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.

From now on I'm hip!

These were born one year ago. But apparantly still are discovered and wanted... A while ago I was asked to contribute to a hip Dutch magazine. But I'm not hip at all, my objection was. Being published in Kek Mama will increase your 'hippigheid' (degree of being hip) at once, Diana assured me.
So there they went for a photoshoot. If you're curious like me, just buy the newest item that is available in the shops now. For those new visitors on my blog, here you can find how to make the stick horse that is published. Go ahead and enjoy!

Wash your hands!

Let's talk about the smallest room in our house for a change. And washing your hands in there. I like to show you another cabinet that was designed some time ago, but that we enriched recently by adding some diy-music! Can you see it?

This basin unit was created in order to collect all needed items in only one piece of furniture, an all-in-one.

The inlaid mirrow above is as wide as the cabinet. The kind of used wood, birch plywood, is applied more often in our house, as you saw here, here and here. The wall lamp is this one. It's bigger brother you saw here and here already.
(Pics aren't fabulous, but you know it's wintertime...)

No time for crafting

Last weekend we lived outside... on the ice! Look at this Dutch scenery, we enjoyed it so much!
Well done, M, on your new 'noren'!

For Rita

This year no selfmade present for her little birthday daugther, but for my neighbour herself. She is so sweet... lately she lent me one of her beautiful necklaces. That's why she deserves a small surprise like this. I love the yellow of the beads, which is super intense and festive.
For those who want to give it a try: here is explained how to make it.

On the bias

Are you still curious after this post? To be honest, this dress was planned for L's birthday! Only the borders to go, I decided to quit this knitting to be continued after those busy days. A good exercise to let go!

Looking at the final result I was afraid L would refuse to wear it, but pfff, she loves it! She's wearing it now three days in a row. She may. It took quite some time to make it and you never know whether my youngest self-assured daughter likes or not, so I'm glad.
Thanks Saskia for the nice stay in your small shop and for inspiring me. Browsing through different kind of knitting books I really fell in love with this dress in this book. I used this affordable yarn. But my bag was filled with more...

Some changes I made: the description for the borders was way too complex, so I decided to do it my good-old-way. And I changed color on an even number of rows to take along the waiting thread and thus to avoid weaving in ends. Here I found the perfect rose pattern...
In my opinion the dress is a tiny bit too long right now, but she'll grow!

Sam and Julia

This is M, reading a book to her sister in the train last Sunday.
After our Christmas diner in the office we were invited to shop for a book in one of the meeting rooms: a Christmas present. Such a great idea. I chose some books; among them was this one: 'het Muizenhuis'. It's a book to be recommended and the Mouse Mansion is becoming a worldwide hit indeed! It's L's favorite.

Last Sunday we had a day off trip to Amsterdam. For M we went to see the Anne Frank House. To do L a favor we went to see another house: het Muizenhuis, exposed in the public library of Amsterdam. I'm talking about a sort of giant dollhouse, but populated by mice families and used as a scenery for the mentioned book. Look at this, get inspired by googling 'het Muizenhuis' or watch this video. This you can read on the blog of Karina Schaapman, the author/designer/creator:
'The Mouse Mansion - Sam and Julia' is based on The Mouse Mansion. An art project created by myself to form the scenery of this book, and many more following. The Mouse Mansion is made out of cardboard boxes and papier-mache and all kinds of waste material. You can actually walk around The Mouse Mansion because it has a front, back and side. The Mouse Mansion counts more than a hundred rooms, alleys and outdoor spaces. The story is written by myself and the mice are also created by myself.

When you are in the neighbourhood, you should go and take a look. We spent much more time then planned staring into all rooms filled with tiny details. Amazing!

M too

Sometimes M can be jealous, even when it's about a quite childish subject like this bag...

I studied Industrial Design, which is about designing serial products, but please don't ask me to produce products in a serie, even not a small serie. I don't like serial production (except for birthdays!). So I suggested M to sew this bag herself.

Last week after school she really wanted to and when she does I put all my own plans aside to be at her side. I always want to encourage her in making things. She chose fabrics from my stock and started. And finished that same afternoon! (She only asked me to sew the bird in white so it would be a bit embossed.)
Now her softy horse - what else? - can be carried with her. Compliments M!

Balloon peep

Today we had a lot of laughter with the camera. L asked me to make a photo of the high peep sound of a still-laying-around-balloon. Of course I did. Then we made these series.
No craft post this time (although M has been sewing in the afternoon), but just a funny post :).

Quickly

Just before F would bring the kids home from school for L's cats birthday party, I had some little time left to paper cut these whiskers. Inspired by this very often seen image on Pinterest.
Unfortunately no image with cats cap (see last post) and whiskers...