dear friendships

I feel so privileged to have so many lovely friends all over the world (leaving Stockholm wasn't easy for me). a very dear friend in Stockholm has a lovely collection of hearts hanging on a branch when you enter her house. when i visit her I always have to stop to look at them. All hearts have a lovely little story. Then I realized she didn't have one of me. so about time to make her one ;-)

prima ballerina

a little bag for a little girl. I made this bag as a swap for family pictures taken by a friend who is a photographer. she did a lovely job! one more bag to make for her. luckily she is still working on the pictures so that gives me some time ;-))

birthday party

jilles was invited to a birthday party of one of the girls in his class. because it is not so often he get's invited by a girl I used this occasion to make her a small zipper bag. I added some nice crafting goodies....I made two bags at once and realized it is not that much extra work ;-))

from mexico with love

my dear friend Ayde gave me this beautiful piece of art from mexico to make a bag for her. the bag turned out as colorful as she is ;-) loved making this one.

lavender bag

another bag, with the request to make a nice big summer bag to take to the beach as well. I gave this one a steady leather base.

oslo

it's been a long time, but I have been quite busy. we moved to oslo. and it all went very fast. we live in oslo now for a few weeks and are slowly adjusting to life in a different country, even thought it is not so far from stockholm it is still very different and we have to find out a lot of things. just before we were leaving a lot of friends asked me to make something. which I love to do, and I even managed to do, but also publish it on the web was a step to far, with most of the things I was happy if I at least remembered to make a picture. I will show you some of the things I made in our last days in stockholm.
this bag I made for a mum of a dear friend. she picked the embroidery and together we put together the design. I combined it with leather.

flowers

it always takes a while before spring reaches stockholm. it is still cold and no sign of leaves on the trees, but we have a lot of bleu sky, sunny days. so that makes me happy and longing more for spring.
I finally got inspiration for a large and beautiful embroidery I had in my collection. for sale as a set in my shop (and if you are interested, but living in holland, I could bring them, because we have a trip planned soon, just let me know)

penguin

I had a small sample of POM scarf fabric and this pattern from Purlbee just fitted. this little fellow is on his way to Bejing to meet his new friend Emmelijn. It is a fun pattern to make and not difficult.

rebecca

lots of new babies lately. I always try to make something as a gift... but unfortunately don't always find the time. I made this doll for a friend who really appreciates handcrafts. i found the tutorial via vlijtig. it is a martha stewart tutorial...you can find her here...

valentine

another great tutorial I found via vlijtig. We are having a small valentine dinner at our house, think I will use them as table setting cards, with some chocolates on it. happy valentine!

cardholders

made these cardholders using suede and leather. I started with this tutorial, but ended up using only the big shape and fold it with an attached cord. it keeps the cards better at place.

swedish fabric

I had a small leftover of this swedish fabric and found this lovely tutorial at vlijtig. I gave them to a friend where we had dinner. she was very happy with the potholders, because hers were missing after the move ;-)
thanks kristel for the great tutorial.

welcome

a little lady is born, anna-may. love that name. maybe that is what inspired me to embroider it on the owl. I thought it was hard to embroider the name, but wasn't so difficult after all.

tiger mum

I had this embroidery with a tiger mum and her cubs for a while and it was waiting to become a bag.. I just didn't figure out how to make it. Then this beautiful piece of suede came by and a bag was born. I updated my shop and you can find it here!

colorful and creative

.....this is the theme for a wedding we are invited for this weekend....oke...what to do/wear? since I love wearing black. a specially the little black dress has taken over my closet. I made this brooch, from a lovely japanese book about felt. I took me a while to figure out some of the stitches...but I pulled it off.

belated birthday fun

We still didn't find a chance to celebrate jilles his birthday with his friends. he wanted to invite his whole class including the girls. we were a little hesitating but because he only has a class of 12 we decided to go for it. 11 children came and we had big fun. doing games, dancing, making fun pictures and we were so lucky because last saturday the snow finally came....so lots of outdoor fun. we feel so privileged to life in this beautiful country. jilles was still smiling when he fell a sleep that night.

more dimension

a good friend is always motivating me to experiment more. I love her for that and of course for being a fabulous friend. she loved this embroidery and she loved the rough edges of it. how to make them visible?? that was the challenge. I think this gives the cushion some nice extra dimension. I gave this one as a gift and luckily she loved it!

class mum

as a class mum (of two classes) teacher's appreciation gift are a challenge, because I like to involve all children in the making of it. with stije's class we made a christmas bunting, with flags the children decorated. it is fun to do and easy to make (with a laminator and sewingmachine). with jilles his class we made a christmas cd for the teachers with all the favorite christmas songs of the children. a big hit and so lovely to see all nationalities united in the songs.

Oh deer!

oh dear.... i haven't been posting much...first of all happy new year!
Lots has been going on here. I organized a christmas market at school, where I sold this deer bag and lots more. organized the sinterklaas feest at the dutch school...my! that's is nerve racking....so many children depending on you to deliver a good sinterklaas and zwarte pieten (and I can assure you this is much more complicated when you live abroad). but we pulled it off again. and it was a big hit and lots of fun!

this one is for me

inspiration comes from funny places. the inspiration for this cushion came from a text my husband send me. Luckily I had the time to make it right away. I always make things for other people, but this one is mine!