THE ETSY GREEK TEAM IN LONDON!

The Etsy Greek Street Team has been featured on a glamorous billboard display in London, close to the famous Tower Bridge! How cool is that???

And Etsy has dedicated a feature to this on its Teams Newsletter!

MY SECRET SANTA FROM GREECE IS HERE!

In the Etsy Greek Street Team (EGST) we have been playing a lovely game: members created a secret gift for another member, and until we get our secret presents we don't know who our Secret Santa is!
I received my Secret Santa gift and it's wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!

My Secret Santa is Georgia from GeorgiaCollection, a talented Greek jewelry artist specializing in hand forged sterling silver jewelry. Oh I looooove silver!!! And Georgia's hand made sterling silver wine leaf is so pretty and elegant... and a lovely souvenir of my beloved Greece!

Look at the details!!!!! Aren't they just amazing???

 

EYXARISTO POLY dear Georgia!!!!!!!!!!!

DAUGHTER OF THE SUN

My beautiful Island Girl enjoying a sunny spot!

Love you Zoe! Your proud Mommy :)

CHRISTMAS STAR

My Poinsettia from last winter is in bloom again! Ok, I know, these bright red "flowers" are actually leaves... The colored bracts—which are most often flaming red but can be orange, pale green, cream, pink, white or marbled—are actually leaves; because the flowers are unassuming and do not attract pollinators, brightly coloured leaves developed (aka bracts). But they are so bright this time of the year, they look like huge flowers! In Italy we call them "Stella di Natale" (Christmas Star) and they are traditionally offered at Christmas for good luck and prosperity.

LAVA BRACELET

I've always been fascinated by lava beads. Wearing a piece of lava jewelry literally means wearing the core of our Earth.

Lava refers both to molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption and the resulting rock after solidification and cooling. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at temperatures from 700 °C to 1,200 °C (1,300 °F to 2,200 °F). Up to 100,000 times as viscous as water, lava can flow great distances before cooling and solidifying.
A lava flow is a moving outpouring of lava, which is created during a non-explosive effusive eruption. When it has stopped moving, lava solidifies to form igneous rock. The term lava flow is commonly shortened to lava. The word "lava" comes from Italian, and is probably derived from the Latin word labes which means a fall or slide.
Source: Wikipedia

Now I have my own lava bracelet! Made with the gorgeous lava beads I received from Elsa, interspaced with lovely red beads.

CREATIVE CORNER: Creative Glueing with a Hot Glue Gun

I finally got myself a hot glue gun after reading about its many creative uses in arting and crafting. Hot glue guns are very useful when it comes to joining parts or materials that are very uneven in shape and/or texture, and in cases where a regular glue -even the strongest, industrial heavy-duty glues- wouldn't work. I found out it's easy to use (you just need to be super careful, because it gets very HOT! No kids or pets around while you're working!) and it can do precision work too.

Do you remember the wonderful shell flower embellishment adorning my gift package containing the beautiful oya scarf I received from Turkey? It would have been impossible to join the parts with regular glues, as the surface of the single parts is very uneven and the shapes don't allow enough surface for regular glues to stick the parts together securely.

Hot glue hardens into a firm plastic-like mass which provides a secure way to keep the parts together, forming the "missing material" between uneven surfaces while bonding them together in a strong, lasting way. I'm very pleased!

EXILLES

Exilles is a lovely mountain village in the Susa Valley, especially known for its fortress. I was here on Sunday and the atmosphere was so beautiful! Autumn at its best!