Inspiring and moving

Look for yourself! Especially the last videos are really moving...

Summerbreak!

Almost 6 weeks of not having to go to work! Although as a teacher I do also work in my holidays, but it's so nice not hearing the stupid alarmclock every morning :)
I still sleep like 10-11 hours a night, just need to catch up I guess..

I promised I'd show something I made in the last couple of months, so here it is!









My exboyfriend had a dress-up party at an officersmess in London, so he had to dress himself up as a superstar. He had a pink ruffled shirt, big yellow glasses, a big fake afro and this jeans. I pimped them to match the rest!







And on special request:

Oops..

Been away for a long time.. My work really got lots of my attention, and *shame on me*, I neglected my blog..
Soon I will post some pics of what I've made & done in the past months, but for now I'll leave you with a great summersong :




(Hope this works! If not, go and check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmetbTknAUk !!)

A crafty gift :)

Okay, a bit late and it IS a short post,but wanted to show what I made for my grandmothers 90th birthday. All the grandchildren had to make something (A4size)for my grandma, they will make a book out of all the things.. This is what I made:

I embroidered (hope that is the right word ;)) the flowers and bird on thick paper. The scalloped 'label' was made on the computer, and printed on stickerpaper. After sticking it onto the thick paper I embroidered the edges as well.

A lot going on here, so not much time or energy to blog. Tomorrow I will try to post something..

Shoppingtherapy

Hmm, had some serious shoppingtherapy the last couple of days. Here are some pics of what I bought :

Some new red-with-white-dots teacups, the bowls and the stuff on top op the cupboard I got from my mom and aunt.

A watering can, ofcourse the pink one (although I kinda fell in love with the fresh blue one as well).

I also just bought a great coloringbook for grownups! I'm not gonna color it, but going to put them in a frame.. My favorite is a girl on a swing, but don't have it as a pic yet. I will post a pic when I've got it framed.

I also crafted a bit (although it was that much work ;)). A friend gave birth to a little girl, Lara. My boyfriend lived with her in a house when he was a student, and with some other housemates they wanted to give Lara something that referred to where they knew mommy and daddy from :) So this is what I came up with :

I also made another, just for fun :

Number 5!

I almost forgot that I was tagged by Wendy from http://www.liefmonster.blogspot.com/ to show the fourth picture in my fourth file. Because that is a picture of me with some of my students (and I don't want to put them on the internet), I chose the 5th of the 5th.

This are my grandparents when they got married. Although my grandmother doesn't look very excited, they were happily married for a lot of years ;) My grandfather unfortunately died 2 years ago.. My grandmother is still alive, and turns 90 (!!) in march. We're gonna celebrate and have a nice dinner with my family!

You can leave your hat on..

I just ordered this great hat for a friends birthday.

Check out this etsy-store, free worldwide shipping right now!

http://www.etsy.com/profile.php?user_id=6734884

housekeeping.. SIGH

Well the title of this post says it all, I'm not really the best in housekeeping. I guess it has something to do with my lack of discipline (probably why I also still don't fit in a size small ;))

And to be honest, when I come home from work and doing groceries I barely have the energy to cook, let alone doing anything else involving cleaning, washing, ironing and folding. To make things a bit more visible for myself (ehhmm, yes I am a to do list-lover) I made this list with all the things to do in my house. The days of the weeks are there, so my goal is to do 1 or 2 things every day during the week, and the rest in the weekend. With my Leitz Easy Laminator I laminated it with a magnetic back, so now it is on my fridge. And it worked for me today, almost every dot is black! If you would like this list as well, please let me know and I will email it to you. My list is in dutch, but if anyone wants one in english, please email me with a list of chores.


Ps. if you don't have a cat or never iron, I will make you your own list, just email me what needs to be on it ;)

Easter(eggs)

Easter is almost here now. I don't really decorate my house for easter, but I DO eat LOTS of eastereggs! Well I should correct myself, I eat cadburry mini-(easter)eggs :) Believe me, once you've tried them, you will never, I repeat, NEVER want any other easteregg anymore.

And since they do not only taste fabulous but also look gorgeous, I think I will buy lots of them and put them in a big glass jar or something... et voilá, there is my easterdecoration!!

(this is also a really cute idea, but the eggs will last about 2 minutes due to my playfull cats ;))

And how cool is this :)

HEMA-agenda

The first thing I did with the floral prints I got from Marieke, is this :

It's my agenda, bought at the HEMA, a great store here in Holland. In the front you can place your own picture or card, and I thought this pattern would be lovely. And I think it is, it makes me really happy! I don't know if I like my name that big on it, maybe I will change that later on.

I heard HEMA also has a store in Paris as well now. Really cool, and I think people all over the world would love it. I got some pictures from products they sell (with really REALLY nice designs), check this out :

I got this nice notebook,with hearts all over it :







I'm still a bit sick, but luckily don't have to work next week. That means I'm FINALLY gonna finish the photo-album!! Pics will be shown later this week ;)

Sick again..

But to cheer myself up a bit, I bought really cute patterns on Marieke's Etsy-shop.

Marieke makes really cute things, like this :

I really can't wait to make those cute paperclips with the flowery design I bought!

Go and get inspired at Marieke's blog :
http://mariekevermeulendesign.blogspot.com/

And then go and buy her beautiful designs at :
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5602391&page=1&section_id=&order

Back again

Here I am again :) Didn't have any time OR energy last week to blog, so today a quick review on what happened untill today.. Reports are finally over and done with, just one parent I still have to talk to next week. My class is a mess right now, and it really costs a lot of energy doing my work at this moment. Three boys have joined our group in the last weeks, and all the children are reacting to that. The boys have to get used to this new environment to them, and the rest of the class has to get used to them. Not easy for this type of children! So I feel more like a police-officer than a teacher right now. And, although I wanted to be a police-officer when I was younger, I don't like acting like I have to now! Oh well, I'll give it some time and a lot of effort, and things will settle... (and after this week working I'll have a week off!!)

Anyway, this nice print you saw above this post, is the new wallpaper I used for my closet (or is it cupboard?)! I haven't wallpapered a lot (I'm more of a painter), so it took a bit of effort and a lot of patience to make it all work :) Now put some shelving up, and I'll have a 'brand new' closet!

The pic on the right is what I made for the children in my class for valentine. It's a mini-lollypop, on the leaf was my name. I hid them in their drawers, and it was really fun to see the kids finding the lollypop and looking confused (valentine isn't a big thing over here in Holland). They were all very happy with it! I made a valentinescraft with the children, so they could give something to someone they love as well. They loved doing that! They 'made' 3 cute teabags, added 2 chocolatechipcookies and wrapped it nicely, decorated it and made a tag. It looked so cute! I don't have the pics here right now, but will post them later on.

(Ps I'm sorry for my terrible english! With this terrible cold I have I can't seem to find the right

words or phrases!)

Nice day today :)

Just a quick note today.. I had a very busy but nice day today! A friend of mine, Hjalmar, has his own business and gives trainings/seminars/I-don't-know-how-to-name-it. Too complicated to explain (especially in english ;)), but I've attended one today. If I ever will open my oh-so-desired shop/business (in toys, learningmaterials, interiordesign for schools, childrens rooms, etc.) the things I've learned today will be really helpfull exploring the market.

Hmm, I think I should just leave it at 'I had a very nice day today! thnx Hjalmar!!' :)


Just wanted to share another thing, wouldn't you just looooove to have something like this in your childs room (or even classroom!)??

Yudu!

Yes, that's right, YUDU!
Today I found out about a new Provocraft-product (don't you just loooooove them making things easier and more fun?!) called the Yudu... and ofcourse now I WANT IT!!

It is, what I understand of it, a new and improved kind of Gocco. Not that I ever had a Gocco (when I discovered about them, they already weren't producing it anymore) ;)

So with the Yudu you can screenprint on almost any (flat) surface! Ohhh just think of all the things you could screenprint...

Check out the provocraft-yudu website for some video's on how it works :

www.whatdoyudu.com

On Etsy there is a discussionabout the Yudu, maybe nice to get some reviews:

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6006138&page=1

Inspiring toys

All pictures from www.haba.de

Not much time to blog (or craft) yet... Sigh, if only I had those reports done... Next wednesday it'll all be over. Untill then, just something that inspires me. I looooooove the toys from HABA!! Check out http://www.haba.de/ for more toys, childrens furniture, games and lots more!

Happy mail

Today I was in bed for the whole day, sick... But what a nice surprise, in the mail I received the two patterns I ordered from Kellie (http://www.dontlooknow.typepad.com/) a while ago. Wowie! Made my day a bit more fun.

Thanks Kellie,

they look great!!

Photo-album

Today I made some time to start making a photo-album for Evy, the daughter of my friend Ellen. So Ellen, if you're reading this DON'T GO ANY FURTHER!! ;)

I got my inspiration (and the pattern :)) from http://www.dontlooknow.typepad.com/. Check out her blog! I really LOVE her work! The bright colors and the cute patterns. As a personal touch I added this cute buttons in the centre of the flowers, bought at 'Pipoos', a dutch craftstore.

The way it is looking now is probably not the way it'll get sewn. I've got no pretty white fabric here right now, but I think I want to make a white square in the middle, with the flowers on it. I think the bright colors of the flowers will be better seen, it'll be fresher.I will cover the edges of the square with a ribbon or something like it. Also I want to put Evy's name on it.

Well, I guess at this point Ellen stopped reading, so here is a pic :

Fabulous fabrics

Tadaaa, aren't these the most beautiful colors and patterns? I must admit that I am turning into a fabric-addict. My fabric-cabinet can't take anymore fabrics, but next saturday I will be in Utrecht (visiting an educational exposition/market (can't really translate this any better ;)).... And in Utrecht, every saturday, there is this big fabricmarket. So I persuaded my colleagues to visit that market as well! I hope I can post another pic of new fabrics next week :)

Evy

Just a little project I did a few weeks ago, for this beautiful girl :

Books and time..

Today I bought these two books. And with doing that, the list of things I would like to make grows.. First I will have to find the time to sit down with a cup of tea and read the books thoroughly! It's a very busy time at work right now, a lot of meetings and reports are coming up.. That means a lot of work (not only at school, but also at home) and not a lot of time to do fun things. What makes it even more difficult, is that the fabrics I've ordered at http://www.fatquartershop.com/ arrived, yay! Tomorrow I'll post a pic of the fabrics, right now there's work to do :)

Roommates

My roommates..

Woohoo!

Well, my first post, yay! Beginning a blog was on my mind ever since I got hooked on reading other people blogs.. The only thing i should be watching out for, is spending as much time on my own blog as being busy reading others ;) I have such a HUGE list of things to do and make, I'll try to take pics and post them here..


Let's start with the last project, my dotted bookcases. I have an appartment that was built in the 30's, with very high ceilings and lots of wood and ornaments. I'm such a sucker for that! Loooove houses that have a 'soul' to them. But the only thing is, that it's getting this 'classic' feel to it when you're decorating. Just to give you an impression, here's a pic..






Yes, I know, the chandelier helps a lot too :)
But to lighten things up a bit, AND because I am in this red with white dots-fase, I painted my bookcases. Unfortunately no 'before' pic! (I will try to remember the 'before' before next time).




Makes me smile when looking at it :)