love lemons and polymer clay

Oooh we had such a lovely weekend, saturday the girls and i met my parents at the trainstation, and went to the zoo in Rotterdam! It was such a lovely day, we all enjoyed each others company and had loads of fun!!

But that wasn't what i wanted to blog about...


Last week it was warm and sunny weather, really lovely. And the perfect time to make lemon lemonade :) But not with sugar, this time i used stevia powder, you know the plant from wich the make sweetner? First i grated the zest of 5 or 6 lemons, then juiced them. Put the zest and the lemonjuice in a pot and added a cup of water and boiled for a few minutes. After cooling down i added 2 small teaspoons of steviapowder. And shaked it very well. Then put the lemonjuice in the refrigerator.

Personally i like it most with sparkling water, i use 1part lemonjuice 2 parts of sparkling water... soooo refreshing!!

And now for the polymer clay part. When i started crocheting, i bought some cheap hooks, but i found my hands didn't like these very thin hooks. I did see, thicker needles but why buy more if you already got them?? So i deciced to try and make them thicker myself withpolymer clay. Fitst task was to locate the clay, i hadn't used it in ages. But finally found a few little pieces. It was HARD to get it smooth and workable again. But i got the clay a bit warm...

Then i just mad a flat rectangle moulded it around my hook, added some decoration, made from canes from wich they slice very thin layers used to decorate nails. I'm not a nails decoration person, but i do like those canes for all kinds of things ! And finally baked my hooks for half an hour in the oven. And now no more cramp in my hand!!

And i made a start with my ripple blanket !!

Have a nice day!!

am lucky

Last mondaynight just before getting to bed, i noticed my wallet was missing.... oh no!!! I turned the whole house upside down, bit it was nowhere to be found. So it was either stolen or lost... next morning i went looking, went to the store i visited last, i called the bank to block my accounts. I hate the feeling of something is lost, i keep looking untill i will find it. But in this case i couldn't find. Out of frustration i started cleaning out my kitchen cupboards. But suddenly the phone rings, and there is a lady from cityhall, asking if i lost anything? A man found my wallet (in the middle of the night!!) and brought it there. Even my 10 euro's where in it, all my cards, my driverslicence!! It made me sooooo happy and thankfull for that honest person!


Later that dat my knitting friend came by with her husband, they asked if i could make a orifricehook for his spinning wheel. I made 3 different ones on my lathe, so he could choose wich one he liked best. I'm afraid i forgot to take a picture, so i can't show you!


But while my friend was here, my package arrived. My tax money returned so i thought that was a nice reason to buy some more stylecraft dk yarn. And oh a wonderfull BIG box arrived from this webshop wich sells this yarn cheaper then other shops i found. But it's even more fun to have a friend around when you're opening a box full of yarn!! And oooh all those colors!!!

Oh and the roses we bought on the market, opened lovely... and i finished my little flat circle...

And i really like the idea of making a crochet blanket, i really like the ripple design of lucy from attic24 but before making a whole blanket, i started with a cushion cover.

And easy to take a long on fishing trips :)

And yes that did catch fish, loads of little small ones, a few snails and little critters from the water. And had loads of fun!!


So with all that new yarn i am definitely going to make a blanket for on the couch. But first i need to finish my cushion cover!


Have a nice weekend everyone!!

Seaglass

I remember reading about seaglas online, i was immediately interested! I admit i'm a bit of a magpie, i love to search for colorfull things. The idea you could find all these colorfull pieces of glass on the beach made my heart jump. When the girls and i visited the beach a few weeks ago we spent quite some time looking for nice shells and we would have loved to find seaglass, but i don't think we have it here...


So i was very happy when i found out there were several etsy shops selling seaglass finds. My daughter and i searched, and we ended up at this shop i ordered small pieces, seafoam colors, a bag of brown ocre colors and greens. They arrived very quick, send on saturday and it arrived on tuesday! Oh and opening those packages was so much fun... a lot of oooh's and aaah's.. there was also an extra bag with colorfull pieces as a gift! I have some great ideas with them.. but for now we enjoyed all the pieces, admired them, stacking them...

And then we got some oil and rubbed that onto our seaglas, even the youngest helped with this special job!! And now it really looks like little pieces of crystal!

I time i hope i can make the ideas i have with this glass pieces, found some great ideaa on pinterest. For now we enjoy the pieces and dream about the future, when we hope to spend a vacation in the united kingdom, hopefully close to the seaside ;)

Need some happiness! This last week wasn't a very happy one. So i was really in need for some relaxing crochet... and even more, happy colors to lift the spirit. So i made a cover for our quite boring lamp... from a plain white lamp, to this rainbow flower lamp. Very easy to make, and for the cheerfullness added all kinds and colorfull flowers.

The girls love it a lot, my husband only said it was colorfull, that could be interpreted positive?! It's very eye catching indeed.


Today it was lovely weather, full of sunshine and quite warm to. so in the morning we went to the market in the city, where i bought this beautifull flowering plant. It was cheap, and pink, so my oldest daughter said it was perfect!

We also decided to buy some roses, delicate pink, with a hint of green, they are not fully in bloom yet... so i will make pictures later this week. They smell divine!! And that for only €2,50! Most roses you buy, don't have a delicious rose smell, and these do, so i have gave them a place next to my chair, so i will be sniffing a lot the next couple of days. I remember my grandparents had a lovely pink rose bush next to their front door. It too smelled sooo good, to bad we always used the backdoor.


We endend up at Doppio we sat outside sipping coffee, or in my case a Chai tea latte, and my husband ordered a lovely cheesecake and a chocolate truffel cake!! So we had a little party in the sun! With some imagnition we were back in Paris (we spent there our last holiday before the girls were born there). That vacation we drank lots of coffee and just enjoyed watching all the people walking by and our surroundings


In the afternoon the girls had a lovely time in the garden, cathing bugs, playing with sand and water (best toys ever!!)so i joined them with some crocheting. I made this happy little string of little triangles! Designed by Lucy from attic24

Oh and our seaglass arrived!!! But i will tell you more about that in another blog!

Need a rainbow! Yay i finished the cover for the milkingstool my dad made for me!! It looked like this

And with my new yarn (stylecraft special DK) i made this rainbow cover. I just made a flat circle with HTR's, and it gives such a great look on the stool... i'm doubting about giving our lamp the same cover... it's now quite boring plain white...

And now my little happy stool looks like this!

I promised to make some pictures of my new melamine salad bowl and the first plates of hopefully a big collection of colorfull plates and bowls and cups and... oh well... first i have to find a moneytree in the garden :)
I do have a coffee set from RICE, but i forgot to make a picture of it... coming soon i promise!
The bowl and green plates are from green gate, the blue ones are brandless. And don't you agree a sandwich does taste nicer from a plate like this!

Have a nice day!!!!

Am feeling yarn-ish, wich isn't a real word, but i'm very happy with the arrival of a large package of yarn! Stylecraft Special double knit actually, it feels amazing, not acryllic at all, and the shades are beautifull, i'm so happy with it!! I just picked 13 colors i really liked... look aren't they the most lovely happy fresh colors!!

I finished my little happy balls for our happy tree! The design is from Lucy from attic24. Just little fun projects to make with leftover yarn, or in my case with these cute little balls of cotton, 5 for €1,29.

I definitely have to buy more buttons, i looked trough my box of buttons, but there aren't much smaller colorfull ones left. I did manage to find some. Hopefully the action will have them in stock again soon!

I got my mothersday gift from my husband a bit early, he wanted to buy me very expensive (and i admit very very delicious) chocolates, but i didn't want him to spend so much money! So we decided to get very delicious pasta at our favorite shop. We also got olives and onions in balsamic vinegar and dates filled with creamcheese. And we just had an amazing dinner!! We did save the dates for tonight. I did buy happy flowers on the market, gerbera's, 10 of them, but both my girls got their own flower from the lady in the flower stall, so now we have 12 and all those colors make me feel happy even though it's been a very wet day!

And now i'm going to get my new yarn and a needle and atart on the cover for my milkingstool and watch/listen to the european songfestival!

Am content. Today we had a lovely day at home after all those days away. The girls and i definitely needed a quiet day! This morning started with cleaning and clearing, because my knittingfriends came. After being sick and not feeling up to do household chores and being away a few days it was quite a mess. But my friends arrived and we had a cup of coffee with a lovely appelcake made by my niece. We had a lovely morning, catching up on our projects and life. We see each other every couple of weeks for 4 years now! I always love our meetings! After that the girls watched a movie and i spent a while on pinterest and sewed some granny squares together.

During that time, we had lots of rain and wind and thunder!! But you know what they say... after rain comes sunshine, so we spend a lovely sunny time in the garden, cleaning the guinea pigs castle, playing, cleaning the shells we collected on the beach on tuesday. And i removed some branches from our lilactree, they had no flowers or leaves. One of those branches got a second life indoors ;) we wanted a branch to decorate, and this was the most perfect branch!! We already put our little birdies in it.

I also did some ahopping today, on etsy i found a shop Alienstoatdesigns owned by Ruth who sells amazing beach finds!! You know i told about the seaglass? Well she collects and sells seaglass!! She has a wonderfull collection of colors. I bought seafoam colors and greens and goldenbrowns. She is very quick and had already send the package my way. So hopefully by the end of next week i can see my seaglass treasures! Blush blush i did bought more... 13 colors of stylecraft DK, i've read great things about this yarn. And what i love even more it has a wide range of colors. Most acryllic yarns that are sold overhere are very limited in their colors. So i was happy when someone on ravelry told they also sell it overhere in the netherlands. If everything goes well it will be delivered tommorrow!!!! Yay!!! My knittingfriend asked me if i could make a orifrice hook for her husband spinningwheel, so somewhere next week i hope to find some time to play with my lathe again!! So i wish you a wonderfull weekend!! As colorfull as my new glass little vases i bought at the secondhand shop, they are do happy!!

Am home again. Yesterday morning my girls and i travelled by train to my parents for two days. My parents still live in the lovely small town i grew up. And how i would love to live there again. I love walking around, seeing the beautifull nature, familiar places and faces. Something i still miss after already living 8 years in the big city now. Like we went to get some eggs at a farm and when we drove away in the next field we saw five deer grazing, in the middle of the day. I love those moments!! We had great fun visiting some secondhand shops! I bought some wonderfull colorfull vases!! I will make a picture soon! We also went to buy the girls new klompen (wooden shoes) the ones from last year got to small, they both picked pink ones. I really enjoy it, they love to wear them, and they're the only girls i ever did see wearing klompen in our city.

I was on the look out for a small milking stool, but i couldn't find one. So i asked my mother if she would look when she was at a secondhand shop. But my dad said he could make me one. We did bought a rake and used that to make the three legs :) i want to crochet a round cushion on it. We also went for a walk in the evening, with some cousins. We had great fun and saw a geese family

And a beautifull pink flowering chesnut tree

And this vibrant Rhododendron bush!

Tomorrow morning my 2 knitting friend come visit again, i'm really looking forward to that!! For now only one more picture, cause i'm a little homesick ;) this are the windows in my parents house, i really love them, looking at them brings so many great memories!!