Ellen Borggreve Design

Quiet days...

I lost my voice...!!!! The only way I can now say ''aaaaarggghhhh'' is just like I do it now:type it. Yesterday morning I woke up to quickly realize that my soundsystem was not working. I had had a cold earlier last week, but it was much better. Anyway, the volume is still down, I can't do more than whisper, which I try to do all day, because I really am a big fan of talking. My husband is quite pleased I think, Caya does nothing than keeping her head tilted when I try to tell her what to do...She is trying to find out just what sort of a silly game I have thought of now...;o))

Introspective moment

Reading back my last entries, I almost wish I could delete them. They so reflect my gloomy mood, which is not what I want for this place in cybearspace. Right....as I am the kind of girl that wants to have everything perfect, even myself, I have now in fact deleted my posts about the orders. This has to be a place where I can be my best self, the Ellen that I wish I was all the time, the one that is creative, positive and at times completely with her head in the clouds. So that's it...no more of that sort of talk about work frustrations and stuff. I don't want anyone to think I am ungrateful or unhappy with my life as an artist, because I am absolutely in love with my life as an artist, to be honest.

I love the freedom, the creativity, the inspiration, the fabrics, the bears, the research and of course my dear collectors of whom many became friends. I don't want to be Eeyore-ing about my job, when in fact I have the best job that I could have thought of.

I apologize for my gloomy mood lately and to all of you who read my less then positive words. Life has not been easy these past few months and not just because of Caya. There are some more serious things going on involving people that are closest to my heart. Just bear with me please while I change myself back into the positive and happy person that I usually am and my blog into a friendly and creative environment once again.

It's something called inspiration....

The question where I get my inspiration from, is one that frequently comes up (just after the question about how I came to being a bear artist...) and it is one of those questions that can be answered really quickly by saying ''everywhere'', but it often makes me think.

Most of you know about my first love (Harper's Bazaar) and I still find that seeing the new couture collections makes my heart sing. I just bought this new Vogue Collections a week ago and it really does make me happy. When I am in a state of happiness, I get inspired more easily, but I can not really say that the magazine in itself inspired me.

What I have learnt through the years is, that what makes my heart sing, what makes everything look brighter, what touches my heart, what makes me truly happy, is usually what brings me in this state where I can feel extremely inspired. So maybe the question should be...what are the things that make my heart sing...That is an easier one to answer too...

I always try to stay away from the negative things of life as much as possible, so I don't watch the news much, I refuse to read newspapers and I don't talk about politics. I try to surround myself with those things that make me happy. I love the DVD's of Miss Potter, Marie Antoinette, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, celtic CD's (Enya, Secret Garden, Clannad etc.), I absolutely adore Stampington magazines (the one in the picture is Somerset Studio), books about Beatrix Potter, like the one in the picture and of course my beloved fashion magazines that I now buy just twice a year when the new collections are presented. I also try to get the colours in my house just right. Too much red (or Christmas colours) will make me go insane within days. Don't get me wrong; I love Christmas, but I am always extremely happy when my house feels quiet and serene again. So I love my greyish pastel colours.

So; inspiration comes from a special state of mind in which I can receive those messages whispered from above. Some years ago, there was a Dutch musical in which Mathilde Santing (a wonderful Dutch singer) sang a song called ''inspiratie''. I don't think you need that translated. This lyrics were those of an angel in heaven that explained where your ideas come from. It is such a beautiful song and I can't really translate it into English, without losing the meaning of some words (we have many different words for just one English word sometimes. In Dutch words can have different intonations than their translated English relatives, it has got me into trouble on occasion, without me realizing the harsher meaning of the words in English, so that is why I will keep the song as it is, as it is so beautifully serene). The song says that 'through these breaths of creative spirit from above the child gets an idea, the man finds what he was looking for, someone becomes a hero, that's how progress is being made. It is all because someone up there gets through to someone down here.' It is something like that to me...it's unexplicable, inspiration comes from everywhere and nowhere. There can be complete emptiness and silence and you can still feel inspired. I think I need the silence and emptiness actually to hear the voice of inspiration. I hope this answers the question just a tiny bit.
This is what I do if I need to organize my thoughts...I draw a very quick shape and get out my crayons. It's nothing artistic, but it is my way of bringing order in my usual chaotic mind...
One other picture os something that inspires me. Have you ever taken the time to really look at flowers and plants or maybe just at the bark of a tree? I love the world that is hidden in these everyday things. There is something magical about it. This is one of the reasons I love macro photography so much. These are 2 pictures of my aechmea (we call it bromelia in Dutch, but I think the proper name is aechmea). I love this sculptural plant, I love the softness of the colours and the shape of its leaves and flowers.

Happy New Beginnings!!!

Happy New Year to all of you!!! May your year be filled with laughter, happiness, friends, fun and optimism!

I am sorry for not having posted for a while...I just could not...I have been dealing with a lot of things lately, some entirely my fault, others just unfortunate...

Christmas was supposed to be spent with friends at my house enjoying a (hopefully) nice dinner, but over the weekend it all became very clear that our Caya was getting worse again and so she was brought in for endoscopic examination on Monday the 24th, the day of the dinner party....The vets immediately scheduled her in and she waa there during most of the day. There was a fear of her having a tumour, which was not what they found. After taking swabs, they rang us on December 31st with the news she has a serious streptococ infection and will have to be on antibiotics for a long time in order to have a chance of getting better again.

Anyway, I have not been able to dig up my usual positive self in the last week or so, especially these last few days, so we cancelled everything during the holidays, just to give me a chance to ''ground'' a bit. Not sure if this is the right word...

Now...I have lots of resolutions for the new year, one of them being to make more bears. I have drawn up 4 new patterns during Christmas, so I look forward to making them. Two of them are for the ''outside your comfort zone challenge'' and will be (probably, or perhaps I should say...hopefully) for vintage looking bears. It is making me feel a bit uneasy, the pattern looks a bit weird compared to my usual stuff...I have more things I want to make for this challenge though, there are many bears possible outside my comfort zone...Maybe I should try to make a better elephant...I tried to make one once, but it was not my greatest achievement ever to put it mildly. I have thrown away the pattern I think, because I thought elephants just are not very me. Maybe I should make them 'me' though.....Perhaps I should try again, just to annoy myself???

Things to do...

I just feel like I have thousands of things that I have to do, but obviously I am not the only one in these weeks before Christmas.
We took a look at another house last week, in our hunt to find a house with a perfect studio space for me. That said...the studio is not the only important thing...I need a spacious kitchen, I love to cook and entertain. Anyway, the house had potential as they so nicely put it in the brochures, for a spacious studio, but when we took the tour around the house I kind of missed something...where was that kitchen? Then finally there it was, tucked away in a room not much bigger than a somewhat larger toilet. It had one drawer in it... For a kitchen minded girl like me this was such a disappointment.
Anyway, a long introduction on what happened next....I decided that I really liked my old little cottage-style house and all of a sudden I felt the urge to paint...first the hallway, then the toilet ceiling that needed to be plastered as well, then...then my dear husband poured cleaning liquid over my cooker hood causing short circuit, which forced me away from the paint brush and before I knew it I had completely dismantled the cooker hood (which was the only way to go). Anyone who knows my husband knows that he is a super salesman, he is a good administrator and that he is always in a good mood, but there is this one thing lacking...DIY skills....Whenever he touches anything you can count on it to break down. This all is the cause of me doing just about everything around the house, including repairing taps, cooker hoods and dishwashers. Anyway, one morning's work and I assembled the cooker hood again.
After that was out of the way, I decided which colours to have mixed up as testers for my living room. The names are cappuccino and biscuit and they really do look quite similar in the tin...hmmm...Still worried about an overdose of yellow, so I will paint two large pieces of paper first and hang them in my livingroom to see what these colours really look like in the cool northern light that I have in that room.
But that is not what I should be doing! I have agreed to participate in a Christmas card swap, an ornament swap, a challenge for which I have to design the bear and Paula Carter did the side head, there is this raccoon that needs to be finished, new bears to design and Christmas decorating, shopping and cooking to start thinking about and the TOBY's to think about( I am still in the whether to enter or not to enter stage actually)
I therefore switched off the heating in my attic where I have my computer, so I would not be tempted to sit at the computer. Boy, did that do a lot of good! I run away as fast as I can to my warm studio and as a result, I now have the cards ready, the pattern for a new bear ready, an ornament design ready and I have done some shopping already. I even find time to try out the dishes I have in mind for Christmas. I have a group of friends coming over to dinner, so it'd better be good!
I'll have pictures of my efforts tomorrow or the day after. Reading stories with lots of pictures is much more fun isn't it?
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who are celebrating that holiday!!!

How I love autumn...

On a day like this, with the sun shining on the golden and reddish leaves outside I always feel so alive. I have never been the kind of person that really loves the summer, but I really do love autumn. I love the colours of the leaves, I love the shapes and colours of the chestnuts falling down in my street, I love the geese coming back and I love kicking through heaps of leaves in the woods...I have not even started talking about the mushrooms with their wonderful shapes, textures and colours and the golden shade that the sun has on afternoons like these...

I love to take my camera with me and make things visible that otherwise would have stayed hidden from most of us. I like to see the beauty in the little, day-t-day things. There is a whole world to be discovered through the macro lens of your camera...

This is just a picture of a hebe in my garden. They have tiny little flowers and this is what it looks like through a macro lens....Isn't it gorgeous?

Good (?) Ol' Days

Just the other day I sat in my chairs (yes, 2 chairs: one for Ellen, one for sore leg...long story about me wanting to go to supermarket when the knee was not ready yet...) with my MP3 Player on. It was playing A-Ha, which is not unusual for me, as I have liked them ever since I was....a lot younger....All of a sudden I saw my old room, my desk, my bed, my floor, my chest of drawers, my books and my pictures on the wall (one of a kitten, two of A-Ha...). I really felt the same way as I did then, it was like I had travelled back in time.  It got me thinking about my past and my present life and I thought that I really do not like the ''good'' ol' days too much. I really like my current days much better....Whoo, the freedom and independance that I have every day of my life. It is something to be so grateful for. All the choices that I can make (which can drive me crazy, but it is nice to have choices anyway...!)

A friend on Teddy Talk is very ill and she reminded me of the same thing just yesterday. She just wishes to be able to sew her bears again and just be able to ''chat'' with her friends on the internet again. It may seem such small hopes, but these two things would make her feel happy again. This just taught me that I should be ever so grateful that I can sew bears, I can see my friends, walk through the woods, visit towns, read my magazines and smell the roses so to speak.

Another thing that I learned from my trip back to my old me....I now fully understand why I hate orange colours these days...I have had an overdose!!!