Somewhere Over The...

When packages like this arrive by mail only 1 day after I placed an order I'm happy...

But when I open it and it bursts into color before my eyes I'm overwhelmed with joy and happiness... Silly isn't it? Although I'm sure you will all recognize the feeling, right? RIGHT???

And then, when you wake up and walk downstairs, not thinking about it, ('cause you have to start up a new day, make sandwiches, tea, eggs) and walk into the living room to see THIS I'm just totally excited! By daylight the colors always look better.

The reason of this 'yarn greed' is my long stalled decision what to do with the pretty, soft and thick cotton I bought some time ago. Remember?

It's going to be a rainbow blanket for the little ones' new bed. The cotton is just wonderful, although the yarn does split (a lot...). I use a 4,5 needle, so it progresses quite fast.

I love to work with all the rainbow colors, but you already knew that, didn't you? Well, now you know what I'm doing this weekend. Hope you have fun too!

See you next year, probably. Have fun on new years' eve. And a happy new year to all of you!!!

Quick Fix

Just something I made last night when me and my love were sitting side by side at the same desk. I always love it when we work next to each other...

I have heaps and heaps of buttons (took them home from Thailand too) so thought it would be nice to use them in this 3D picture frame. And I wanted to use the music sheets I bought at the thrift shop. I think I like the results...

Drawing is where it all began when I was little and it always makes me happy. I especially love markers. All those lovely colors.

As I said, this was going to be quicky.

Have a nice weekend!

Holiday Crafting

I always try to keep 1 day free during christmas. This year we succeeded again! We've spent the second day of christmas  in our pajama's watching movies and (well I did!!) crafting. I made this pillow for the big girls room.

First I drew the letters on paper, then I traced it on felt with a pen. I mirrored the letters so you wouldn't see the lines once you attach them to the fabric.

I attached the letters by first using a teeny bit of glue so they'd stay in place. Then I sew them with quite a big stitch. Easy peasy. Had it finished in about 2 hours. Love the fabric, don't you.

 

What I also like about this pillow is that I reused a pair of old jeans. I love to work with jeans 'cause it's so solid. I still have a lot left. I also used it in this project.

Oh, and I also finally decorated the type case I bought some time ago. Like it?

Have a lovely day and do something fun!

Black-White-Grey

I'm happy to say I got the pillow done in time. I love the result, though I couldn't restrain myself from using a teeny tiny bit of color. My friend loved it!

The squares are all sewn together. In the pic's you see the back and front. I joined them by single crochet all around and finished the edging with a contrasting black picot stitch.

Don't you love the little splash of color?

For the picot stitch: chain 3, double crochet in first chain from ch-3, skip 1 (or 2) stitch and join with a slip stitch. Super simple! And if you only skip one the only important thing is that you have an even number of stitches. In a square that's always the case...

Enjoy the holidays!

Pimp My Lampshade

This is the lovely room of our little one. It's starting to come together but it still needs some fine tuning.  I wanted to pimp up her lampshade and so finally I did.

Here it's a plain and boring IKEA lamp. I looked at all my ribbons and lace and decided to this. What do you think?

And this is the result. I'm looking forward to seeing her reaction. Hope she'll like it...

Been covering another journal/Notebook. Bought some more to maybe fill up my (soon to be) Etsy shop. Bought some ribbons too at HEMA so I can cover lots of them.

Dan I keep forgetting showing my new tin. I got it a few weeks ago and am totally in love with it.

Well, am not done with the black-white-grey project yet, so I'll have to hurry. I'm not sure if I'll make it before monday...

Have a lovely friday and weekend!

Liebster Blog Award

I was totally surprised by receiving the liebster blog award! Aishwarya nominated me, after being nominated for her own lovely blog. Thank you Aiswarya!

As I understand there are some rules to follow when receiving this award.

1. Answer 11 questions
2. Give 11 facts about yourself
3. Nominate 11 other lovely bloggers
4. Post 11 new questions for your new nominees

Been doing some other stuff this week. A change every now and then works very inspiring!

These are the questions I was asked:

1.  The last time you laughed really hard: This morning when watching a television show about Paul de Leeuw (a Dutch tv host).

2. A holiday you'll never forget: The trip to the Malaysian island Tioman with my love and kids. Beautiful, just like paradise! Oh, and also the trip to Berlin with my love...

3. Something that really shocked you: How much chemicals are in our food nowadays and that it's not illegal. 

4. Something you have been longing to do or learn: I would really like to learn a Scandinavian language. Don't know why... And making buttonholes.

5. One past incident that you would like to change: I would like to have started blogging 2 years earlier.

6. The last time you cried your heart out: This morning...

7. Your best creation/project so far: The color bomb blanket I'm making right now. But I don't really want to favor this blanket, the others are wonderful too. I love the evolvement through every new project.

8. Your inspiration: Pinterest, other blogs, my favorite magazines, life, everything actually.

9. Your view on New Year Resolutions. Name one if you plan to make: Don't have them actually. I don't really believe in them. I want to improve myself every day.

10. How do you take care of yourself, your health... It's important. Health is all wealth: I have CFS at the moment, and so I'm on the GAPS diet. So I try to take care of my health all day, every day. But it will take a lot of time recovering...

11. Your fondest childhood memory: Crafting with my mom, all the time.

Don't you just love Buttons??? I do!

11 facts about me:

1.  Color and cream are my 2 favorite things in the world.

2.  I'm an incorrigible perfectionist, which causes all       

    kinds of problems...

3.  I'm a big Kawaii fan.

4.  I keep postponing opening up my own Etsy shop.

5.  I clap my hands when I'm excited.

6.  I hate ironing and almost never do so.

7.  I haven't eaten a carb for about 6 months now. Not one.

8.  I love my multi color dotted socks.

9.  I'm bad at crafting with my kids.

10. I laugh very loud.

11. I never leave the house without my make up on.

11 nominees:
Homemade at my place
Life at my little red suitcase
Rose dahlia
Huis lief huis
+katoen
Crochetboulevard
Maree loves colour
Clicky needles
Tales from a happy house
Hilly town blue
The craft giraffe

11 questions:

1.  Who do you admire and why?
2.  What's your favorite color?
3.  What was the last nice thing you did for someone?
4.  What do you want to do better?
5.  What are you particularly proud of?
6.  If you could change 1 thing, what would it be?
7.  What's your favorite day of the week and why?
8.  What's your biggest fear?
9.  If anything was possible what would you do?
10. What is your most valuable possession?  
11. What's your favorite webshop?

Well, that's it for now. Do check out the nominated blogs. 

Something old I found when tidying up. Love it!

And craft away of course!!

DIY Notebook/Journal Cover

I was having a bit of a shitty (pardon my French) day and decided I had to do a quick rewarding project. I'd been meaning to cover my inspiration book with fabric and thought "today is going to be that day". So I did it!

These are some of the pages inside my inspiration book. I love to work in it. I have been collecting pictures from magazines for years and finally came up with this idea. I love to go through it when I'm down or in need of some inspiration.

And so I grabbed my glue stick and some fabric. I bought tons of fabric in Thailand (I actually want to sell it, really need to open up my Etsy shop...) and chose a lovely retro panda/bambi fabric for this purpose. The ribbon I got on a present a few months ago and the orange polka dot had been lying on the shelves for years.

 Done! They are so much fun to make and have. This crochet giraffe is not of my own doing but bought at the Sunday Market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. They have beautiful crafting there!

Well, craft a away! (And have a lovely day...)

Question...

How was your weekend? I started a new project last weekend. It's weird, 'cause I'm only using black, white and grey in this project, which is nog my cup of tea normally. I like it anyway. It's a present for a dear friend of mine and she loves black and white. I hope to have it finished by next monday as a late birthday present.

I'll show you more once it's done.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. The last tutorial was so much fun to make and the responds were so enthusiastic, that I decided to make another one. I was planning to make one for these potholders.

You can see the front and back in these pic's. I love to make them. It's easy and a real nice present to make for anybody. Although there are more tutorials about this potholder, I altered the pattern and like it better this way. Can you guys let me know if it is desirable for me to make such a tutorial? 'Cause it's going to be a lot of work and I only want to do it if people are interested.

Tonight I'm having my second craft night, with 6 ladies (instead of the 4 last month). The group is growing! Tonight I'm going to teach them how to crochet. It's very exciting, because I don't know if I've got the skill to teach... We'll see. And you'll see as well, because tonight I am going to take pictures. (If I don't forget again, haha). I made 6 readers with the article that got me to crochet. (It's an article from Sarah London in Flow magazine, 3 years ago). Everybody bought their own hook and I'll supply the yarn and knowledge. Looking forward to it!

Craft away everyone!

Tutorial Color Bomb Flower Square

This is going to be my first tutorial, so feel free to comment when you miss something or have tips.

I particularly like this patterns because of all the colors. I used 8 different colors for this pillow and they are all very very bright and vibrant. I also used a lot of white for the contrast in colors. It feels like summer to me.

Chain 4, join with a slip stitch.

Round 1 (pic's 1,2): Chain 2 (most people would chain 3, I always chain 2=double crochet, if you like to chain 3 then use this method all through the pattern), work 15 dc into the ring (16 in total), join with sl st in the 2nd chain from the first chain 2 (or 3rd in the chain 3 if you chose to use 3).

Round 2 (Pic's 3,4): Change color. You'll need to work into the back loops of the double crochets. Chain 2, 1 dc into the next 2 stitches, ch 2, 1 dc in same stitch, 1 dc into next 4 stitches, ch 2, 1 dc into same stitch, 1 dc into the next 4 stitches, ch 2,1 dc into same stitch, 1 dc into next 4 stitches, ch 2,  1 dc in same stitch, 1 dc into next 2 stitches, join with sl st.

Round 3 (pic's 5-7): Same color, ch 2, 1 dc into the next 3 stitches, 1dc+ch 2+1dc into the chain 2 space of round 2, 1 dc into the next 6 stitches, 1dc+ch 2+1dc into the chain 2 space of round 2, 1 dc into the next 6 stitches, 1dc+ch 2+1dc into the chain 2 space of round 2, 1 dc into the next 6 stitches, 1dc+ch 2+1dc into the chain 2 space of round 2, 1 dc into the next 2 stitches. Join with a sl st.

(If you want to make the square bigger, expand in the same way as round 3.)

For the flower (Pic. 8), work into the front loop of the centre circle.

Join a new color *chain 1, 3 dc into next loop, ch1, sl st into next loop, repeat* 7 times.

(I changed the pattern a little. The original flower was with 4 dc instead of 3, but I think the petals curl too much. This looks better, I think).

To join these squares I used a simple single crochet stitch. You can also sew them together for a flatter result.

Hope you can use it. Please tell me if it's clear or not.