Being a mill

Remember this post about my eldest being the Erasmus bridge? Look at my youngest daughter now, being a mill during carnival at school and the way back home by metro! One of the themes was Holland. She wanted to be this herself and she worked so hard to finish the mill in time. Lucky with a father like F, who made the vanes being able to turn around. Using a bicycle hub. Made it all together a great week!
(Btw, funny that I suddenly discovered this behind the stage. Apparently still laying around in the school's attic.)

One day of a fox's life

What to tell? This day was just great! See the preparations in the former post.

Being a?

This weekend preparations for Carnival are in full swing. Is it clear what L is going to be?

After this we closed the back of the head as well.

Now we only have to paint it today. L, I think we are a super team! Please come back to see the final result.

Counting

During a Sinterklaas parents evening little presents were made for L's class. I was asked to sew a part of the needed fabric bags. Although sewing something like this is a lovely simple project, I used this tutorial.

We painted wooden coins with all numbers and symbols to play and count with and personalized the bags.

M and make up?

This locker is hanging on M's bedroom wall in order to organize nail polish, hair elastics, etc. It's a present we made for M's birthday last summer, but never showed it on this blog because the green edge had still to be crocheted. Now it's like it was in my mind.

An unused locker of Ikea is used. I covered the front and the inside with a leftover fabric of her tree and a mirror was mounted on the front. Because the locker had to close properly it turned out a quite precise job to do. But we managed.

Here you can see the different stages of mounting double sided adhesive foil to the fabric, cutting, folding corners and finally sticking to the front.

Anouk

Last Friday M's teacher invited international and national popstars on her birthday. M turned into her favorite singer Anouk and therefor she whipped up a proper t-shirt the day before, using sparkling leftovers from this craft.

Like papa

F loves bikes, recumbents, carts, etcetera. And because he is not able to discard all kinds of 'lovely' parts like wheels, gears, pipes, and so on, our basement is a place where I don't like to be, but F so much the more.
Yesterday M spent the day in the footsteps of her father. Together with her best friend she made a sulky. (Now I know at least, what a sulky is :)) For many years they run along our streets and the park together with their stick horses. Both horse lovers can't stop doing so. I like them being outside this often, barely taking time for a break to eat or drink. The sulky was made by the two of them. In the end F helped a bit fastening the wheels. And there they run!
Btw, did you mention this post of Vervlogen dagen? I so hope L will once like a party like that.

More wip

Last weekend we have been very busy for next Friday's carnival! We had fun making this typical hair. First we wrapped the yarn around the back of a chair. Then the yarn was taped together and cut. In total we had three bundles. Funny to sew taped yarn (just along the tape), it's something else than a dress! After removing the tape we were ready to make the haircut on M's head! I tried to cut it as straight as possible. The golden ribbon was finally sewn across the fringe and is used to keep the hair stay in place. Piece of cake!
She's already so happy: she comes home from school and gets dressed immediately, until falling asleep. And this morning even at breakfast. And sure, Friday she will Walk like an Egyptian.

Making girls happy

If you want to know some tricks to make nice sparkling boxes as a party favor, go ahead reading. These 'L 7' boxes we made as a treat for L's birthday and are a mix of this and this. Here and here you can read more on my blog about these boxes. In my case the pattern paper was made using these books. I did some photoshopping to achieve the desired colors, printed the paper and cut it into squares of 17 and 18 cm. But of course you could use any paper you want or even buy these kind of little boxes.

Because I wanted L (of 7) to be able to make her own treat, the tutorial can be used as a kids craft as well. We first made the bottoms of the boxes following this tutorial, using the 17 cm paper squares.

More and more

We made up this 'L 7' treat for school because L loves origami even more than M. She made quite a few of these boxes without any complain but wanted to play outside as well after a while ;) She was allowed. She joined again for the glitter topping. We made some photo's during the process, so I'll show you soon a how to.

The pattern paper I made with a Sinterklaas present. This and this book and two cd's full of nice patterns. Oh, there will be more pattern paper crafts!

We added a nut mix for her classmates and cookies after this afterlasting recipe (with the half of the sugar), found via Kristel, for the visitors at home. Inside I added a box of baking paper, which appeared to be a challenge to fold. Yes, I'm crazy, making about 50 boxes... But it worked like therapy for me, so it's fine.

A dear friend

L's friend Gaia is only three days younger than L. This is what L did bring along to her birthday party a week ago.

Tiny treasures

Look at these tiny treasures M and L brought home from school last week! 1, 2, 3: by L, 4: by M.
(I miss them at this moment, they'll be home again tomorrow evening...)

Our afternoon

 Making these the traditional way...

... by punching tiny holes, blowing the content out of it, breaking some when doing this, cleaning afterwards the egg yolk from the terrace, painting, dropping one, decorating and dropping another just before hanging them. Fun!
Just wanted to say: happy Easter!

Made in school

Look what L made in school!

A wooden cooking spoon was turned into a puppet theater doll.

And she's (and we are) so glad with her creation!

A bridge?

Yesterday M celebrated carnival in school. The theme of this year was 'Rotterdam', the city where we live in. So, I said to M, you may choose: do you want to be the Euromast, the KPN building or the Erasmusbrug? Full of enthusiasm she told me that she wanted to be the bridge! No wonder, because she is connected to this icon, passing it by bike every day a few times. But there was a request: mama, please make of photo of me by the bridge. And here she is. It's the evidence that a person can turn into a bridge! (What you see on her cheeks are some matching birds I quickly drew this morning.)

This week she worked hard every spare time she had: she designed, drilled, painted, fixed the cables and fixed the cars. Of course we wanted to be able to use the cars again afterwards, so we came up with a good idea: for each car two holes under two diagonal wheels were drilled. Then an elastic hair tie up through the holes and around the wheels. The pylons were made out of a double layer of light weighted foamboard and painted in our lightbluegrey wall color (now I realized that we have the color of the bridge at home!). The deck was made of thin plywood, that M finished in blackboard paint. To 'wear' the bridge M had to step in and then turn the bridge 90°  around her body. This way she could carry it on her hips, but we added two shoulder straps as well.

After school we partly took the metro back home. M was very attractive under the ground as well as above; she got a lot of compliments of passers by! That's probably why she preferred to walk all the way back home from the bridge.

These are some pics at school and going back home.

Look at these creative Rotterdam buildings (Euromast, kubuswoningen, Potlood)!

For those insiders who are interested in L as well: she wanted to be a cleaner (to be more precisely: ours, called Maria) once again.

Miaow

Tomorrow L will have her third special day: she invited her friends to come to her cats party. This theme idea I found here.

We organized it our way using the play capacities of our house. Tonight I'll finish sewing 7 furry cats caps! Hope all girls will enjoy it very much.

To rattle

Today L was giving her treats to her classmates. Lucky me was there! Thanks neighbours for all collected toilet rolls. We had a great family craft afternoon yesterday. L helped a lot, something I'm very glad about. The paper rolls were covered on the inside with bakery paper, that we also used for bottom and top. Different kind of nuts, some covered with chocolat, were put inside, so the kids were making some music together.

(As usual finished at darkness, so pics with flash.)

Donald

When Dutch kids no more believe in Sinterklaas, so-called 'surprises' are made for each other. Here you can read more about this tradition. M was randomly assigned a classmate, to whom she anonymously gave a selfmade gift on the 5th of December. Somewhere inside this selfmade thing a small present is hiding. The boyish girl in her class wrote down what she likes: hiphop, gaming, athletics, reading Donald Duck comics and more difficult interests to base a surprise on.
Thus more than a week ago M was brainstorming with both her parents and an idea came up. F and M made the first surprise ever made in our house.

She got a little help of me during the painting, which is allowed when it's your first time, don't you think? M, well done!

Wobbly tooth

M's dentition exists till now of 4 teeth only. She's ten! Recently F visited the dentist with both girls. I'm so glad they both have strong teeth (like their grandmother and mother).
Last week L showed me her first wobbly tooth. After it was fallen out we kept it carefully in F's wallet. Sint wanted to add this tiny present (according to another great idea of Vlijtig) in the 'zak'. But apparantly did L need something to put her tooth in today already! So she got this present this morning.

Btw 1, the paper label was covered with transparant adhesive foil to keep it clean.
Btw 2, the bottom is covered with a small part of Hella Jongerius' fabric, that lovers of her will maybe recognize ;).

Btw 3, L went to bed early tonight with a high fever. Hope she's better tomorrow to celebrate Sint's birthday...
Btw 4, wishing you all a cosy Sinterklaas!