Marisa Girardi Presents

My first time in a glossy mag and I’m so thrilled! Ok, so you might have to use a magnifying glass to spot my work, but there it is nonetheless , so rush out to buy your November copy of House and Leisure, in which is featured a photo shoot of various lovely items you will be able to find at Kamersvol Geskenke (on this week from Wednesday to Sunday).

Yes, believe it! I have seen it with my own eyes. Not only that, I was also instrumental in the actual process. If you are still skeptical, this is how it’s done:

1. Take one t-shirt that used to be kindof sexy when your stomach didn’t bulge out at the bottom, but otherwise is still quite pretty.

2.Scrounge out of a cardboard box one strange skirt that you got at a 2nd-hand shop ages ago and have almost thrown away several times, but somehow knew it would be put to use one day.

3. Unpick top of skirt, cursing every few seconds because the thread just won’t pull out.

4. Put t-shirt on without looking in the mirror.

5. Pull skirt over and roughly pin together in as straight a line as you can manage.

6. Remove pinned garment without pins falling out or impailing themselves in your flesh.

7. Ask someone to draw a straight line with disappearing ink all around the t-shirt while it is still on you.

8. Remove and re-pin.

9. Turn inside out and sew together, pausing to hiss and spit at the sewing machine every few stitches.

10. After an indefinite amount of time, the 2 items will somehow be fused together and you will be so delighted with the result, that you will forget the cursing, spitting and endless repeating of  “oh woe! oh woe is me!” and think that you will try it out with another 2 items from the back of your cupboard very soon.

The most meditative craft form I’ve come across so far has to be embroidery. And when you use an embroidery hoop it is easy to imagine yourself a maiden in a century long past sitting around a fire and listening to stories and the sound of your thread passing through the tautened fabric. I have been loving it and hope to make more of these encircled beauties soon.

One of them isn’t quite finished, but when it was time to take these photos and post them, it was time.

I’ve been wanting to do an embroidery using a hoop as a frame for a while now. I’ve also had a little design I’ve thought about putting on a t-shirt or painting, but when I realized how perfectly it would go as an embroidered piece, I had to sew it up immediately. I’m so pleased with the result and it was such fun that I’ll definitely do more.

My sister and her boyfriend’s workshop in the countreee.

And the shed - love the shed.

My sister lives near Wilderness in the Garden Route on the South coast of South Africa, just under 500km from Cape Town. My mom also stays near by and I try to visit 3-4 times a year because I need to see my family at least that often and also because I looove the area and fantasize about living there again (I also lived there for a couple of years) one day.

My sister is super artistically talented and has her own business making leather goods. She uses epoxy clay to decorate many of her items and carves incredibly fine detail into it. I also used to work with the same clay and have no idea how she does what she does.

Newest brooch designs

I generally don’t like buying wrapping paper because 1.It’s too expensive 2.It’s wasteful and 3. I’d rather be creative.  So when I had to wrap my sister’s tea box, I thought of wrapping it in a pretty magazine page because 1.It’s cheap 2. It’s recycling and 3. You can choose from a wide variety of  images. But while this might be  fine for a very little present, for the slightly larger, it’s not going to fit. So I whipped out the ol’ sewing machine and zigzagged some pretty pics together. I went with a botany theme.

Trim it a little and voila! It’s a wrap.

Growing up in a creative family, our unspoken motto was “why buy it if you can make it”. Over the years we exchanged many handmade birthday (and other) cards as well as gifts,  and if  I have the time and a good idea, I still prefer to make a gift.

Here are the two most recent.

My friend Justin had a mexican themed birthday dinner and so I brought along a leetle friend for him.

I also printed a card with Signor Mustachio in front of his crumbling hacienda.

For my sister, I found a tea box in a charity store, sanded it down, painted a lovely poem by Su Dong Po on the lid and filled it with yummy teas.

I hope to have my own shop up and running soon, but in the meantime, here is my lovely Etsy shop.

Etsy is the reason I started creating things again and helped me finally say “I am a crafter!” with pride, rather than mumble it into my sleeve apologetically.  Okay, so I still sometimes do it…but less often.

The array of talent on that site is remarkable and browsing around the site never fails to lift me out of a creative slump.
Thank you Etsy!