saying goodbye

tomorrow is the boy's last day in their dutch school. starting a new adventure means a lot of saying goodbye's and a lot of emotions. Are we doing the right thing by going to sweden? I doubt about that a lot these days. It feels difficult to leave all the good things for this new experience...but then again we would never know by not doing it....

For all the classmates of jilles and stije I made 55 bags with a little gift in it. I was happy the boys helped me out on this one and they enjoyed it as well. saying goodbye isn't easy....I think I will need a lot of tissue's this week.

more sewing

yes, another good reason to sew, a friend turned 40 and had keycoard from "van flora" on her wishlist. I started making the brown one, because I figured that would match her, but finally ended up by making the one with some flowers in it, a better match. happy birthday M.

wooden pillow

due to all the preparations for stockholm I hardly manage to sew things. This week I felt the need to sew something (sounds like an addiction ;-)) so I used this fabric from Ikea for a cushion cover, I like the contradiction in de print (massive wood) and the feel (soft fabric/pillow).

run

yesterday I ran the City pier city run in The Hague. 10 km in 58.20 minutes! unfortunately I had no supporters, everybody was on holiday, unbelievable, even roel had to take a plane that day to austria for a skiing trip. but nevertheless it was very nice to run across the city, a last tribute to The Hague before leaving for sweden. I spoiled my poor feet with some new indoor birkenstocks.

lunchdates

since we will be leaving in a few weeks from now, I have a lot of nice lunchdates with good friends. for stijn I made these stamps for his kids. It was very nice to have a pleasant lunch with wine and a good conversation!

experimenting

yoehoe...i'm back again. I've had a large order for brooches, so a lot of work besides preparing for stockholm. she wanted the large flowerbrooch in a smaller version for her grand children. it took me some puzzling, but the result is the one with the felt bead in it. It's difficult to sew it, but i like how it turned out. last week we had a nice visit of kapitein winokio in our library, we have a few cd's of this funny belgium captain and he's just great. you can buy his work here (only in dutch)

matching fruit

As said it's been quiet on my blog but not quiet in my little studio. I made these matching bags from one large fruity embroidery. a little zipper bag to use in the larger bag.

simple

a friend asked me to make him a very simple felt cover for his ipad. He liked it so mission completed. and I discovered that 3 mm felt (so 6 mm when you sew them together) is easy to sew on your machine, good to know for other projects.

a lot

it has been quiet on my blog, but it's not been quiet in my live. in two months we will be moving to stockholm! I'm very excited about it. we just found a nice house near the new school of our boys (stupid me, I forgot to take pictures of the house, I must have been too excited).

so a lot to arrange. I'm trying to throw away a lot of stuff so we don't have to move so much. It doesn't only clean up the house but also my head. and last but definitely not least, stije will turn four friday! he will go to a dutch school for 2 months and then of course start in sockholm. He's very excited about it and today is his last day in peuterspeelzaal (don't know the correct translation for hat). We made these treats together and for his very humble party (he only invited two friends ;-)) I made the invitations (zakje feest).

red and blue

I made these very simple felt flowers for a workshop I gave for a little girls party. she turned 8. Unfortunately I was to busy helping the girls that I forgot to take pictures. the flowers are very easy to make, first make a flat round piece of felt, don't felt it too much, make the stalk, but don't felt the end were you want to attach it to the round piece. attach them together and felt it by hand.

a happy, lovely, healthy, creative, warm, all you wished for, great, mindfull

for everybody. we will be enjoying a holiday in drente. see you next year!

in need of inspiration

while stije is busy baking the christmas cookies, I'm busy thinking what can be made out of a very nice piece of x-mas fabric. It's two times the print you see on the picture, and my feet give an indication of the size. I already have this fabric for two years and can't figure out what to make of it. I would love to make something practical..something we can use during christmas...any ideas???

paper snowballs

I know I know...sinterklaas left holland a long time ago already..of course we are also preparing our house for christmas. made these paper decorations from taska paper. very simple, cut some rounds, sew them together (sew the ribbon as well) and fold the halves.

sinterklaas

yes, he is a pretty good sewer, sinterklaas, who would have guessed he could make jilles a bag for his judo outfit. It's a pattern i saw at vlijtig, very nice, very simple...

wooden apron

I had to find a nice gift for a friend who celebrated her birthday. I found these nice plates in the taska webshop (see kitchen). they opened a shop very recently in The Hague. So a good reason to visit the shop, I can tell you it's very nice and they have a lot of nice gifts. I also made her a handmade gift, I hope it will match her new kitchen....and of course the mister can also wear it while cooking her a romantic diner ;-)))

bye bye boat

this week stije had his last day at daycare. to thank the women who took very good care of him all these years, we made these boats with chocolates. I had to take the pictures in the evening, so the colors look very odd.

to nice to sit on

jilles received so many nice gifts for his birthday, but this one is by far the most special and beautiful. Kristel made him this beauty. I heard the tutorial is in her new book...already looking forward to it. thanks kristel!

bruni

someone asked me to make a brooch for a little girl named bruni, and it had to be in grey colors. this is how it turned out. It even looked nice on one of the boys sweaters, but I don't think they would like to wear it ;-))

Here to stay

yesterday we could finally pick up the portraits Dorine Latenstein made of our boys. we had a nice drink near the fireplace and they played with the playmobil of her daughter. i love her work and we are very happy with the paintings, she definitely managed to capture them. it was great to see her interact with jilles and stije, she was very comforting with them.

6 years

I almost forgot to show you the treat we made for the children in his class and the teachers. I bought the little clown heads at the haagse markt, a very multi culti market I love to go..for the teachers I made a little bag with apple chips, very healthy ;-))

new little ones

I've been quite busy with jilles his birthday, which was really fun! in between I also found time to make new bags for my shop. I discovered that I can't force the making of them but the embroideries become a bag or cushion or whatever by themselves, I only have to make them.

so these little ones (and big ones of course) just came into existance..

for rosalia

my niece turned four last week, so a big party and of course she needed a schoolbag. I made her this one! happy birthday little lady.

kitchen princess

I'm not a kitchen princess, never have been and probably never will be. but I like baking and I could use a new apron, so I made this one out of a piece of fabric I printed a long time ago (the piece with the leaves). I didn't use a pattern, but it turned out just fine. I realize the apron has a christmas look, but I didn't mean to do so..

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.