Craft Haul from Turkey!

Hey Dear,

Sooo... the plan was to do this about a month ago... but stuff happened and I wasn't able to write things. So my holidays ended a bit more than a month ago! (Where does the time go?) It was a holiday of 2 weeks where we couldn't do much for the first couple of days because of my cousin's wedding... Which was incredibly crowded!

Anyway to be able to cope I managed to do some craft shopping! I reaaaally wanted to get some more stencils! Last holidays I got a few and was dissapointed in myself for not getting more... I didn't really have an idea what I'd get... I just wanted the stencils!

Sadly I only went to 1 huge craft/stationary (Hakikat Kirtasiye) shop and two retails shops (Miniso and D&R). Hakikat Kirtasiye is basically a place where a lot of  (art/ architecture) students end up going because they have an amazing range in pencils and paints! Plus a bunch of things for mini model houses (you know the things architectures make to show how things will look...) But I really can spend hours in this shop just to look at the paints! Rows and rows of paints! Oh they had the Chameleon pens too... But the price of those pens scare me so I didn't really look at them!

Miniso is, if I am correct, a Japanese retailer. I went in there with my brother and sister and we fell in love! I mean they don't have the long lasting amazing quality some people expect, but they have gorgeous things. A bit like Action and Ikea in one. We loved the store, but absolutely hated the girl behind the counter.

D&R (I had to look up what the letters stood for, cause I do not know. Dogus Holding ve (&) Raks, two big companies) is a... I don't know what to compare it with atm, but it is a place where you can get stationary, books, music... well I'd say it reminds me of Kmart! Yeah, it is the Turkish version of Kmart!

Oh I am not sure how much I spend in total, but I remember one spree where I smiled and told my brother I spend 350 Turkish Lira (which was about 63 euros at the time) but I am guessing I spend about 150 euros in total for craft supplies... but I did get a lot of stencils and paints!

Anway I sort of looked around what I got and took pictures! At the end I just sort of put them on a pile for this photo:

Anyway let's start with the most expensive item: the Kuretaki Gansai Tambi 36 colour set. 

I saw this when I was with friends and wasn't sure if I wanted to get them... but then when I went back I thought "BUY IT!" Cause I won't be able to find this easy in the Netherlands. Especially for the price I could get it for. 36 colours for 160 TL (29 euros). Pretty sure the price would be double if I could find it over here. Also I am pretty sure they upped the price in Turkey as well... 

The box is a gorgeous green! The colours are amazing! 

So the pans are a bigger size than what I am used too, I googled information about after I got it. So it's a traditonal Japanese waterpaint. The binding is different than what is used in Western paints (so all the other paints I have). Anyway you can read more on this blog by Sadie (an artist I enjoy following on YouTube) .

It also reacts very different to water than let's say the van Gogh paints. Also some of the colours (purples) are amazing.  

This palette contains 36 colors: Black (No. 20), Blue (No. 64), Bluish Gold (No. 91), Bright Yellow (No. 42), Brown (No. 46), Cadmium Red (No. 30), Carmine Red (No. 35), Cobalt Blue (No. 62), Cornflower Blue (No. 61), Dark Brown (No. 47), Dark Pink (No. 34), Deep Blue (No. 67), Deep Pink (No.37), Deep Violet (No. 38), Evergreen (No. 58), Gold (No. 90), Green (No. 55), Lemon Yellow (No. 40), Light Brown (No. 44), Marine Green (No. 56), May Green (No. 51), Menthol Violet (No. 66), Mid Green (No. 53), Mid Yellow (No. 43), Ocean Green (No. 52), Olive Green (No. 54), Orange (No.33), Pale Aqua (No. 50), Persian Blue (No. 63), Purple (No. 139), Red (No. 32), Scarlet Red (No. 31), Silver (No. 95), Turquoise Green (No. 57), White (No. 10), and Wine Red (No. 36).

The first time I used them I was a bit confused, I wasn't able to control the paint and make it do what I wanted it to do. But the second time I could use it and ended up painting my Narwhal drawing. 

Oh the paperpad I also got in Turkey. It's the Canson brand Mixed Media A5 paper pad. 

I adore this paper and feel a bit silly for not having bought more of these. (Oh wait I know why... NO SPACE IN MY LUGGAGE!) I've been using this paper pad to make a series of sea creatures that I later paint with waterbased paint/pens and inks... 

The next items will be all pen types!

Starting with the two Faber Castell sets. Last year I got 4 sets, this year I added these. Shades of Blue and Shades of Grey that have 6 pens in them. 

 I'll have to make a list of which pens I have... Since I have 36 of the 60 colours now... 

 Then the BIC Markers.... The thing about the BIC brand is that we have sooooo many pens avaliable in the Netherlands, but I don't see these markers often. Last year I bought a set of 3 in the Lidl (They were for 1 or 1,50 euros and I wanted to try them out) and liked them. So I decided to get the set of 24 colours when I saw them in D&R. 

So the first pen (Faber Castell Broadpen, bottom to top) I bought just cause I loved the colour. The second one cause you can never have too many mechanical pencils, the Faber Castell Grip Plus 0.7 is a very nice pencil to hold and draw/ write with. I thought I got the right leads for them, but they ended up being 0,5 ones, so I'll still use them, but need to find right size. (I think I saw them in Pippoos here) and lastly the Signo Uni Ball in the colour blue. Cause I felt like it... 

Two pencils just cause I like the design... Again there is enough pencils I have... 

And here is another silly buy, got this because the colour is Delft Blue. It would have been funnier if they had named this set Vermeer instead of Rembrandt. (Vermeer is from Delft, the painter of The Girls with the Pearl Earring and Rembrandt is from Amsterdam and the painter of The Night Watch painting. Yes, they made many more paintings, but I am just naming the famous ones! 

Then the pens I got from Miniso! and the leads (also 0,5, but I did know when I got these!) 

On to the paints.... 

I was about to walk out of the store when I saw this Distress Paste from Cadence. Still need to figure out how to use this properly. The colour is Antique Maroon, very soothing. 

Brand is Cadence

From the many colours of paints I stared at I picked out these four: 2 water based gilding paint in the colours of light brown and antique copper and 2 water metallic paints in the colours of turquoise and maroon. I LOOOOOOOOOVE using them and am scared they will be finished soon! I have been using them for different projets 1 2 3 4 (links to pictures/videos on Instagram)  

I've made a page with all the new colours to show how they look. Can I say that the people who work at BIC are amazing at coming up with names... I mean really!

Oh another thing I got at Miniso is this notebook. (I also got masks and presents for friends) 

I added the decoration to it cause it looked so empty! 

There are pages with empty calenders that you can fill in with. I think for all 12 months... I didn't count. I am not using the book just yet... 

The pages are squares, which I like better than lines! 

It has a nice plastic cover you can add stuff in to! 

Oh and I got two packages of this postcards (I have used a lot) that I just walked passed. 10 cards (folded) with envelopes were for 10 lira! They are gorgeous paintings of Istanbul.

And postcards I could not send, they go in to penpal letters. Or I give them to people. Again used a bucnh of it. I sort of  grabbed a few when I saw them. Sadly didn't have all the time to just hang around and look at stuff... 

These stickers got my attention, not because of all the Turkish flags, but the globe with the kids around it. I got these at BIM (grocery shop) and they were 1 lira... I didn't like the other stuff I saw, but I got a few of this so I could give them away as well. Also used the country shaped one on my journal :) 

 I got some "gold" (metallic?) leaf, but with mixed colouors. One of them is called Nar Cicegi (Pomegranate flower) and the other one is called Ebruli (Turkish Marbling Art). Next time I need to ask about the glue for this... 

Yes, I did try it out of course. With 'regular' pritt glue and this was the result. I basically used one of the stencils to stencil the glue, wait for it to dry a bit and added the leafs on top. I love the colours of this one!  

Lastly... The STENCILS. Okay so I got very excited about these because they are expesive in the Netherlands. Well they're expensive in Turkey too, if you live there... I don't remember how much stencils I got anymore, but I got extras to give as presents! But I got a LOT for myself and here they are from ArteBella 

10 by 10 cm stencils

10 by 20 cm stencils

30 by 20 cm stencils 

yes I have used these too, they are very loved! 

 I'll just link pictures on Instagram, cause it is easier: 1 2 3 4 5

Oh I also got 2 very thin paintbrushes for textile painting! But I put them away... I should see if they work. I didn't really know which brand and hair type, so I hope I did take nice ones. If not I could always use them for other paints! 

Like I said this was not really a holiday properly planned, I just went with the idea of  "We'll see what happens" and had a few things on my to do list, which all happened and I am happy about. Something I would like to be able to do in the future is just go for a weekend to do some craft shopping and strolling around. Or a craft haul weekend with other crafters, just visiting craft shops in Turkey! 

Hope you enjoyed this! There is another craft haul blog on the planning... cause I did get some things here... But I need to cut down on spending money... Anyway I hope you enjoyed reading this! Have a nice day! 

ps: comments are always welcome! 

Take Care ST!