Cutout stars printed on Christmas gifts

For all my Christmas presents I made reusable bags from white craft paper and decorated them with prints from cutout stars. 

Beside being really fancy to look at, it was super fun making them. Of course it took lots of time I could have had also used for other duties shortly before Christmas eve ;-) 

Here are some pictures of the making of:

I cut out paper stars (everyone knows how to fold and cut those I suppose) and then dotted fine layers of acrylic paint with a little sponge (see my clever sponge holder - works great!). This gives quite nice negative space stars on the bags. In the end I always glued the used positive star beside the prints.

I closed the bags on top with clothpins, some ribbons and a name tag. So the bag can be reused after!

Hope you've had a very merry Christmas yourself too!

A bientôt,
Jane 

No green Christmas tree

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you have a wonderful time with no stress and your most loved people around!

We have my parents staying with us, who had been a bit surprised (not to say chocked) by our Christmas tree!  

We build! it ourselves the weekend of the second Advent! Husband welded three metal rods on a triangular ground plate and connected them on top. Me and the boys went to a lumbering zone where they left all the branches behind after cutting the trees. We got lots in different sizes and at home we assembled all together!

In the first moment I didn't like it too much and wasn't sure to keep it. But then very fast I got used to it. Our cat too.

I struggled a bit for decorating it. light garlands looked very odd and untidy because of the visibility of the cables. So I only put in one with warm orange light up and down the middle (the trunk). 

 

I made little buntings to hang around the tree.

Only last weekend I fixed red balls (I had to fix every single one with a thread and double knot - it took so loooong!) and with transparent thread some straw ornaments and my fabric bells.

Last step 12 real candles! For Christmas eve we always have real candles. Much more ambiance!

I really like our tree like this. For me it gives the same Christmas athmosphere like a real one, but we don't had to cut a beautiful fir-tree for only some few weeks of decoration. The last three years we had one in a pot, but it is too big now for bringing in and we planted it in summer into a friends garden.

joyeux Noel,

Jane

Seasonal table decoration - Christmas

For the Christmas time I changed the table decoration I made in autumn and adapted it to the season. 

The instruction for the fir trees I found already some years ago on pinterest. The gift boxes idea I had last year for the lutin-deco-frames. I added the deers to keep the forest theme and the star for Christmas.

The trees and presents hold on the deco support as I added tooth pics that hold in the holes. 

With some candles a nice table center for tea-time!

A bientôt,
Jane 

Star game

All you need is a wooden board (15x15cm), several (32) strong but short nails and rubber bands in different length.

After hammering in the nails in a certain order you can start inventing stars. This are only some of the most obvious star possibilities!

We had a board like this at home when I was young, I think it's still from my mom's childhood. I remembered it and asked my dad to send me a picture and then I copied it with the kids of my crafting class. You can imagine the noise we made with a group of children and 5 hammers!? :-)

A bientôt,

Jane

Advent Calendar 2019

In November I made a new Advent Calendar as an example for the elder kids of my crafting classes. 

The felt stripes are just folded and sewn together on the sides to form little pockets of 6cm depth. Quite simple but effective!

I added some decorations like the stripe with the gnomes and the felt rein-deer.

The children of the crafting class managed equally well. It took us three sessions, but all finished for first of December.

For my kids I use like every year this calendar, but I filled the new one for my husband with chocolate and small notes. I realised that the pockets are not deep enough to hide the surprise and I put little paper-handkerchief pieces on top of every pocket so you don't spoil the surprise just by looking at it.

Happy pre-Christmas time to everyone!

A bientôt,

Jane

Pillow matching last quilt

Matching with the quilt I finished this summer (look here) I made a pillow case. One side I already quilted as a test piece in summer, when looking for the right quilting pattern. 

I decided against this pattern as it hasn't been boyish enough. In fact the words of my son had been "what are those wonky flowers?" :-)

I think the pattern is nice, but maybe not for a boy. Also I had to concentrate very hard on it to not get lost in the spirals, so for the blanket I am happy I chose another pattern. 

For the second side of the pillow I pieced something similar to the quilt top with scraps of it. 

I wanted to try out parallel lines. I once saw a quilt only quilted with straight lines and I liked the simple look. But again (and a bit expected) I realised that this is only possible to do proper with a walking food. I don't have one and it's not possible to fix one to my very old machine. But I love my machine and will never change it for a new one - so whenever I feel again like quilting straight, I will borrow the machine of a friend (she will know of which friend I am talking when reading this ;-)) 

Anyway, the zig-zag effect caused by pulling the fabric with the quilting slightly to one side and the other, has also some charm.

The piping (?right word?) for the edges of the pillow I made the first time myself, what is much easier than I thought.

Below the pillow is closed with a zipper.

The finished size is about 55x55cm.

As my son left his quilt always on our sofa, the pillow has a place there too and so I can enjoy it every day now :-)

A bientôt,

Jane

Nearly end of fall

Before fall ends completely (I've seen snow on the mountains today!), I will show you two seasonal crafts before starting Christmas blog-posts (I already sewed an advent calendar!):

This craft I did already a month ago for my crafting classes. Inspiration with the chestnut in the middle is from pinterest, but I added goggly eyes to make sure everyone recognizes it's a spider in the middle!

I had the idea to use different wool from bright to dark, but if you look from further away the cobweb look like a german flag ;)

Last week when I had to drive somewhere I had kind of that view on the countryside road:

I love when it's a bit foggy and the trees are looming in the grey! In addition with the birds gathering to fly south (a bit late, isn't it?), there had been so much ambiance!

The background is watercolors, the birds are drawn by hand and the trees are stamped on white paper (I made the stamp some years ago), cut out and glued to the picture.

As I had lot's of trees left (stamping is so much fun:-) I made also this card. It said that there is no "fall blues" as you can find color in the grey!

We had several ugly rainy days and the leaves are falling faster now. Soon it will be winter!

A bientôt,

Jane

Mini pumpkin

Have a look at the mini pumpkin (size of a big apple) that I carved and decorated for yesterdays "fête de la citrouille" = pumpkin feast in our village. 

A bientôt,

Jane

dry leaves meets doodle

Yesterday I found a little case with pressed leaves in a box with crafting stuff. They must have been there at least 3 years! Astonishingly they didn't fell to dust when I touched them! 

As I had a moment and have been anyway on the lookout for a new crafting idea, I decorated some leaves with pencils, glued them into my sketch book and started doodling around them with fine-liners.

A bientôt,

Jane

Drawing game

During the last visit of my mom we invented on a rainy indoor day a drawing game with the boys. 

Everyone had a piece of paper and the kids shield each working space off by putting folders upright, so everyone could make his drawings secretly. 

Then someone announced the first drawing theme. In the case I will show you it had been "giraffe". After everyone finished his giraffe-drawing he gave the paper to his neighbor and we announced the next theme that had been in this case "mosquito". Same as before: drawing and giving the paper to the next. The third theme had been "climbing plant" and the last "landscape". Then we rewealed all drawings and laughed about the mixed styles in every drawing. 

This is my paper. As I can't really draw realistic animals I only put in the neck of a giraffe, my mom adds the little mosquitos, son number 2 the fence with the climbing plants and the gardener and son number 1 put all together with his landscape.

These are the other 3 pictures. 

I love all of them! They are so unique and funny!

The boys loved the game and we had several other tours.

This are some other results. The themes had been: 1. latern, 2. tree, 3. person, 4. combining everything.

The photographs had been taken with my telephone, so the quality isn't very good.

You really need to try that out with your kids! It's lots of fun!

A bientôt,

Jane

Autumnal table decoration

Inspired by a table decoration I made several years ago (have a look in the past), I cut some left over wood bars to 20cm pieces, smoothed them, drilled holes, put them together, add dry plants and other stuff and ... voila:

This is the colored autumn version, that I prefer. Do you like the little dancer? But of course you can stay in one color scheme: 

This is more discrete as everything is blue, beige, brown. Here I like the book-page-feathers most.

I also made sets for the kids in my crafting classes that started again in the beginning of september. The assembling was very easy for them as I did the drilling of the bigger holes. The small ones for the flowers I let them do, but it happens very quick to drill the hole through the entire bar and not only until the middle. You might have recognised the yellow pearl in my deco piece?! That is where I drilled too far ;-)

With the kids I also made fairies and feathers in two different sessions. They had a lot of fun and I love their creative and very own way to decorate. You need to have a look at their creations!

In the beginning I planned to paint the wood a bit with indian-style patterns, but already mine didn't turn out nice, so I switched to masking tape. The advantage is that I can change it, whenever I want. So I will do maybe some Christmas table deco, I will first change the tape to something winterly.

I prefer the zig-zag way of putting the table deco, but you can also line it straight or in an arc. 

Enjoy the autumn as well!

A bientôt,

Jane

Quilt finished after 4 years

Precisely 4 years ago in august 2015 I made a quilt top that I patchworked with unicolored scraps and grey. Look!

I loved it a lot but didn't know how to finish it. It decoratively hung in my sewing/guest room for quite a while, then into a cupboard. 

I remembered I already cut the binding from the left over pieces of the grey background. But I didn't made a back for the quilt. So this I had to make first. Of course I didn't had any more of the grey from the front. I had two other little pieces of grey fabric and bought the anthracite one.

I made the sandwich with a medium weight filling of 100g/m².

For the quilting I chose an overall pattern. As elder son needs a new quilt, I wanted the quilt pattern to be more masculine than the "normal" meander. After some tries (details in another post) I decided on that one. Not very difficult you think (as me), but technically it isn't easy to make long lines from right to left or left to right without stopping for replacing the hands. That sees a bit but it's nothing really disturbing.

can you find the little mistake in the pattern on this photo? ;-)

I love it! 

The colors still making me happy!

A bientôt,

Jane