Presents for baby Thomas

Mart's brother and his wife had a beautiful little boy recently and I made them a couple of personalised presents. We sent everything to Australia in the mail as we won't be able to meet the latest addition to the family for a couple of months. In the meanwhile they'll have these to remember us by! :-)

I printed the jumpsuit and mint cloth with templates I cut out of freezer paper and the Sydney changing mat is a crumpled city map I quilted together with thick grey tracksuit fabric. The white jumpsuit is a nod to the fact that Mart's brother has a craft beer wholesale company. 

Graphic pillows

On our wedding day we were presented with a big and beautiful folder filled with amazing creations from all our guests; each and everyone of them had put together something on the theme of cows and kangaroos (I'm Swiss, hence the cows and... Mart's Australian so... there you go! :-)) 

There were collages, photos, cards, poems... someone even bought us a cow in a charity and put the certificate in the folder. So many beautiful, fun and thoughtful pieces from everyone.

My mum and my brother actually designed a special fabric for us, which they sent us a few meters of when we got back to the Netherlands. I love it and decided to make pillows with a tiny little touch of neon orange 'cause... I just couldn't resist!

Working on something new...

I'll show you when it's done.

P.S. the little kiwi is from here.

Colourful zipers

I bought lots of zippers and some pleather at the fabric market in November... and used them to make lots of colourful little presents for Christmas.

(I followed the same technique as for this little pouch. It was my very first time working with pleather, and everything went very smoothly. Much more so than I had anticipated!)

Soft colours for Mel

Today we are invited at Mel's for a summer party. It feels nothing like summer weather-wise but I have no doubt it will be lovely anyway!

I made her a little thank-you pouch and garland, with soft colours and a bit of fabric I printed just like these t-shirts (except I've now been using bleach instead of white ink as that wasn't that permanent after all...). :-)


P.S. I made the pouch following this tutorial (via here). Didn't think I would have to re-do some of the seams so many times before getting it right with the zipper but it worked out eventually...!
:-)

Happy bunting

Here are, as promised, a few photos of the present I made for Matilda's birthday. It was a lot of fun to put together and I could totally see myself making some more. The only tricky bit is that all the seams are in the bias of the fabric and hence tend to crinkle a bit. Still, it all ended really well.
If you want to give it a go, here is a great tutorial to show you how.

Baby cubes

Our friends had a little boy during the holidays. A cute little Marten, which we cannot wait to meet very soon.

As I had:

• plenty of free time,
• access to my mum's incredible collection of fabrics,
• and her great collection of ribbons,
• and all her sewing tools and diverse material,

I decided to make him a little set of fabric cubes to play with. They are all quite small and just adorable.

No more burning fingers

We have delicious coffee at my new work. But the cups are too thin to carry them back to the office without burning your fingers.

Here is the solution I came up with this afternoon. Hopefully there will be no more burning fingers!

Happy birthday Papa!

My Dad's birthday was a while ago already (on July 23rd) but I only managed to send him his 'Manly Pizza Dinner Set' this week. It consisted of a very cool pizza slicer and a set of napkins that I made with life-sized tools drawn on them.

Holiday outfit

It's almost holiday time! Yeepee!
Even our camera is ready; I've made it a new strap this morning.

I had thought about it for ages already, after seeing it here, but I was too much of a chicken to make it permanent. How could I ever have chosen the right fabric?
This version (via how about orange), which can be taken off and changed as many times as needed, suited my undecided mind much better.

Peonies and a new table cloth

With Mum's help we took a trip to Ikea yesterday. We came back with a new cupboard, a new bed, and fabric to make a table cloth. The cupboard and bed will have to wait a little before we put them up (we will need slightly less debilitating temperatures!) but we made the table cloth today - it looks lovely!
Oh, and Mum brought the peonies back from the market the other day... the bouquet is huge and absolutely beautiful!

Happy birthday Matilda!

Happy birthday little Matilda!
Two years already... it goes so fast!


Sorry Teresa, I know this is not your favourite Matilda song, but I can't help it: here is the song of the day!
Whenever I hear this song I remember the little show that Andrew, my Australian host brother, and his classmates had prepared for their Japanese trip years and years ago...

:-)