FINNISHED!

I just love leather. ...Though preferably the recycled one. But anyway, leather is sooo versatile. It makes a casual outfit more chic and too fancy outfit more down to earth. And depending on the style and color it is so rock, so hippie, so country, so hipster, so yesterday and so today! The possibilities are endless.

My newest leather investments are white pants and army green jacket.

A FEW TIPS FOR BUYING RECYCLED LEATHER

1. Buy a leather jacket or pants from a second hand store. You might want to find the biggest one so you have more material left for other crafting ideas. I would go for men's XL jackets. 
2.  Check that the piece of clothing is real leather before buying. Usually real leather clothes have the label "real leather" somewhere.
3. Check how thick the material is and if it is in a good condition. Think if the thickness works well with your ideas. Is it too soft? Is it too hard? How does the back side look like?
4. If possible check if the leather has a lining attached to it so that you can not get it out. Mostly the lining is attached only from the stitches and that's good.
5. Don't pay too much even if everything is ok!

I love to work with leather. Here the instructions for the LEATHER FEATHER EARRINGS.

...And here they are ready to wear: RokRokInc.leather feather earrings.

For leather earrings you need recycled leather, marker, cardboard, scissors,
needle, (spray paint), pliers and earring hooks.

1. Make a shape mold from cardboard. Take the cardboard from old cards/flyers.
2. Draw the feather on the back side of the leather with a thin marker. Remember to draw the second earring other way around.
3. Cut the lines. Make sure you have sharp scissors.
4. Cut about 3 mm slices from the outer edge to the middle. Direct the cuts slightly upwards.
   (You can also cut the both sides but in that case don't cut the slices quite until the middle. Leave at least 1 cm beam in the middle to keep the feather in one piece.)
5. You can spray a thin layer of spray paint to the back side. It helps the feather to stay flat.
6. Make a hole for the hook into the "stalk" with a thick needle.
7. Attach the earring hook.  
8. Take one more look and cleanup the edges, also the back side.

Last week I did a couple of hours crafting with kids at a youth center summer party. It was great even though kids would need a bit more practice with handling the pliers. But creativity they surely have and actually in upcycling the creative process is even more important than the expertise.

And with kids it is also good to learn that you can achieve your wanted outcome in many ways. There are just little problems to solve and different solutions will probably take you to the same goal.

Tuana made herself a pair of earrings with letters and black & white pearls.

As we had so much fun last time in the DIY Workshop, we will do it again. This time, as it is summer, I thought we could concentrate on more summery materials like shells, lace, feathers ans so on. Hopefully we'll get as nice group together as last time! So, here we go again. Join us for inspiring crafting and fun together!

We visited London a while ago and of course I did some second hand browsing also there. So, what I found from London was two jackets. They both are from Brick Lane second hand markets. For the jeans jacket I paid faaar to much (£45) but for the army jacket I paid only £5. Still I'm happy about the jeans jacket as well because I finally found just the right material for my jeans vest. It is the right color, hardly used, small enough and of course Levi's. Bigger and more used ones I could have gotten for £20-25 but as I am so short legged I feel that tight upper part fits me better.

I seem to have this little perversion to 90's style. Maybe I am trying to feel like 15 years old forever. Anyhow, here's two new modification projects. ...As if I wouldn't have unfinished projects enough.

Around the Spitalfields and Brick Lane, as well as at the Camden Town Stable markets, you can find tens of second hand stores. But the thing with the vintage markets and shops in London is that they sell everything as vintage but actually most of them are just recycled clothing. But they surely always have vintage prices.

I found some cool stuff and of course some of the best items are real vintage. But I am totally not going to pay for used T-shirt £18 or square pattern shirt £20. Only the shoes were maybe in more sensible prices, it makes more sense to pay £20 for leather shoes than a pullover.

Street art somewhere around the Spitalfields/Brick Lane markets area.

London was darn cold so we ended up doing mostly bar hopping. We checked out maybe twenty bars in two and a half days. We found some good ones and popped in also in some shitty ones only because we were freezing and needed some warm up. All in all, many liters of beer consumed!

In the Paper Dress Vintage Bar/Boutique we found something very cozy and familiar: Löwenbräu beer! It seemed somehow that also other beers from Munich are in and hip right now. And of course, the RokRokInc. tape chain got some compliments!

About bar hopping in London I have to say that it is impossible and pointless to try to visit all the good ones at once since there are so many and they are so scattered around the city. Maybe it is still worth pinning some places to your map so that you can stop by if your way happens to pass some place.

HERE'S MY LIST OF ROCK BARS & GIG VENUES IN LONDON:

 direction: CAMDEN
The Underworld, Dingwalls, Black Heart, Elephants Head, Dublin Castle, The Hobgoblin, Purple Turtle, Boston Arms, Barfly, Joe's, Aces and Eights, The Blues Kitchen

In front of the Cargo Club...don't go in there.

RokRokInc.'s wonderful regular customer Maija wrote on her blog on her new treasures. The text is in Finnish but take a look at the pictures! Poppastelua by Maija Poppanen

Soo, this time I had time to visit in six different second hand shops in Berlin. There are a lot more of them, I know, but you got to do something else as well. Here my ranking for these six shops.

I am pretty price conscious so I would say that most of the shops were overpriced. I would so much want to buy and use even more second hand clothing but if you get the same product new from a shop (and with the exactly right size easily found) with the same price or even cheaper, it just doesn't make any sense!

Colours do have all the colors. Meins & Deins was ok.

1.Colours (Bergmannstr.102) I like this shop a lot because it is well organized and it has the more expensive vintage part separately. They have a wide range of quite well selected clothing. They have some good priced things, like skirts for 2 euros, some totally crazy expensive things and something in between.They also some over priced things like flannel shirts for 25 euros. You can buy half of the clothes with a kilogram based price. In this case light materials are ok but heavy materials will be overpriced. But all in all, it is an entertaining shopping experience. Happy hour -30% on Tuesdays.

2. Meins & Deins (Danziger Str.38 & 54) is basically a nice shop and had some nice pieces but shopping there was actually not very comfortable. The owner was a bit crumpy and cold. But do still take a look specially if you like dotted skirts, sports shoes or old school sweaters. Price range was from just about bearable (skirts 15 euros) to too much.

Humana Shops offer clothing in good condition.

 3.Humana Vinge (Eberswalder Straße 27) was actually quite nice. Well organized and nicely color sorted. Some good pieces but mostly average quality. That means still that there could be possible to find something interesting. Surprise suprise, a bit over priced but not totally unacceptable. One hour happy hour -20% every day from 11am till noon.

4.Humana Second Hand (Schönhauser Allee 10-11) was in average not so very interesting but basic clothing in good condition that make possible basis for tuning. Some single delightfully funny pieces too. Like multicolored leather vest from the lovable 90's. And actuallyHumanahas many shops around Berlin. For example they have huge, multi-storey, in Friedrichshain. Yet again, mostly overpriced, but maybe you could find something reasonable priced from the sale or so.

Paul's Boutique looks great from outside. Stiefelkombinat is exquisite.

5.Paul's Boutique has three different addresses. I visited quickly in the small Chapter Mitte store (Torstrasse 76). It had more Cheap Monday clothing than second hand actually. In the second hand "department" the offering was pullovers, shirts and jackets and of course everything too expensive in my opinion.

6.Stefelkombinat (Eberswaler Strasse 21-22) was by far the fairest of them all. But also the prices were by far the highest of them all. But if you really are looking something vintage or just outrageous and you are prepared to pay for it then this is a place for you. At least I could spend there hours looking at the interesting pieces and the experience was also just like it should be in a vintage store.

Berlin was nice like always. And luckily it was at least a bit better weather than in Munich. I didn't have time to search for materials really and the outdoor flea markets happen during the weekend mostly and we were there from Monday to Thursday. But I did go through some flea market shops. Reviews of them in my next post but first about our accommodation.

Our accommodation had a beautiful view towards the Alexander Platz.

We stayed in IMA Loft Apartments and I can happily say that it was a good choice. Nothing fancy but clean, great location and a relaxed atmosphere. And a cute cafe downstairs. We had for five persons a spacious loft that had everything we needed. A special plus for the stereo. I do recommend.

Our traveling crew at the IMA Loft Apartments in Berlin.