Thursday, December 28, 2017

How I figure out the price of my creations.

More key rings for my collection.


In between building libraries and wardrobes I have found little time to design and create. I enlarged my key chains collection with 2 different kinds of key rings;

LoveLea's new leather/cowhide key rings
LoveLea's new leather/cowhide key rings.

 one is made of only cow hide:

LoveLea's cowhide key ring
LoveLea's cowhide key ring


and the other ones are a shield embellished with a piece of cowhide to keep your hands warm in the cold weather.

LoveLea's shield cowhide key ring
LoveLea's key rings: a leather shield with cowhide.

I am not only busy moving, designing, creating, I'm also working on SEO, growing my mail list, attracting people to my shop etc. I subscribed to many many bloggers, all promising strategies, systems that will fling my business to the stars in a couple of weeks, 2 or 3 months. I am a zero in computer language, don't know how to implement codes into html text...... But since a couple of weeks I decided to only subscribe to the webinars, online courses of Melyssa Griffin and I'll explain why.


Why I charge a modest price.


When I was a kid and as a teenager also, money was a taboo, a big taboo. I had no idea how much my father earned and I never have had! And if you  did mention the m word, they, the grown ups made you feel that money was dirty. So you didn't talk about it, you resigned.

But since a couple of years, in fact since all this young girls are earning money with heaps and spades and shovels, money has become something you can brag about: 6 figures a year!!!! They tell you without any scruples or refrain that they have an annual income of 6, 7 figures. Money talk has become very common, it is no longer a taboo! Even better: it is not a shame that you long to have such an income. And I fell in the trap until a week ago!

Melissa Griffin opened my eyes, made me see everything in proportion again. She prepared  video series Goals with intention 2018"  and helps you define your goals for 2018. If you have only income goals, you will never feel satisfied but if you have a chore goal (has to do with the purpose of your life), you add a spiritual dimension to your business.  The second video is about your purpose on this planet; one of the question you should think about is: what sorts of people do you love helping? When I heard this question, I was ashamed: I had only focused on earning money and forgot about the consequences: if you earn good money, you have a responsibility towards others who are less fortunate then you are. Then and there I decided that I never will charge too big a price  for the things I create. I have plenty of time because I am retired; if I charge for the basics and a little bit of my time, not the time I actually spent, I should have a fair price AND give people a chance to buy something with a reasonable price.

 Melissa Griffin is very accomplished, structured, does clear teaching but her best quality (to me) is her generosity. She doesn't give you some hints and then wham: 500  dollars, no she gives a lot of information for free!

Maybe next week I'll post from the new house; the whole attic will be a workshop, half for my husband who is a musician and the other half for my crafts. My son who is an accomplished and talented interior designer is thinking about the layout and the facilities. I'll keep you updated.

Friday, December 22, 2017

LoveLea and the Thyroide.

Looking at my first jewelry is like meeting an old friend.


It is so much fun to look at the jewelry I created end of 2016, beginning 2017. I have learned so much in the mean time. What I noticed is that the less possibilities you have, the more inventive and creative you are; you have to be. At that time, I didn't have any clamps so I had to invent something to close a bracelet or choker. Here come some examples. This is how a green choker with pyramidal studs closes: a stud as button and a loop as buttonhole. Do you see the lonely stud on the right? That is the button. The loop is more visible in the second picture.


Green Gothic choker with studs
LoveLea's Green Gothic choker with stud

Green Gothic choker with stud, detail
LoveLea's green Gothic choker with stud, detail.

I made a matching bracelet with fringes, closing with snap buttons; somewhat eclectic, isn't it? The color is a sweet dark mos green. More pictures at my FB shop.

Green Gothic bracelet with studs and fringes
Lovelea's Green Gothic bracelet with studs and fringes

And this is one of my favorite chokers: a black choker with an ugly looking metal skull:

Black choker with big skull
LoveLea's black choker with BIG skull.

It does look a bit scary! 2 More pictures at my FB shop.


LoveLea's Cool collection for Men.

I had some scraps of wrinkled leather that I kept in front of my eyes, because I didn't know what to do with them. Then it downed that the pieces were perfect for men bracelets. It is in a sweet, pale almost cognac brown, but the texture: I love it, very cool.

Wrinkled leather for men's bracele
LoveLea's wrinkled leather bracelet for men.

 And I have another one in darker leather and in an organic shape; what I mean by organic is that I didn't trim it, I just cut the long ends.

Wrinkled leather for a men's bracelet
LoveLea's wrinkled leather bracelet for men.
More pictures at my Face Book shop.

My thyroid is my friend


I started my LoveLea fb page around April of this year. I had designed and created a 25 pieces of jewelry, my sister in law Gudrun took great pictures at the familie gathering, I had FB friends and my husband, who has lots of FB friends helped me launch my page. The start was not bad, but the attention didn't continue. I said to myself: Hilde, you have to focus. So I focused and focused and didn't see or do or think anything but LoveLea. Focusing didn't help and I started a blog at the end of July and I continued  focusing on my FB page and my blog and my focusing wasn't focusing anymore, it turned into an obsession! When checking out the necklaces and chokers I made, I saw a lump at the base of my throat. I just noticed it, didn't pay it  any attention; anyway I didn't see anything but my business. The lump became that big, it even closed off my windpipe! This really worried me and I went to see a doctor. She advised another doctor who took a blood sample: everything o.k. But I HAD a big visible lump. The doctor advised me to get an ultrasonography to see if the lump was good or not. Secretly I hoped I had a benign lump, so that my weight gain was explained.

My daughter has a similar problem but she has it under control. I mailed her and asked what she did, what the doctor advised her, what the book (about psychological origins of diseases, sickness...) said.  She mailed me back and wrote: mammy just forget about doctors, books and advise; go to a quiet place, turn inside and listen what this lump wants to tell you!!! Yes, my daughter gave me this advice, see how wise she is! My little girl (she is 40) gives me wise advice. My little girl is a wise woman! I am so proud of her.

lis in Portugal
My daughter in Portugal.


I did as I was told, went to a quiet place and opened my hart: this thyroid that wasn't a thyroid because my blood sample said so, is cutting off your wind pipe; it attracts your attention at your windpipe; isn't the windpipe the symbol of life? And what do I do?: I cut off life with my obsession. I then decided to slow down, to work only for an hour in a row and only a couple hours a day. When I overdid, my thyroid was there to pinch my throat! So bit by bit, step by step I learn to slow down; my thyroid has diminished and is almost invisible now! But it still pinches my throat when I work too much. My thyroid is my friend.

Lovelea's-special-gift-ideas:


I wish all people who celebrate Christmas a happy, peaceful, cozy, convivial and intimate celebration!

You don't have all your presents and gifts yet? I promote key chains, business card wallets and earrings till the end of this year in my Face Book shop. Sure there is something for you to organize your bag! maybe you prefer earrings or this earrings; the keychains are special!

See you next week with more stories, maybe recipes and anyhow with pictures of my creations.



Friday, December 15, 2017

LoveLea's small X-Mas and New Year's gifts.

LoveLea's small gifts.

 Only 10 days left for X-Mas and 2 weeks for New Year's Eve and my FB shop is empty. I decided to delete my shop and start all over again and now the shop sells in €'s, yeah! This means I have to work and work to get my shop ready. I'll start with the small leather goods I made; there are still lots of people who have X-Mas shopping to do or find small presents to give away. You'll find unique gifts in my FB shop, f i: key chains. I have key chains with tassels in my stock but just straight on and now I made them more elaborate and fancy: 4 different ones in front of my painting of my daughter.


LoveLea's leather key chains
LoveLea's leather key chains.

When sorting out my writing desk, my eye fell on this big key: it is the key to the drawers of my desk. The key stayed in my head and when I designed the tassel for this type of key, I made it sturdy enough for the heavy key and colorful to contrast with the dark iron. Do you like it? You attach it with a simple bow.

LoveLea's tassel for big key
LoveLea's tassel for big key.

My business card wallets and cable holders, both in leather also make nice gifts.


LoveLea's business card wallets
LoveLea's business card wallets.


And I have very cute earrings: leather tassels who deliciously caress your cheeks when moving or leather-pearl/bead combinations:

LoveLea's earrings
LoveLea's earrings


LoveLea feels Gothic these days 


We' ve had the first snow, just a tiny bit but enough to render half the country in chaos. In the meantime it makes walking in the sluggish streets a chore. It was an incentive to get my cowboy boots out; they look cool with jeans (duh) and  with a bit dressy pants and they easily slide on or off. And I attached tassels to them in a darker leather.

We are busy choosing new closets, a new library, a new bedroom. This is fun but it doesn't leave me time to do what I love the most: creating new jewelry. There are a lot of boring chores in keeping house, well I don't really mind because it gives me plenty of time to do my thinking, analyzing my feelings and I am feeling very Gothic this days; I used up a chunk of a bit rigid black leather and was able to get 3 chokers and 3 bracelets out of it. I have some possibilities in my head but haven't found time to realize them. I scribbled some ideas down in my agenda and ideas about how to present them. But first I should finish at least one set. In the picture below you see the result; the choker AND the bracelet with a chain in a mat black leather.


LoveLea's Gothic set with chain
LoveLea's Gothic set with chain



LoveLea's Gothic bracelet
LoveLea's Gothic bracelet

LoveLea's Gothic choker with chain
LoveLea's Gothic choker with chain

And I designed a new Gothic line: with cowhide. Only the bracelet is finished at the moment, (in front of my painting of my son when he was around 18) but the choker and another bracelet should be ready these days. They will be shown directly in my FB shop; sorry, can't give you a premiere, the show must go on!


LoveLea's new Gothic line with cowhide
LoveLea's new Gothic line: leather with cowhide.
LoveLea's new Gothic line with cowhide
LoveLea's leather bracelet with cowhide.


Next week, I 'll tell you about my thyroid and how it disappeared miraculously. Before you leave: Have a look at my fb's shop page:.

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Reunited with my LoveLea leather jewels!

Did I make a "Gothic" leather choker?


How is it possible that I, LoveLea's jewelry designer, was separated from my jewels? In my post of 8 October (https://hildemariapierredenys.blogspot.com/2017/08/what-happened-in-march-2017.html )   I told you about my sister-in-law Gudrun Smalle, owner of Conceptsmalle, https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=conceptsmalle, who used some of my creations for a window display project together with Gabrielle Détry, a steam-punk wedding dress designer. When we went south last April, I left all my creations with her; now I am back and I am reunited with them. Now I can show them in my Face Book shop, if I can resolve the currency problem. We live in a world where travelling and changing countries is quite normal but FB is lagging behind. Let me explain: if you set up your FB shop in the US, the currency par default is US dollars. If you move to another country in another timezone then the currency should change to the new countries currency, right? Well, it doesn't. You can change your currency in your settings but it doesn't change in your shop. I wonder when I'll get an answer to my problem. In the forum they tell: delete your shop and start all over. No way, I have invested hours and hours in the shop and now I should delete it? If I can change the language of FB with 1 click, why can't I change the currency. Enough of that! Maybe somebody of my readers has an answer?

LoveLea's first creations


About my first creations: I was really green and naive. I created nice things but I didn't pay attention to style but still, I like the things I created. It seems that 1.5 year ago I had a predilection for Gothic, but I didn't realize it was Gothic. I had found a whole stack of studs at a good price, bought them and made some nice combinations. But a real Gothic lover wouldn't like them, I suppose, not pure enough; I could call them: soft Gothic. I made the choker and bracelet in the picture below in a nice beige leather during wintertime and it felt good  and warm to add some blue colored fur besides the studs and skulls. My model, Louise, the girlfriend of  Corneel, my nephews doesn't like chokers and put it on as a hairband. Louise sings together with Corneel, who plays the guitar and they perform on stage with a third person.

LoveLea's studded leather choker and bracelet with blue fur
Lovelea's choker and bracelet in beige leather with studs, skulls and blue fur.
Picture courtesy of Gudrun Smalle
Model: Louise

I also made some wrap bracelets for men. Robbe, another nephew of me, is showing this bracelet. In his spare time he plays the trombone, he is a motorcycle fan and likes beer. Yes, leather bracelets are cool!

Lovelea's men wrap bracelet
LoveLea's wrap bracelet for men

This mittens are so cool and my models too cool! the white mittens closes with an orange bead  and the navy ones, you just pull them on. 

LoveLea's leather mittens, one pair in white, one in navy.
My models wearingLovelea's mittens, Louise in white, anna in navy
Picture courtesy of Gudrun Smalle.

Here is another picture with Anna wearing the navy mittens and Louise shows a green leather studded bracelet with fringes.

Lovelea's navy mittens and green studded, fringed bracelet.
LoveLea's navy leather mittens and green studded, fringed leather bracelet.
Picture courtesy of Gudrun Smalle.

My dear readers, I am already a day late publishing my post because I wanted to spent time with the children and the grand children, because I had a stack of post of 30 cm to run through, because we will move house asap and I am going through our stuff to decide what will move with us and what has to be discarded; now I will hit the publish button so that you and the world knows what's going on in Hilde's-Lovelea-Leather-World.

More pictures of my early creations in the next post! Don't miss them and subscribe to my blog and get the post in your email. Leave your email in the box on top of the column on the right and hit the submit button. See you!



Friday, December 1, 2017

On the road

Thursday, 30th of November.

This morning we overslept a bit, had our breakfast on the 13th floor of our hotel and had a magnificent view of the city and the surrounding mountains.

Nice view from the hotels sky lounge.


You have to admit: Germans bake super nice Brötchen; and with scrambled eggs, local cheese and a coffee, it was heaven. We started the last part of our journey in a good mood: German roads are large and nice! aren't they? but not yet 50 km further, STAU or traffic jams started and they continued  throughout all of the 600 km  and  if it didn't snow, it rained. The whole country or at least the part we traveled through is a big construction site. What should have been an easy trip, was the horror of the whole journey. Thankfully the beautiful scenery made up for the lost time; as I have said before, bad weather allows for nice pictures. This picture is taken from a riding car and through the windshield.

Beautiful scenery along the road

We arrived 3 hours late at home trembling on our feet from exhaustion. We unloaded the car, had a soup, phoned the children, took a shower and went to bed.

Saturday, the 25th of November

our neighbors invited us to have dinner on the eve of leaving. Usually our dogs accompanies us till the door and waits for us till we leave. She waits for hours voluntarily. This time, she didn't came with us. I felt sad because I didn't say good bye. We did a bit of walking and calling and after 5 minutes she came running to us, but stopped at a few meters. I went to her to caress and cajole her, but she fled; my husband did the same and she fled again: she understood we were leaving and was either sad or mad or whatever feeling a dog may have. My eyes were flooding but finally after much trying, she let us caress her. We made a nest with dry leaves for her outside the garden for her and she settled down, wagging her tail finally.

Sunday, 26th of November

This morning we got up at 5 am, left at 6 am, rode for 2 hours in the dark and arrived safely at the border. On the road, my mind had been preoccupied with the end date of  my passport; I didn't want to control it, you know: don't wake sleeping dogs. I am somewhat superstitious in this kind of things, thus I kept low and thought: there is nothing I can do right now and if there is a problem, I 'll be genuinely surprised. When my passport was controlled, a great weight fell off my shoulders, everything ok; next was my husbands passport; he is usually right on top of things, so I was at ease, but then the police says: your passport has expired! Do you have a valuable ID card? Luckily he had. What happened: one way or the other his old passport hadn't been  made unusable and he had taken his expired passport instead of his new one. Luckily the attendant didn't make trouble and we could continue our road.

When travelling eastwards, we saw an event that I've seen on the screen, but never with my own eyes. I was looking through the window when I saw a square in the sky, a dark square and the square was moving, more like rolling, in the sky and the square became bigger and then smaller and then grew very wide and large and the little birds disappeared. Wow, a bird ballet just for us! it was a small and short performance but I am so thrilled I've seen it.

Monday, 27th of November.

Today we have only 350 km to go, so we got up around nine, had breakfast and decided to go at a leisurely pace because it was pouring and the sky looked grey as lead. We left the hotel at noon and drove almost the whole time in the rain. In places where it didn't rain, the clouds were hanging really low, a nice spectacle!

Mist and clouds embellish our trip.


When we got our tickets for the transfer, we checked on the cozy cafe where we spent the night last year, it was closed. Our ferry leaves at 6.30 am and we have to be there at 4.30 am so it is a bit ridiculous to spent a couple of hours in a hotel room; last year the time flew in the  very cozy cafe that is closed now. Nothing left than to pass the night sitting on bar chairs. Well, we have the whole of tomorrow to sleep and rest.

My husband waiting in the lounge.

Tuesday, 28th of November.

The crossing was uneventful. It took a 45 minutes to load the cars and another 45 minutes to arrange the trucks and the boat left with a loud toot, 90 minutes late. We went straight to bed, woke up in time before the restaurant closed, strolled around the ship but nothing to see, except water. The sea was calm, only small waves. There were not many people on board, maybe a 150 with some special characters among which a truck driver in his 60ties with long wavy bleached hair, someone with his beard braided, looking like Toutanchamon in shorts with slippers and it was barely 3°. We went sleeping early, still exhausted from the previous 24 hrs, to wake up early ready to leave the ship at 9 am.

Wednesday, 29th of November.

We were up on time, made our bags, left our cabin, delivered our keys and went for a coffee. We had plenty of time to savor our coffee and when the doors to the garage opened, we waited 30 min in the car and were able to leave the ferry. It took a long time to get out of the port and to the highway. A couple years ago, the ferry sailed through the Grand Canale and it was an experience to see San Marco square and its obelisks from above. Sadly, the ferry takes now another very boring route, almost nothing to see; only when there is fog is it worth to see. When 100 km on the highway, it started snowing, just enough to scare us. The snow continued intermittently  through the Dolomites and in Austria till we were at our destination in Germany. I could take some pictures while the car was going, but the windows weren't very clean but there were ,

Snow makes driving difficult.


Next week, hopefully in between curing our black olives, I 'll find time to make some chokers or necklaces for the coming festivities and some small leather goods you can give as a present to your loved ones or you can use them yourself.

See you next Thursday!


The event of the year (in my town), Pro's of having a dog, How I excorcise inspiration; My revamped quote!

The event of the year Last Friday it was my daughter's birthday and it was the first day of Suikerrock, a 3 day rock festival in our...

The event of the year (in my town), Pro's of having a dog, How I excorcise inspiration; My revamped