Sofia Breathes Festival Continues

I've had all week to post more photos from another Sofia Breathes Sunday, but time somehow got away with me, not to mention that now that the term is over, I am trying to catch up with friends, dance classes and random errands that I neglected before. Anyway, here I am... I meant to go to last week's festival day with some friends, but in the end they didn't feel like it. The thing is I love these kinds of events, so I went anyway and soaked up the energy and creativeness of all the arts and crafts on display.

Some crafters I already recognize from past festival days, but there were some new ones here, as well as some street performers that were quite entertaining.

This time the event was on Pirotska Str, right across from this beautiful building that has still not been restored properly. It used to be a bath house, and there is a mineral water spring close to it. In fact, quite a few music videos and photoshoots have been done here because it is such an interesting structure (just a side note).

The cool part about Sofia Breathes this year is that there are lots of things organized for kids, so if you are a parent, going to the festival would be a nice new thing to do with your kid and a way for the little ones to expend some of that endless energy they have.

These accessories below are really great; they are made of these old looking clocks and mechanisms that give them a vintage look. They had some really cool stuff for women, and even had some items for men that looked more masculine but still very unique.

Of course there was a multitude of stands featuring all kinds of unique dolls, clothes, and quilts.

These musicians were quite pleasant to listen to. I really like jazz, and listening to it on a summer evening outside seems like a really great night out to me.

The stand above had some cool displays that showed how animation is made, and it was popular among both the children and the adults.

These were two girls that gathered up quite the crowd with their silent performance. The giant soap bubbles were set out to fly above the crowd in the end, as kids chased them, and photographers went crazy photographing the performers. You can see one of them on the photo below. I took a photo of her in particular because she was shooting with a Mamiya that costs waay more than I can currently afford for a camera :).

Here is the second performer balancing a glass orb and doing all kinds of neat little tricks with it.

Until next time!

SOFIA BREATHES FESTIVAL PHOTOS

Lately it takes me forever to write a blog post. Scrambling to finish the summer quarter of my MBA (which means that I am actually done with half of the program), I pretty much spent most of my scarce free time sleeping :) I did, however, go to one of the Sofia Breathes festival days one Sunday after my exams. I really like street fairs and stands selling handmade stuff and street performers. I took s few photos, and here is a small selection of them - a cute colorful pixel painted chair, a line of linocuts featuring scenes from Bulgaria and a guy spray paining a gorgeous butterfly. Enjoy!

COOL T-SHIRTS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

So it's 2012! Happy New Year to all of you who read my blog! I have tons of cool stuff I've been meaning to post, but it seems like the new year will be very, very busy! Still, here is the first thing, which is a project I finished around the holidays: t-shirts for photographers!
As you might already know, I really like graphic tees, and I am also quite the photography enthusiast! Last year I made a "Photo Babe" t-shirt for myself, which I quite like, and this year I made a male version of this t-shirt. I was thinking I would do a "Photo Dude" shirt, but by popular request I ended up making a "Photo Babe Hunter" t-shirt :)
Anyway, here it is below! Enjoy our nerdiness :)

COLLAGE: CURTAIN CLOSING

Here is an abstract collage that I did recently as a birthday gift. I started making collages like this after a project we did in painting class in Colby, and I've loved doing them ever since. The funny thing was that such collages were really hard for me to make at first, but later turned out to be my favorite assignment. Like I told my professor back then, I can see more of myself in these than in some of the other art pieces that I've done.
The collage below is called Curtain Closing, and it's actually a group of three collages.

WHITE NECKLACE

I made this necklace about a week ago, but I couldn't post it earlier because I caught some sort of nasty summer flu that seemed to last forever...blah. I wanted a big chunky white necklace, and since I couldn't find anything in the stores that was nice and fit that description, I just made it myself out of polymer clay. It's part of my White Collection, which you can see here.

THE WHITE COLLECTION

White is a snowflake, light, a cloud, sea foam, a snowdrop, an edelweiss, ivory, a waterlily, marble, milk, a pearl, a swan, purity. The shiny white is the color of the day, of angels, of goodness, of faith, of hope, of peace. These pieces of jewelry are born from the white.

Бялото е сняг, светлина, облаци, морска пяна, кокиче, еделвайс, слонова кост, лилия, мрамор, мляко, перла, лебед, чистота. Светлото и искрящо бяло е цветът на деня, на ангелите, на добротата, на вярата, на надеждата, на мира. От бялото са родени и бижутата в тази колекция.

Head over to my Facebook page to see the full collection: KoseBose Creative Designs on Facebook

Contact me if you would like to buy any of these pieces. Prices: 15lv
Свържете се с мен ако искате да купите някой от моделите. Цени: 15лв

EARRINGS

Since I haven't posted anything in a while because of my vacation in Turkey, I thought that I would at least upload a photo of a couple of earrings that I sold recently. The blue-green ones were made to match a pair of sandals (we girls are obsessed about our shoes, everybody knows that). I will write more about the yellow ones in another post, as they are part of a more interesting story.

Coming soon will be a photography post about my trip to Turkey this summer!

SUMMER ORANGE

If I had to write down my top three earring designs, these orange lovelies would definitely make the cut :) They are so summery with their small coral elements that I can almost smell the island air, and I can almost feel the hot sun on my skin. I actually wish I had more orange clothes, just so I could make a pair of these for myself. Anyway, their lucky owner e-mailed me that she did, in fact, own a orange-coral colored top, so I guess the earrings have found their home:)

Check them out below:

THE SPRINGTIME EARRINGS

It's spring, everything is green and blooming, and I guess the nice weather has gotten to me, because the earrings I made for a recent order definitely have a certain "springtime" feel.

By the way, I do realize that my posts lately have been mostly about jewelry, but, well, it's because that's what I've been doing...:) I promise that more variety is coming soon!

BIRTHDAY GIFT EARRINGS

These were done as a gift for a friend's birthday...I bought the scarf first from this little shop downtown, and then I made the earrings to match. I think this turned out to be a nice little set, and I do hope that she'll wear it :D

SOME MORE JEWELRY

Remember the set of pink earrings that I sold around Christmas? Well, the person who ordered them came to me with a request that I make a matching pendant/necklace, so here is what I did:

I quite like it, actually :)

PAINTED GLASS BOTTLES: RED

Enjoy my newest creation (the dark green bottle with red butterflies) along with a slightly older creation (the clear bottle with red roses).
The theme for this post: the color RED (obviously)
:)

***

Насладете се на най-новото ми творение (зелената бутилка с червените пеперуди) заедно с едно малко по-старо творение (прозрачната бутилка с червените рози).
Темата на този пост: ЧЕРВЕНОТО (очевидно)
:)

FUN TEES

Today t-shirts are not just a piece of clothing. They are a fashion statement. They are a personal statement.

Everyone has a favorite t-shirt or a bunch of favorite t-shirts. They can be rock concert tees, crazy or unique tees, branded tees, tees with artwork, typetees with funny slogans and whatnot...you name it, it's out there and people are wearing it to define themselves in a certain way.

Personally, I love graphic tees or typetees. I was browsing the stores for a new addition to my favorite bunch of tees, but since I was being picky and wanted something that would scream "this tee is soo 'Kossi'," you can imagine that I didn't have much luck finding anything. That's when I decided that if I can't find anything I like, I might as well try and make something myself.

I decided to start with something easy, such as making a t-shirt with some kind of slogan, and move to something more complicated (like a drawing of some sort) later on, when I know what I'm doing. After some thinking about what I wanted the t-shirt to say, I chose "curly crazy bookworm." It is very "me" (which is totally what I wanted) and it had a nice symmetry, which I could use in making the design.

I got lucky finding cheap basic t-shirts with a nice fit because of all the sales that have been going on for the past few weeks. I also got Marabu paints for textiles, which you can buy in various art stores (for example, Импресия and Слънчоглед in Sofia).

I played around with the text in Word in order to find the right font with a clean but not too boring look. I printed the final design and cut out the letters with a crafts knife to make a stencil, like the one you can see below:

Next, I painted the "curly crazy" part of the design in pink, attaching the stencil to the t-shirt with some tape and placing another sheet of paper under the fabric to keep me from staining the back of the t-shirt. I wasn't overly careful with applying an even layer of paint, though, because I wanted the t-shirt to have a kind of untamed, very slightly grungy look to it.

I let it dry and then ironed the design with a hot iron to fix the paint, following the instructions on the Marabu textile paint bottles. I repeated the same process for the "bookworm" part of the design, and voila - I had my t-shirt!

Anyway, some of my other favorite t-shirts include:
- my geeky Harry Potter inspired t-shirt that says "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good" at the front and "Mischief managed!" at the back. I made three such t-shirts (using fabric markers) for me and two of my best friends, who also happen to love the Harry Potter books :)
- my Happy Bunny tees. Man, I love those. Especially the holiday tee that says "So I've been naughty, so what?" under an image of the bunny wearing a Santa hat. That one cracks me up every time. Check out Jim Benton's Happy Bunny website
- a bunch of Billabong, O'Neil and Roxy graphic tees that don't have any cheeky sayings on them, but feature some awesome designs.

Finally, some useful links for great graphic tees:
- Threadless: www.threadless.com
- IndieShirts: www.indieshirts.com
- BustedTees: www.bustedtees.com

HANDMADE EARRINGS

I love handmade things. There are a few small art shops around Sofia that sell all kinds of handmade things – plates, mugs, candles, scarves – and I just love to browse their shelves for hidden treasures. I especially love handmade jewelry. It is interesting and unique, and I always get compliments when I’m wearing something like that. You can see some of my favorites from my collection in the pictures below (from left to right: earrings made out of wire, earrings made with peony petals, and handmade silver rings and earrings):

Of course, I can’t always find exactly what I’m looking for, so at one point I started making my own jewelry. I have made a bunch of earrings and a couple of necklaces, examples of which you can see below:

Just this past week, I filled an order I had for two pairs of earrings. The order was for one pair of “black earrings that can be worn with a dress” and one pair of “kind of crazy blue and green earrings.” The black earrings were easy enough in terms of the design, even if they weren't so easy in terms of execution:

However, I had no idea what to do for the “kind of crazy blue and green earrings.” I decided just to browse the shelves of a couple of bead and art supply stores and wait for inspiration to strike. I got a bunch of different jewelry elements and some funky blue-green beads, but I was still wondering what to do with them. Then, I rummaged through my drawers and found some wooden jewelry elements that were leftovers from another project. I ended up painting the wooden elements in blues and greens and gluing the beads to them. I actually love the final product so much that I think I’m going to make something similar for myself (hopefully without gluing my fingers together this time).

Check out the earrings below:

A few days ago, I made another pair in a similar style, this time using grey and black beads of various shapes and sizes. While these have a more classic look because of the conservative color scheme, they are still interesting and unique:

I’m ready to make more, just say the word :).