Today Sofia was supposed to go to the birthday party of her friend M( daughter of Hetty), sadly Sofia came out of school sick and could not join the fun, we did give M her present and hope she enjoys her birthday and the birthday present. Since Sofia's party M has been busy with sewing so we thought a sewing set would make a good gift. The set includes handmade buttons ( by Sofia), needlebook, embroidery thread, iron on figures some cute beads and fabric ribbons. 
One of the things on our to do list was to visit Laduree and buy some macarons, the shop was worth a visit, so pretty and well presented. So many different flavours it was really hard to choose....we bought two boxes of 8, one to take home and one to test right away. We sat down on the stairs of a nearby church and had a baguette with brie and had a macaron as dessert. The macaron tasted really good, perfect crisp from the outside and soft and tasty from the inside. Our favourite taste was Cassis, fresh and fruity and not to sweet. So when you are in Paris treat yourself to some jummie macarons from Laduree.
We are back from Paris, we had such a great time. The weather was great, sunny and warm and it felt like a real holiday. It was so nice to go on this mother-daughter trip, spending quality time together, seeing Paris through her eyes. Normally when I go to Paris alone I run around and don't take time to sit in parcs and eat macarons, visit the pet shops watching cute puppies and kittens and eat ice creams. We did some ( sale)shopping and I took some pictures of cute boutiques to post on my Paris blog and spend some time with my friends Maud and Marine.
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Thanks for all the comments on my 5 year blog birthday, I still haven't read them all and you can still comment, I will pick the winner on thursday the 30th
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I've been blogging for 5 years already, my blog birthday was in march but i totally forgot about it. Also I noticed the fact that I have 500 followers since a few days, that's quite a number I think. I really enjoy having this blog and it brought me a lot of good things for my work and also for me as a person. I spend quite some time on blogging and it means a lot to me to read your comments, see pictures of project (or birthday) parties that where inspired by posts on my blog and getting feedback on the things I make and do. I've been thinking a lot about my blog and where I want to go with it from here, I invest quite some time in it and have to decide what to do next. Should I start with ads ( not really my thing) or sell pdf's of project or ..... 
How I love composing these remnant sets, I always want to keep them myself and sew them into cushions or patched bedspreads, of course I kept some but I also listed a few of these set in my etsy shop here so you can get creative with them too.
When I visited Amsterdam a few week ago with Sofia and Mila we found this great shop Roppongi it's on the Rozengracht just across the street of Kitch Kitchen. We spend quite some time in there and had a nice chat with one of the owners ( she even showed us how to make a origami decoration). The shop is divided in two levels, downstairs you can find all to create a delicious Japanese (sushi) meal and on the streetlevel they have a selection of Japanese goodies like books, origami paper, japanese tape, my favorite brand Madame mo and much more kawaii items... So if you are in Amsterdam be sure to visit this shop or visit them online here in their webshop.
This thursday I will go on a trip to Paris with my sweet Mila, we are very excited to go on this trip together, last time we did this was winter 2008, cold and windy weather. When I asked Mila what we should do she said, shopping and eating macarons....i think I like that idea. We look forward to meet my friends Maud, Marine and Julie and stay at their lovely boutique near Bastille. I'm looking through my Paris adres book what places we want to visit and finally started uploading some of the pictures I took in December for my Paris blog. So if you like to go to Paris with us...just visit my Paris blog for some window shopping, I'll be posting some more shops later this week.
My workroom is small and I have just to many things, so I need to tidy up and make space. My work and products have changed during the years and I need to sell my old stock. So I have decided to start a sale shop where I will upload products from old collections, one of a kinds, showmodels. I started with uploading the last underwear sets. I'll be uploading some t-shirts next and there is a lot more to come. You can find my saleshop here!!
It's raining here all day long,what better way to spend your day inside and do some craft. Yesterday I found a great site with lots of tutorials to make origami figures, very well explained with animations that you can stop and play forward and backwards. You should visit the site and take a look, I think you'll be hooked just like me and the girls...
Sofia and Mila have a sewing fever, they love spending time behind Sofia's sewing machine ( our present for her birthday). They sewed these cushions and decorated them with iron on 'velour', this is such a fun material to have around, just cut out shapes and iron on your fabric, great to decorate t-shirts and pesonalize gifts, you can order it here. An other gift for her birthday are the labels we have ordered for her and her sister, they are talking about starting a blog and opening their own webshop.....
We really enjoyed our lazy long weekend, after a very busy saturday. Sofia's party went great, first our livingroom was changed into a sewing cafe and filled with ten girls dressed in black/white and red and eager to learn some sewing skills. They all made a skirt of gigham fabric and ate icecream, cakes and button cookies. A big thanks to my sweet mum who was a big help with the girls and the sewing machine, I could not have done it without you, big kiss! I heard back of some of the parents that their daughters came back home with a sewing bug ( that is a good thing right!! you can read here). In the evening we continued the party with friend and family. I took lots of photos that I want to share with you an other time.
So it's quite busy here, baking button cookies and chocolate cakes and preparing the fabric piles for the girls sewing tomorrow. Thank you all for the sweet birthday comments!! 
My sweet Sofia is 10 today, I cannot believe she's a teenager now! And I cannot believe I have been a mum for ten years, I'm so lucky having my sweet Sofia as a daughter I love her so much and look forward seeing her grow up even more ( but not to fast please!!) We started the morning with croissants and presents, we gave her a sewing machine.....oh you should have seen her face, she loves it! We made some cupcakes for her classmates with icing and chocolate buttons and decorated with flags made of fabric and patterns. Today we will take it easy and go out for sushi, just the four of us, saturday will be the big party!
Tomorrow is the big day and my sweet girl wil become a teenager!! Here are the finished invitations for Sofia's sewing party. It was fun working on them together, with the invitation comes a tatoo Sofia designed, the idea is that all the guest will wear one and we also have a dress code red/white and black. There are still so many things to finish before tomorrow but they are all nice things like baking cupcakes, sewing a party dress, decorating the house and wrapping presents so no complaints from me. Better get back to work! Thanks for all the sweet words, I still have a cold but i'm feeling a bit better now.
The last few months I was working on a project with the ladies of Driehoek and Ibuki, the project is an expo about dutch (kids)design in Japan. To bad I'm not able to visit the expo myself in Tokyo but luckily Ebony from the inspiring blog Hello Sandwich visited the expo and made some nice pictures that I could share with you. With the expo comes a zine about the dutch way of life, books and a interview and feature about the kidsparties we have organized for the girls in the last few years. It's nice to see them together like that. You can vistit the blog Coranda for more pictures and info and if you haven't visited the blog of Ebony yet please do and be sure to take a look at her gift wrapping zine!!
Last week we bought some Japanese tape in Amsterdam, it was hard choosing wich ones to buy, the designs and colours are so nice!! Mila told me that she thought her bed looked a bit boring and asked meif she could use some tape to decorate, the wall stickers of the bird and snail where already there, she made the rest. I love how it turned out, that is the fun thing with the Japanese tape, you can be creative but don't have to worry about the walls.
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam with the girls and visited some of our favourite stores and found some new favourites too. One of the shops we love is 'Het Grote Avontuur' a shop full of prettiness, if you like folklore, dessins, romantic items this is the place to go. The shop is located in the Haarlemmerstraat, here you can find lots of nice shops, design, kidstoys and also another favourite of ours Papabubble.
