Winter knits

Up till now it hasn't been much of a winter here in Holland. This week the temperature suddenly plummeted to around and below zero. Time to get my crochet hand warmers out and quickly finish my knitted hat. Both patterns found on Ingthings.



                                                                                                              byLizet

Voor een wolk van een baby

 

 

'Een wolk van een baby' is a Dutch expression to describe a lovely healthy baby. In this case a baby girl named Ilse, born on the 13th of december last year. I made her this cloud pillow following the pattern in Fiona Dalton's book 'Wil jij mijn vriendje zijn'.

 

 

 

The back is made out of one of my boyfriend's old shirts, so again a bit of recycling!

Antwerpen (Anvers)

 

Antwerpen was very rainy, but we did do some sightseeing, shopping (go to Moose in the City on IJzerenwaag- great tip from Zilverblauw) and had nice chocolate raspberry cupcakes! After it being in the attic for many years we took the Polaroid camera with us. I just think the film we had was a bit past its expiration date....

Super Firemen

Fireman Sam is a favourite in my brothers house. My two nephews like to pretend they are firemen and put out fires together or rescue cats. So for Christmas we bought them each a firefighters helmet. Because firefighters are real life superheroes I made Tom and Sam a personalized Supermancape. Now they have a complete outfit when they get called out to the rescue! As a guide I used this tutorial .

                             

Recycle ring

 

A great way to recycle your plastic water bottle caps is using them as a base for a custom made pin cushion ring. There are different tutorials out there. I've put some of the different ways of making them together to come up with this result. The band around my finger is made out of an elastic band and is attached with glue and some small stiches (it is not pearced through the cap, but attached to the felt on the bottom). You can use either fabric or felt to make the pincushion ball. I've made these needle felt balls before and this is another great use for them.

 

 

 

Homemade envelopes

Shopping in Iceland is pretty expensive, but there was a Tiger store there which I read about in a magazine. It is a Danish retail concept and supposedly the most expensive thing in the store costs

20 euros. It didn't disappoint. I bought a lot of cool stuff like these plastic envelope templates. Nice, in this case, to use when you want to wrap a gift certificate a little bit more funky than in a normal white envelope. The paper was also bought in the same store (I just found out that in the Netherlands the stores go under the name Flying Tiger).

 

 

Back from Ibiza

We just got home from a week on the very popular island of Ibiza. You may have to try a bit harder  than in other not so overcrowded holiday destinations, but there a really some nice quiet (and not so commercial) beaches to be found. Nature is beautiful with its colourful flowers, sunsets and wildlife. See the real live flamingo in the last picture! When you are there don't miss Las Dalias, the hippy market, on saturdays. Here you have to look critically at the products that are sold (some are 'made in china'), but there are some gems to be found. Sluiz is also a nice little shopping center where prices aren't too steep. For dinner we went to the little town of Santa Gertrudis. You can find lots of different restaurants there around a traditional Spanish church square.