'tis the season...

I hope you're enjoying the holidays and relaxing a little so you can start the new year with a lot of energy and full of beans (do you really say so in english ? ;-) ).

I just wanna give you some impressions of my christmas activities although I can't show you all until I gave all the selfmade presents away.

And for the last cozy days of the year I have a beautiful suggestion for you:
If you like to read illustrated stories that'll warm your heart, enjoy
the very beginning of the Wormworldsaga! :-)

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm so weak...

When I saw this fabric I urgently needed an excuse to buy it... and after a little thinking I got it:
I could make a little pouch for all the documents I'll need in the hospital... great! I bought a generous amount of it and made this:



(...and I'm so happy to have at least a yard left for other projects :-) )

Handmade Christmas Presents # 2

Today I finished these cute tiny embroidered lavender bags for a friend. I'm glad that some didn't look perfect enough to give it away - soooooo I can keep them :-)

Handmade Christmas Presents # 1

Look at these reversible bags I've made. It was really easy - I used a free pattern from Novita Estiti at verypurpleperson.com and it worked out great. As the bags are for two teenage girls I chose this stylish black plastic fabric and combined it with the purple one. And to make it more personal I attached the initial of each girl on the bag. I hope they'll like it.

Taataaaa!

Finally I made the nesting for the bassinet.
Again a project that appeared to be simple turned out to be super complicated. I really was about to despair as I tried to make a pattern for the nesting... again the same problem as with the bellybands. For the rounded parts of the nesting I needed to make a pattern of a cone without end. ... It reminded me so much of my traumatic math lessons at school that if it wasn't for my husband who convinced me to continue and who helped me to figure out the right proportions of the pattern I'm sure that I would have thrown all away in anger.
But all's well that ends well and so I can proudly present the finished bassinet nesting! Enjoy.

Soon I will show you the mobile I made for it, too. So stay tuned!

Boy... I'm late

I don't know why, but I was not able to make my christmas door decoration until yesterday... There was always something distracting me.

But now I'm relieved that it's done and welcomes friends and family members.

Look who I found in my garden today :-)

Do you know him?








It's "My neighbour Totoro" - one of my favourite figures of the Studio Ghibli films. He's so cute and calm and slow and cozy...
So I decided to make a Totoro music box for the baby. Who wouldn't be calm and balanced with a music box like that? :-)

I ordered a special baby music box - one that you can wash (The melody is "Somewhere over the rainbow" by the way). And then I made the stuffed Totoro all around it.

It took me some weals on my fingers and a lot of time, but I'm really proud of the result. I could keep cuddling him all the time :-)

Here are some more pics. For the last ones I turned him around, so you can see his back, too.

Advent's here!

Hey there!

Today started the advent season. It's a wonderful time in Germany. Everywhere you can see the christmas lights, folks are baking christmas cookies with many different spices, there are christmas markets with spiced hot wine and everyone is decorating his home.
Traditionally we arrange an advent wreath with four candles on it - for each advent sunday one. But lately there are many variations of it.

Below you'll see some of my advent decorations. I tried to keep it natural and simple this year. I hope you like it.

But before I wanna show you a pincushion that I made for my niece yesterday. She turned eight and got a kids sewing machine from her grandma, so I made a sewing accessories package for her and the pincushion was a part of it.




And here are the advent decorations:

Do you remember...

... the basket with the knitted squares?






All summer long I was knitting and knitting not sure if I would ever finish the baby blanket. I must admit that I´m not the greatest knitter and so the patchwork pieces became very irregular at the edges. This made it really hard for me to sew the squares together because I got ugly uneven seams.

... So... what was I supposed to do?

Well... I asked my mummy for help :-)
... and although she swore a little while she was sewing (Literally she said: " If it wasn´t for the love you made the squares with I would throw it all away!" :-) ) she finally did it ! Yeay!
And after sewing she made a nice crocheted border.

Here´s the result. I would say it was totally worth the effort.
And there is a first baby blanket fan, too. :-)

Making a Baby mobile !

Maybe you were wondering what I've been up to... ? Well, I was sewing little animals and plants for the baby room. I wanna make some baby mobiles and wanted to have some figures done before I show you. So, here are the first ones. I hope to make some more and show you the completed mobiles when they're finished. I have no idea how many of them I'll make but I think at least two or three... maybe I make some garland, too. We'll see.

Here are the little fellows :-) Hope you like them.

Hmmmm...... Yummy!

Today I transformed our kitchen in a temporary bakery and made some cookies for my birthday coffee party.

The pistachio-cookies are fun and have a nice look (oh boy... even my cookies are green!), but I have to say that the taste is a little disappointing - it tastes only sweet... what a pitty with all the pistachios in it. Next time I have to pimp the recipe ... hmm... perhaps with some liquor :-) ... ok... some spice will also do.




After that I made some shortbread. Im my opinion shortbread is always great - for breakfast, at tea-time, after dinner... I love it. (The recipe is from Martha Stewart again - you´ll find the recipe link in an older post - I think it was in april)






Tomorrow I will bake some peanut-butter-cupcakes and a damson-plum-cake. I hope to have some time soon to post the recipes so you can try these delicious treats yourself.

Birthday invitation printing

Hey there again!

Yesterday I spend the afternoon printing some birthday invitations. Next week I'll throw a little coffee party and therefore I wanted to make some personal cards. For the design I carved two different rubber stamps: a positive and a negative one. Like this I could print different fronts and backs that match perfectly. Do you like the result?