Frog on my blog!

After a weekend full of parties (a High Tea Party and a Venetian Ball! How Cinderella-ish is that!)

it's now back to reality. Tomorrow family from the Netherlands arrives...yay!

We are looking forward to that but unfortunately it means that you will not find me at my blog a lot in the next few days. So sorry for that! For now I will leave you with two of my frogy paintings.

For some strange reason I love painting frogs?!?!

I'll be back in a few days!

Work in progress

I don't like to show crafty things that I'm working on. What I mean by that is that I don't want others to see my ideas until I'm finished with them. Even when I was a little girl I hated it when teachers or family looked over my shoulder and tried to catch a glimpse of my creative activities.

I think it must definitely have something to do with me being a perfectionist. Good is never good enough for me when it comes to crafting.

Does this sound recognisable or is it just me being silly?

Anyway.... I decided to give you a little sneak preview this time. It's just two sketches for two customized name plaques. The theme is Australia as you can see...

I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Soooooo busy!

No, our computer still works, so does Internet, I have not been ill and I have not been on a relaxing holiday! It's just the time of the year that I'm sooooooo busy and I don't find the time to update my blog.

At some point this week I thought that it might be a good idea to ring my parents back home to insure them that everything is still alright and we're still up and running! I managed to drag myself out of bed early one of these mornings to ring them.

It was 10.30 pm in the Netherlands and not a common time for me to call them.

So the first thing my mum asked when she picked up...'Oh Monique, what a surprise, what is the good news!?!?!!!!'

(And we all know what mums wanna hear when they ask this question!!!. But unfortunately for her...)

'....Ehm, NO mum, I'm not pregnant and NO, we are not getting married... I just have a spare minute, that's it..!'

Anyway, no time to craft either. Therefor I thought I'll show you a few of the very nice Christmas decorations I bought in our shop the other day.

Simple but gorgeous!

Oh wow, look at this little skirt. I love it!
My sister bought a new sewing machine a few weeks ago. Now she is taking some sewing lessons. Looks like she is getting the hang of it because she made this cute skirt for her oldest daughter. The grey fabric is actually an old trouser from our granddad!

Love the embellishment!

Can I order one as well sis?!

Then there was light!

I bought a simple table light at IKEA and painted Jip and Janneke

(famous from Dutch children books) on it with black acrylic paint. This is the result...

And this is what it looks like with the light on!

Getting comfy on the sofa...

I noticed that crochet is actually relaxing for me. Life is busy at the moment and when I come home at night I just don't feel like getting crafty. But it's so nice to get comfy on the sofa and crochet away.

And that's what I've been doing the last couple of nights. Being me I just can't be bothered to figure out a crochet book and its (sometimes) unreadable instructions. So what I do is just experiment myself. And I'm getting there with my own designs.....

....look at the little strawberry and the cute Babushka doll!

Just a funny painting!

Little rascal!

I heard my little nephew feels really neglected by his aunty.

She posts all these pictures of her nieces on the blog, but there is non of him.

Oh no... and he is such a cute, little rascal!

This is Ties last year during a cold Dutch winter.

Cute!

Santa is coming to town...

The shape of this doll is based on the 'angel' dolls from the Tilda books.

But as you can see I gave this one my own twist and turned it into a funny, little Santa.

I even sewed him some tiny, leather boots!

It's a bugs life...

During one of our camp trips we came across this colorful
little creature.

Mon Crochet!

I think I mentioned before that I have participated a crochet workshop with a friend. And we are both literally hooked since then. Although the workshop has been a few weeks ago I didn't show any of my crochet attempts on my blog since then. I actually just experimented so far, doing the well known granny squares and some easy to make flowers.

But then I discovered the book' 100 flowers to knit and crochet' by Lesley Stanfield. Wow, very inspiring!

And now I can't wait to show you my first finished project (although I really should be in bed right now)....

...but here it is....A Mon Cherry Key Hanger!!!!

Goodnight!

The 'Silly Season' is coming!

I have been making some Christmas decorations.

Yep, the 'Silly Season' is coming and I love it!

I cut the shapes out of Fimo Clay with a bit of help from my cookie cutters.

The relief in the clay is made with stamps.

Happy Patchwork Painting

This happy little patchwork is painted on a canvas.

It was not an easy job.

I had to keep taping around the single squares to decorate them separately without ruining the others.

But I'm very pleased with the result!