Twitchy bird photo-shooting

Have a look at this funny guy!

My latest crafting and the first project for art classes that started beginning of the month after the long summer break. Unfortunately we had been so busy in class that I forgot to take photos of the brothers and sisters of my new friend. 

Today I took him outside for a photo-shooting. Even with the help of younger-son it wasn't easy. Birdy is so very nervous and twitchy and always looking in other directions ... probably curious to explore his new world!

Before reaching the flower beds he also had to survive a cat attack!

What a morning, for a young bird that can't fly! 

He now is exhausted and sleeping on my desk. Finally calm ;-)

A bientôt,
Jane

Outdoor wind-light candle-holder

Just before the outdoor season ends, I finally have the time/motivation to post some pictures of a crafting project I realised in July with the kids of my crafting class: A candle-holder for wind-lights to have in the garden.

This is from a boy of my crafting class

We took little glass pots (from yoghurt) and fixed with thin wire a handle on them decorated with pearls. Those wind-lights are hanging from wooden rods as well as pearl-spirals and bands.

Photo taken during crafting class

The rods from the kids forms crosses, that are either for hanging up or with a stick to put into the garden, as not everyone has a tree or other possibility to hang up something like this.

In the garden of an other student

My one has wooden pearls because they were the only ones I had when I tried the project, but for the kids I bought plastic ones, so they last longer outside (by the way: it is really hard to find plastic pearls with a middle diameter in pretty colors). And my light pots are hanging on one single rod, as I knew already that I wanted to hang them under our balcony.

Really hard to have nice pictures in the twilight. 

I hope you too had nice evenings outside after the sun set and enjoyed the summer! Now it gets already dark much earlier and it's quite cold to stay out in the evening. We need all our garden blankets :-)

A bientôt,
Jane

Fish pebbles

This week we had a little 3 year old girl as guest (with her parents). We took her to the river where I am often with my kids. When she heard we are going to a little river she only talked about how she wanted to catch some fish with a bowl. Knowing that there are rarely fishes, I took some pencils with me to draw on stones. And look she found some fishes ;-) 

So easy to make a child happy :-)

And I found a nice round stone and transformed it into a new paperweight.

Have fun outside in the summer!

A bientôt,
Jane

Long sleeves shirt

After making the green tunic-dress in march I looked for another pattern for longs-leeved-tops, that I can maybe vary when I want to do the next time a project like that. I found and bought one nearly immediately (this one) and also I bought jersey and cut out the pieces who then had some month of waiting in my sewing room under lots of other things. In two weeks we are having guests and I need to tidy up the sewing room who then becomes again guests-room. So this weekend I sat down and finished some projects like hemming a shorts of my son, repairing the hook of a towel, putting a new elastic in the pyjama of other son and finally sewing the shirt. 

As always I made the sleeves longer than in the pattern, because I hate sleeves that are too short. With store bought tops they usually are! That's why I started to sew shirts myself.

I am not jet sure if I really like the loose fit of the body. Not so visible on the photos but it's opening up from the waist on. Anyway this could be adjusted easily in the pattern when I do it the next time.

Look at the neck line. I think it's nearly perfect. I feared a bit the V-neck, but patterns of that lady are always working and there are free video-tutorials, so really everybody could do this.

The next shirt will follow after the summer! Good excuse to go Jersey shopping in vacation ;-)

A bientôt,
Jane

Let's disco!

Younger son became lately 9 years old (can't believe how fast those years passed) and wanted to have a disco party (can't believe how grown up he is - his elder brother is still years away from dancing parties)! 

In a disco it has to be dark with light effects! At this time of year it is only dark in the basement (at least at a reasonable time for a kids party), so my husband and me spend lots of hours tidying up (very nice side effect, that now I have a very clean and empty basement). My husband is great with technic and electricity, so he managed to install the light and music system. I'm better in decoration, so I covered the walls (or better the shelfs around the walls) with a long blue plastic canvas and old blue curtains and old blue bedsheets. I have a box full of old fabrics that I won't use for sewing, but that helped me already within a few decoration situations.

On the canvas son-number-two and me painted with normal wall paint dancing people inspired by this artist.

Nice background, isn't it?

The kids had been really impressed with the disco feeling and had a lot of fun!

A bientôt,
Jane

Glass covers

Do you remember the bowl covers I made a few years ago? It is one of my most frequent used sewing projects. A friend from my sewing group had now the idea to make them as glass covers with a hole for a straw, so that bugs are not falling into your drink, when you are outside. Especially useful for kids.

So last sewing session we made plenty of covers after fixing metal eyelets in the middle of each fabric disc.

For better hygiene we used oil cloth or wax coated cotton.

We bought re-usable straws to be more eco-friendly.

I made a set of covers for our family. Our glasses are having mostly no big diameter and I had some problems finding the right elastic band to make the covers fitting. This left some covers that have been too wide and so I made a set of four for a friend of mine who uses bigger glasses.

What about you? Want to try this little summer sewing project too?

A bientôt,
Jane

Picnic at the river and drawing gras

Are you children as much exhausted at the end of the school year as mine? A free afternoon that should have been calm and relaxing at home turned into quarrels and tears and nobody knew what he wanted really to do ... So I decided we needed a break in the nature to calm down! I put the boys and a little afternoon-picnic (watermelon and biscuits) in the car and headed to a spot at a nearby river where it is very nice and rarely other people. 

And it was the right decision. The boys happily played for one hour in the (ice-cold)water and I had a nice spot under the trees and did a little drawing, something I didn't do for a year or so! I just took blades of grass growing around me and drew the different types of seeds they had:

It's not my best drawings ever, but I had fun. In fact I am really bad in drawing near reality. Normally I am getting inspired by flowers and then drawing them more doodle or zentangle like. After I caught a first impression of the different grasses by pencil, I did some again with a black pen in my usual style. 

Next time I get to draw, I will collect those samples in a tangle picture with some imaginary weeds ;-) Will show you.

Then the boys came out of the water and we had picnic and lay on our backs to look into the trees and talked. Everybody in good mood again. Why don't we do this kind of things more often, instead of stressing with the all-day problems?

Everybody: enjoy the summer as much as you can!

See you soon,

A bientôt,
Jane