For Eva and Marie-Jose

Not much time for crafting over here. Our house is being painted (there's already 2 weeks a painter around the house), I rather severly burned my right hand on a hot pan and the kids are so ready for their holidays (read: 'very tired with matching moods'). But I had to make these presents. And since it is holiday season, I made some passport-covers (using this tutorial).

Crazy chick

This afternoon the temperature outside went up to 31C. A day to do nothing, just have lunch with family and watch the kids play in the pool. For lunch I made orange-lemon and apple icetea. And put the ingredients (bread, lettuce, smoked chicken, avocado and mayonaise) for a do-it-yourself sandwich on the table. We recently ate a sandwich like that in a restaurant called Pink Lemon and tried to remember what was on it. A delicious combination.

Felt village

For their party, my mother made 80(!) coasters using felt in different colours. Such a good idea and very beautiful result, don't you think?

In girly red

A little present for a pregnant couple. It took me quite some time, but I think these baby shoes turned out rather cute. The pattern is from the book 'for sweet baby'. Next time I'll try to make a less time-consuming variant like these kimono shoes or Martha's felt baby shoes or her crocheted booties or Heather Baileys bitty booties or even these knitted mary-janes.

They look good

My kids never use their crayons, so I felt free to experiment with those. On the internet I saw people melt their crayons into cute shapes. Finally a purpose for these tins, I thought. But it didn't work out entirely. Either I took them out of the oven too fast or they were in there too long. But the crayon was divided into two substances. One is good for colouring, the other almost transparant. There are no crayons left for another try so I'll leave it with this attempt. If you want to try here's a tutorial.

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Here's my first selfmade pair of trousers. J only wants to wear trousers when they're loose fitted. So the pattern, from this book, was perfect for her. I bought the fabric, with numbers written on it and with a strange edge sewn to it, a while ago, from a remnant/misprint bin. I wanted to use those odd features. We both loved the result. Finally I managed to pick the right kind of fabric for a piece of clothing.

Vintage plates

Next weekend we'll be having a party. My parents will celebrate their being married for 40 years. It's going to be a party in their own garden. And I'm working on a project to present little snacks in a different way. I'll show you the results later.

Thanks

I did what some of you suggested on my post about my daughters balletclass. I took my crochet hook and some wool to balletclass and started to make a baby-hat. In spite of really feeling my age (LOL), it resulted in a nice conversation with some other parents about crafts. Not so bad at all. The pattern is a variation on this one (in dutch).

Copied

I was so lucky to receive a beautiful keychain, made by Flora, in my mailbox. So nice of her! And such a perfect present for putting in the mail. I needed to practice a bit (had to throw some efforts away) before I managed to produce these keycords. For two partygirls whose parties we're not able to go to. Hope they like their little surprise package.

Freshly found

This weekend I was a lucky thrifter again. Shoes, linnen buttons, bag handles and an embroidery loop. Which I put to good use immediately. This piece of embroidery was lying around for years. I made it after J's first drawing ever. It was almost forgotten, but has finally found a good frame and place to hang.

Tastes as it looks

Every year we make elder blossom syrup. Very easy and the kids love this lemonade. For the adults you can replace the water with bubbly white wine. Or make elder blossom champagne. There are lots of other things you can make from elder blossom: herbal tea, pancakes or jelly. Right now it's elder blossom season, so look around and pick yourself some umbels.

The drawing in the back is made by Tali from Tush tush.

Giftwrap mini-tutorial

Some of you have been asking how I make these giftwraps. So here's a small tutorial. Take any kind of paper. Brown craft-paper, paper bags, newspaper, childrens drawings or whatever you can come up with. Here and here are some examples. Cut in a rectangular shape. No need to be precise.

Fold in half or in three, as long as the edges line up it's ok. I often make another fold for the bottom, because it looks nonchalant. Then sew around thee sides, leaving the fourth open.

Time to decorate. Here I have used a stamp set (Djeco) that belongs to my daughters. Most op the time I use grey or black ink for the printed look of it.

Put the present or letter inside and sew the fourth side. Or close it with just a staple and a punched heart, like I did over here.

Some spare minutes

Since my old keyring was stolen two weeks ago, together with the keys and my favorite handbag, I needed a new one. I have to say this keyring looks better in real life. Made from small pieces of fabric from my remnant box. A temporary keyring, since I'm planning to make a keycord like this beautiful one from Flora.

Scrap-birds

The teachers of my daughters are celebrating their birthday today. Of course I had to make a little present for each of them. I roughly followed this tutorial. Simplified it a little, since I had to make four birdies in one evening, and filled them with lavender.

Results

Not much crafting going on here, since we're spending most of the time outside these days. Our vegetable garden is starting to give food. I am still surprised how little effort it takes to grow vegetables. And it is so rewarding, eating radish and lettuce from you own piece of land.

A bit of complaining

She loves it. But I'm so not looking forward to go to balletclass with our little one. I dread the half hour waiting till class is finished. I feel so out of place with those high-heeled and in-full-make-up-at-9 o'clock-in-the-morning-on-saturday-mothers. They treat their girls like princesses, wearing pink, long coats (how can a child play?), silver shoes and talk to them in high childish voice. Urgh!

Nietnieter

My brother brought me this gadget. A no-staple-stapler. A cute way to 'staple' two or three pieces of paper together. It cuts out a little strip of paper, folds it back and puts it through a small cut. Made from bio-plastic and sold at bureaubewust.

Welcome Sarah

A little girl has been born in our neighbourhood this week. A quick little present was in place. So I made this pink bunting for her new room.

Suske and Wiske

The girls were very tired when they came out of school today. A good moment to have a picknick in the garden. With juice, fruits and comics we spent a relaxed afternoon together. Until they both wanted to read the same comic at the same time...Fortunately it was almost dinnertime by then.

More repair-work

Finally I ordered something in my cousins shop VanMarieke. I had my eye on this 'iron on velours' for a while. The hole in my daughters jeans gave me a good reason to buy a set of 12 colours. Make sure to check out the wonderful fabrics and ribbons on her site too.

Throw away or repair?

We have some pillowcases that are almost at the end of their life. Throw away? I decided to repair this time, mainly because my fabric-scraps-box was standing right next to my ironing board. And sewing is much more fun than ironing.