Leftover lunch

For yesterdays birthday lunch I prepared celeriac-almond soup and quiche lorraine. Luckily there was some left, so I could mindfully enjoy it once more today. Using my beautiful Donna Wilson plates, Ikea bowls and loved Pott (25) cutlery.

Felt fun

This will be another project for the creative-with-textiles course I'm teaching. Felting is not something I do very often. So I had to practice a bit and also wanted to make some examples. Everytime it surprises me how easy felting actually is. Wool, warm water and soap is all you need. Here's a tutorial about the basics. And this is another one about felting a pouch.

Light

Another yarn-wrapped jar. Little effort, shiny effect. The only thing that wasn't easy was lighthing the candle inside. Chopsticks did the trick eventually.

Frrry

Since my dear bag was stolen last year I hadn't found a new one. My basic black bag had to be perfect. Simple but with clever details. Preferably not a mass product. And now I've found it! I got it for my birthday! When asked the designer personally put it together within a few days. Isn't that great? The picture doesn't do the bag right, but have a look at the site of designer Ferry Meewisse. I love everything. The A4-wallet and the Mammoet S are definitely on my wishlist too. But today I could finally unwrap my new favourite bag!

Felting with kids

Can you imagine how proud the girls were when these felt pieces of art came out of the ziplock bag? The cold and foggy weather kept us inside the house between school and hockey-training today. Perfect time to try this recently found tutorial. Is it that easy? Yes! But some patience is needed for the felting stage. To keep the ladies' attention I came up with a new felting-with-your-feet method...

Christmas craft

Searching for projects for our neighbourhood kids club, I came across these lights. Take an old glass or jar and tie yarn around it with a knot, leaving a 10cm loose end. Than start wrapping the yarn around until you like what you see. Then tie the end to the beginning. Slide a small paper heart or another note on one of the ends and knot. Put in a candle or, for smaller kids, a led-light.

Transformation

I was looking for a moment to make these tassels. Last week I did that with the girls of the creative-with-textile course I'm teaching. With the tassels the white-with-glitter-eighties scarf, from the thriftstore, looked up to date again. The model loved to show it and wouldn't let go afterwards.

By mail

A small present, fitting through the mailbox. I used antique french buttons to make this ring. Congratulations, A!

Yes, a fork

I probably saw this idea somewhere on Pinterest. A quick way to make mini-pompoms. Decorate your scarf, present or mittens with these pompoms. Or knot the long ends together for a garland.

Greedy

When we were in Sweden, Floortje took me to this fantastic shop for kids clothes: Polarn o. Pyret. Beautiful basics in fantastic colours, perfect fitting and reasonably priced. I also like the fact that a lot of pieces are unisex. I love these trousers for example. Plain and simple. Just as I like it. Unfortunately Polarn only delivers in Sweden, the UK and USA. But I'm so lucky to have a contact close to one of their shops ;-D

Sint is here again

That calls for 'pepernoten'. It is a lot of work, but I try to bake them myself each year at least once on the day Sinterklaas foot on Dutch ground. I had helping hands but they soon gave up, only to come back when the spice nuts came out of the oven. I always like to add orange zest to the standard recipe. Mmm.

Thanks to the mist

We planned to go for a walk in the woods, but skies were so gray (the picture on the left was not taken today) we changed plans. We went to the oldest city of our country (Nijmegen) to visit the Valkhof museum (by architect Ben van Berkel). It's all about the romans who resided there 2000 years ago. Right now there is a great exhibition for kids (high tech romans). And you can have a very tasty 'Roman platter' for lunch. So if you happen to be around...

Rags

A bit of experimenting with pieces of torn fabric. Braid and stitch. Elastic and button. So simple.

It grows

I'm working on a birthday present. A cute little girl will celebrate her first birthday soon. And what better gift than a reusable birthday crown. The Velcro on the back makes it possible to change the numbers each year. I didn't plan to add leaves and flowers, but the crown was a bit boring without. I think it became pretty festive now.

Bernrode

The college I attended during my teens celebrated its 125th anniversary. Last saturday I went to the reunion, organised for the occasion. We could attend lessons taught by our former teachers. We felt like students again. It was so good (and age-confronting) to see my classmates again! Some of them I still see, but with others it was for over 10 or 15 years when I last spoke to them. Amazing how little people change after secondary school. What a lovely day it was. Lots of good memories. foto's: Wiek van Lieshout

Kitschy

For a course I'm teaching (working with textiles for youngsters) I made this cakestand. A low four-armed candle-holder, combined with three plates, a small vase and ten-seconds glue, was easily turned into a cute table-piece. Everything from the second-hand store.

This one has to stay

I have been cleaning closets all week. It was necessary. A pile of games, the kids hadn't been playing with, were waiting to be thrown away or brought to the thrift store. The girls picked Bingo out of the stack and since then it is their new favourite. The bag, containing the numbers, was ripped. So I whipped up a new one in 15 minutes. Makes Bingo a bit more acceptable to me.

Grid

It is so easy to create your own stamps! No creativity needed for this one. Just lines in an eraser. Looks like nothing, but when serial printed, it appears to be a design. As a variation you could cut out some of the squares.