Talking sticks

She loves Indians. Sadly I haven't found some time yet to make M a costume. But I know, although she's already ten, she will still love it when I make her one. Hopefully in the near future.
We discovered the Island of Brienenoord some weeks ago. It's such a strange and great place to go! Last wednesday the weather suddenly turned out to be beautiful! We cycled with the girls, who were invited to M's birthday party (and proud M on her brand new bike!) through Rotterdam, passing by an industrial area. Directly behind too many awful buildings, you can find a small bridge, leading to this green island. (Het doet me denken aan Pluk van de Petteflat :))
No, no costumes nor feathers on their heads, that's too childish. But yes, our Tipi tent (which I btw really recommend to other camplovers), a campfire and talking sticks.

Little F was there again, sitting on the ground during the party preparations, peeling off branches. 

After cake and presents the girls decorated their sticks and added their stories, told by little drawings.

 

Then we all went to explore the island, enjoying the quest F made in the early morning. During the trip all experiences were drawn on the sticks, so that their stories could be told to their parents afterwards. And the parents liked it!

Festive

Our eldest daughter M got ten years old this week! We had such wonderful days and weather! Our teenager woke up, surprised by this birthday dress.
Reading blogs can make you enthousiastic. When you mix this incredible Boleo, this wow skirt of Oontje and this horse dress, you can imagine I came to this result. I loved the idea of buying a duvet cover of Ikea to use for sewing cloths. You can wait for some more items, since these's a lot of fabric left.

Thanks Sanne of Eloleo for the great pocket idea! It was great to puzzle how to make it.
Don't you think it's a stylish girl with the matching treats for school? I'll write about that later. Just let me know if you would like to know how to make these treats!

Jump over fire

Today we had a lovely day. Year's best feast in school was celebrated: St. Jan.
Flowergarlands on kids' heads, everybody dressed in white or light colors.

Sweet games in the forest, eating cherries and pancakes, singing songs, making music and above all jumping hand-in-hand over (and through!) a burning fire. To seal friendships. Between schoolfriends and familymembers. Once a year, so special.

Almost 10

Sweet M is going to be 10 soon. Today she invited her friends to join her party next week on the adventurous Island of Brienenoord.
We did a stamping job together with small letterstamps of great HEMA. It's clear that we couldn't find any numberstamps, but in the end the yellow numbers worked out just fine.

Some time ago my eye found this stunning idea here, which I saved on my Pinterest boards. I so love the combination of the neutral colored wrapping-paper with the colorful thread and sweets.

Published again!

Some weeks ago the great editors of a German family magazine called Nido gave me an assignment to contribute to their magazine. The job was hard to fit into our busy schedule, but finally it turned out great to do! By taking a quiet day off to exclusively make a sweet stick horse, together with plenty of step-by-step pics to show all crafty Germans how to make a horse like this. With a little help of F's mother tongue a German how-to was added.

Now finally the June item of Nido is published and arrived in our mail box last week. May all readers increase the stick horse family!

They planned to publish a large picture of M or L too, so that's why we had a photoshoot in our hallway, just like I was asked for. But hey, I'm not a photographer! Sadly for M and L the editors preferred to redo the shoot in Germany, so there the stick horse went by post.



This time the result was a slightly improved stick horse, note the bridle. Here are my girls, playing with the new member of our horse family.
Last Saturday all stick horses went for another photoshoot, this time for a Dutch magazine. To be continued after summertime.

Horse

Actually I tend to buy kids clothes second-hand. This principal of buying, wearing, selling, wearing by other children and so on, feels good to me. I like to discover nice pieces and love to combine them. Second-hand means more clothes in a financial way, another advantage :).
My daughter M loves it when I make her something. This year it's going to be a birthday dress, in the early morning of the big day hanging on her closet. I really haven't got a lot of experience, but just tell myself I can do things like that. That helps. This one is a test dress.

The simple fabric was found on the market, which I combined with an experimental sewed drawing...
It fits fine. M is happy (so me too).

Sunday morning

Sunday morning M only wanted to sew more and more, immediately after getting out of bed. And what would you recommend to make as a first sewing thing? Right, a doll's skirt.
So here it is. And she wants to make more. Yeah!

Father's day?

Yesterday I told you about the sewing enthousiasm of M. She couldn't leave the sewing machine that evening, coming home from Sofia's party (where all girls made their own skirt!).
There was a remnant of felt still laying around. This is what she made. For papa. After drawings and brunch were given, my mother called and did we discover that Father's day is not today but in a week... Could have known, on a 'Pinksterday'.

Sofia is 10!

Sofia -some of you might know her- is enjoying her sewing birthday party at this very moment. M, a ballet friend of Sofia, is having fun too learning some sewing basics from Erika.
My eldest is no big crafter. What she does like very much and prefers playing for years already is horse-riding. But she sure liked to be invited to Sofia's party, who is a talented teenager with a sewing machine. For the wrapping of her present (an easy sewing kit) M had her first sewing experience today. Look at it, we think it's a great result!

Update in the evening: M came home with the sewing virus! She only wants to sew. Thanks Sofia!

The Universe

Wow, this was not ment to be a month with blogsilence. It just happened to be. No craft came out of my fingers!
But certainly there was a lot going on. For instance the organisation of a feast in school with this theme: the Universe. Together with another mother we made a design for the schoolyard, just sitting half an hour on a bench watching our kids playing there. But how to realise it? I made a list with 40 tasks on which parents could enter their names. But none of them did! So one week later I just added their names randomly myself. And guess what, all parents were in!
For me there was some sewing to do: silver curtains for the stage background, to be painted black curtains after the gate and a rocket... I'm not a rocket expert at all, so I drew a simple one on a small piece of paper, based on standard fabric width to make it easy and asked our little boy next door if he liked it. After his approval I went to the market, bought an impressive amount of fabrics by meter and made this 8 meter high rocket! Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday were planned around this so-called Springmarket and we were having a great time.
Thanks F for being responsable for the ropes, fixed on two facades on a distance of 26 m, the bounderies of the schoolyard. You're my hero!