A boy and his Cheetah

Have you ever seen the African movie "Duma".  A typical Disney movie, nice to watch with smaller kids.
Anyway this was painted for a boy, it took me longer than suspected because I've never tried to paint a Cheetah before.
It was painted with Acryl on Canvas 30x30cm 3D

Lost in Arles: A fabulous safari tent to rent in the Haut-Languedoc

We arrived home yesterday from our holiday in France in the region of Haut-Languedoc. We drove 1250kms to get to this region which made me feel so much at home. It had the sense of Mpumalanga (where I grew up) and then of course with a delicious French flavour:
Lost in Arles: A fabulous safari tent to rent in the Haut-Languedoc

I got a request to make a gift for a lady (whom I do not know) in Uganda.

 I knew nothing about her, only that she is a Christian.

 So I made a mixed media gift:

30x30x2.5cm on canvas

 By your words I can see where I’m going;
    they throw a beam of light on my dark path.
I’ve committed myself and I’ll never turn back
    from living by your righteous order.
Everything’s falling apart on me, God;
    put me together again with your Word.
Festoon me with your finest sayings, God;
    teach me your holy rules.
My life is as close as my own hands,
    but I don’t forget what you have revealed.
The wicked do their best to throw me off track,
    but I don’t swerve an inch from your course.
I inherited your book on living; it’s mine forever—
    what a gift! And how happy it makes me!
I concentrate on doing exactly what you say—
    I always have and always will.

Psalm 119:105-112
-The Message

Repairing ripped jeans

DD(12) asked me to mend 2 of her fav jeans. I was willing to only if she ripped the seams for me.  We had a look in my crate of scraps (jipee I'm going to destash) and we found cool Australian themed scraps.  The Union Jack and the USA flag is the trend so I thought I'll promote Down Under.  A dear Crafty Mama answered my cry for scraps which were boy themed and sent me lovely pieces of fabric. 

DD12 is very happy with the end result:

Textile painted application

After months and months of not being really creative apart from a couple of scrap cards and mini albums I've gotten into gear again.
I've painted a couple of  images with textile paint for a mini fair I went to. One got sold, I guess it is a bit too much for the people that visited. Anyway I thought it is time to sew one of them on a T-shirt. The trend this Summer is still prints with animals and dark blue (the only color I have hope for this Summer as I look hideous in the other trend colours: grass green, apricot and yellow!).

If the T-shirt wears out I can just cut out the dog and sew it onto something else. Over the years I've been so impressed with the quality of the textile paint. I've been washing and even tumble dried (evil! Not supposed to!) some textile painted items and they survive beautifully.

The first time I saw the French Bull dog is when I came to the NL. I thought it was the most ugliest dog I've ever seen. My husband (boy friend at that time) wanted one.. Ughhh! People do change I tell you, now I'm the one that wants a French BD and my husband is the one rolling his eyes. LoL

Ps.If you haven't seen the face I've painted and ironed onto a jacket click here

Avon, my youngest daughter, turns 4 on Sunday.

When I was sewing a backpack for a little friend of hers a while ago she wanted one too. She especially wanted the fabric with blue and white dots. When she saw scraps two very sweet Crafty Mamas (Papillon and Missmagic) sent me, Avon picked the Owl fabric.

Unfortuantely I can't remember which CM sent me the owls, sorrry :( I've asked for scraps for projects just like this one so I can use up my stash (the black and white dots) and the cute fabrics. Thank you both of you nice women for taking the time and effort to send me a bag with your fabrics. ♥♥♥

So...I sat down today, acutally wanted to do it on sewing Wednesday :) but okay I'm on Africa timing it seems. I used a Starry, starry night background for the cute owls.

Again my scraps of zpagetti came in very handy for the draw strings and farbenmix ribbo I still have to use. I'm almost at a point where I'm allowed to buy new ones ;)

It is not visible but I've stitched a fancy stitch looking like twigs in green all over the top of the bag on the black just to over do it hie-hie.

                 Our Ouessant ewe gave birth this morning 

to a wee little lamb. 

As Ouessant are mini sheep the lamb is minute lol

I still have to check closely but it seems to be a little ewe!

It is her first lamb and she is a fine mother, I can tell. Her voice is changed now, normally she will bleat like a new born baby but now wen she wants to assure her lamb she sounds like Marge Simpson!

Pirate Drawstring bag

I got this nice order from a friend to make her little boy a drawstring bag and that he likes pirates.  I surfed the internet for for some patterns and made him a drawstring backpack and used pirate scraps I got from a Crafty Mama.

Textile Painted Face

On a lazy Sunday afternoon I got my textile paint out again and painted two faces. The one I've sewn on a white jacket I got from a friend for my teen daughter. I guess if you click on the photo's you can study the details ;)

 I've added a bit of fancy stitching

Made my own first embroidery

(small photo eeek!) I drew the head of a deer then looked for and embroid the lines with a back stitch. After looking for ways to make some roses (which I embroid in 3 colours) I've found the deer had to be filled so just filled it with what I think is a satin stitch.
I wanted to use the Tolkien quote for a while now so thought it would fit the embroidery. Below I've embroid the translation of the quote in my Mother tongue : South African. By the way is the past tense of embroid: embroid?

Zpagetti

It took me a while to finish this, not because it was difficult but because I didn't have enough chocolate zpagetti.  After searching for a while had some luck and then found it! Ok but then I was all out of my zpagetti mode so chucked it in the corner. It is finished now and I'm happy with the way it turned out. 

Trying my hand at something new

I've been wanting to do this for a while now.... 

So when my husband took the kids and the dog for a walk while I was recovering from 3 days of migraine, I dove into my creativity. 

The best prescription to lift one's spirits. 

I used a lot of paint, gesso, gold, glitter and ink 

from the Ranger range and ta-dah:

Flowers may fade

but

fragrant memory lingers

She's painted in a COMPLETELY different style so I'm quite chuffed with myself!

Flagline

Still owed a photo of the flag line I made for my 8y0's b-day in July. I made one last year which in my opinion was prettier. On our visit to South-Africa in 2010 my oldest daughter turned 10 and I took the flagline with. Upon visiting one of my best friends I decided to do her a pleasure and gave her the flag line. This year my second child kept reminding me to have a finished one in time for her b-day in June. Well, I made the deadline.

I've cut 28 flags with a stencil I made from cardboard

and then used my rotary cutter to cut the triangles

I locked two flags at a time, right sides facing outwards, together

I then add them all randomly sewing them on 3m of bias binding

the binding is pink so I used a double zigzag stitch in red to create a very cute look

I made this line mostly with reds and pinks

my eldest turns 11 in October and I'd like to make her a blue/green one as she's not a pink girl

I'd like to make myself a black/white one but a dash of colour won't hurt at all :)

we"ll see

Little Mona Lisa when she was still a poor girl

I've found her at a local market in Pende, Piccard, France. Was a lovely market with no tourists to be spotted apart from us. I saw her and fell in love with the browns(unfortunately not well seen on the photo), her simplicity and her observing glance. Love her.

The flowers on the dyke

We live on a dyke in The Netherlands and I just love the flowers growing on it!

Vintage Chandelier

Got this beautiful vintage chandelier from my aunt. She bought it at a local market in Belgium. Isn't it beautfiul? I'm going to enjoy the light from it in my hobby room and later it will be moved to my downs

tairs toilet. I'm planning to give it the vintage charcoal/withered

pink/cream look. Can't wait

I've carefully cleaned it today and now it is up to hubby to mount it for me.

Strawberry key rings for sale

LARGE Strawberry key rings for sale 6,5x5,5cm (measured without key ring)

- 4.50 Euro a piece

♥ EUROPE: NO postage added (max of 3 p/order)

♥ OUTSIDE EUROPE: No postage added per shipment with a max of 3 p/order

♥ Accepting paypal for buyers outside The Netherlands

♥ Fair Trade:NO child labor

♥Handmade in a Cat free&Smoke free environment

♥Note:orders are not insured to keep shipping cost as low as possible♥

LARGE DARK BLUE STRAWBERRY:

LARGE PURPLE STRAWBERRY:

LARGE RED STRAWBERRY:

LARGE LIGHT BLUE STRAWBERRY:

LARGE LIGHT PINK STRAWBERRY:

PLEASE MAIL YOUR ORDERS TO ME

OR LEAVE ME A COMMENT BELOW

Cupcake keyrings

I've made two new cupcake keyrings today.

The cupcake without the keyring and ribbons is 6x6cm

a red one

and a pink one for girly girls :)

peasant top

I just love this pattern:

Potrait Peasant top @ youcanmakethis.com

I've made it twice (like this one) and will definitely not stop making them

and surely try some more variations:

sorry again for the not-so-crisp photo. It is just so easy to take a photo with my BB and send it to my pc wherever I am. Unfortunately the weather is often very dark here in the NL.

The fabric I've used was from Dapper (2011)

new line of fabric, very cute, very bold.

Kyla reversible dress

I've been wanting to make this dress for a couple of months. Every time I started out I ran into the print sizing. I've been making e-patterns for some time now and didn't have any printing issues until I ran into this one. I still don't know why. It doesn't matter what I click or "un" click it just didn't want to work out. I've been mailing the author and probably made her crazy cause she can't look into my head and my printer. She tried her best but to no avail.

Today I felt it was a good day to tackle the pattern and printed it and made the size 4 pattern for my skinny 2 year old. It seemed to work out perfect. Very neat solid patter, good explanation for a pea brain like me. If I can't visualize something I'm struggling.

Normally I choose very bold colors and prints but this time I've kept it small. It looks cute though the photo's aren't clear enough so I'll have to make some close-up photo's with my camera cause I've used my phone for these. I was too lazy for the camera :)

I've used two stenzo prints but used a thrift store fabric for example on the border.

I didn't want to cut up my other fabrics.

Again the print in the reversed side isn't that clear. Sorry.

I've made a little application on this side so that the bias band repeated somewhere else on the dress: