au revoir

tomorrow I'm leaving for a week at the french coast with friends. A week without my boys...i will definitely miss them, but will also enjoy the quietness, good weather, reading books without interruption and the pool by our house. see you in a week!

ps. added a picture of a lovely book I received as a gift from friends who bought it in New York, because the couldn't visit the guggenheim, it's closed on thursday...can you believe that, they visited the design museum with an exhibition on felt! the yellow-grey felt thing matches the book perfectly, I made it as an experiment, but without a purpose.

moving

a very good friend bought a lovely house, made her this apple keychain.

little gift

my mom gave me this cute set of cards with embroider patterns. very usefull!

twin girls

today I was finally allowed to visit the twin girls from my neighbor (they spend a lot of time in hospital and are now home for a few weeks). They were so lovely, so small and so perfect. If anyone should have trouble to keep them apart, I made them there own badge.

washing

my of theme of last week definitely was washing. Not only because our new washing machine arrived and we had a big pile of dirty clothing, but I also washed all (that also was a big pile!) the embroidery my parents brought me from France (by hand!). It was al lot of work, but now I can sewing!

tissue box holder

at every floor of our house we have several tissue boxes, just because I think it's handy to have them around, but I don't like the look of these boxes. So again I used the plastic balcony-wind stopper-material left-over (don't know how to call it, so I added a picture hopefully that explains ;-) to make a simple box holder. measure, fold the corners, stich and cut of the edges, stich an elastic cord on the bottom and cut out an oval hole in the upper side....et voila!

felt dots

a lot of dots a lot of work...but finally it's done and for sale in Zoetermeer ;-).

sea

last year good friends of our got married by the sea. I made them this litho for their first anniversary. I added a poem from Hans and Monique Hagen from " ik zie lichtjes in je ogen". I love their poems, they mostly write for children. We celebrated their first anniversary in the park, with lovely music, champagne and of course the top of their wedding cake, it was a lovely day.

This is the poem I choose (sorry it's in dutch):

Zoute Zee

de wind

waait wappers in mijn haren

de wind

waait golven in de zee

ik ga in een bootje varen

en de wallevis gaat mee

de wind

de wallevis en ik

wij gaan op vakantie

en jij mag met ons mee

als ik je op het strand zie

daar bij de zoute zee

kom niet te laat

de wind

die kan niet wachten

kom voordat je slapen gaat

en neem je zwmband mee

dan gaan we zeven nachten

zwerven over zee

Hans & Monique Hagen

assignment

A good friend of mine gave me a first real assignment. She needed a few gifts and asked me to make them! I felt very honored. pink owl and guitarman rattle are two of the lucky ones. And last but not least I started selling my products in a lovely store in Zoetermeer, called "in en om". She sells beautiful products, I especially like the brand ferm. This month 101 woonideeen will do an article on her shop. I'm also thinking of starting a little shop on my blog soon....

too small...

.....but perfect. Remember I showed pictures of the making of a very large bag for a friend of mine? I made a big mistake to put it in the washing machine, to speed up the process...well that's what it certainly did...a bit too much. Anyway, the felt fabric was way to thick to sew on my own machine. So I got help from a friend of my sisters, he makes leather bags, and he sew my felt bag and attached the beautiful leather handles. I'm so happy with the result!! Unfortunately I had to give it away, but Anne was very happy with my gift...two happy people ;-))

cowboy treasure bag

Because the boys are going away for a few days to opa and oma I made Stije a bag to take his most precious possessions, favorite cuddly toy, little light etc. etc. Jilles already had an "in space" bag. Now Stije is the proud owner of his own cowboy bag..

Now Roel and I have loads of time to clear out the house. It clears up my mind as well..... For weeks I lived not only with my boys in one house but also with construction workers, loved what they did to our house but also love it now they are gone...

fascination

I have a fascination for felt (for those who didn't notice it on my blog ;-)) I love the feeling of it. the process of felting. the becoming of something new. This one is called the Davida purse...because I made it for her ;-))

orange eye

....if eyes could speak

3d felting

yesterday I took a 3d felting course. Anneke from vanvilt taught us a lot of new technics. I can't show the result yet because it is still in progress....

stars and stripes

We have never celebrated the fourth of july, but yesterday we spend the day with friends from Washington, so we were lucky to be part of this festivity. They came over for a holiday in Langweer. we had a lovely day, good sailing weather and the boys loved being on the water. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but at least back home I caught the creativity of Jilles with his stars and stripe window stickers on camera. Stije enjoyed waving the little flag (with lights in it!!)...

little constructor

I went upstairs to put Stije in bed for a little nap and when I came down Jilles made this amazing contruction...love it

corsage tutorial

This is my first attempt on making a tutorial...as I promised I would make a tutorial of the flowercorsage. I used a japanese crafting book, but changed the pattern a little bit. It was more difficult to make a tutorial, as specially when I consider the making of the corsage itself is far more easy. But here we go...

You need four pieces of felt (2 times 8x10 cm and 2 times 8x15 cm). Fold those pieces and cut it in every 0,5 cm until 1 cm from the edge. For the back part of the corsage you need 2 pieces of round felt, diameter 6 cm and a piece of cardboard diameter 5,5 cm. and of course thread, a safety pin and a little piece of felt to attach the safety pin on the back. first apply the larger pieces (15 cm) of felt to the background and then the smallest pieces (10 cm), of which the last piece is rolled up and stitched before applying to the corsage. Hope the pictures will explain the rest...if not just ask me so I can explain it better...have a flowery day!

red, yellow and bleu...??? although the red is actually pink. I did a lot of sewing in the sun.

owl

green owl has been born...

art

With all the grandchildren (10!) we made my parents a little piece of art. It's very simple; Everybody made a drawing in the same size. I plasticized them all and used a perforator to make holes. To attach them together I used plastic tags (You can buy them at the postoffice and they are normally used to close envelops)...et voila, your drawing garland is ready. You can also use this for pictures...

me time

Finally made a bag for myself, not for the boys, not as a present...but just for me. I made the lining out of a fabric I ordered through internet and for which I just couldn't find a destination. This was like a puzzle and it fitted just right. I made it very very big (just not 'hitting' the ground when I walk with it) and I'm loving it!

It was a pattern from one of my japanese books, but on the way I changed it a little bit. Now I know I can make more of these as a present...so the mixing of fabrics can start..

Hijn

I finally made Hijn (Thanks Kristel for sending me the pattern). I was so stupid to make the first Hijn wrong, unbelievable it ended up the way it did, it looked so bad that I don't dare showing it. Luckily for Hijn 1, Jilles was very charmed by it and adopted it in his bed. one of the Hijn's is on his way to a pregnant friend.

hooray

...I celebrated holiday and my birthday with the boys in spain. Picking fresh fruits from the garden, late night dips in the pool and laying under the palm trees....I already miss it.

on request

because of some stamp making requests, I started carving again. It's fun and I'm still loving the magic of stamping..

baptism

last sunday we had a baptism of a little girl. I made her two baskets with a little gift in it.

from france

My parents found me some new treasures in France. I love what they bought and of course I also love them for doing the big search. Now I will have to figure out what to make. I especially love the orange lady and gentleman, although I really don't know what to make out of it. They also found the ballerina once again (upper middle), of which I made the ballet bag, let's see if I can make something different with that one.

flowers

just love flowers. A very good friend gave me these beauties...

frustration

Normally I'm a (very) structured person, but with my dmc cotton and the thread for my sewing machine I just can't get along (I just can't understand why DMC wraps their cotton the way they do) It frustrates me....any suggestions?

flowers

made this one for a birthdaygirl...

broken

a lot of my projects occur by coincidence. Like these earrings, I found one of them broken in a little box...and since I never wear pearls (can't remember when I did actually??) I thought why not replace them with a little wool bead. I think it was meant to be that these earrings were broken..

grey

....and green

pink

one of the felt bags...with special effect (2d and 3d dots ;-)))

felting on

I produced a lot of felt bags and combined it with a cotton lining. Most of them with success, too bad I messed up one project (the large bag I showed before) because I used the washing machine on that one (I did it once before and that was a great success, but unfortunately 60 degrees is a little bit to much. It shrunk so much, that with a little luck and an industrial sewing machine (the felt coupons are to thick for my own machine) I can still use it to make a little bag...

cycle

My mother and father in law just started their trip to Praag....by bike! incredible. Together with the boys I made them little flags to hang on their bike. Hope they have a nice and save trip.

little fellow

A while ago I made this little fellow for friends who expect their third child. My boys are a great test panel because immediately after I finished it they played with it and the rattle inside worked out just fine.

mothersday

Sunday I've been spoilt. Stije made me this lovely bracelet (he calls the beads little candies, that explains the color he picked to paint them) and Roel and Jilles did a lot of little jobs in the house. Hope all you mothers had a lovely day.

saying goodbye

our neighbors moved last week and we already miss them very much. I made Alexandra a little felt bag and added some little "saying goodbye" gifts. Alex, we're going to miss you and your boys!

recycling

I found some leftover material (plastic for the balcony, to prevent against the wind). I used it to make these baskets. I used pink thread and the sewing of the star material worked out just fine.

Look at me

Graphic designer Jenny Lindhout made this perfect little photocase. you can make a gallery of the annual schoolportraits of your child. It's so simple and lovely. you can find her website here.

opa & oma tea

Today the boys are going to stay over for the weekend with my in-laws. So we can enjoy the weekend with just the two of us. To surprise opa and oma we made them special tea. I saw this idea in a magazine from daycare. It's very simple. Cut out a nice form (can be anything), let your little artists do there thing and staple it to the label of the tea bag. I made a paperbag for this special tea (for the first time I sewed paper, which turned out surprisingly nice) et voila! In the magazine they used a jam jar to put the tea in, but that didn't work for me because I made the labels to big...next time I will improve that part of this little project ;-))