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!

September 2020 #Instagram

 

This is the second jeans that I lengthened!

I showed you my way some days ago. This way I saw on pinterest. Look for "lengthen trousers by adding a cuff". I really like this method as it is nearly invisible! And because normally I don't have trousers that are too long and needs to be rolled up 😉

Maritime still life!
This has been all summer the decoration on my couch table! Nature is turning quickly into fall and I soon need to think of something more seasonal. But not jet! This weekend is announced to be summer like again!
Stones painted by me - wooden fish carved by one of my sons - snail shells, stone with hole and fossil sea urchin found at the Baltic sea coast
Happy weekend to everyone 🙂☀️

This pretty bunting is a gift for a newborn 💙

Because of the very dry summer the blackberries in our region are very small and quite hard, but nevertheless the taste is good!

It took me over one hour to just find 700g! So I filled up the pot with apples, cooked it and after smoothing all through a colander, I got by chance nearly exactly the 1kg for one recipe of jam 😊

😘 Very yummy and smooth! Apples are great to put in jam if you don't have enough other fruits as in my opinion they are not changing the taste!

For my blackberry-apple jam I designed nice labels at the computer, printed them on normal printer paper and glued them with milk (!) onto the jars!

Thanks @mamas_kram: I saw this method at your account and I tried it for the first time! It worked so well! Apparently the labels are coming off very easy later. I hope for that as I hate scratching off glue remnants!

Had lots of fun making paper with both children crafting classes this week!
Step 1: ripping a roll of toilet paper into a bucket with warm water (kids think this is super funny)
Step 2: mixing the soaked paper to become a kind of ugly pulp (kids think this is disgusting but still attractive - when they put their hands in they love the smooth texture) no photo :/
Step 3: giving some of the pulp in a bigger box with more water and fishing with a frame an even layer of pulp (needs some practice) see video - we added some confetti to decorate the paper
Step 4: transferring the paper mud from the mesh on the frame to a tissue. Doing this several times and piling up the wet papers! Photo missing :/
Step 5: Pressing the stack of tissues with the wet paper between so most of the water comes out.
Step 6: hanging the tissues with the much thinner now papers pressed on them out to dry
Step 7 - my favourite: peeling of the dry papers from the tissues!
That's it!
Easy for me because my husband had a press and he also built two frames for me already in the summer when we tried several methods to make paper pulp!
And the finished toilet paper paper is really nice. Fun drawing on it (see my flower doodle some posts back)

I had a lovely afternoon with my boys at a little river!

Feeling the fresh air over the water, the sound of the river, the green filtered light through the leaves is soul food and calming down! Did you also recognize that water can wash away stress?

We had yoghurt and blueberries for picking and guess who forgot the spoons? 🙈 But we had a knife and carved some tools! They worked somehow 😊 and we had fun!

Selfmade camera strap!

Inside it's an nylon belt which you can see on both ends where are rings to fix the camera with smaller straps to. Around the belt I put one layer of thick fleece and covered it with a pretty cotton fabric. Like this it will be more comfortable to hand the camera around the neck!

It's a gift for our goddaughter who will buy herself a new camera!

Results of yesterday's crafting class!

Together we made stamps in geometric shapes from wood scraps and foam rubber. We made 4 different sets for 4 different colours.

The kids stamped castles and drew the details with black pens! They had so much fun to invent stories of what's going on in their castles and where are the bad guys and the good knights! 🗡🛡

So nice to see or better hear their over boarding imaginations 😊

Autumn wreath!

Made it from rose hips, hop, ivy flowers, moss, some poppy capsules and an other climbing plant I don't know the name of!

Manikin 😍

Aren't the two guys adorable?

Made those with the kids of my mondays crafting class as well as autumn wreaths. They managed astonishingly well the binding of the wreaths and they just loved the manikins! They bild whole families. Some wanted to attach them to their wreath. See some cute little man on the second picture!

Couldn't leave my little guy's without a home!

Made this as example for tomorrow crafting class. I'm very curious what the kids will create!

The top of the house is the tip of a wooden pole that we used for a garden project already several years ago. We just needed poles but not pointed ones, so I got lots of wooden cones. My boys used them for a while as trees in their Lego world. And now they will become fairy houses! No waste :)

 

Inspired by this weekend's skies (stormy, cloudy and lots of rain) I tried to paint clouds by dotting the colour with a little sponge.

I am not really satisfied with my picture, but today I let the kids of my crafting class do it and from 6 kids we got 6 completely different skies. Then we added dried leaves to imitate autumn trees. See the last two photos. One had been my favourite for the clouds, but in my opinion the leaves ruined the composition. The other example is the opposite: I didn't liked the clouds in the beginning, but with the trees it became a very nice picture with the illusion of wind.

Every time again fascinating to see what different hands and heads make from the same idea! Love to observe that!!

July - August 2020 #Instagram

Hello! - Is there someone still looking? 

Some thoughts after using only Instagram for half a year:

It has been a while now where I only used Instagram. Yes, my idea was right, it is much easier and faster to post photos and tell what I do, so I do it much more regularly than I ever did here on my blog. 

BUT: I don't like the short life of a Insta-post. The most are only looked at when they are fresh, so after a week already no one notice anymore what you did, except in rare cases where someone found your photo over a hashtag search. I know that there are lots of people only looking at the photos and not even reading the text. I don't like that you can't put a link to a source of inspiration. I try to explain always where I found my ideas, but if someone don't read the text he might not notice and I feel like stealing the honor. 

I will anyway continue, as Instagram is now one of the most common social media platforms and I got over likes the feeling that there is someone interested in what I'm showing, than here in the blog where there are very few comments!

To safe the photos and ideas a little longer, I will repost my pictures and texts here. Give me a while to catch up with the last month and then there might be regular updates.

Jane on Instagram

Hello everybody!

3 month since my last post! Not only now, but since quite a while I recognise how difficult it is to find or to take the time to sit down at the computer, preparing the pictures and writing a post. 

I searched for a faster posibility of sharing my creations and ideas and as I have been already a while on Instagram for following other creatives, I started a new account: jane_lost_in_ideas

Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/jane_lost_in_ideas/

I'm already very active there. Here is a sneak peak of what I posted there since July:

I would be happy if you visit me there too! 

I don't want to quit this blog completely and probably I will every now and then post something. For example tutorials or bigger projects that need some more explications!

So long,

Jane 

crawling insects

Yesterday evening scribbling on a test print ...

A bientôt,
Jane