Saturday, December 25, 2010

merry christmas


Jurianne and her angels wish you a wonderful Christmas!
Photo by Ingrid from Ing-things

Friday, December 24, 2010

my very own christmas child


While everyone is 'decking the hall with boughs of holly', I light the birthday- candles for my eldest son Eise. He was born on Christmas-eve 13 years ago. Born at home (which is very common in Holland), by candlelight, while church bells were ringing.

This baby is...well, thirteen now: cooler than cool, taller than me, suffering from moods, developing a new kind of humor and having new friends in his new school. Underneath all these changes he still is my very own christmas child...

By the way, my mom bought these wooden candleholders 48 years ago in Prague (Czech Republic). We use and treasure them.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

irresisteballs


Japanese Temari balls by Suzik look fab in your Christmas tree, or even better: in the snow-covered branches I saw in my garden today!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

DIY - tangerine lights


Holland turned into a winter fairy tale yesterday. This is a road behind my house....
For the lovely lights you only need some tangerines, a knife, some sunflower oil and matches. Tangerines have their very own wick, you don't need any tealights, the oil will do!
If you are interested to make them yourself I could post a little tutorial tomorrow or the day after, just let me know...
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Sunday - afternoon: TANGERINE TUTORIAL!
Well, thank you all for your sweet reactions! To challenge myself I just tried to draw a 'sketch tutorial' for you in stead of taking pictures. Hope it's clear enough like this?


Cut the peel around with a sharp knife.



Remove the peel from the fruit carefully with one finger, watch out that the peel doesn’t break. Now you have a bottom and a top.


Tangerines have one part with a natural wick in the middle. Pour sunflower oil over and around this wick.


Cut a chimney hole out of the other part (which is the part without wick).




Please take safety precautions when your tangerines are lit, the garden is the best place for them. I did use them sometimes at Christmas dinners and put one tangerine lantern on every plate on the table...so fairylike!
Oh yeah, not to forget: these are the kind of crafts I learned from my mother back in the seventies! Thanks mum!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

DIY- danish paper stars


Watch out: once you have learned to make these Danish (or German or Moravian) paper stars, folding them is highly addictive. Since I have to work a lot - I am in the busiest month of the year - I had to put myself on a paper star diet!

Folding them is hard to learn. And this is an understatement. It took me some weeks, surfing the net for tutorials, trying again and again. Maybe I miss an important origami gene?
Next to a lot of paper strips and the perseverance of a pitbull dog, several You Tube tuts and this website helped me a lot.