almost six

jilles will turn six next week. so time to hand out the invitations for his birthday party. I really like to figure out how to make an exciting invitation. Jilles loved them and couldn't wait to give them to his friends (the boys have to blow up the balloon and let it explode to find out their invitation). I recently bought this nice viking stamp from Sandra Monat. I love her work and it made it so easy to make this invitation.

new live

I like to recycle. with a lottery for a good cause we won this scarf a long time ago at a fair of stije's daycare. it's a perfect scarf for stije besides the advertisement of a beer brand. this post of lightbluegrey gave me the idea to give the scarf a new live. I cut of the logo and sewed the ends in the color of the lining of his jacket. I think the makers of the scarf are not happy with my little project but otherwise we wouldn't have used it.

bag for Noor

my niece turned 9 last week and I finally made her a bag. I promised it a long time ago...and yes she liked it a lot. happy birthday Noor!

more possibilities

I'm trying some projects with the cards from my bosatlas. some giftbags and little boats...not very special but I like the look of it.

lots of sun

we went to egypt last week and had a great time, I'm still not used to the dutch temperatures...brrrr

wedding mugs

my sister in law is got married yesterday and I wanted the boys to have a their own present to give. so I made these mugs with their drawings. Very simple (via hema) and they turned out surprisingly well. you can't even see the borders of the print. their uncle and aunt will have the first pieces for their trousseau ;-)

aarrrggh...

for the first time I tried to make a cushion cover with zipper (which turned out to be very easy)...but I used a recycled zipper (felt very good about the recycling part) but when I putted in the cushion to test my hard work..the zipper broke down...aaarrgghhh...think this is the last time I recycle zippers..

fabric treasure

I found this fabric at de stoffenmarkt, which is a very pleasant market to search for fabrics. I just fell for this one, I love the print, the texture and think I can find a lot of nice projects for it. the first one is this little cushion for jilles his room.

old maps

before I throw things away I always figure out whether I could give it a new destination. So when this old "bosatlas" came across I decided a garland would be nice. I surprised jilles and stije with a garland in their room and they were more enthusiastic then expected. unfortunately the pictures didn't turn out well...maybe I will give it another try to show them better.

new booties

my parents in law asked me to make a baby gift. I experimented with leather to make these booties. Thought it would be difficult to sew the leather and felt, but it was very easy..like how it turned out. hope the baby boy loves them as well.

autumn

..and then all of a sudden it's autumn. we collected, collected, collected and made it a little bit autumn in our house..

spoiled 2

although it isn't sinterklaas or christmas yet, even my birthday is far away, I spoiled myself with another piece of art. I met the artist (Irma Braat) at kunst in duin. I loved this little piece of art right away and considered an unpleasant medical examination good enough reason to spoil myself. I don't know whether I should let it be framed or not...any advice?

early

jilles is already very excited about his upcoming birthday (which will take a while because it will be in november) and of course after that sinterklaas will arrive in holland. So he started to collect pictures of presents for his wish list (you can never start to early). Stije copied his behavior. so our house is now filled with pictures of playmobile and lego, they are all over the place, everywhere I walk I step on it ;-)).

busy

I've been quit busy lately giving workshops, making presents for new borns, helping at school etc etc.... Today was a lovely day, together with a friend I gave a workshop at the children's farm in my neighbourhood. there was a little festival about farm products. the weather was great, there were a lot of enthusiastic children (so much that in the end we had to disappoint some children because they couldn't take part anymore) and they made lovely felt flowers.

spoiled

I spoiled myself with a beautiful piece of art from cathy cullis. I love her work and was looking for the perfect piece to spoil myself. I asked her to make something to symbolize the mother-son bond. I had it framed and gave it a special place in our home. Thank you cathy!

wedding

in october my sister in law is getting married. yesterday we celebrated her bachelor and I made her a gift for the wedding, a ring pillow. something old (the buttons), something new (the pillow made by me) and something bleu (the bleu button) (unfortunately it's not something borrowed). I also added their initials. hopefully her daughter wants to carry it on the big day.

new cushions

I finally found some time to make some new cushion covers for my shop. loved the holiday, but like it also very much to have some me-time.

bleuberries

last week we picked blueberries at a biological farm with my parents (unfortunately i don't have pictures of it, but is was a fun activity). So I had a lot of blueberries. I had to come up with an idea for all these berries, since I'm not such a good cook, I asked my mother and googled a little bit. I made this jam and luckely the boys love it. I also found a very nice recipe for blueberry cakes with coconut.

baby boom

it's been a while since I blogged, but I've been very busy. One of the things I've been doing is making little gifts for new baby's. It seems like we're in the middle of a baby boom. almost every week we receive 2 or 3 cards to announce the arriving of little ones. To add something to the gifts I made these cards. very simple and good to use all my leftover fabrics.

monsieur biscuit

Unfortunately our holiday in france came to an end. I like to take home little souvenirs and the supermarket is my favorite place to score nice things, everywhere we go I love to look around in supermarkets. Besides a lot of other things (cupcake forms, barbapapa stuff etc.) I found these lovely biscuits from bonne maman ( a brand I love). the little fellows not only taste good, but inside we also found a nice little coloring paper...

collector

I love my mother's collection of old religious statues. every year we come it's extended.

holiday

this is how we spend our days. besides swimming, playing outside and doing nothing we drive around the house with the little tractor and pick flowers from the garden.

surfaces

fascinated by beautiful hidden surfaces

knight for a day

this week we visited a castle where the boys could dress up. they became a knight for a day and loved it.

enjoy

we're spending our holiday in my parents house in france and it's so nice to spend most of the time outside.

celebrating

we had a lovely birthday party....and roel is still 27..it's unbelievable. the boys decorated the cupcakes.

for my love

today is my love's birthday and we're celebrating it in france. since he has a new gadget (not that he is such a gadget guy, but he followed a course in switzerland and the textbook was an Ipad, that's much better than taking a dull ring bander home). as a gift I made an Ipad sleeve (i'm starting to get good in making these sleeve things). Hope he likes the embroidery I used for it.

new shoes

actually he didn't need new shoes, but I couldn't resist these cute ones...luckily he loves them too..

kermis

together with opa and oma we celebrated the beginning of summer holidays and opa's birthday. we had so much fun, the bump cars were by far the most favorite.

embroidery belt

Thanks Wendy from Regina and Guusje for a good idea. I tried to make a belt out of embroidery left overs. Like this first result so far...

celebrating summer

love this time of year

birthday gift

This year I turned 35 (beginning of june) and dear friends gave me a piece of art, I could pick one from a friend's friend who is an amateur artist and I love his work (unfortunately he doesn't have a site or blog). I received this lovely piece this weekend, together with the sunshine it made my weekend. Thanks anne, san, chantal en daan.

welcome line

monday Line is born! the name sounds a bit funny in English, but I love it in dutch ;-)). welcome little girl!

cooperation

together with anne I made these boxes for the baby room of her little girl. she made the felt, I hand sewed the boxes. nice when things work out like this.

use everything

I don't like throwing things away. I made this key cord of left overs from the embroideries. I love using it.

it's not earth shocking but I'm very happy with the result. Since I couldn't find the duvet cover I liked, I decided to make them myself. The boys liked them too, fortunately they still don't ask for cars and spiderman duvet covers...but for how long?

see the head of stije behind the bed? that is his favorite hiding spot. I love our hundred years old house, especially the boys rooms, I will miss it once we've moved.

no more lost keys

my mother asked me to make her a keychain holder a long time ago. I finally made her one. the paper I used was a present from a friend it's from djeco.

old sweater

A friend gave me a very nice book, cool baby (in dutch). there are a lot of nice tutorials in it for making baby stuff out of old clothes. after cleaning up our closet I found this old sweater (the feabric was still very nice) and made this babypants and hat out of it. It's so nice to give new live to old clothes. I made it for a friend who is expecting a girl. I wonder whether it will fit correctly, I have no clue what size it is, but it looks very suitable.

parel

Saturday I participated in the parels project. fortunately not everyone went to the beach. It was very nice to see all my work together in this little exhibition. I gave some demonstrations and made a lot of little pieces which I want to combine in one big piece of art. (the pictures look a bit yellow but that is because of the big amounts of sunshine that day). After worths roel organized a birthday party for me, very nice to end the day with all my friends and family.

more preparing

besides enjoying the very nice weather with the boys I try to finish and make more pieces for the "parels" project tomorrow. I finally finished the leave bag and on the right is a new scarf made of chiffon and wool..