Matching her kitchen

This is an apron for my mother in law. It was one of the items on her birthday-wishlist. Congratulations, Rinie! It is a reversible apron, made without a pattern. Aprons are relatively easy to make. I should make one for myself too. But which one to choose from this extensive list on Tipnut? Or should I finally make the apron from the pattern that I got from Maureen long time ago? Yes, I'm going to sew that last one...soon...I hope.

Baking with the girls

I came across the recipe for lemon & cumin-cupcakes in a magazine. You wouldn't expect cumin in sweet pastry, but it tasts delicious. Add raisins, soaked in lemonjuice, almond-shavings, lemon-peel and cumin to regular cupcake-batter, et voila. Talking about cupcakes: did you know there's a complete cupcake-world? I recently discovered the existence of cupcake-wrappers when seeing them in two different magazines. When I started googling I found not only wrappers but cupcake-cases, -toppers, -boxes, -stands and more. For example at Cupecakewrappers or Paper Orchid or De Leukste Taartenshop. I definitely need these ones!

Birthday preparations

March is still a few weeks away, but I couldn't resist making these felt roses for the girls headbands, when I found this tutorial from The Purl Bee via One Pretty Thing.

Corners in my house

Here's my collection of small blue-ish vases. All thrifted recently, all for less than €0,50 each. They found their place on a shelf in my little-treasure-cabinet. The womens figure is made by a good friend, the bowls next to her are from Vincent de Rijk. The black and white bowl is made by an aquaintance, the little bird I bought in France quite a while ago, the black vase is thrifted and on its right lies my 'stone with a secret', found on the shore of Denmark. Beneath that my blue vases with a reproduction of an etruskan sculpture in front of them, that my parents brought from Italy years ago. I enjoy moving these things around to make different compositions.

More balance, more confidence

Floor and I arranged a little swap. She has just opened her practice for Sensi-therapy 'Satijn' and wanted to order some stamps for it. But since I closed shop recently I suggested that we could do a swap. She gave me stones for my daughters, to bring out the best of their characters. For these stones I made cute little origami-pouches, following this tutorial.

Clover-fan

Finally I found a good purpose for the pom-poms I make with my new sophisticated pom-pom-maker. I love the idea of making flowers with them as I saw in the tutorial of domestifluff.

Potholder tutorial

I have been seeing potholders like these in several japanese books. And now I needed them in my kitchen. I gathered ideas from all of those books and made my own pattern. I took pictures during the process and made a tutorial for all domestic goddesses.

Two questions...

...with an attached give-away. First I'm looking for a theme for my daughters birthday-party in march. She will turn 6. It will be held in the castle pictured on the left. We have the chance to do so, because my mother is a volunteer over there. What could be a nice theme, fitting the location? Tips (no princesses), please! The other question: we're going to spend a long weekend in Maastricht soon. With the whole family. Where should we spend time with the kids, where do we lunch, have dinner or shop? The best suggestions to these questions will be honoured with a handmade booklet.

The give away is closed. The notebooks are going to Josh and Cerise.

I don't understand

My daughter and a friend picked up the idea of making their own book at school. They each folded about five sheets in two and asked the teacher to staple the papers together. She said: what a nice idea, but don't do it again because using so much paper is too expensive (!??). So yesterday evening I've been making some blank books to fill with their own stories. With printer-sheets and covers made from secondhand books with loose pages. Not expensive at all! She took one to school today.

Cosy sunday

My brother is the best gift-giver. This roomdivider is one of those presents. It was all white and accompanied by paint. Last weekend the girls made drawings on paper. I transferred them to the room-divider with a pencil, one on each side. Then we painted these pieces of art together. Now the roomdivider has to stand one day in N's room and the other day in J's room.

Steiner dolls

Ever since we've got the book "the musical story of the root children" (in english) 3 years ago it is my daughters favorite. These root-children are now living in our home, waiting to become flower-children in spring. I took the pattern from the book 'de seizoenentafel'. I also love the 'feltfinger-books' from Elke Susannah Freed. These and other books, felt, good materials and kits to make similar dolls can be found in these online shops: De Witte Engel, Atelier Anne-Merijntje, Atelier Pippilotta and Studio Tingeltangel.

Felt friends

Till now Neeltje was still a bit hesistant to try sewing. Recently she started to develop some confidence in her skills. On the right she's is sewing a little cat. She was working very precise. Her sister made the cat on the right and took the picture herself.

Just half an hour

About 15 years ago my mother followed a patchwork course. They did a colour-study and everyone had to bring small pieces of fabric to swap. My mother kept those pieces (I'm so lucky with a mum who doesn't throw anything away). Half a year ago I set myself a goal to make a nice pillow with just those pieces. I even made a second one. Since then the pieces of patchwork were lying around without back. Last week I finally finished them. Thanks Marry, for the necessary fabric to pick up the project again.

Winter

It has been cold, windy and snowing outside the whole day. So we decided to stay in, after the weekly ballet- and swimminglessons. We asked my parents to have lunch with us. And tried some new recipies. The tea-loaf tasted great. The opinions about the Irish soda bread were mixed. The kids said it smelled like an animal farm... But we all agreed about the Cappucino di zuca con crema di balsamico (squash soup with cream whipped up with balsamic vinegar, sorry recipe only in dutch). Simple and delicate.

We met in Stockholm 15 years ago

My friend Miren from Spain and I still contact eachother by snail-mail. We both love paper and like to get an old fashioned letter in our mailbox once in a while. Although our letters are not very frequent, we value the time we both take to tell the other what is going on in your life. This time I sent her some recycled paper note-books. Hope she likes them.

Failure

Today the three kings arrived to see baby Jesus. For that occasion we wanted to bake a traditional cake with a little doll in it. The person who gets the doll in his or her slice of cake will be the king. It's is a nice idea, but it didn't work out quite well. I didn't press the layers of dough firm enough together. So after a few minutes the filling flooded out of the pie. I had to throw it away. Better luck next year, I hope.

Spring surprise

This cute bird-feeding-house was a gift of my brother. It's an idea of the young designers-collective Label 9. The carton will degenerate during the winter and than it will set free flower-seeds. So in spring we expect a nice bouquet of flowers. After taking the picture I put some peanuts inside the house. They were gone within half an hour.

Thriftstore happiness

Our livingroom looked like a bomb had exploded. The girls were building huts with everything that came to their hands. I decided to let them, because it was the last day of their holidays. In the middle of all this mess stands a thrifted vintage doll-crib. I made new curtains and a mattress-cover. The dolls are suddenly in need of a lot of sleep...

Sweet

My mother in law has made these delicacies for her daughters in law. Yesterday we tried the red currant vinegar in a salad-dressing. It tasted delicious. We're very anxious to try the apple-cinnamon-vinegar, orange-oil, herb and spices salt and apple-sauce with a bite. Thank you, Rinie. I googled for look-a-like recipes and linked them, in case you want to try yourself

More

Baghangers for mothers (in law) and sisters in law and a visiting friend. Little christmas gifts. Although I've seen enough hangers for a while, I had fun making them. I made the flowers and leaves from felt scraps and embroidered them with left-over pieces of thread. So every single one is different.