A few weeks ago Lisa Manuels openend her own little shop in Rotterdam Noord "Elle Aime", I'm excited about this for several reasons, one of them being that I love seeing such inspiring and creative shops opening their doors in my neigbourhood and the other is to see my work in such a light and pretty place surrounded by such a great range of products. If you are visiting Rotterdam you should come to Noord and visit this cute shop and the other creative/trendy places this area has to offer and be sure to sit down for a cup of tea at Lof der Zoetheid. For the ones who are not in the Netherlands, Lisa is working on a international online shop!!

Summer sewing

I did sew some new summer clothes for the girls in the last few weeks but didn't have the time to take any pictures yet. I wanted to make some green clothes for the girls this season but I could not find any nice green fabrics, so when I was cleaning my workroom and I found a nice yellow/greenish silk skirt from my grandmother I thought it could make a nice skirt for Sofia ( and it took me just 20 min to make!!) I found the green shirt at Zara that makes the look complete. Today Sofia is wearing it to school, I guess she'll be the only girl there wearing a silk skirt ;-) But I think my grandmother would have loved it!

Sneak preview...

While we are busy preparing for Sofia's birthday party I'm also working behind the screens on a online publication about how to create a Bird themed birthday party, based on Mila's 8th birthday party. Since I get so many positive comments about the parties we create I thought it could be fun to share the party in a diffrent way this time with bigger and more pictures and some tutorials, tips and shopping ideas. I hope to put it online somewhere next week and hope you will enjoy it!!

I'm in love with our garden...

We are living in the centre of the city and we are so lucky to have a garden, our appartment is small only 75m2 but our garden is big for a city garden 80m2. I feel so lucky to have this garden and love spending time there. Now our garden looks even more lovely with this new table I created with my girls. We made this from a stool we found on the street, took of the seating and added a piece of wood with rounded corners. The mozaiek we made with left over tiles from kitchen and bathroom. The blue tiles go so well with the blue and purple Flowers from the garden. It feels so nice to create something pretty and usefull with leftovers and junk.

Skyline packages

The first packages with the free piece of skyline fabric are on it's way to their new owners. As I told you before I love wrapping packages and made some hand screenprinted stickers to decorate these packages. If you like to get your own piece of skyline fabric, you get one free with each doll/rabbit set you buy in my shop this week.

Sewing party prepartations 1 #

Sofia started collecting ideas and making drawings for her party in this notebook I made for her and I went to the fabric store to buy some of the fabrics we want to use for the party and some cute ribbons and cherry's too...

Special Dutch offer

For an other project I was busy designing a Dutch skyline screenprint, inspired by my hometown Rotterdam and could not help to sew these little skyline skirts. The Paris doll and Rabbit happily wanted to model thes new skirts in the typical Dutch grass land ( I love playing with my dolls ;-) Do you like these skirts to? Here is my offer, with each doll/rabbit set you buy this week you get a free piece of Dutch skyline fabric, so you can make 2 skirts instead of 1. You can find the sets in my shop here.

Here we start again...

Sofia's 10th birthday is coming closer and we really have to start to work on party preparations. She really wanted to do a sewing party with her friends and I thought it would be a great idea. Here is a mozaik I made with the inspiration for the party, lots of buttons, gingham, red, white and black and red summer fruits and lots of icecream and cupcakes. To see the link to the pictures go here.

Sunny days are here again.

Last week the weather was cold and rainy, now the sun is back again and we spend our days in the garden, planting our herbs and tomatoes. We got the nice paper windmill from Jessica!! This morning I had finally some time to get behind my sewing machine and added an extra piece of fabric to Mila's favourite dress so she can wear it an other year.

Mixing and matching a shop update

It's been a busy and hectic week here and I'm happy the weekend is coming soon. Today I'm spending some time to tidy up my work room. I have a small room and just to many things, so I decided to clear out and also try to list some sale items next week. To start things of I'm in the process of sorting my screenprinted scraps and created 3 new creature mix sets and uploaded them in the shop. I hope with clearing my workroom I can also clear my head and be better focused on my work.

Macarons and lovely people....

Yesterday I had a booth at the Swanmarkett in Rotterdam, in the morning I had my doubts but it turned out to be a great day, about 80 stalls with food and crafts, nice music and lots of nice people ( and good sales). Mila came with me and she had te best time eating macarons and cupcakes and looking at all the great stalls.

I was lucky with my lovely neighbour Jessica and it was great meeting the ladies of House of dots and other bloggers like Michelle, Petra, Marlous, Karin en Caroline.

KCWC day 1 & 2

KCWC started this monday, I had a bit of a slow start because there is so much I need to do and finish. I sewed this short for Sofia, it's made of red linnen and I added some of my screenprinted Kokeshi fabric for the inside of the pockets. It's the first ever short I made and I think it turned out quite nice and Sofia is happy with her Fashion must have for this summer!! Trying to get back to the sewing machine tonight and sew up a top or dress for Mila.

New tissue holders

I really enjoy making these tissue holders, I listed some of them in my shop

Souvenirs de Paris totebag

This morning in the supermarket I noticed how many people use a lot of those small (free) plasticbags, I really can't understand it! I have always at least two cotton bags in my bag for my shopping and think more people should stop using plastic bags or at least use less. With this in mind I've made some new Paris totebags for my shop, they come in a small cotton pocket.

Flow Saturday Market

Is there a better way to start this sunny saturday ? Today my etsy-shop is featured on the blog of one of my favourite magazines Flow.

Button help !!

***update, thanks for the tips, I found a dutch webshop and bought the last button mould!!, she will order the button lolie pops too. That's one thing sorted!***

For Sofia's 10th birthday party ( in June) we are planning a sewing party. Of course we have already plenty ideas. For her party we are looking for the chocolate/ candy moulds, they are quite easy to find in the US and not to pricy but the shipping costs are crazy.....shipping two moulds is about 40 euro's!!!! We really want these, does anybody have an idea how to get these with lower shipping costs, dutch online shops don't have this in their collection. Any tips or ideas are welcome!!

Longing for Paris

Somedays I'm daydreaming about a little trip to Paris...stroling around the lovely streets, eating a jummie macaron. Don't you love the little Harmonica book with these Paris drawings, a sweet gift from Diana.

A morning in our garden

The second week of school holidays for the girls, they are enjoying themselves playing hairdresser in their salon in the garden. Earlier today we started on this project, tiling a small table ( a stool we found on the street ) with the tiles that where left over from our kitchen/bathroom. Now the glue needs to dry and then we have to fill the gaps. I like the look already and the colours go well with the flowers in our garden, there is and other table waiting for the same treatment.....

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our cat timmie is enjoying the garden as well

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Season of colour

Yesterday at H&M these shoes where looking at me, the last pair in red...in my size, I just had to buy them. Sofia said "mum are you sure....these are not the type of shoes I thought you would wear...." But I like them a lot, I guess she was so suprised because I usually only wear black and other darker colours. So here is to change in my wardrobe, perhaps I should buy a red t-shirt as well!

Queensday

Saturday we celebrated Queensday here in the Netherlands. We had the best day, the weather was perfect, lovely and sunny and the girls had so much fun. On friday they decorated some carton boxes and we baked popcorn and decorated cupcakes. To make the look complete I made some cute aprons and put flowers in their orange wigs. They walked along the street with their best friend selling their jummie cupcakes and popcorn and got so many lovely comments.