Blessings

It is my birthday today. We celebrate it modestly. In spite of that I've got some wonderful presents. Two green tables for my studio. Made to my design. My first couvert of serious cutlery (Pott 25, this one couvert is more expensive than the 30-piece cutlery we're using now!). This beautiful etch, a painted pasta-necklace, a cooking book and more. But the best gift of all is the fact that my daughter, who had to have surgery to her eyes last monday, is doing really well. I'm so relieved.

For Loes

Neeltje went to visit her first girlfriend (and her twin-brother) from daycare last week. Of course we had to take a present. So together we made this every-day-is-a-party-garland from punched out paper circles (from magazines), sewn together. We also took a cd from Trappertrap. Parent-friendly childrens music. A good idea for other 'sinterklazen'?

Something old, something new

Whenever we had more than one guest we had a seating problem. I was waiting for the right chair to come along. But it didn't. As a temporary solution I found the chair on the left in the local thrift-store. It is not exactly scandinavian design, but this one will do untill I find the perfect chair . In the same store I found this cute game about Puck the Ladybug, who has to travel from flower to flower. So cute and informative. The beautiful drawing next to our new chair is made by Jenny from Be Happy Now.

Present for an architect

Another handmade notebook from recycled materials. The cover was made using the front page of a magazine and the interior is filled with technical drawings. Here you can find a tutorial explaining the bookbinding method I used.

Our little one

I used the pattern for this apron-dress before. But although she's not the fastest grower, the other dress became too small. And worn out. An apron-dress like this is a good compromise between mother and daughter: she wants to wear a dress all the time and I'd rather see her in trousers. The cute daisy fabric reminds me of the summer, because it was bought during our vacation in France last summer.

So many

These 'pepernoten' are made from a package the girls got from friends who came to visit yesterday. We hadn't seen them for a while because they lived in Singapore in that period. They left three years ago without kids and came back with three! So, it was very nice to see them again but it was wonderful to meet their cute offspring.

Sint Maarten

And this is how the lanterns turned out. The girls really enjoyed decorating it. After dinner we made a lantern-lighted walk through our neigbourhood. They are a little afraid of the dark, but not enough to stay inside.

Tasteful

Last week a small piece of land for a vegetable garden was assigned to us. Now we can start making a growing-plan for next spring. But till then we enjoy the harvest from my parents garden. We made a very tasty soup from these parsnips (combined with apples). We used this recipe. Here's a similar recipe in english. We decorated the soup with parsnip-chips (slice, fry and salt).

Sharing

Wednesday both my daughters are at home. It is Saint Maarten that day and we're going to make lanterns, following this tutorial. That means the girls are going to decorate the paper and I'm going to fold. As you can see we made a test-lantern to define the size. The paper we're going to use is 32x63cm, with folds of 3cm (maybe 2cm), for those of you who also want to give it a try. We will use ready made sticks with lamps (bought at HEMA) for lighting the lantern.

Paper-fun

It was raining outside and I finally made a collage. Something that was on my want-to-do-list for a long time. And I was pretty proud of myself for a while. Untill I saw the results of my daughters...