fabric scrap tree

I have been wanting to wrap something with fabric scraps for years now. Originally I wanted to wrap the frame of a lamp shade so I still have that one on my list to do. As my 10 year old had a party coming up I swatted the two flies in one go. My husband sawed some thin branches into 20cm parts. I had some wire left which I used for making jewelry so I bended some roots, wrapped the wire around the "tree trunk" and made some Baobab type of branches at the top. I was wondering how I should made the branches and then finally ended it in little creative curls. I wrapped the tree with scraps of fabric and for the girls at the party I had a heap of torn fabric and did the "wiring" beforehand for them. During Christmas I picked up a piece of jewelry from one of my daughters and clipped it onto the little branch. Well, that gave me an idea and asked the owner to bring me some more! So the little scrap Baobab ended up being an artistic Christmas tree:

Winter Fun

It was time to make some new paintings for school, Christmas was gone and I had to paint again something with a winter theme. I painted on the two glass panels at the main entrance a little stove, red hot, with a bit of smoke and a sleeping cat on a pillow on the other panel.

I owe you the photo's.

Then due to a lack of time a sick kids I painted on both sides of an A3 poster so that I can just tape it to the glass panels of another door.

I painted a red robin as I just love their attitude, very very inquisitive and cocky.

a close-up:

I painted the body of the robin with gold and copper which created a beautiful effect

And I painted a penguin on the other side:

The falling snow was done with a natural spunge

This penguin must be a Jackass penguin from South Africa as all the others live in the Antarctic and are used to cold weather.

Flora fox as wisteria wolf :)

When I saw the Flora Fox fabric from Farbenmix I just COULDN'T resist! Though I had a stash I just HAD TO add 1m of foxy deliciousness. To make up for my backsliding behaviour I've used 2 fabrics from my stash (winter stenso range from I don't know which year). I got the stenso fabric in a suprise box and wasn't happy with it in the beginning but then Flora arrived.

I also saw this pattern on youcanmakethisand it just invites one to use it! The pattern I'm tlaking about is the Audrey ruffle skirt .I love ruffles, I love the author of this pattern's creations and I just have millions of ideas what to do on that front panel/apron.

The check apron seperate from the front panel. The fabric below the apron is a corduroy.

I cheated a bit and used(at last!) a farbenmix ribbon of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf for a finishing touch on the apron and on the top ruffle at the back:

At the back I've only made three ruffles on the pattern you can make up to six! I adore ruffles but am not that eager when it comes to sewing them.

I've used too much flash on the photo's which is a pity because the colours are vivid and a wealth to look at.

I've finished the skirt just in time for my parents-in-law's 40th marriage celebration.

Flora Fox just invites one making snazzy creations.

• Check out Sara's jounal cover at WillowandMoo.
• Peta treated herself with this neat Flora Fox embroidery on a skirt at Onelittlestitch
• please if you have a flora fox creation leave a comment and share the fun!

Baby Jesus

I was asked by the decorating mothers of school to please paint an A3 poster for the background of the one display table around the December theme . Everything is decorated with snow, bells, and anything wintery or Christmas like and the school is actually a Christian school. I missed something why we celebrate Christmas and I think we can all do with some warm love in the cold dark days of Christmas:

John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I painted baby Jesus:

I painted the star with 3D gel which was fun:

I gave him a cute little face because God gave Him to us because He loved us so much. Jesus knew complete love!

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

painting on glass

Every season or festival/happening I paint on the primary school's windows or glass paneled doors. It is tricky because it is ordinary school acryl paint I'm painting with and not glass paint. It is very difficult to clean and time consuming. I ussualy clean and paint 2.5 hours at a time with a todler walking around me. I paint free hand and quick otherwise it would be a half day job! The result is the best it can be and anyway I only paint because nobody else wants to! lol

these below were for the headmaster when it was the month of her going away.

and the cupcake is giant 80x80cm

These ones below where for St.Nicholas. A celebration here in The Netherlands (Belgium and Germany) on the 5th of December

He rides on a white horse and his coloured helpers have Spanish clothes with a feather in the barette.

This deer I painted in the main hall and he is 1.5mx1.5m for fall 2010. It is very difficult to paint with ordinary Acryl on glass. What made this cute was when the sun shone from the back it created a nice colourplay

Fabric just for me me me!

I'm always creating for other people, or my kids. Well times have change, I"ve decided to sew something for myself. I've bought this four lovely fabrics from stenso (summer 2010 and the grey one on the right:winter 2010):

I wanted to make half circle skirts from the fabric for our holiday in South Africa. Okay I wanted to sew 4 skirts in 5 days apart from having to pack for 5 people, get the house tidy, feed the household and prepare all the animals for our going away. In my lunacy I drove everyone mad and of course my most favourite (far left) got caught in the knives of my overlocker. My two year old try to comfort me when I was crying in dispair. My 8 year old gave me 4 different solutions to rescue the situation. IN the end I've sewn the "v"cut close with little felt flowers in orange and pink and nobody saw any evidence of the accident. I've finished the buttons and seams in South Africa with my mother's sewing machine. The skirts looked very colourfull and I was very happy I did go through all the trouble to finish them. Here is a tutorial for making a half circle skirt.

Here are one of the skirts, photo taken in South Africa

Pencil cases for little girls

I needed gifts for two different parties, both girls turned 10.

I've decided to make pencil (or fill it with whatever) cases. I can't find the tutorial I've used but it is similar to this one. May it be obvious that I had fun making them:

• I've made the rose with a yoyo maker from clover.
• The leave I've made with felt and sewn some veins on it with my sewing machine

felted tulips from Amsterdam

My husband's grandmother passed away just before we went on holiday to South Africa, in October. I wanted to send flowers to his aunts and nieces but couldn't find nice online bouquets and especially for the prices, flowers seemed to be so temporary. I don't know how but I came across the idea to look for felted flowers. I just love their texture and they appearance had enough weight to convey what I feel without using words. I couldn't find flowers though especially because I had just 3 days. Etsy had a couple of beautiful ones but the delivery time was just too long or they weren't white, which I wanted. I've decided to make some myself and found a webshop (Het kleine atelier) with three white tulips. There is enough material enclosed to make 5 tulips. The technique used is dry and wet(white part) felting. I attached three circle labels made with my scrapbooking stock and attached it with an off-white satin ribbon. I wrote on the labels a small poem I came up with, our condolences and names. Though I really didn't have enough time it turned out well.

My baby is TWO

My mom used to make me beautifull cakes for my birthday parties. Very creative and lovely and delicious. I dreamt of making cakes for my kids. Well hello reality. Here in the Netherlands it is a different story. A lot of "I don't eat thats" and a lot of effort for nothing. I ended up eating the cake with my kids. So I've decided to change tactics. All children love cupcakes so that was going to be my show stopper when Avon turned TWO. If you can't beat them..join them. So I went to this terrible shop called Bakfeest ("bakefeast"). If you go in there you just CAN'T LEAVE EMPTY HANDED. The result:

100% succes garanteed

Easy fit pants

I bought this pattern (Easy fit pants) from youcanmakethis.com early last year and started to make two pants for my two girls. Well it all got stuck with my overlocker and the new ruffler foot I just COULDN'T FIGURE OUT (and still not!). So I chucked all in a little dark corner in my hobby closet. This Summer I checked if it still fitted the girls. Well both only fitted one so I finished them. The ruffles were made by hand. Sorry for the blurry photo, the background is in focus though lol. The pants is made with a Summer corduroy fabric and the ruffles are cherise with white dots (as are the rosettes on the peasant top)The pants still needs to be ironed

These pants I just finished with a cute bias band, I don't have a close-up of it but it looks like lace.

Bizzkids Summer 2006 skirt

I wanted to make this skirt since I bought the magazine in 2006. Yes, it took me 4 years to actually tackle it but now I can tick this one off my want-to-do list. A lot of blocks...and at a certain point I was asking myself why I can't just make a simple a-line skirt and get it over with. Not difficult to make though, one just need a bit of patience :) The fabric was propably stenso (if not then shout).

peasant top with peacocks

I really enjoyed making this peasant top!

Fabrics by stenso and pattern by youcanmakethis.com

I've made this pattern before as you can remember

T-shirt dress

I've followed this tutorial at CraftyMamas before and made a green/blue combination then. I keep forgetting to leave less space under the arms but anyway it worked out fine.

The fabric is stenso (it normally is so I think this too). It is a beautiful fabric not very visible on this photo as it as little golden dots and makes it look rich with cuteness.

I made roses with the cut off fabric using this tutorial by Tea Rose Home.

Hello Kitty

Had to quickly come up with a b-day gift for a 9 year old and as Hello Kitty is still very "in" I made a necklace:

I've placed it in a special birthday gift can with a fake bottom and then added a bunch of marshmallows. So When the b-day girl had to open the can (with a real can top!) she discovered only marshmallows so she handed them out and much to her surprise found the necklace in a cute green chiffon jewelry bag!

I like surprises, don't you?

so while I was at it I made my youngest 1.5yo her first

"mommy made" necklace and she loves it!

some more colour

as usual used gold and silver 3D liner to add extra detail. Silver and gold don't photograph that easy

acryl paintings for child's room

I got an order to make 6 paintings for a children's room. I painted them with Acryl and finished them with 3D gold and silver liners. Where the photo's are too shiny I used gold or copper acryl paint.

Four 20x20x1.5cm

Two 30x30x1.5cm

Cherries on top!

I made a peasant top to fit the zoe skirt and both are from the Youcanmakethis.com which patterns I just love to make. It is cherry time and I live in cherry country so why not add a couple more cherries. This fabric I got from a CraftyMama from Australia so it is very special in any case.

Pincushion going dutch

For the April Swap at Crafty Mamas you'll remember I got this little cuty.

I thought as it is going to Australia I'll give it a Dutch flavour so made a flower/rosette of Dutch Folk fabrics. The clogs stayed at home. I took the photo's on the dyke with a yellow buttercup as a silent witness.

Zoe Frilled Layer Skirt

I made this skirt for my 7 year old and this little cuteness picked it up from the sewing table and put it on! lol. Well, if I add straps it would make a lovely dress :)

I got the pattern from youcanmakethis.com and it is my second pattern I've tried out from the site. Well, nothing but compliments. This one again is so lovely written it is like getting a workshop from your aunt with all the extra tips and all the photo's and graphics. I can really recommend Zoe Frilled Layer Skirt. Though I am a Jack of all trades (master of none) I see myself as a beginner where it comes to sewing so these patterns are really easy to follow. (no I don't get comission for writing this lol). I was looking for an easy enough pattern where I can release my bottled creativity on and leave me a non-store bought look outfit! Oh and I really really need to get rid of my stash so I had to make it from already owned fabrics....

One evening, after all kiddies went to bed, I searched for the right combo of fabrics and cut the pattern pieces. I had to make a pink dress because it was little girl nr.3's turn for a home made dress and it had to be princess like... Well I thought my stash was mainly pink but far from it! I had more blues.... and I didn't have anything lace like for the top layer so I used netting(or whatever it is called it is terrible to cut straight!).

Another evening I strated overlocking the raw edges and making rolled seems. Gosh, am I glad I have an overlocker! I locked for the first time the netting and it went perfect. I used a darker yarn than the netting so it looked a bit more interesting and created a look that complimented the rest of the dress.

Evening number three a sewed the rest. Assembling all the pieces and making the ruffles. I am ruffle addicted but it does take a lot of time to make them. My overlocker does have a ruffler foot but I can't seem to really get the hang of it... Especially the manual isn't really helpful. I won't know how one calculates the ratio of fabric anyway...

This dress was fun to make and all the fabrics did match in the end. I just LOVE the dress and this will definitely not be the last one made from this pattern. My daughter just loved it!

ps. The cherry fabric came alll the way from Australia! I think it was from the generous Claire from "a little spunkiness"

That Pattern!

Yes! At last I tackled the pattern I've bought almost a decade ago for my firstborn and now I got a third chance to finish it for my youngest child:

It is maybe not that clear but I've added two duck shaped buttons in the middle front to go with the duck theme of the fabric used for the circular parts on this set. It all has a very Dutch Folk look and I think it looks very cute! ..and so I've taken part in the Crafty Mamas challenge for April: "That Pattern"!

The pattern: Koko & Nina