Eve's little things

Finally some sewing !

2009-04-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

So, I have been busy but what's new ?

We are enjoying very good weather in Belgium, jippie ! So everybody's mood is rather bright and sunny.

Annika had school holidays but they end tomorrow, so on monday back to school.

So although she was home for two weeks, I managed to do a bit of crafting.

First let me explain: Generally, I'm all into what I call "lazy" crafts and activities. I discovered baking cookies is much fun. Especially when you can just buy a mix, add water and butter and voila, you're on a roll.

Luckely, I am not the only one. There is a whole market for people like me. Take this candies, we made ourselves.

I ordered the melts and molds from "Bake it pretty". You just need to warm them in the microwave, put them in a mold, tap a few times and you have the most delicious and prettiest candies. They taste like white chocolat. I took them with me when we went visiting a friend and she thought I was a master chef. So, that's my kind of cooking, obviously.

I also managed to do a bit of sewing. As many people know, I am a big kawaii fan. So I made some cushions, a little one and a bit larger. I used some digital scrapkits, I printed some background papers on fabric and this came out.

I don't do digital scrapbooking but we use it for printing on fabric, making stickers, friendly plastic, ironing on t-shirts, magnets. So again, lazy "art". Print and cut.

The prints on these cushions come from the very talented Miss tina . If you like kawaii and clipart, you should check her blog. Another favorite of mine is Nancy Kubo .

As you can see, I also made a pair of dolls, little one and his mummy. If you like to make one yourself, I purchased the pattern at "You Can Make This.com" .

So that's all for now. Will be back later !

Quite weekend

2009-03-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

So, as the title said we had a bit of a quiet weekend. Not a problem for me because look what arrived on friday !

I definetely want to make the cute bear pillow.

I also managed to do a bit of sewing. I finished the matryoshka stuffie (just need to stuff it and sew tight).

And I made a second wallet with zipper (do I hate those things !). You will see that I have to practice some more. This time I printed my own fabric. I bought through ebay some crafters canvas for the printer. The design came from a digital kit, sold by a print a day. This really nice woman has also several free cute downloads. So be sure to pay her a visit. I find both the kokeshikit and the matryoshkakit extremely cute (so I bought them both). I've used them to make keychains with creative plastic, magnets for our theme magnet board, stickers and appliques for sewing.

Digital kits for scrapbooking are a great source for very pretty designs and cute clipart. And as you see, they are not only limited to scrapbook.

See you later !

A new hobby

2009-03-02T09:19:00.000-08:00

So, springbreak is over. Annika had a week's vacation and started school again today. So mummy, spent the day on coffee break. We had a great vacation with friends coming over and grandmother and grandfather visiting.

Well, now I can concentrate on my new hobby. Kind of husband always states that he lost count of how much hobbies I have. Well let's see. For several years I made jewelry.

I stopped that completely at this moment. Thus, I have a basement filled with boxes with beads.

Then, I rediscovered, through a friend, crochet and knitting. So now, I have a lot of boxes, filled with yarn.

Meanwhile I started sewing school. Each tuesday night, I go to classes. At this moment I'm sewing a skirt in class. At home I'm working on some smaller projects with these fabrics, I recently ordered and received.

Off course I do not have a craft room, so I claimed a few shelfs of our cupboard in the dining room for my fabrics.

What else ? Oh, yes, I am a big kawaii fan, I make my own stamps and like papercraft. But I am of the lazy type, I want to print, cut and have my artwork. Hooray for etsy !

And now, I discovered a new passion, embroidery !

I had seen all these cute designs over the net and decided to give it a try. So, I got a really good and free pdf - manual over here with the basics. They have a lot of other nice freebies to, you only need to register. Over at Lollychops , there was a whole week of embroidery with some very cute patterns and great tips. Check it out !

I bought me a hoop, a prym transfer pencil and some embroidery floss and got started.

This is my second piece (the first one is not worth the picture I'm afraid)

It really did not turn out that bad, I think.

So, what do you think, to much ?

I only have one problem. I seem to spent much more time deciding what to make than actually making something. Got to do something about that !

'Kind of husband' will become husband

2009-02-25T12:44:00.000-08:00

So, my kind of husband and I decided to become real husband and wife. We are making an attempt to let this happen in september. We want to keep it rather simple with a nice party, good company and good food.

Boy, this is really hard work ! You think: "We pick a dancehall, decide on food and show up at the set date" but you think wrong. Our five-year old daughter thinks we are getting married the tree of us (which is kind of a bit) and truly believes she should be present at all appointments to help decide who's coming and what we will eat and drink.

Everybody is telling you that this will be the happiest day of our lives. (mostly strangers, friends asked us if we were going mad) NOT !

The happiest day in my life was when Annika was born and at some moments, even this is open for discussion :) .Don't know if I'm going to get there without a nervous breakdown.

Yesterday, my friends and I went to shop for a dress. I was so not looking forward to this. When I made the appointment, they said it would take about 3 hours, I thought I did not understood this right. I'm the type who never fits any clothing and I am a definite believer in mailorder catalogue. But I went anyway. You get to sit down and look in catalogues. "Ugly, ugly, ugly, look she wears a curtain", and so on. I admit, that's not a positive attitude. Then, they bring the dresses to try on. These dresses way a ton, and they have loops. You have a loop for when you dance and a different loop for walking. That way you can shuffle the dress together and do your thing. Not so elegant and you need a manual for achieving this.

This is me NOT being happy !

Kind of husband, if you read this. Don't panic, this is not my dress ! (and I don't always look like this)

After 2 hours of fitting, I finally found something I like (and I think I can wear my comfy shoes underneath). Jippie ! And coffee was the reward, well and truly earned.

What the heck happened ?

2009-02-15T23:47:00.001-08:00

Hi guys,

I did not realize that it has been such a long time since I've blogged, shame on me !
What can I say ? Been busy but all of us are rather busy so that's no excuse.
So I'd better say nothing at all.

I've been tagged (had to look up what this means :) ) so that is a good reason to start blogging again. "Take the fourth picture out of your fourth map and tell something about this picture." So here it is:

The fourth map is my 2003 map and it has a lot of pictures about Annika since this is the year she was born. How sweet, innocent and quiet she was. Seeing this, I asked myself when the last time was, it was quiet. Have to say the time just before she started talking, so that 's a while ago.
Will have this time back when she is a teenager and spents hours in bed and not talking to me at all !

On the craft front, I have been rather busy. My sewing lessons are going great. I still crochet and found a new hobby, embroidery. Hop over to this blog and look at the very cute patterns Loly designed for us.

I leave you with a picture of a finished toy. Annika chose the color, so, of course, pink !

japanese cute zakka

2008-11-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

It' s been a little while since I've blogged. Been very busy with a couple of things.

I just wanted to let you know that my dear friend Noriko has finally opened her shop.

She sells the cutest things, directly imported from japan. If you like the artist Shinzi Katoh, decole , knick knack, Alain Grée, ... , you should visit her webshop. But she has a lot of other cute stuff to. The site is at this moment only in english but when I've finished the translations it will be in dutch to. So go and take a look. (and no, I have no shares :) )

Preparing for halloween

2008-10-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday we took our magnet board and changed it into a spoooky board. At Annika's school they very much like halloween and so all the kids are very keen on halloween, including Annika.

She has her mind set on going as a big candy at the halloweenparty but I explained that mummy just started sewing lessons so this would be a very good idea for next year.

I got the images from my favorite designer on etsy, Marieke Vermeulen . She has already a christmas collection as well, with very cute deers and houses.

I also did some crafting in the last week and finally finished this little bag.

I used my new stamp set from decole to print the fabric with little red riding hood. After fixating and ironing it, it should be wash-resistant. We'll see.

I also made some new stamps. A few weeks ago this book arrived at my house.

It's a japanese stamp book and it shows you how to carve your own designs from an eraser. It has many very cute designs in it. It has also many tips and examples on how to use your stamps (like printing on fabric :) ). You don't need to speak japanese to understand the instructions, because the book has step-to-step photos. If you like to get the book, theres a great seller at ebay, pomadour , who sells directly from japan. She is a very nice lady and she has tons of japanese crafting books, shipping free.

And this is what I made so far from the book.

As you can see, I just need to finish of the last one and than we can start with making our christmas cards. A little early you might say, but last year I had a million other things to do (can't remember what) so at the end, no christmas card left our house, what a shame.

Who's the lucky bastard ?

2008-09-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

Surely, I am ! This morning the postman rang to my door. He had a big box coming from japan. So it was a bit of christmas at my home. When I unpacked (which took a while), this came all out of the box.

Noriko, you are the best ! Thank you very much for all the stuff.
Well I'll explain: We all know that finding stuff from decole and cute japanese stuff is really hard to find in europe or you must be willing to pay many pounds in England.

So, when Noriko heard that I like this stuff so much, she offered to bring me some (a lot actually) from Japan. I needed to do a bit of crafting today but no such luck, had to reorganize the house for my new stuff.

The good news is that Noriko is setting up a webshop for us europeans so we can buy this cute things ourselves. Let you know when the shop is open for business. Meanwhile, you can visit her blog here.

She will also sell products from Alain Grée, which she already sells in japan, look here

Time flies

2008-09-22T02:52:00.000-07:00

Well time flies indeed, long time since I've blogged.

We were very busy, some good things, other not so good.

We finally set a date. From 19 september 2009, you may call me mrs. Muskee (maybe i'll keep van Waes, not sure about that). My kind of husband will become my husband and it will the most expensive day of our live (and hopefully also a happy one :) ). The only thing I'm sure about at this moment is that i want a dessertbuffet, and preferably an extended one. Lots of things to do but that's for next year. We also need to go in "ondertrouw" and that's a bit of a problem. We are the kind of people that intend to forget something like this so i' ll have to make a note. If not, we'll have a big party next year instead of a wedding.

On the home front we have BUGS in the house. They are called "motmuggen" and they breed like hell. Since about two weeks i'm a "motmuggen"-expert. These are tiny little flies that just sit at walls and ceilings. Apparently they come out of the basement, the cellar under the house.
We rent this house and were not aware that we have moist issues so ... bummer !
So I've called in reinforcements. Last week, the exterminator came by and sprayed all the walls in the house and "gassed" the basement. And bwooh, they are not gone. They die after a day but during that time they fly around, not good and they keep breeding, even worse. The exterminator will come back to look for a solution.
My friend are very sympathic as i absolutely hate bugs, sometimes in a bit of a freaky way. So now, I'm almost ready to be admitted for a few weeks to a psychiatric ward, that would almost seem like vacation. I have bonded with my vacuum cleaner (don't now if that is healthy anymore).
My kind of husband is in Africa at this moment (the lucky bastard !) so I await his return (which will be next week)

I would like to point out a very nice site, a print a day. Take your time to stop by, she designes very cool stuff. And she has a lot of freebies under "weekend downloads" which I absolutely love.

Hopefully I can get some crafting done this week and show you some pictures.

Busy, busy

2008-08-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

So we were very busy last days. We always have a to do list when Jeroen returns of his rotation. Instead of rushing the days before he returns to Gabon, we now decided to work on the list immediately. Now, I know why we always wait so long. One of the nice things to do was to go and visit my friend Margy and see the new baby, Ruben. I made him these cars (searched the whole internet to find some squeezes but found them eventually here)

Signing for post packages can be very exhausting. When the postman rang and I saw the sticker of the japanese giftmarket on the box, I almost ripped it out of his hands. I would love to say that I opened the box with a nice cup of tea but that would be lying, didn't have the patience.
Would you ?

The box from little red riding hood contains stamps, they are really cute. I also bought some bento (lunch) boxes from decole and cram cream for Annika.

A while ago I ordered some japanese crochet books from yesasia. Indeed, they are in japanese, obviously, but they have schemes so we, crochet lovers, can make this cute goodies to.

This is the book

And this is my first project from the book.

And my last project for now was a "tableau vivant" (or sort of).

Last year I purchased through ebay some magnetic paper for the printer. So I made Annika a magbetic board with magnets. Marieke Vermeulen has a lot of cute prints in her etsy store. I printed them on sticker paper and then sticked them on magnet paper (my printer didn't like the magnet paper), cut them out and voila.

Don' you love the mushrooms and the deers ?

Scored in Breda

2008-08-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, my kind of husband returned from Africa, where he works as a rotator.

So, in the afternoon we had a little party. He had also had his birthday while he was away, so double party with cake and presents. It is always difficult to find him a really nice gift because his greatest interest is about computers (I know zip about those things, I only know that they rarely do what you want them to do). So we got him a goodies box with all sorts of candy, his favourite drinks and so on. Annika had decorated the box and actually I was really taken with my idea.

But kind of husband decided on his rotation to lose a bit of weight and neglected to tell me so I have now a really great box with all sorts of yummy stuff.(of course I will share this with Annika, maybe :) )

Yesterday we went to Breda and I wanted to show you what I scored. I found this addressbook at V&D en this cute agenda. From now on I will make my appointments in style, not ?

Lazy day

2008-08-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

So we had a lazy day around the house today. Love it ! Annika watched cartoons from Dora and I finished some projects that were lying around.

This is my second stamp.

I also had to finish a sewing project. I start sewing lessons in september but I'm already messing around with my machine.

Annika loves it. I found the tutorial here

Finally, I put a little crocheted purse together. The pattern came from little miss two on ravelry. I thought they are very cute and my daughter always needs little purses for her "treasures" (being snails, acorns, and all kinds of things I really don't like). I convinced her that this one is for the more "girly" things (like a nice flower or a necklace, ...). We'll see.

custom made stamp

2008-08-02T02:07:00.000-07:00

Everyday I take a peak at this blog to see what's new in crafter's land. It's there I got the idea of making my own stamps. I got the tutorial here. I ordered supplies and I got started.

This is how the first turned out, not bad at all, I think.

We are on the way

2008-07-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, it worked ! Maybe there's hope after all. We are on a roll !

Introduction to the world of blogs

2008-07-18T06:04:00.000-07:00

Well, after reading and viewing several blogs, I decided to also step in the world of blogging.
So, voila, my first message. Let's see if it get's published like I would like (computers don't like me very much).