art journal - moonlight

moonlight enlightening and endarkening,
a glowing tree,
two rabbits enjoying their time together.




acrylic paint, crackle paint, paper

boy's summer

Slowly, I am working my way through this huge pile of fabrics which are set aside for my boys summer wardrobe. Luckily, it is mostly cold and rainy, so I can take my time. For starters, these shorts and sleeveless shirts plus some summer PJs got finished.

The grey and green combi is for J, who is more into subdued colors (and dinosaurs) when it comes to clothes. He was happy as pie and sang "I'm a monzta with rabbitz" the whole morning. Little M on the other hand needs strong colors. Orange and red were perfect for him and if he could, he would wear them every single day.

art journaling

 

This year, I gave myself permission to play. Not just creating for a project in mind. It is all about experimenting, enjoying the process and getting some exercise.

Unfortunetaly - or luckily, depending on the occassion - there are so many wonderful paints, stamps, papers and oh so funny stuff available. Thus, I have to limit myself to just the material on hand or my home would soon be better equipped than any craft store. This limitation also helps to get to know my own materials and techniques to use them, which is key.

 

Sometimes those pages turn out quite unexpected, not having my usual style as I try to get out of my nice little comfort zone. This page here started with some leftover acrylic paint smudged on a page and ended pretty flowery.

 

Materials:

• acrylic paint
• water colors
• ink "Leipziger Schwarz"
• paper scraps
• stamps, StazOn schwarz, some noname-ink in turquoise
• Sharpie pen

little trip to nature

Last week we had a little walk and found some freshly hatched coots. They boys had lots of fun watching them swimmin and getting fed.

 

wordless

pillow cover, a bit different

I spent a fair amount of "me time" lately on this pillow cover. It is based on "Loonscape" by Charley Harper. It was quite a challenge to recreate the same feelings and illusions with my stash and my skills. Finally, the cover is all finished up and despite all those little imperfections I am pretty happy with it. 

Hopefully, my swap partner will like it as much as I do.

finished size: 18" by 18"
fabrics: Kona Cotton solids, Umbrella Print trimmings
techniques: Paper Piecing und Needle Turn Applique
performance enhancing substances: lots of coffee

my little corner

 

First thing this year, my old chunky shelf with most of my fabrics, books, pattern and crafting supplies broke. Great! Now what? I didn't want a similar one again for different reasons and found a cute sideboard which barely holds half of my stuff. But look, it has the perfect height for cutting fabric plus I have more drawers for all the little things that had no place before.

Additionally, I've got two little shelfs and some more light and this adorable little stool. Makes up for a workshop feeling which proved to be realy inspiring so far.

two stranded knitting

fascinates me. Finally I gave in and started a sweater and .... didn't get those two strands to do what I wanted them to do. It was oh so frustrating. After a pause and some hours at youtube it was about time to start over an easy project.

changing my mind: after a few rows this piece wanted to become a pullunder for little M (hopefully it won't too tight) with patterns all over. 

just another new plan:  all over pattern might be too much with these colors or I am not brave enough. Thus, more rows were knitted until it seemed to be long enough. Then I draw a small pattern (five repetitions on front and back). The orange was knitted using the English method whereas the background color was knitted using the European method. Was much simpler than the system my books recommended (having both strands in one hand and European style for both). Worked like a charm. Even love the backside.

Hubby thinks a sweater would be cute. Hmm, maybe even raglans. BUTnot following any pattern in the first place plus not knowing how to construct anything alike = need to find a pattern in the right size and adapt it. So much for fast little projects.

 

merry xmas

Merry christmas everybody and a peaceful Holiday Season.

bits of sunlight

Tee made some time ago for my oldest which brings some sunshine into grey foggy or rainy days. Beloved. Just does not take good pictures.

Heavily inspired by this work
pattern based on ottobre 

cookie madness

Backing cookies with my two munchkins including decorating all those cookies is fun but still stressfull crazy. Do not want it another way (well maybe less stressful wouldn't be too bad).

journaling

Besides my silence here and all the family time spent lately, there is a lot of crafting happening and christmas production has already been started. I've started yet another big project. Can you believe this? While wipping up an album of our vacation this year, I've had so much fun that everything has to be journaled. Starting with our old pictures, of course.

crocos

 

For J, which misses all those handmade clothes that his brother now wears.

Pattern: ottobre

Size: 98

sleeping bag for teddy bears

 

One night when a fun and fast project was needed, I grabbed my batting scraps, cut into my stash and came up with a sleebing bag for J's teddy bear. Which now can't live without. Since it is really shy, the bag had to be modelled by our bunnies.

feeling inspired

 

 

yesterday evening I had the urge to create. something small and soft for my little ones. to play, to hold, to tell them their joys and sorrows before falling asleep or whatever else. 

 

kids wardrobe planning

It's summertime - burning hot and all - so it's time to think about this years fall-/winter wardrobe for the boys. Especially for me slow, part time sewist. They sure did grow a lot and will need some new stuff. Last year, I've started the mission to sew at least a part of there wardrobe since I would like too plus pants weren't slim enough and there are way too many licensed characters on clothes of there sizes. Thus, we'll need:

• Longsleeves
• Hoodies / Sweater
• PJs
• few pants, there should be enough for the beginning

Just started looking for inspiration, though. Last year we had a lot of brown and charcoal with popping colors like some of the clothes below. Not sure where it will be heading this year but there are a few goals:

• comfortable and sturdy
• complementing the existing wardrobe
• some pops of colors for better mood
• experimenting further defining and refining our style
• using up my fabric stash
• and most important: still having fun, which is something easy to ignore when setting goals too high.

Cool boys might be a nice theme. Just found some nice biker jackets for them. Little M loves orange, so it will be incorporated somehow. Big J has not exactly a favorite but tends to green and subdued colors. Not that easy. So the next weeks will be used for pattern reviews, searching for inspiration and some planing. Meanwhile I should hurry to is to finish some summer projects.

kids crafting - monsters

 

The boys felt crafty lately, so we digged out a lot of supplies and they get started. What a fun. Big J was brimming with ideas, whilst little M just enjoyed his pompom work. My role was just to sit back and comment, most of the time. Thanks to the childproof scissors they can cut nothing else than paper and lets face it - clue bottles are just better tubes of toothpaste. So the handling was easy enough for a two year old and who cares about some spots and dirty fingers.

kids library

Once upon time there was this really empty, ugly and unwelcoming corner in our kids room. Due to its odd shape, no furniture was put there and all it could attract was clutter and dust. So one glorious day paint came to the rescue. Birches grow, birds moved in and butterflies were flying around. Finally the greatest library was built and suddenly all the kids were coming for reading and playing. The corner was beaming with joy. And they all lived happily ever after.

  

color: sand
birch and owl: painted free hand (or to be precise mainly left out)
birds house, birds and butterflies: craft shop supplies
srcreen prints: alphabet prints by strawberryluna

invitations

It's party time overhere! So I was digging deep in my stash to come up with these lions bringing each an invitation to Big J's kindergarden buddies. It was so fun to but all the colorful papers together and to search for the right accessories. The envelopes are former placemats which just got stamped, which creates a nice set. Such a nice project. I definitely should do more paper stuff again.

new tees

The boys are growing like something. Maybe they have the wrong diet. Everything gets too short or to tight.  Anyway, this gives us the opportunity to play around with different jersey knits and testing print patterns (like screaming blue green dragons) and color combinations.



I used two ottobre patterns and altered the sleeves every here and there so it does not look all the same. Sizes are 86 and 98. Plus two long neglected UFOs in size 92 got finished before getting to small. Hooray.



Thus far, I like the more subdued colors the best whereas the little munchkin loves his share of orange (his favorite color as far as I can tell). What about you? What garnments do you so or would like to?