… Meias Marias

Welcome to Meias Marias! I’m so happy to have you here!

Meias Marias is my personal project and was born in 2011 with the aim of being, not just a place for me to share my work, but also a place of learning for those who want to learn the crafts I share here. Handmaking a meaningful life is the challenge that is gaining more expression nowadays, and handmade may not always save you money but it sure adds meaning to the things you made for you and for others.

In my blog you will find diferent crafts like sewing clothes, accessories, quilts, crochet, my adventures as a mother of a 3 girls, cake design and other culinary forays, my Waldorf style dolls and all other dolls that I occasionally make, fabric painting, embroidery, felt work, organization and management of time and space in your household, and as many challenges as life brings me!

Meias Marias has grown with me and with time, and follows my life and my motivations at the pace I’m living my days. For that, there are times when I write a lot about a craft, other times I’m changing from craft to craft and sometimes I’m just living my days and I write a bit less thay usual. But I’m always present as my mission is to grow your inspiration, motivation and skills, and whenever I can, I transform my knowledge into useful information so you can also you learn it.

In addition to blog posts you can find on Resources page my “How to” tutorials that guide you in different craft techniques or complete projects.

My patterns show you how to make a project from the beginning to it’s end, you just have to “make it”!

I also have a Printables Page and my printables are very useful in your everyday life! I always create my printables to meet my organization’s needs and I just have to share tem here! If they are usefull to me they sure can be usefull for you to!

In my Previous Posts Page you can see everything I’ve ever written so far, sorted by date or by category! So you can always go back in time and retrieve the information you’re looking for.

In Meias Marias DIVERSITY is very important. Diversity of crafts, materials, experiences, opinions, learnings. Mine and yours. You can never learn too much and making something out of your hands is a pleasure, and the more you make the better you feel! And this cycle interests maintain and grow!

Meias Marias is a COOPERATION space where you can expose your doubts. You can do it in the comments of each post, by email or even on facebook. I don’t use Twitter for now as it has little expression in Portugal.

From me you can count on AVAILABILITY to answer your questions, as long as I know the answer! And to guide and lead you in the execution of a project that you have in hands.

Communication is the key, so I vow to share with you what I know and transform my learning into useful information for you. But communication goes both ways which means that you are on the other side! You can and should make use of COMMUNICATION. In Meias Marias there are no emails or comments unanswered so you always know that I’m here, I read you and answer you.

Above all I want you to feel at home while you are here. I want you to have this feeling of BELONGING in this community, and feel free to communicate, experiment and learn.

… About Me

My name is Mariana! The youngest of three siblings and mother of three loveling girls that make my world spinning, day after day. I was fortunate to grow in proximity to my grandparents and it marked person I am. Although I have not learned many crafts with them, seeing them crochetting, sewing a whole new set of beadspreads, pillows, curtains and couches, for our rooms showed me that when we handmake things they have a whole meaning which a purchased thing doesn’t have.

I was always very curious and always liked to try to make things by myself. I often used my grandmother’s fabric scraps, or my mother’s woll leftovers to play.

Crochet was the first craft I learned, and I was bad at it! Later, at school I learned to handsew and to do some embroidery and tapestry work. Along the way I also learned cross stitch and the basic knitting!

Although I always enjoyed crafts and handmaking things, motherhood was a big boost and motivation to learn and try new techniques and new materials. It was with my first pregnancy that I lost the my fear and sat down at my grandmother’s sewing machine to make baby stuff for my daughter. I had never used a sewing machine before by I grabed the manual and I end up taming the beast! I also learned other embroidery stitches, without fear of imperfect wrong sides! I’ve also learned that it’s better to have a finished project than a perfect project!

It was like if I had lit a fuse! From this point on it was always learning! Quilts, decoupage, other crochet techniques, more sewing techniques, I made my first blog and then I made a website, I registered a mark, I learned cake design and how to to make my cakes better in flavor and appearance!

And this is me! I like, I learn, I make!

And I’m contagious! I love making things with the girls. Put them in contact with diferent materials and activities, enrich them in know-how. Whether in the kitchen or in my workspace, whenever possible, we make things together!

And I have this blog where I hope to infect you with this fever of handmaking a meaninful life!

… Did you know?

My beach bag model was featured in Craftsy newsletter?

And it was so successful that got in top 20 of the free sewing patterns!

And my “Back To School” backpack pattern was featured on a Craftsy blogpost!

… My sewing machine

It is a Brother Innovis 30. It is not mechanical and I’ve been very happy with her so far!

I also have a Brother serger machine and it’s the best investment ever!

… My Newsletter

By subscribing to my newsletter you will always be aware of everything that happens here! Want to know how? You can expect an email whenever:

a new Blog Post is published;
a new Tutorial is released;
a new Pattern is released;
the Shop is updated;

And because cause you are a great subscriber all my tutorials are free for you and whenever the shop is updated you will receive a promotional code.

You can also rely on other free bonus, as printables!

Frequency

I do not want to fill your mailbox or saturate you with my emails, so the frequency is limited to what is strictly necessary.

Bonus for you

By subscribing you get a copy of my e-book “8 Simple projects to do with and for children.” When the subscription process is complete you will be redirected to a page where it will be the link to the book.

And do not forget that you will have access to free tutorials and promotional codes that you can use on any item Store