Special shop

My friend Vanessa came over to spend the weekend with me. She's a kiwi living in the Netherlands and speaks excellent Dutch. Unlike me, she loves shopping so I took her to a very special shop...
Ann van De Zilverij told me about this shop a while ago and I thought it was the perfect place to visit with Vanessa. It has loads of stock that they bought in the seventies and for some reason they still have loads of that. So much that lots of it has to go at really cheap prices...
Shirts and shorts in orignal packaging and it brought me back into my childhood. How fun!
We spend 2 hours in there rummaging through all the boxes and racks. Even I loved it although I usually hate shopping.
Vanessa fitted on I don't know how many dresses and brought home two of them. They looked mighty cute on her! We didn't only buy clothing as we couldn't resist some buttons, wool, fabric and hooks and all got packaged in vintage packaging material. Haha! So cool! :)

Here's where you have to go if you want to go back in time...

Ingthings

Quite a while back, I entered a give-away on Ingthings, a beautiful blog full of handmade and vintage goodies. Ingrid happens to be a very generous lady and always puts a smile on my face with her cheeky writing style and amazing pictures.
The blog is written in Dutch which might be a bit tricky for English readers but the pictures really tell a 1000 words. There is however a google translate button on her blog too...
Want to see what she send me?
A book about embroidery which I am thrilled about as that's one of the techniques I really want/need to learn sometime.
I love these pincushions - so vibrant and such lovely embroidery on them.
Very clear pictures on how to do it, so the garantuee for succes is a bit higher in my case...
And then she chucked in a whole lot of vintage buttons, thread and ribbons.
It was a very joyful day when I opened the package!
Thank you Ingrid for this lovely gift and for being inspiring and making me smile.

I nominated Ingrid's blog for the Handmade Olympics on RikRak studio's blog. In the category 'your favourite nicey/nicies forwarding kindness thru handmaking'
I'll let you know when the voting starts so that you can go and support this amazing lady!

Paper doll project

A while ago, Anastasia send me a message asking me to participate in a project of hers called 'Paper Doll project'. Just for fun and I really like to do things 'just for fun'. :) Besides that, I think it's an awesome idea and I hope that lots of people will join.

She made a drawing of herself and asks people to make clothes for her.
You can download the drawing in her blog.
Then you get to work with paper, pencil, fabric, paint, crayons, recycling material,... you name it, lots of possiblities.
So here's what I did...

BEFORE AFTER

I cut out a dress from wallpaper and added some rikrak ribbon at the bottom.
I love mary janes so I decided to give her red velvet mary jane-shoes.
Her accesoiries consist out of a red necklace & hairpin.

I'm not a fashion designer and to be honest, I'm not all that interested in clothes at all. I really liked the challenge to make something of this and yes, it did draw me out of my comfort zone again. Now, go and make some clothes for Anastasia! :)

Weekly happy stats

Things that made me happy last week:

• Vintage week on my blog
• Spoolknitting
• Cat cuddles
• Seeing the seedlings grow
• Eating strawberries

Random happy pic by Lilfishstudios

Happy weekend, everyone! :)

Vintage cooking

When I found this vintage apron back in my closet the other day, I decided to do a post about 'vintage cooking'. Nothing is more pleasant then peeking into a vintage kitchen and perhaps trying out a vintage recipe.

image via CountryLiving

Nothing beats to what grandma used to make, right? Charming vintage recipes and vintage recipes provide a good source of lovely recipes. I especially love browsing through the dessert section of the last one. :)

image via Nickandnessies

There is also a Flickr group called vintage cookbooks. I loved browsing through it. The images of these cookbooks are so excessive in decoration and setting. I love the static way people used to show off a pie! LOL :)

image via MyHomeIdeas

I just love the tabletop in this kitchen. And the tins and the plate rack and...

Vintage recipe box via Thriftalholic

I love to get a box like this and then order some of the cards below. Now lots of recipes are just stuck between my favorite cookbook and it's making it really fat and unhandy to use.

personalized recipe cards by the Petite Press

image via Bloesem

No vintage kitchen without a bit of Pyrex. The color and designs brighten up any kitchen.

I realize that I don't have lots of vintage in my kitchen, do you?

My creative space

I don't know how many metres of spool knitting I did as a kid but I bet it was long, long, long. I loved doing it even though I never really knew what to do with the result. The repetitive action of the spool knitting kept me quiet for many, many hours.I found my old spool back at my parents home in this vintage sewing box. Both are mine now as my mom was very happy to get rid of both. I'm addicted again. :)I'll finish off this spoolknitted flower today and will send it to one of the people who comment on this post. Will pick a lucky one in my next creative space.

Want to show your space? Hop over to Kootoyoo's to play! It's fun! :)

Wanted: vintage goodies

How cute and happy are these vintage candy striped mugs by elisabethwrenvintage?
She has more lovely finds in her shop like this and that.

Lots of my tools are spread all over the shed and this handy Andy toolbox
by Bluebell would make my life a lot easier.

I think that with the arrival of my sewing machine,
I soon will not be able to resist this vintage Swans French lace by Lucietales

I love postcards and these vintage embroidered children's postcards
by P8iosities just make me happy all around! Look at that kitten! *melts* Cute hey?

I don't collect anything in particular but if I would start a collection,
it would be one of vintage metal keys. I love old skeleton keys.
This one is by LaPommevintage and I believe that every key
looks much better with a lace ribbon! :)

Meet Stella

Last week, Stella arrived at my house. An unexpected envelope was dropped in my mailbox. From Scotland, hmm, didn't order anything there, did I?It's from the very talented EmmaLamb who does amazing crochet work! The packaging looks so pretty & professional - wow - instant happiness. She's so cheeky to send me Stella but I love her right away. It doesn't take long before Stella is up and about in my studio.

Why didn't I have Stella before? She's great and makes me jippety jappety happy!

And look how professional the care instructions look. Emma, you're amazing!

In case you have never seen Emma's work, you must take a look in her shop and look at all the pretty things she has in there. She's a magician with color combo's, does not only do some wicked crochet but embroiders too and she is simply an all around cutie pie! Besides an amazing shop, she also has an awesome blog - always inspiring and pretty!
Thank you, dear Emma for making me smile every day! I love having Stella in my studio! :)

Oh, and this is the perfect post to announce 'vintage week' on my blog.
Can you wait? :)