February 2021 on #Instagram

hand carved stamps
"Inspired" by the dreadful weather (and because I had lots of rubber scraps from last crafting class lying around) I made some stamps this afternoon.
First picture: a bit strange the cloud - I only like the rain inside it.
Second picture: better cloud
Third picture: coloring the clouds made me think of a raindrop that can be colored as well.
Fourth picture: colored some raindrops in rainbow colors!
Will see what I can also do with those stamps. For now I only decorated my agenda with it.
And right now I have to catch up with all the things that I actually have to do today 🙈

stamping clouds!
I decorated a matchbox to put in my new stamps from yesterday and made a little "thank you" card for a friend!
By the way, today it's not raining outside for the first time since a week! 😆

🥧 meets 🐸
Have some fun and make yourself smile 😊
(Apple turnover that opened during baking, decorated with two soaked raisins)

Mandala collage
In yesterday's crafting class I put all kinds of papers on one table and just told the kids they could do whatever they wanted but assembling some of the papers to a new picture and explained the basic idea of a collage. It has been gift wrapping paper, paper we decorated in class, old photos, calendar pages and all kinds of scraps.
I like seeing what comes out when you let kids being creative without an adult giving advice.
Some didn't had an idea right away and I mentioned that mosaic is kind of collage too, so we had quite some mosaic style pictures (swipe over to see the kids work) one boy was inspired by Christmas paper and made a forest and one other wanted to build a theater and I think that's a great idea, even when it's no collage!
Great thing for the teacher: if you don't have to lead the group through a project you have time for your own art work 😉

Horse collage 🐴 inspired by Clare Young

Having all the paper scraps out from mondays crafting class, I tryed this out. I liked it so much I had to do it with the little ones in today's crafting class. The kids were on fire to find the right papers! Unfortunately with the curfew hours we have less time in the evening and not all could finish their animals (I send them home each with a handful of scraps) and I only managed to take 4 on photo.

January 2021 on #Instagram

Wish you all a happy and healthy new year!

Starting 2021 with a puzzle: How does an octopus comes into the mountains? 🤔

😅 Had lots of fun with my boys in the snow yesterday!

Stable masks 😷

As masks will stay for a while part of our lives, I made some nice ones to wear in the stable when seeing my horse!
The three horse stamps I made several years ago and every time using them I think that a fourth one is missing. Maybe a bucking or rearing horse?

Galette des rois!
Traditional french cake for the twelfth day / three kings day / 6th January! Only I don't like the traditional marzipan filling and made a chocolate-almond-pear filling! 😋 very yummy (and rich)!
Only the pattern I cut in the covering layer didn't survived the baking. I wonder why!
If you want to see a perfect "galette des rois" have a look on my blog www.janelostinideas.blogspot.com in January 2016!

Yoga bag set 🧘‍♀️👜
I made this set already in November, but only now it is with his new owner. The high bag is for the mat and in the other there is much space for all other items one might need. Swipe to see the details! From a scrap I made a matching eye cushion for the relaxation phase.
Dear M. I hope the situation normalize soon and you can use it for many yoga sessions!

❄ Let it snow 🌨
The new frontstep decoration finished just in time for a great load of snow yesterday! (And now it is raining 😔)
You might remember the panel: it's the same I used for the outside Christmas decoration. I used the backside now and I replaced the stars on to by this two wooden snowman ☃️

Crochet circle vest! 🧶
Gypsy blue by Drops design.
The pattern is for a jacket so I need to add sleeves, but if I am lazy I could use it as a vest 😉
I started end of August and in the beginning the project grew so quickly, but with the diameter my motivation vanished as the progress was less visible 🙈
Let's hope the sleeves are fun again, then maybe I can wear the jacket still in this winter! 😊

Paper snowball ❄
On each half moon area is a different snowflake, the background is colored light blue and little dots with a silver metallic marker.
The "bridges" are stamped with different snowflake stamps.
I made this as an example for today's crafting class! I wonder what the kids balls will look like when I gave them all the materials and ask them to decorate it with snowflakes all over!
I used the blank template for paperballs from hattifant

🔺️+❄ Triangle snowflake stamp
I designed and carved this little rubber stamp last weekend!
There are so many possibilities to use an isosceles triangle! In this case you can stamp a circle with 6 triangles to get a snowflake or make an all over pattern or (my favourite) decorate 3D ornaments! I made a bunch of those for my recent winter decoration!
Inspiration by @regnitzflimmern already back in December!

Icicles ❄🥶
I carved a second stamp with a long pointed triangle form. In combination with the little triangle I made paper icicles!
All the ornaments I made plus some snowflakes are decorating now the lamp over our dining table!
Inspiration for the ornaments by @regnitzflimmern!

Scratched ❄ on 📀
Am I a little snowflake obsessed this month? 🤔
This is an example for the crafting class. We found lots of old CDs when tidying up the basement during Christmas vacation. This is a great way to reuse them.
I mixed a drop of dish liquid in the black color: it makes the color easier to scratch of.

December 2020 on #Instagram

Advent calendar!

Made by me several years ago, but this is one of the things the children won't get too old for!

Filled with sweets and little christmassy tasks they have to do that day!

Crown with 🦉🦉 Owls
The first Christmas/winter crown I made this year. It's now decorating the citizens entrance of the city hall and I made another one for us!

Front step decoration!
The sign I painted on the side panel of a broken flower box and the trees and stars I cut from scrap wood in my husbands workshop (so many advantages being married to a diy-man🥰). The candles are already several years old.

Our front door winter crown 

Little gift bags with stamped 🦌🦌 and ❄❄❄
Having plenty of other things to do I found yesterday some scraps of this nature coloured fabric and seeing the salvage with decent fringes I had immediately the vision of little bags.
I decorated them with my 🦌 deer stamps I made some years ago and that during Christmastime I love for decorating everything from postcards to gift wraps!
I filled them with chocolate as little gifts 🎁

Little zipper pouch I made from coffee packaging as a Christmas gift for a coffee-addict family member (who is not on Instagram ;)

Pelleas box from Peter Keller folded only 20min ago watching this video from @happyfoldingdotcom on YouTube!
I just love the result! I'm completely excited about and need immediately make a second one if I find the right paper. As proposed in the video this 3D star is made from normal copy paper that is colored with acrylic paint (I always color paper sheets when I have a paint roll with leftover paint to wast nothing)

3D origami stars ⭐
Spontaneously tried yesterday and now I can't stop ...
For the first two I needed this video from @happyfoldingdotcom but now I can do them without help 😊💪
The design is from Peter Keller and calls pelleas box!

Last Sunday before Christmas
🕯🕯🕯🕯
Hope you had a relaxed day!
Me and the boys finally decorated our tree, I wrote Christmas letters (not finished jet or in the near future) and had a nice walk with my horse and my husband in a rain-pause!

Chalk drawing on the windows!
Starting on the salon windows with a forest and only a little shed (🐇🦉🦌🦌) going on with the landscape to the dining room windows where the forest stops onto a clearing with reindeers. The trees continue on the hills but there is a village in the valley (🦊)
In the kitchen the countryside stops at a sheep meadow below a shepherd's van (🐑🐑🐏🐑🐑) and then more and more houses until you are in a town center!

Drawing this was fun for one evening, but getting halfway visible pictures took me 2weeks and needed help from both kids!

 

Merry Christmas to everyone

Take care of you and the others!

I hope you have some relaxing and happy days off!

❤

The last day of the year surprised us with snow! 🦌🌨🦌

Wooden deers made by my boys beginning of the month!

November 2020 on #Instagram

Moon 🌕+ bat 🦇

Halloween project from last year!

Converting quince into ...

Got a lot of quince and what you can see on the first photo is only the outcome from half of them!

I like quice better when adding apples - the taste is still strong but more pleasant (my opinion) - so here I took the same amount of apples and pears as quince, boiled them all together, got 1l of clear juice to make jelly (left 4 jars), smashed the boiled fruits through a colander and got about 3kg (!) of purée 😱 1kg made 5 jars of jam and the reminding I cooked with lots of sugar to a jellylike mass (german: Quittenbrot, spanish: membrillo), jet it dry for one day and then stamped out very sticky hearts. 💛 Rolled in some more sugar they are very yummy sweets! Way too much for our family (we would be on sugar choc until Christmas), so I filled them in little paper bags and distributed them to all our friends and neighbor's - It's the right time to cheer up others, don't you think so?! In this way: have a lovely weekend everybody 😘

Tried out a new mask model!

It's made from two fabric circles, easy to sew and should avoid foggy glasses.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

I don't wear glasses and maybe that's my problem with this mask, because I breathe directly into my eyes (very discomforting)- but son number 2 who needs glasses in school really likes this model and I made some in his colours (white or grey).

So I will stick with the mask model I already made during the first lockdown, but if you want to give this one a try look at YouTube for "no fog circular mask tutorial" or follow this link

Hemming two stretchy trousers for a friend today!

For once I didn't had any problems with my twin needle and got 4 really nice and extensible seams.

They are looking so nice! 😍

Anyone else who gets excited about neat and even seams?

🍎🍰 Fancy apple cinnamon cake for son ❤ number1 😋
4layers: hazelnut cake + apple filling + hazelnut cake + cinnamon-mascapone-creme

I 💙 scarves!
A big one like that I wanted to see since a while! Inside fleece and outside jersey - very cozy!
Only it isn't very practical if you want to do something while wearing it as it is in your way every time you bend forward. So I will wear it mainly for walks 😉

Christmas/advent time couch table decoration 🌲🕯🌲🐿🌲🕯

Again our cat's sleeping in the background! 😴

I left the squirrels and the little manikin from the autumn table. I think hey fit also in the winter time!

Have a lovely first advent weekend 🕯

Oktober 2020 on #Instagram

 

Made this simple backpack as an example!
I know the relation between front pocket and bag size especially the bottom is not correct. It is because the first bottom part that I used had been much larger, but looking at it in daylight showed me mismatching colours so I changed it and then had a calculation error while cutting 🙈
As it should serve only as an example I don't mind too much!
The front pocket is closed by scratch!

Crazy bag number 2 finally finished!!! Yeah!! 

 

I somehow run out of steam during the making and the project lay for weeks and month on my sewing table gathering dust looking reproachful at me every time I sewed something else!
In the end it took only a couple of hours to finish!
From the lining and stability I am very satisfied, but I like the outside (the crazy patchwork) of my first one better. You can see no 1 here.
On one spot I added a rosette. This is decorative but mainly for hiding a hole in the patchwork ;)

Pumpkin and snail on my frontstep!

Who remembers making those bracelets all the time as a teenager? I always fixed them like that onto my trousers! Did them also in school sometimes 😉

This one I only started as an example and now I finish it while waiting to the end of son no2 music lesson. Outside it's raining hard, so I can't do my usual walk!

Vampire (the very first one I ever made!) 🧛‍♂️

I asked last week what the kids wanted to do for Halloween craft (I know it is still a while until Halloween, but vacations starts already next week) and they said they wanted to make vampires!

🤯

I never had anything to do with vampires! I didn't even read vampire books when there were this vampire hype last decade 🙈 and I only know one Disney film!

I searched the internet for inspiration but finally made my own vampire. I think his face is a bit clown, because of the mouth, but not possible to change any more.

I was very relieved the kids accepted this as a great vampire project today. Swipe over to see their creations!

Head is a slice of a fat branch on a stick and the ears are flat dowels from my husband workshop (but not all kids wanted ears) the cape is a garbage bag!

Have a nice Sunday!

My autumn couch table decoration: mushrooms 🍄 that I made 10 years or so ago for my late grandma, wooden squirrels 🐿, felted acorns 🍁(also several years old) and fabric leaves🍂!

In the background our cat Lucy who adds always a cosy touch to our home!

Stamping 🍁 on the simple paper envelope I used for wrapping up a gift for a friends birthday!
It's a rubber stamp I carved last year!

🍂 crown/circle for the window!
This I made already some weeks ago for a crafting class, but found it very hard to photograph.
I found the idea on pinterest. Quite easy: it's pressed leaves between two layers of self adhesive foil! During the crafting class we only had one accident with a foil rolling up and sticking to itself.
On the second picture you can see a single leaves I covered with foil scraps.

Wreaths from hop
We had the nicest autumn weather today. My husband cut down the hop plants in our garden and son no2 and I transformed most of it into a collection of wreaths! While our cat played with leaves moving between the sticks!
I never before used hob for wreaths, but it's great to bend and very smooth. I just hope that it will dry and not rot ;-)
I love to make wreaths and I like to use them simple or decorated or use them as basic for crowns ...

Front door decoration!
I cleaned off sand, dry leaves and a bunch of spiderwebs only to hang up my own spiderweb 😆
As nobody would see a Halloween decoration (lockdown), I didn't feel like it and only added the spiderweb I crocheted some years ago to my autumnal front step!