Little houses ...in my closet!

I have shown you quite a few times the workshops I take part in with Anna of In My Closet.
This time it was a workshop to make little paper houses, fill them in with chocolate and give them away to the Dromoi Zois (Life roads) bazaar. Dromoi zois is a voluntary organization for the assistance of people marginalized by society.
Anna invited us in her confy kitchen.
Kikitsa of DIY my day showed us how to make the little houses. These are her houses and the pattern.

Here's what I made.

 Of course we had to eat again!So many delicious things. Clockwise Anna's cheese pie, Elsa's Christmas cookies, my orange pie and Kikitsa's Oreo cake.

And of course Vasso's red velvet cookies.

And we made so many beautiful houses.

And we welcomed new people in our company of friends.
Elsa made those lovely biscuits. One for my stomach and one for my Xmas decorations!

Saint Mamas' open market.

Every year at the end of August and beginning of September for a week a big open air market takes place at Saint Mamas' village near my beach house in Chalkidiki.
We usually go for the food (souvlaki) and some good cheap clothing to buy but this year I was too tired to walk around the many stalls of goods that roving sellers have to offer.So we only stayed for an hour.
When we arrived it was still light and the big open plain next to the market was impressive.

 Saint Mamas church at the back.

We were welcomed by colourful carpets,

 then some belts,

 clocks (!!!!!),

 socks,

 bra and

 underwear,

 pyjamas,

 dolls,

 towels,

 bells,

and crock pots (our target).

 There was food to buy,

 and food to eat but I couldn't eat!

So we visited the church

and bought the two things we needed.

We left when the moon was hanging on the telephone lines

and the sun was burning the horizon and lots and lots of people were arriving.

 If you want to learn more about this bazaar have a look at my friend Anna's blog In my closet, there is a whole report there from her visit in Greek.

Crafts Circus Bazaar

I met Anna Tzoutzou of Sort Stories two years ago when I took part in a couple of bazaars with my sea glass felted stones!
I liked her the moment I met her. An open, smiling, courageous, talented girl and young mother!

Although I didn't take part in more bazaars we kept contact and connected on fb.
Recently she organized a big event The Crafts Circus Bazaar which took place last Sunday at
Block 33. I had to go to see what she had managed to do. I loved it!

Although the place is a bit away from the city centre I managed to go.
There were lots of things happening.

Lots of handcrafters selling their lovely goods.
Events for children

and fun events for grown ups like this aerial silks acrobat!

I bought this lovely bag from my dear Fani of Skeftomai kai Ravo.

 I also had a chat with some interesting artists whose crafts I loved.
Da Faux Creations with her amazing miniatures and felt ornaments.

 Girasole with her gorgeous silver jewelry.

Here  is her etsy shop 
Iliana's creations with her lovely fabric brooches and boxes.

Handmade pinatas with her original pinatas.

and Woodstories with her lovely wooden ornaments and supplies.

It was a great event. Hope Anna will be organizing more of those and I would love to take aprt one day too!

And here is my lovely cherry bag!

The Stendhal Syndrome

It means feeling happy when seeing art. You can read more about it here.
It happened to me.
Last Sunday morning hubby and I went to visit the M Flea Market, an event organized twice a year by the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art.
They sell lots of vintage clothes, decorative items and books in very reasonable prices.

 I loved going there.

We had a look around.

I managed to buy a couple of books I really wanted (I found a shadow puppetry book for hubby too of course!) and a couple of beautiful decorative items.

The glass thing is a lemon reamer by Canadian artist Annie Michaud. An orange porcelain bowl with a silver rim and a terracota tile handpainted and with a secret message at the back! Really loved those items!

Then I thought of visiting one of the temporary exhibitions in the museum as there was no entrance fee on that day.

First we looked at the permanent exhibition which we have seen many a time!

A Spatharis shadow puppet figure is there too!

And my favourite Theophilos.

And lots more Contemporary Art pieces.

There were huge installations too!

And some strange ones!

Afterwards we moved to the temporary exhibition which is dedicated to pioneer Greek painters of the 20th century and the paintings belong to Th. Karapanagiotis Collection. This is the first public presentation of this important collection. The exhibition is curated by Professor of History of Art at the University of Thessaloniki, Antonis Kotidis who says that the artists represent two trends that prevailed in the Greek perception of contemporary art, Modernism and 'Tradition'.

(Info taken from the museum site)

In the exhibition you can see paintings by Nikolaos Lytras (1883-1927)

Nikolaos Othoneos (1877-1949)

 Michalis Economou (1888-1933)

Spiros Papaloukas (1892-1957).

Theophrastus Triantaphyllides (1881-1955),

Konstantinos Parthenis (1878-1967),

Constantine Maleas (1879-1928),

The exhibition will be on till the end of May 2015.
Leaving the exhibition we passed through a corridor and I adored the curtains ....

...which proved to be an artistic installation too!
I love art! In another life I would have studied arts!