Customize your time – 3 ways to create a personalized watch!

Customization is spreading around – it is now possible to personalize your watch!

There are at least three online shops which allow you to create your own time reminder.

Whatever your budget and style, you will find something suited for you.

Chances are the first bell to ring in your head when hearing the word watch is “Swiss”.

Swiss watches are known for their quality. Perhaps, they are even considered “The” quality watches.

In order to be named "Swiss-made", a watch has to carry an official certificate to demonstrate its origins. The designation is protected and regulated by the Swiss Watch Industry and is given following some quality criteria: the watch´s movement should be Swiss, it has to be cased in Switzerland and the manufacturer should carry out the final inspection in the country.

If you are looking for top quality watches of the kind, then you should visit www.121time.com.

121Time specializes in custom Swiss-made watches.

The offer is for both men´s and ladies´watches, with a good selection of models - both casual and elegant - which can be customized by choosing bezel, dial and hands, and strap.

Prices may be a bit high 

($ 396 for the man´s watch in the picture above), but you will be sure to receive a top quality, officially certified Swiss watch. 

The one on the left is an example of a customized lady´s sporty watch – no doubt the result is promising!

If you are instead looking for a nice and fun gift, you will likely find something suitable at www.designawatch.com. 

The selection is wide and it includes interesting choices, such as images from space taken by the Hubble Space Telescope; religious patterns; designs for special events - like birthdays and anniversaries - and even characters from the famous comic strip “Peanuts”.

Once you have chosen the image you want and the watch model you prefer, you can go on and choose your favourite strap and – if you like – add up to two lines of engraving.

The final product will be something like the watch in the picture here on the right. An image with Snoopy was here selected, to be complemented by a yellow strap. On the back, the text “Nu-nomad” has been engraved.

The last shop which will be reviewed allows you to recycle an old watch of yours. A watch with a broken band or a watch which is no more fashionable can be revived by adding a customized band.

This is what the Etsy shop Top Knotch offers: send them your watch and wrist size, choose among the over 30 available colours and get a new watch with a paracord band.

You can read the available cord colours at the following link:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/75679370/paracord-watch-band-custom-colors

The big plus is here the price: only $ 15 for the restyling!

Now you know where to customize you shoes, your make up, your bags, your watch and even your food. 

Any suggestions about what you would like to customize next?

5 Rules for Patterns Matching

You often see in fashion shows mix-matching of patterns you would never think would fit together - and yet they do!

When it is a famous designer proposing combinations, you may not even question if the matching is actually appropriate. You just take it for granted.

The question is how to dare mix-matching when you are not a stylist nor designer, without risking being told you are completely tasteless.

There are - luckily - some basic and simple rules one can follow. 

You will here find listed only five of them, the clearest and simplest ones. 

These are suggestions which would help when combining clothes and/or clothes with accessories. 

But they will also be helpful next time you will play combining fabrics to create your own bag, using our app.

1 - Use patterns of different size (and style!).

The goal with mix matching is to create a balanced effect. It is therefore a good option not to choose two fabrics having the same pattern size. Two fabrics with big flowers or two fabrics with small dots would create an overwhelming/too busy effect. And it would make it difficult also to choose what to wear to finish your look.

2 – Choose patterns which do not compete with each other. 

Try to avoid selecting two fabrics which both have very strong “personalities”. Two flowery fabrics, though with flowers of different size, would not give a balanced effect, if they both are in strong, contrasting colours.

Try to balance, by choosing one which is “bold” and gives the main theme and one which matches, but looks like complementary.

3 – Use patterns with one colour in common. 

Complement fabrics by choosing those having at least one colour in common. Even if the fabrics are very different in patterns, this would give a final harmonic result.

4 – Stay within the same family colour.

If you find it difficult to match fabrics having one colour in common, you can try stay within the same family colour. This would make it easier to get a balanced effect.

Use fabrics all toned in green, teal, yellow but having different shades.

5 – Mix with a neutral color.

This will make you play safest. If you mix with white, black, beige or grey, you will probably always end up with a good match

This is only a short summary of the many suggestions you can find online on the topic.

In case you want to read more and become an expert patterns-matcher, here are some nice articles you can read:

http://rollingout.com/lifestyle/fashion-alert-how-to-pull-off-mixing-patterns/

http://www.thechicfashionista.com/rules-for-mixing-patterns-and-textures.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_4489629_mix-clothing-patterns.html

And now, have fun mix-matching!

And if you...dare (!), send us a picture of the result: nunomadsfactory@gmail.com

We could write an article about your patterns-matching attempts!

Stop dreaming about perfect shoes - make them!

In the last blog post we discussed about matching colours.

Here is a good way to apply our tips: try customize your shoes!

Nike was probably the first among big companies to go for shoes customization. 

NikeID was in fact released in 1999.

The service allows to design your own running shoes, choosing among the brand´s models.

Since then, other famous sportswear brands have started to offer the same service: Adidas, Puma, Rebook, Vans, Converse...

You would be surprised to know, however, that not only sneakers can be customized.

Women will be especially glad to know that there are quite a good number of online shops which allow to create your own sandals, party and ceremony shoes, flats and much more. We all know that especially when it comes to shoes to wear at a wedding party, it is often difficult to find a pair to match your special dress! Well...problem solved!

But let´s first start with non-ceremony shoes.

In Nu-Nomad´s Facebook page, there is a photo album called “How many combinations can you create?”.

Today, I uploaded a picture of a bag made with Japanese fabric. 

Well, at Zazzle.com it is possible to have shoes matching basically...whatever bag! 

The customization service is here very advanced and it was possible to have shoes matching my bag.

Ok, you can choose only among canvas shoes, of the type that Converse fans would probably like. But the great thing is that you can have on them whatever image and text you want, for a very good price. In the image on the left, you can see my fabric´s picture.

The resulting shoes are shown in the lower side of the picture. The cost for the service is only $ 60. 

If you are a high heels addicted, there are some other website you do not want to miss.

Milkandhoneyshoes.com has a huge variety of materials to choose from. 

Decide what type of shoes you need (sandals, flats, pumps) and start scrolling down all materials´offer they have – you will find whatever you may like! You can also choose details and embellishments. 

I chose to create shoes which would be perfect for a ceremony outfit. And I added a flower clip. 

Here is the result, which would cost me $ 285.

The same service is offered by Shoesofprey.com. Compared to Milk and Honey, Shoes of Prey offers cheaper solutions, but at the same time less variety of materials. 

For examples, there are not many offers for non-leather materials. But, on the other side, the base model you select can be modified quite extensively. You can also choose among many variations for tips, heels and embellishments. 

Here is what I designed. For € 130.

The two websites above both offer a preview of the created shoes which may not satisfy many customers. The previews are in fact drawings and not real pictures. 

If you are one of those who need a real picture to get an idea of how the final product would look like, Ninashoes.com is a good alternative.                           Nina Shoes has very nice previews. You can see the image of the pair you have just created from every angle.

The selection for customizable shoes is smaller than at Milk and Honey and Shoes of Prey, but you can still create very nice footwear, like this one on the right.

Sandals, flats, pumps...these are shoes you may want to wear especially in the summer.

When the chill comes in autumn, you may start to think about getting good boots.

We all know that Timberland is a good brand when it comes to boots. 

Timberland now offers customers the possibility to customize their own boots!

The offered models are the brand´s classical ones.

I tried to create a long boots pair. Maybe the customization choices are not wide, but for sure their preview images are very detailed and neat.

Also, being the brand very known, the quality of the final product is guaranteed!

Next time you do not find the perfect shoes, you will not need walk for hours, going from shop to shop in a exhausting hunt...just browse around!

Best colour combinations - matching bag and clothes

Bags and belts are items we usually buy in neutral colours.

We in fact want them to match most of our clothes, so that we do not need to have a bag/a belt per clothing item (though some women may be close to this).

Colours which are very popular for bags and belts are typically black, brown, beige, grey. But also some variations of light blue, pale yellow, powder pink and military green.

Especially for leather or fake leather items, neutral tones are more popular. While patterns are rarely used.

When it comes to fabrics, the choice is instead huge...you may find hundreds of shades for a single colour, thousands of patterns and colours combinations.

If you were to make your own fabric bag, how would you know what would match what? And how would you be sure your choice would match your clothes?

I guess we all have in mind some standard colour schemes we have learnt to think of as "good". 

Black + white is good. It never fails. Black + red is also good. Blue + white is great - we all know that. 

But what if you would like to go beyond common colour schemes?

Well, you may be surprised to know that some colour combinations which are uncommon, are simply great!

Examples?

Violet is a colour which matches a lot of tones. It fits with yellow, brown, pink, turquoise, but also red. It is a colour which is popular in traditional East Asian items, like the Japanese fabrics here on the left. 

Another colour which fits many others in a nice way is yellow. Yellow is great with teal, green, blue, grey, violet, pink...

The fabric here on the right is a good example of how to match yellow with other colours.

And how about brown and turquoise? Or ocra and teal? I guess we could go on forever. 

The point here is that you can create a very colorful fabric bag and still be able to match it with a lot of clothes! 

Here is a picture to prove it: this is a bag of Nu-nomad´s past winter collection.

The bag is brown and the flower is in a multicoloured fabrics. There are black, green, white, yellow, some pink...all mixed. And the model is wearing...all of them! Light red blouse, lime green scarf, grey-brown jacket, blue jeans and red earrings. Yet the mix is nice and does not look excessive. 

This is because the bag contains all the colours she is wearing in one focal point (the flower), so that those colours do not appear random in the clothing.

With the new Facebook app available on Nu-Nomad´s Facebook page, you can preview fabrics you choose on the bag model you choose. This is a good way to play with colours and get a sense of what combinations fit your taste.

For an extra help, you can browse around the website called Colourlovers. Here you will find great inspirational colour palettes.

So, get creative and try out the colour combinations you truly like, even the non-standard ones. You will rarely go wrong!

Sofia of Nu-Nomad