But since I’m incorporating her name on the hanger thing I couldn’t start actually making it until after she was born and we knew what that name was going to be.

20151009_225855I have thin MDF shaped like birds, butterflies and hearts. I’m covering those in patterned felt. The front side gets a letter of the baby’s name and some embellishment. A bead, a charm something like that. Then I’m attaching them together so it can be hung.
At first I was going to go with a horizontal hanger, but after I had the first two shapes attached I realised they were too heavy. It wouldn’t stay without tipping over. So I will be removing the bits I need to re-use, and start anew.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Colouring, Crafting, Made by Me, Photos, Sewing

Metal and Wood

Wednesday, September 2, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Now that most of the boxes have been unpacked and things are mostly where they’re supposed to be, I’m starting to make my ideas and plans for this house more concrete. I can’t do all of it at once, or right now because I don’t have the money or the space for it, but I also don’t want to rush it. I want to take my time and get a feel for this place and for what my personal style really is. In my first house I just bought whatever I could find that was cheap and useful. So I ended up with a lot of Ikea and a lot of hand-me-downs and thrifted stuff. And those where then often items that were okay, but not really things I loved.

Then, over the past two years in the previous house, I started acquiring furniture pieces that I loved. I bought a sofa set (Ikea’s Ektorp), a bed (from the local hardware/interior store) and drawers for the bedroom (from Ikea’s Hemnes series). As I did so, I realised my style had also changed. From being really into white and light wood and fairly straight lines with country elements to a more rustic style and darker woods with nature elements.

20150828_144103I now have a whole new house to work with and shape to my wishes. I’m very pleased with the bones (layout, light floor, dark wood kitchen) and I have ideas for the various rooms, but I’m taking my sweet time to see if it will stick. I plan to get a lot of things from Marktplaats and/or thrift stores, so that demands patience any way.

Last week, I struck gold, twice.

I was browsing Marktplaats when I stumbled across this really pretty low metal table. It was engraved with fancy patterns and looked like a sort of big display dish on legs. I knew I had fallen for it when I e-mailed the seller asking how sturdy it was. After getting her answer (pretty sturdy) I bid €25 and it was accepted. Friday after work, I headed to her work place, where we’d agreed to do the handover, and soon I was in the train on my way home with a small table.

It was kinda tricky getting it home while riding my bike as it was too heavy to drag alongside me, so I had to support it on one hip and hold the top 😀 I’m sure it must have looked funny to passers by to see me occasionally struggling with the wind. I made it safely home, though, and after cleaning and thinking about where to put it. I ended up with this. I’m not quite happy with the styling yet (I want a different plant and a different pot) but for now it will do.

SidetableI’d also been thinking about what to do for a coat rack. My entry way has a recessed area before the electricity closet and the toilet. I have a free standing coat rack (which is awesome, I must say). However, I use the recessed area for one of the two litter boxes (the other one is in front of the electricity closet). This means I have no space for the free standing one. I could conceivably build a platform above the box and put it up there, but then it’s too tall.

This means I will have to use the wall. But I don’t want any random coat rack, or even just hooks on the wall. I want a little shelf to put something pretty on, and maybe keys or something. And I want pretty hooks. And I think I do want a little platform thingy above the litter box. Maybe to put a box with scarves and hats on, or to sit down and take my shoes off. *gears are turning*

I decided I wanted a somewhat rustic looking piece of wood to put vintage-type hooks in and then hang that on the wall. A visit to the local hardware/interior store, however, did not help. They had pretty, rustic, wood. Which was way too thick and heavy. They had thinner wood, but not wide enough, and the pieces that were wide enough, were too thin…

Then, the week  before last, I went to the Action. And there I found the perfect thing. A ready made little shelf, with a sort of vaguely white washed look, and the cutest shaped wooden supports. Immediately I saw the potential, so I bought two. One to just hang on the wall as a shelf. The other to take apart.

I spent last week looking for hooks. At first I kept on the vintage tour, but it was hard to find something that looked like what I had in mind. I ended up browsing Bol.com, as I do, and decided to see what hooks they might have. After a few pages of fairly standard ones, I came across these and had to have them. I figured five hooks would be enough, so I settled on one set of three, and two singles.

20150901_181251 20150901_181409 20150901_181534

The trio of hooks looking like branches are these, from Puhlmann. The other two are from The Zoo.

This morning, after I was done working, I decided it was time to build the coat rack. I had removed the supports from one of the shelves a few days before, and moved the hangers from the back of the supports to the back of the shelf. Last night I made small indentations where I wanted the various hooks.  All I had left to do, was screw them in. The hooks have a fairly large screw sticking out of them at the back so I just started manually pushing down while turning them until they stuck enough to stop wiggling. Then I could turn faster and within ten or so minutes, I had all five securely screwed in. Except the deer. Due to some paint left overs on the top end of the screw, it wasn’t as solid as the rest. Fortunately it was nothing a quick unscrew, a few drops of superglue and a rescrew couldn’t fix.

So now I have a coat rack that is almost ready to be hung. That fairly large screw on the back of the hooks is of such length they are all sticking out at the back. I’ll have to go find my metal saw to get rid of that, and then it can go up the wall. The shelf is ready as is, all I’m gonna do is screw in a hook or two on the bottom to hang keys on.

20150902_115138

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Decoration, Design, DIY, Furniture, Home, Interior, Made by Me, Marktplaats, Photos, Shopping, Style

Spring

Monday, March 23, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Spring is officially here so that means taking down the winter decorations and putting up spring ones.

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Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Decoration, Home, Made by Me, Photos, Spring

Breakfast of Champions

Tuesday, February 3, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

French toast with mascarpone, caramelised banana and strawberries, cacao sprinkles and chocolate sauce drizzle 🙂

Based on the recipe here.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Cooking, Food, Made by Me, Photos

Another Level

Sunday, December 7, 2014 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

20141207_214522In the living room we have a number of base decorations that generally stay the same throughout the year. Plants/florals in the window sill, candles beside the TV, those things. Besides that, I make seasonal display things for on the coffeetable and a (fake) floral arrangement in a vase. As with the seasons, this changes roughly every three months.

I have several plates, trays, bowls, vases, jars etc.. I construct these in, but nothing a bit taller and enabling layering. So I’ve been wanting a tiered serving tray or something like it. But, picky as I am, I wanted a wooden one, or maybe a vintagey metal one, anything but one of those standard porcelain actual serving trays. And let those be the only ones I have been able to find lately…

So I was thinking what I was going to do for the winter piece without the tiered tray and not really getting any inspiration. I made my autumn piece in a long, white, wooden tray. It would be ideal for winter, but I couldn’t make it work 🙁

20140923_200728I’m just realising I never showed the autumn piece. Probably because I made it around the time Captain came, and I was kinda busy with that 🙂 So here it is.

Anyway, back on track. Last weekend I was at my cousin’s birthday and she had exactly what I had been looking for on her table: two tiers, unfinished wood, and about 50 cm or so high (including handle).

As luck would have it, she had been given it by another cousin. Which meant, it was current, and probably still available! I asked my other cousin where she got it, and made a mental note to check it out.

Wednesday, during grocery shopping, we made a stop at the store where it came from. At first I couldn’t find. I went through the whole store and was afraid they might be sold out when I suddenly spotted one last one on top of the shelves.

Once home, I pulled out my winter stuff and general decoratives and it just clicked. 🙂

I’m still looking for a, slightly smaller, vintagy metal one for variation, but this is an excellent start.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Decoration, Home, Made by Me, Photos

Lines II: Mother Earth

Sunday, July 20, 2014 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Been spending time expanding my genealogy some more. Trying to go back further than I already am. It is proving more and more difficult, though, as I’m firmly in the territory where names are repeated all over the place, there are very few reliable surnames and registration of events is sketchy at best.

I also started drawing again. I picked up another of my curved line sketches from 2012 or so to finish. This one is called Lines II: Mother Earth. It was coloured on the 18th and 19th, I think about 7 hours or so together.

Lines II: Mother Earth

Watched some movies on Friday with Kim and Nienke, Accepted and Not Another Happy Ending. They were fun.

Today Ingrid came by. Ostensibly to borrow my tent, but also because it was an excellent idea to drink tea, chat and play games. So we played UWO, Settlers of Catan and Blue Moon.

After she had left, a storm came by, and along with it, a refugee in the house: a small from. It hipped across and around the kitchen before I managed to grab it and release it outside. Milo was quite intrigued with the hoppy little thing.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Animals, Art, Board Games, Drawing, Friends, Genealogy, Ingrid, Kim, Made by Me, Movies, Nienke, Photos

Celebrate! (Nienke’s Birthday Drawing)

Tuesday, August 14, 2012 by Tse Moana 3 Comments

I also made a drawing for Nienke’s birthday in the style of Connected. It has the same basic shape with the focal circle in the middle and the detail panels surrounded by a knotwork border.

I decided to do a drawing after Nien expressed how much she liked Connected. I chose to put a Tree of Life in the middle, with Murphy (her cat) below, except I exagerrated him a bit into a lion so he could also represent her astrological sign.

The panels show various things that are important to Nienke or mean something to her. Below is her name and date of birth. The border features knotwork in blue, which is her favourite colour.

Celebrate!: the process

As I was colouring more and more, I realised the colouring of the letters was off. I wasn’t sure what to do with it at first. For a second I even despaired the thing might be ruined. But then I found my silver marker and realised that would be perfect.

Celebrate!: details.

 

Celebrate!: final result, framed

Excuse some of the glare, silver marker doesn’t photograph well in evening indoor light.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Birthday, Creativity, Drawing, Made by Me, Nienke

Connected

Saturday, August 11, 2012 by Tse Moana 1 Comment

The nameless Pagan thing is done, and has a name. It is called Connected. Here’s pictures of the process and the end result.

Connected halfway done

Connected: Fire corner

Connected: Air corner

Connected Earth corner

Connected: Water corner

Connected: the end result

Excuse the somewhat crappy quality of the last picture, I hadn’t realised the shot wasn’t very good before now.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Creativity, Drawing, Made by Me, Paganism

Knotwork

Sunday, July 29, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Here’s some pictures of Lines III: Dreamscape.

Lines III: Dreamscape (WIP Composite)

Lines III: Dreamscape (Final)

After inking the water painted result I added some more drawings of various pop culture related things that are meaningful to me. See if you can find (and identify) them all?

 

The last few days I’ve been burying myself into deciding what symbolism and decoratives to use for my latest drawing (which is, as of yet, nameless). It’s fun, I’ve never spent this much time in research for a drawing before 🙂

So far I’m going on a bit of a Celtic/Norse path with one or two Greek influences. I’ve been practicing making knotwork for the border. As long as I stick to fairly simple designs, it goes pretty well. I’ve only made two mistakes and I think I can hide them once I start colouring. The design continues through the corners, but is mostly covered up by triskeles that I’m putting up there.

The circle in the middle is not getting just a simple circle frame. Instead I’m turning it into Ouroboros/Jormungandr. At the top I’m placing a Goddess/God symbol by combining the triple moon with the horned sun to end up with a circle and three sickle shapes at the sides and top.

The little space that is left between the border and the circle will be filled up with various symbols that have meaning within Paganism (elements, pentagrams, spirals, labyrinths) with possibly some specific additional ones such as Mjolnir or Ankh. It depends on how I feel about it once the border and the middle are both inked and I have a better sense of the left over space.

Nameless Pagan Thing (First Sketch)

Extra sketches to decide on the borders and way of filling

Nameless Pagan Thing (WIP + Border detail)

 

 

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Creativity, Drawing, Made by Me, Paganism

More Squiggly Lines

Saturday, July 14, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

I finished the Squiggly drawing from last post, took me about 7,5 hours total. I really like how it turned out, and it inspired me to take this tubular, colourful, enthusiastic form further. I named this work Lines I: Tubular and today I’ve been sketching Lines II: Mother Earth and Lines III: Dreamscape. I haven’t decided yet if I’m gonna use the same method of colouring them (aka just regular pencils) or if I want to use, for example, aquarel pencils or even paint or markers.

Lines I: Tubular (Composite of Progress)

Lines I: Tubular (Composite of Progress)

Lines I: Tubular (Finished Piece)

Lines I: Tubular (Finished Piece)

Lines II: Mother Earth (Sketch)

Lines II: Mother Earth (Sketch)

Lines III: Dreamscape (Sketch)

Lines III: Dreamscape (Sketch)

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Creativity, Drawing, Made by Me, Photos
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