Contemplation

Last saturday the weather was beautiful. A good day to spend some time in our 'potager'. Potatoes, onions, lettuce, beets, carrots, french beans, string beans, sugar snaps, parsley, basil, pumpkin, courgette, tomatoes, strawberries. You name it, we have it. It is exciting to see the vegetables grow. Some do well, others need help and some do not grow at all. The kids love to search for seeds turning into little plants. But the biggest joy is to water the plants. Afterwards their feet definitely needed washing up. They chose the kitchen sink to do that.

Luck

A new dress (same pattern as this one) for a six-year-old. On a clothes-hanger with memories. When I was 10 weeks pregnant from J. I started bleeding. During holidays in France. We looked up the word 'pregnant' in the dictonary ('enceinte', I'll never forget) and went to the doctor. He send us to the hospital with the words that I probably had a miscarriage. There we got an echo and it showed our little girl, clearly alive and kicking. We were so relieved and happy! On the way back we bought a little baby-suit. And for that suit I improvised this hanger. Using some wire and a string of beads that decorated a jar of african sauce.

Do you know?

The local thrift-store was good to me again. 22 small baking-tins for almost nothing. It is clear where the ones on the left are for (can anyone recommand a smooth cake-recipe suitable for these small tins?). But the tins on the right are too small for cakes. They're about 8x6x1,5cm (lxwxh). Do you know what to make with these?

Me-time

With a friend I took part in a workshop at the textiel-museum yesterday. Taught by textile-designer Joost Post. We got the opportunity to design our own tea-towel, table-runner or placemat and have it woven on a professional machine. I wanted it to be personal and made a design with my housing-history. All addresses where I lived, with whom and sketches of all those houses (11). For obvious reasons I can't show you the result (you can see a part coming out off the loom), but I can tell you the tea-towels came out fantastic. I just decided to save them for my daughters.

Close to your heart

A quick test-dress from a 1€-costing piece of fabric. To see if size and shape are good. Made to a pattern from this japanese book. She is already wearing it to school today.

Party-girl

Our little one has set a trend in our neighbourhood by organising her own birthdayparty. Since then she has attended three parties of friends turning 4. For the birthday-boy of today I have made a messenger-bag. Using this tutorial of Mmmcrafts. Not difficult at all.

Souvenir

When we were on the beach last week the girls put some sea-shells in a bag. Picked up rather for quantity than for quality. But glued to piece of scrap wood of our new fence they really look like a serious collection.

Good times

J. and I had our first mother-and-daughter-weekend. She enjoyed the special attention. She has a hunger for information these last months so we decided to go to musea. We started at the railroadmuseum that has an exhibition showing royal trains. Later we visited the old and new botanical gardens of Utrecht university. It was so good to spend two full days together. Talk, have lunch, have dinner and sleep in the same big bed. When asked what she liked best, she answered that she loved waking up next to mom. In the meantime dad and the other daughter spend some quality-time together too.

On my wishlist

Normally I'm not into heels, but I can not keep my eyes off these. Saw them in the Gemeentemuseum. Even found a place where these beauties are sold. I haven't found a good reason to buy them yet and my birthday is still so far away. Could anyone just send me a pair of these, size 40, in black?

Congratulations H&S

A bunting. Made from paper scraps. About 30 triangles of 6cm (height) x 4,5cm (width). Cut from a magazine. Sewn together to become a small garlant. I came up with this idea as a quick little present for the neighbours. Their daughter told us that her parents got married in a small ceremony after being together for over 30 years. How special is that!

Boots, coats and drippy noses

They have been asking to go to beach for such a long time. And since The Hague is very close to the sea we made a short stop after visiting the museum. The girls loved it, but were a bit disappointed that we didn't bring their bading suits. Temperature was 7˚C.

Old love

I used to be a fan of 'Der Blaue Reiter'. A group of artists with Kandinsky, Marc, Macke and Jawlensky among them. I fell out of love with their work a long time ago but I just had to visit the exhibition in The Hague. The kids liked the paintings but it was too busy to keep their attention on the walls. The Gemeentemuseum is situated in a fantastic building of architect J.P. Berlage.

Food in jars

The two bushes in our garden are giving about 500gr of rhubarb a week at the moment. I try to use it in a different way every time. Here I used a recipe (in dutch) like this to make rhubarb-rosemary jam. Really tasty. On bread and pancakes, but also with meat.

Subtle

This is not my idea, but I can't find the site where I saw it anymore. So I can't give credits to the lady who had this nice idea to make garlands from buttons. So simple, such a lovely result. Just take a long thread with a needle and put it through both buttonholes. Position the button and put the needle again through the two holes. Then take the next button. The picture on the left shows the buttons hanging form the ceiling of my atelier. Isabelle let me know who to give the honours for this wonderful project to: Jessica Clare. Thanks.

Petites Francaises

My mother has a good eye for beautiful things. She found this cute cookie-cutter on a 'vide grenier' (garage sale). And I found it in their french holiday house. I just had to borrow it to make these elegant french ladies. The recipe I used for these coffeecookies resembles this one.

Fabric doll kit

For my friend in Bilbao I ordered this screenprinted piece of fabric from Mikodesign. With just a little bit of effort you can turn it into a cute doll. As you see it came beautifully wrapped and, to my great joy, accompanied by a strip of Paris-fabric. For me. Erika must have read my mind...

Limousin

Last week we spent in this little paradise in France. Unfortunately the weather was not good to us.

We even had snow! In may, in France, can you believe it? The girls enjoyed this short vacation anyway. As long as they could watch a dvd in the big bed, play with playmobil and had a burning stove in the back. Luckily the last afternoon it was just warm enough to visit the zoo. This left us with a better feeling when it was time to go home.

Eko

Almost every week we buy a Vitatas. A bag full of biological vegetables and fruits of the season. And it is that bag I used to make these envelopes. I cut the bag in pieces, sewed it together and put an, also recycled, adhesive label on it. A perfect envelope to send a stamp to a soon to be born little guy.

Maybe next year

Last year I sowed sweet violets. These cute purple flowers are edible and here we used them in a salad. Our daughter was exited about the idea of eating flowers. How excited I discovered yesterday. Together with a friend she ate all violets!

For Tijn

A little guy turning four. Our little girl was invited to his party. We bought him something (almost) every boy likes. And made a bag (using my own tutorial) to carry his stuff to our playground. Congratulations!

Florist

It is not easy to grow flowers in our garden. Well, they grow, but as soon as they bloom our 6-year-old lays her eyes on them. And how often I ask her not to pick flowers in the garden, she can't resist picking them. This time she made a lovely flower-arrangement on the table. How can I get mad?