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Serena Olivieri

Illustrations, Graphic Projects & Handmade Extravaganzas

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Watercolour Gardenias

May 6, 2013 by Serena Olivieri

Let’s start the week with another watercolour: gardenias this time, always from my balcony. I’m am literally fighting against the sad fate of this plant: here in Madrid the temperature is always dry, and apparently this beauty needs moisture. So I’m arranging things to set her right. Is someone in the same situation?! On the other hand, I think it’s time to stop painting plants, at least for now, I feel like painting fashion accessories, well, most because I have […]

Categories: Illustrations • Tags: crafts, flowers, gardenias, handmade, illustration, interiors, painting, patterns, watercolor, watercolour

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Plants on my balcony

April 16, 2013 by Serena Olivieri

I admit I love my mother’s balcony & garden plants, so I’m kind of recreating my little green space here, in the middle of the city! Hierba buena, laurel and rosemery and I intend to buy basil and thyme also…Well, I don’t have vases like these, I made those decorations up completely, but actually they could make a good project, right?! Next time I’ll paint my vases. Ok. Btw, this illustration is part of a series about plants and I […]

Categories: Illustrations • Tags: art, balcony, colours, crafts, design, garden, green, illustration, painting, plants, watercolour

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Pink & Yellow Patterns

January 31, 2013 by Serena Olivieri

This is a pattern I really love – I made it one day, on a little paper, it was just a sketch, a note I took fo a beautiful drawing I saw somewhere. I really would like to use it one day. Actually, I see it as an ideal pattern for bathroom tiles…we’ll see.

Categories: Patterns • Tags: art, crafts, illustration, patterns, watercolour

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Watercolour Tshirt – Alpargatas on Twiggy

December 7, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

Categories: Extravaganzas, Uncategorized • Tags: art, crafts, design, fashion, handamde, illustration, shoes, twiggy, watercolour

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Watercolour Brown Patterns

New Fall-Inspired Pattern Studies

September 18, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

I’ve been trying to make different kind of patterns, as request by a friend who’s into furniture design. I cannot talk about the project right now, but I will, in the future So here I started with some pattern studies, the first on the top- left has the classic stripes and evolved into..I don’t know, some kind of spider thing! At first I thought I could use these pattern studies for some tote bag design or for some tile design, […]

Categories: Patterns • Tags: art, bag, crafts, design, handmade, paper, patterns, tile, tote, watercolours

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Handmade Notebook - Orange Nicky-3

Handmade Notebook – Orange Nicky

August 1, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

    Yes, another present! – Two birthdays last week. I didn’t know how to customize this one, then I thought about my friend and his clothes: stripe tshirts. Have you noticed it? The cut out has the shape of a tshirt ,and underneath, on the creamy paper, there are some drawings I made using my famous while-speaking-on-the-phone style . I’m sure everyone has his/her own personal while-speaking-on-the-phone style !   Serena

Categories: Notebooks, Prototypes • Tags: art, crafts, cut out, handmade, journal, notebook, paper

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Handmade Notebook – Black Diego

July 30, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

This is the notebook I customized for my friend Diego, it was his birthday! – Everything is handmade, from the bookbinding to the illustration. Well, who wouldn’t like a present like this for his birthday…uh?! Hope you like it! – he liked it, well, at least he said so Serena

Categories: Notebooks, Prototypes • Tags: crafts, handmade, illustration, notebook, paper

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Pink & Grey Combo

June 27, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

I have to say I was inspired by Igor’s post on his wonderful Happy Interior Blog, to use these colours! Actually it was after twitting him to say how much I loved that combo, that I realized I HAD to do something with it today! Just a little side note:it was difficult to go ahead and finish the whole page without using a bit of yellow, I was so tempted! Well, next time I see a combo with yellow in it I’ll […]

Categories: Patterns • Tags: crafts, handmade, illustrations, patterns, watercolours

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Patterns/ Watercolours

June 14, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

More watercolors. Do you like these patterns?

Categories: Patterns • Tags: crafts, handmade, illustration, paper, patterns, watercolors

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Watercolours studies

June 11, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

Yes, I’m into watercolours patterns! I’m thinking about making a series of textile patterns and then make bags and other wares out of them, what do you think? Do you like the colours?

Categories: Patterns • Tags: art, artist, crafts, patterns, watercolours, work in progress

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My first series of handmade notebooks!

June 6, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

Among the notebooks I made during the past 6 months I chose the one that was most pinned, or mentioned…the one that received the highest score. So I’ve made almost 30 different kinds, all A6 and with different colours. I’ve also produced 4 little A7 notebooks and 4 bookmarks, as prototypes for the moment. The colours used for the carboards are: Pink, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Black. The colours used for the pages are: Green, Orange, Yellow, Beige, Lavender. […]

Categories: Notebooks, Prototypes • Tags: crafts, cut out, design, handmade, illustration, notebook

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Custom Notebook: a cook book

June 3, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

A client from Italy emailed me with specifics about a notebook she wanted to have ready for her mother’s birthday in June. Her mother likes to bake cakes and cookies, so the illustrations should have been about sweets. She chose the papers for the covers and I took some pics here to study the possible results. I had some hard time deciding the subject for the pop-up and finally ended up with a cake.   Yesterday she emailed me telling […]

Categories: Custom, Notebooks • Tags: crafts, handmade, illustration, notebook

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WATERCOLOURS PATTERNS STUDIES #2

May 19, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

This watercolours patterns are based on some previous geometric patterns I made. I wanted to change them a bit, so I tried to fit botanical forms into geometrical shapes and I’m kind of happy with the results, if you look well at it you’ll see soya leaves, roses, artichokes, someone collecting them…;)) I’m really enjoying making these watercolours and I’ll be making more.. Hope you’ll like them too!

Categories: Patterns • Tags: color studies, crafts, handmade, illustration, patterns, watercolours

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Custom Journal/Photo albu

May 15, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

So, a client asked me a journal with pockets, A5 size, starting from this one, with some pages to use as photo album. About the cover: he chose the paper among the classic ones I always have ( Grafiche Tassotti). I used a blue fabric for the spine and part of the covers as I did in a recent photoalbum/journal. He wanted to add somewhere in the journal 4 poems he actually personalized for his girlfriend. (So romantic!). I decided to […]

Categories: Custom, Notebooks • Tags: crafts, handmade, notebook, paper, photoalbum

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Photo Album Journal

May 8, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

It’s a custom journal-photoalbum a client asked me. He’s a journalist and loves to write about his baby daughter and wanted something to keep things together: photos, letters, notes etc. He also wanted something related to his hometown in southern Spain and to the Mediterrean Sea. So we decided it would be half journal, half photoalbum, with pockets. In this post I showed and explained the project to him, he accepted them, so I went on. I finally felt I had to […]

Categories: Custom, Notebooks • Tags: album, crafts, diary, handmade, paper, photo

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Watercolours – Trailer video

May 5, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

Watercolour Pattern Studies #2 – trailer A variation of the previous patterns, now geometrical & botanical. I’ll soon blog about the series. Enjoy the trailer (Source: http://player.vimeo.com/)

Categories: Video • Tags: crafts, illustration, paper, video, watercolours

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Work in Progress – custom

April 28, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

Work in progress. This is another collection of pictures I took today while I was preparing all the necessary things to start bookbinding for a client. It will be a notebook, A6 size, I’ll have to make 3 illustrations about food/cooking + a pop up + a pocket. It will be based on this one and customized for a person that likes to cook  My client chose the papers among the ones from the Tiger store: the cover will have two […]

Categories: Work In Progress • Tags: crafts, handmade, paper, work in progress

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Cut Out Notebook

April 20, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

This A6 size notebook could be an evolution of the previous one I made. COLOR: It’s just like that: the combination of lavander & pink made me add a yellow touch. Why? I don’t know (well, yes, I know…I’ve a lot of yellow paper around here;)) SHAPE: Now, why did I choose to cut out the pieces…? That’s because lately I’ve been thinking about how to put all the 3d paper sculptures shapes (like the ones Jen Stark does) on a bidimensional […]

Categories: Notebooks, Prototypes • Tags: art, crafts, handmade, neon, notebook, paper

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Cut out – Prototypes

April 14, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

I made this notebook following my great passion for cut edges on the cover. I started with the flowers (as you can see in the previous post) and shifted here to geometric shapes. I was looking for a new perspective of the interaction between simple, plain colors and lines. I tried to take advantage of the double cover to give an ultimate effect. Why am I using pink right now? The answer is really simple: because I have a lot […]

Categories: Notebooks, Prototypes • Tags: books, crafts, handmade, neon, notebook, paper

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A6 Pink flower cut out notebook.

April 10, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

This notebook has the same decoration as the green one I made some month ago. I’ve always wanted to start a series using this kind of cover, so this is the first variation. The difference here is that I added a brown cardboard flyleaf that repeats the same cut edges the cover has. The illustrations on the cover are handmade. Traditional binding system, blank recycled pages. I hope you’ll like it Ps..: If you’re interested, you can buy it here, […]

Categories: Notebooks, Prototypes • Tags: bookbinding, books, crafts, handmade, illustration, notebook, paper

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DIY – Paper Flower

March 28, 2012 by Serena Olivieri

I’ve been working on many custom works lately I couldn’t blog as I would!..This is a paper-flower  I made laste week-end, you’ll see the instructions on a post at Dearest Nature’s blog on the 1st of May. I realized I could have used some neon colors paper I bought…it was too late! But I’ll be creating more flowers, mores shapes..with neon colors;) Hope you’ll like it!

Categories: Extravaganzas • Tags: crafts, DIY, flowers, handmade, paper

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