My creative space

This morning, my creative space was invaded by the three kiddies from Kerrin aka Sigmosaics. Gabriel, Inêz and Simonne are on a little European tour with their mommy and were driving by today. I'm so glad I got the chance to meet her beautiful kids.
They were very much taken by my magical garden where presents grow on plants - haha - how you can fool kids! :)
We had breakfast together and played a bit before they had to hit the road again.
Oh, and they loved showing us their faces while pressing them onto the windows! Haha, wouldn't you love to be a kid again? It made us laugh out loud and of course they tried to be as deformed as possible to make us laugh even more. It was so much fun!

They are now on their way to meet Renate from Kreativlink in Austria. Not an easy task as it's 38°C at the moment and it's a stiff 10 hour drive... but they will have fun on the way!

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

Happy birthday cards

I had a special request from BacaCaraJewelry to make a birthday card for her aunt who loves pink and purple. It could be whimsical and fun and she told me she loved the happy girl to be included.
While working on other stuff, my brain is always working so then I came up with this idea. I think they will make a nice addition to my current line of cards. :)

Flickr favorites

1. minimita, 2. Maastricht, 3. DSC_4632, 4. I BUY HANDMADE. My hoops and I.

I promise that after today I won't go on about the fair anymore. Just thought it would be nice to round it up with a mosaic that for me depicts it all: friends, maastricht, fair, buying handmade...

If you like to play this week, make your mosaic and add a link to your blogpost (not your blog please) or Flickr in Mister Linky (click on the button below and fill in your name with the link to your blogpost or Flickr picture). I'll pop over to have a look at yours. Can't wait to see your creations and find new favorites! :)

Craftparking was FANTASTIC!

I have been wishing for a long time to write a title like that and I'm so glad I can do that now! Time to finally show off all the hard work from the last few weeks! The location was way out of the city in an old factory and at first I thought 'not many people will make the journey to visit' but boy was I wrong! In the old factory, lots of cultural happenings were taking place for the summerfestival and it was happy busy.
The girls who organised this, Moon & Jasmijn, just have been wonderful. Apparently prior to the fair, they walked their feet off to distribute flyers and made promotion like hell!
It was supposed to start at 1pm but at 12am people were already starting to come in & it didn't stop until very late on the day. Really busy & an amazing atmosphere.

As you all know, lots of European Streetteam friends from Etsy were going to be on the fair. And that really was the most amazing thing for me: meet everyone and realise that I 'knew' them even though we never met before! It's hard to explain how virtual friendships can be so close. Wow, such a nice feeling!
Since I didn't have much time to visit the stands, I asked my friend Veerle who came with me to help me out on the stand, to go around and take some pictures for me.
Come talk a walk around the fair & meet my friends...

Maria & her husband Jim from LeelaBijoux

Vanessa (pet buyer on Etsy & Kerrin's friend), Kerrin from Sigmosaics and Nicole from Babongo & Babongohome.

Veerle from NevousinstallezpasKarla from Karlita

Ahum, Nathalie from Dinafragola is shopping obviously... ;)

Myrte from Mirthquake

Maartje from Mamutopia

Ina from DeerLola

Kim from Viltalakim

Petronella from Kraplap
(sorry, unfortunately no picture of Peggy, the little cute dog)

Greet from Fleurfatale

Mitsy from ArtMind
(I got that brooch from one of my blogreaders - supercute and nice - thank you purplerabbit)

Personally, it was the first time ever that I showed my work to the public and it was very exciting and fun to talk and explain the '99-feelings' project.
People were very much taken by it and it felt good to get this token of appreciation! Wow, still blushing here! ;)
Here you can see how my stand looked in the end... I didn't paint the wooden boxes but I hung the wall art on them. Looked nice I think! :)

Nicole from Babongo & Mitsy from ArtMind

In the evening we went to the restaurant together.

Ready for dinner, chatting and relaxing...

It was then that we gave Kerrin's goodbye gift. If you have not read the post about the secret suitcase, than you probably don't know what this is about so go and read it first! ;)

Kim's beautiful girls, Janna & Meg with the secret suitcase and bag because it didn't all fit in...

Of course I messed up while explaining what was happening because I said it all in Dutch and then I looked at Kerrin and she looked like she didn't understand a word... and of course she didn't understand a word...

Laughing because I was explaining in Dutch instead of English

Being supersurprised when I translated...

And even more surprised when she opened the suitcase...
Oops, wiping a tear from emotion... but that's perfectly OK, I was wiping too! ;)

Not only a suitcase full of gifts, but also a suitcase full of emotions. The unexpected gift made Kerrin speechless, grateful and amazed and... she'll tell you about it when she gets back to Portugal, I'm sure of that!

At our home while sitting at the kitchen table opening the gifts - how fun!!!
Thank you dear Euro friends for participating in this fabulous secret gift giving. You are all extremely wonderful and sweet! :)

So, all in all it was unforgettable! It was an experience that will be cherished and when we said goodbye we all said: 'see you on the thread' of course! :) ('the thread' is our chatting thread on the Etsy forum)

Sorry this has been such a long post but I just wanted to share our experience a little bit 'cause I know how curious you all are! ;)

The secret suitcase...

Our dear friend Kerrin from Sigmosaics is moving back from Portugal to New-Zealand in October. That will also mean that she officially won't be part of the European Streetteam anymore. I'm sure that she will pop into the thread from time to time and still be the sweet and supporting person that she always is. But, to be a member of the team, you need to live in Europe. I know she will have a hard time saying officially goodbye to all of us as she often told me how amazing the European Streetteam is. And she is absolutely right: we are one of a kind, supportive & caring.
As soon as I knew that Kerrin was going to attend the Craftparking fair in Maastricht, I knew that would be a perfect time to throw a little goodbye party.
Lots of EST-members signed up for the market or will come and visit it.
So I started a chain mail kind of conversation that the EST-members had to forward to each other. In that convo, I asked to sent a little wish, a card, a token of appreciation, a little handmade gift or whatever they could come up with, to my address.
So the past weeks I had the opportunity to get to know our postman a bit better as he rang quite often to drop packages.
In the beginning, I kept them in a box but then I remembered I still had some old suitcases on the attic. I thought that it would be a good packaging to say goodbye to her and wish her well from her European Streetteam friends. After all, a little bit of the European Streetteam is going on the journey with her… ;)
Here are some views of the suitcase...


And this is not all as the people who will attend the fair, will secretly drop off their gift at my stand so I can put it in the suitcase. I'm afraid I'll be needing the big suitcase for all the goodies but the small one is much cuter and nicer so I'll try to fit it all in there...
In the evening, we will all have dinner together & that will also be a perfect time to give it to her.
To be continued...
Hehe, couldn't resist showing off my Mohops as well! I just love 'em - they are so super comfortable and versatile! Check 'em out! :)

My creative space

This past week I have been glazing like a madwoman. I always underestimate the time it takes to glaze little pieces. It is certainly not my favorite thing to do so I'm happy I'm over and done with it for a while.
While glazing, I have lots of time to contemplate and gather ideas - if my brain co-operates. So last night I thought it would be nice to meet my blogreaders on the craftparking fair.
If you are one of them, please come say hello, introduce yourself, let me know you read my blog and I will give you a 'I read your blog'-goody bag as a token of appreciation. I'm making 25 goody bags to give away on the fair so make sure to pass by my stand as I love to meet you. :)
Any goody bags left over will be randomly distributed among my blog followers! :)

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

Flickr favorites

1. YIP: 02.11.09, 2. coffee break, 3. sunshine, 4. Untitled

This weeks favorites are inspired by what I'd like to do next week. As I have been superbusy getting lots done the past weeks, I have really missed crocheting, reading, sitting in the sunshine & browsing through Flickr as a source of inspiration.
Any big plans for you next week?

If you like to play this week, make your mosaic and add a link to your blogpost (not your blog please) or Flickr in Mister Linky (click on the button below and fill in your name with the link to your blogpost or Flickr picture). I'll pop over to have a look at yours. Can't wait to see your creations and find new favorites! :)