nyckelviken

sweden keeps surprising us. every time we discover new beautiful places. our Swedish friends told us about nickelviken. we went there with my parents and it was beautiful! lovely nature, very nice cafe with great cakes, a super playground with a stunning view and the children could ride a horse and see a lot of animals. this is definitely worth another visit.

guest towels

this week our first guests will arrive in sweden, yes! I wanted to make something for all the guests to take as a souvenir, but because the boys have holiday and we have a lot of nice activities i didn't have much time, so I made these simple guest towels with the swedish horse on it.

midsomer

we celebrated midsomer for the first time and were invited by swedisch friends...we loved it! to thank the lovely host of this party I made her this bag. Thanks Caroline and Jan for the lovely day!

light

two of my best friends in holland made me this lamp just before I left. To help me through the darker days...so sweet. I love how the felt filters the light. I really miss them, but hopefully they will visit sweden in september.

dalhast bag

as a goodbye present I made this bag for a belgium "shopping" friend who will move to the netherlands. I will miss her very much because we had a fun time.

my friendly neighbor gave me the nice dalhast fabric. I love it and think there will be more dalhast bags coming. For the first time I made the handle with leather my father gave me...so a nice cooperation project.

first swedish fabrics

Eline and kate took me on a very nice tour. we visited a lot of thriftstore (which are great here in stockholm, because they combine it with lovely cafes where you can have lunch! I will show you pictures of this great concept). but we also visited a lovely fabric store, which was nice after a long time without doing this. my love of course asked me why on earth I needed more fabrics... :-) but you never can have enough fabrics. the fabrics made me make something new right away ;-))

nice gift

let's start by saying I didn't make this bag, but got it as a birthday gift from our very nice swedish neighbor. I just love it and could use it right away because yesterday I had a margaritha evening with some ladies and my bag was a hit!

do it yourself mom

because jilles is six he gets pocketmoney and he loves it and does really well. he saves up money to buy something. this weekend he went to the toystory with his dad and returned with a revolver, sherrif badge and a holster. but stije was of course a little disappointed that he didn't get to buy something, maybe we should start giving him pocketmoney, but they advise to start with the age of six...any suggestions on this matter are more than welcome.

so I promissed him to make a holster for the wooden revolver he got from sinterklaas. I wanted to pimp it with a felt star, but he didn't have the patience, can't blame him for that. He was so happy with it and they played the whole afternoon chasing each other in the garden.

charity

I thought I would have a lot of time, especially since the boys go to school every day, but it's the opposite. despite from making some felt i phone cases for all the very helping people we just met and an extra curtain for stije's room (because of the early sunshine here, the sun comes up at 3.30 a.m.!) I haven't had very much creative space. but no complains, a lot of nice activities. last friday we had a charity market and there was a bake table so I made date cakes for that reason and guess what, they didn't sell. so I bought almost all of them back. I know the date cake doesn't look that attractive, but the taste is really really good. I gave my neighbor a piece and luckily she was very happy with it and loved the taste of it. next time I will also make colorful attractive cupcakes.

feeling at home

and of course I like to show you our new home. not much time for creativity yet, because i've only been busy unpacking the boxes, decorating our house and getting familiar with everything. the boys went to their new school and they managed very well, a new language to learn and a lot of new friends to make. now they are having a easterholiday, so we are doing a lot of touristic day trips, so far we love sweden!

finally

yes!!...we have arrived in stockholm and we are connected. that really took some time because we needed a social security number, which you need for almost everything. buying a car, getting a phone and connecting to internet....but no complains after two weeks we're finally connected, still no number (a friend arranged the connection for us), so still no car for me, but we will manage. in stockholm the public transportation is really good and we live nearby a train.

a lot of new experiences these past two weeks. we met a lot of new people and even got invited for an easter diner on sunday by swedish people in our street. the neighborhood is very nice, friendly people who made us feel at home right away.

just before we left we organized a saying goodbye party and we enjoyed it very much, it's so good to know we have all these lovely friends...so a lot tissue's were needed on that day.

boxes

thanks for all the sweet words on my last post. It really felt good to have so much support from my (blogging)friends. and of course I will maintain this blog, hopefully we soon will be connected to the internet in stockholm. Right now I'm sitting on the ground behind the computer stuck between boxes...tomorrow the truck will arrive.

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