refashioned shirts: t-shirt yarn version

I'm not entirely sure how it happened.. I blinked a few times, and all of a sudden my youngest niece, Eefke celebrated her fourth birthday..

the upcycled christmas necklace

You must feel betrayed, my friends!
You probably came to this blog thinking I did nice and cute refashions, and all of a sudden I've gone  full hulk-mode and only do projects that involve power tools, muscle and a lot of rubble, and I'm sure you're sometimes wondering.. "Can't she just do a nice skirt instead of a bathroom?" (No, cuz you can't take a bath inside a skirt, baby)

But today, as my lil' christmas present to you, I'll make it up!
And will do so by making the cutest, frilliest upcycled christmas necklace ever, entirely maken out of thrifted, broken and unwanted old pieces of jewelry.

short summer series: we can be heroes ( not just for one day)

If you could be a superhero with any kind of superpower, what would it be?

short summer series: a miniature bride

I may have mentioned it before: my little nieces love absolutely nothing more than dressing up.

For the oldest one this means imitating her favorite Disney princess of the week.
For her little sister, it usually implies putting on her hot pink rain boots ( your guess is as good as mine on why she does that..), wrapping herself in whichever kind of fabric is at hand as "a dress" and skip off to chase the cat. So, when I had to think about birthday gifts, it wasn't a difficult decision: dress-up clothes!

short summer series: Traffic light tank top ( and how to sew stretchy fabric)

What do you have when you have a few short tops, and a spine that goes on for miles?

back with a backless shirt)

hey guys!

"How on earth is it possible" I muttured in Joost's general direction, "that all of a sudden it is summer? What happened to April, and May, and June for that matter? I was supposed to get work done in spring, get some rest, and you know... enjoy life, but all of a sudden it's almost summer holiday, and everything is still unfinished!"
Joost turned his eyes away from from his computer screen exactly long enough to look at me and indicate that he had heard me, knitted his eyebrows together, and hummed incomprehensibly in agreement. His screen showed at least 5 different projects that he was frantically working on. Ugh, I do love summer and summer holidays, but could it please not arrive in such a hurry, and be preceded by such an ungodly amount of deadlines? thank you very much!

But somehow we managed to survive the wave of deadlines and summer hols arrived in all its glory. So Joost and I decided to throw a tent in the back of our car, cue the (frankly awful, since we both have absolutely no taste at all) music, and head towards France for a few weeks of camping, hiking, paddle boarding and generally embarrassing myself with my not-so-smooth French language skills..

"l'art est amour, l'amour c'est la vie, la vie, il faut la vivre et non la subir", (Carrasco , the painter of this church)

baste-and-bleach.

As soon as I reach for my running shoes, it starts to rain. Not a gentle drizzle, noo... it's pelting down, as if the rain gods are laughing at my attempts to establish a proper exercise regime.
I sigh, withdraw my hand and stare at through window. A half-hearted thought crosses my mind to just brave the weather, and go for it. But my inner Shia laBoeuf  ("just do it!") loses it to my desire to stay warm and dry inside; with a cup of tea and my laptop, writing you all this post.

dress up, girl

It's past 10 o' clock in the morning, and while the rest of the world is already at work, I'm still sitting on my bed.Inky is fast asleep next to me, I'm balancing a plate with a sandwich with chocolate sprinkles (I know! How Dutch of me!) on my left knee, there's an enormous cup of tea on my night stand, and Nick Drake is playing on the background.
If there is a better lazy morning, I surely can't think of one.

blog-ception 

It all vaguely reminds me of the way we celebrated Mothers and Fathers day when we were young, when me and my brother would make breakfast in bed for our parents, which usually came down to a breakfast of boiled eggs with golfball-like properties, sandwiches with a mountain of chocolate sprinkles on top of them, tiny hand picked bouquets in coffee cups, and a trail of orange juice and tea on the stairs, where we clumsily and excited carried the breakfast upstairs to my parents' bedroom, who would always pretend to be still asleep and completely unaware of our surprise. ( and looking back, I can only applaud them for always eating everything).

But though I feel very motherly towards the cats and chickens, I'm not a mum, and this isn't mothers day, it's just a lovely lazy free morning, after pulling an all nighter for work, and instead of doing chores, I decided to write a bit. So, hereby!

the maxi-dress that wasn't maxi enough

I can't really remember what I was thinking that day, but on hindsight it must have been something along those lines: "Ah! a big, ill-fitting stripy tent! Just what I need!"

It came from one of those shops that only sells disposable fashion: you know the kind: stores that think they do you a big favor by selling you clothes for a buck or so, that will only last a season or two before disintegrating in a heap of misery.

Disposable fashion.. I don't know who came up with it, but I can only hope he/she is eternally hunted by a herd of angry hippo's in ill-fitting garments, in whatever kind of afterlife there is.

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

What do you get when you take a bit of plain white cotton, some buttons, a few felt-tip
pens, and a bit of elastic ? Duh! A flower crown of course!

colourblocking the blue!

Oh, the inspiration that my last refashion has given me! I. Need. To. Refashion. More. Clothes!!

I quickly started digging through my wardrobe until I found this...

"Ah, you mean my new napping place?"

Oh bugger off, Inky!

refashioning: sizing up

Whenever you visit a refashioner's blog, the basic lesson on refashioning is always the same:  "when buying clothes, Go a few sizes up!" This makes a lot of sense: the bigger the clothes are, the more fabric you've got to work with, and every seam will eat up some of that fabric.

But what if you want to refashion something that is actually too small?

I've got a refashion up my sleeve....|| DIY cherry pit pillow with rice

Hey guys, how are things going? As for me, I'm..

well, kind of. See those bruises on my hand? that's from taking a tumble in the middle of Utrecht central station yesterday. Not sure what was hurt more in that action: my hand, my pride, or the cup of yoghurt that I was carrying at the moment. And it following only a few days after a I got a concussion from a garage door that fell on my head ( yeah really...)  I think it's safe to say that Murphy is my new roommate. But apart from that, I'm fine, and I really hope you are as well! 

Of course, I didn't post that picture just to show off my thumbs up and bruises, I posted it because I did a refashion with that fabric today (cheerings crowds..) and not just any kind of refashion: one that will probably be the most important refashion of the upcoming cold season.. a cherry pit pillow!

that time I saved England. ( or... that time I made a shopper bag)

Last Octobre, when I was visiting Oxford for work, England was suffering from a catastrophe of a national scale. Consternation everywhere.

"This is outrageous!" shouted a lady in front of me in Sainsbury's. "It's like they have taken away my freedom!" said a guy in a preppy Oxford to his mate.

What was happening? World War III? the beginnings of Brexit? No, this was much worse. Much, much worse. The government had decided to ban all free plastic bags in shops, and the country was in uproar.

DIY: backpack becomes... well, a backpack.

"Ugggh, I can't move..." I sighed last Monday, whilst hobbling through the house like an old lady. 

Yeah.. After a couple of years being lazy in the city center of Groningen, those bicycle rides (31 km a day) are something to get used to, if not for the sore muscles, than at least for the damage that a saddle does to your butt. I'm not gonna describe the situation of my bottom in detail ( I've got boundaries, people! Not many, but still some!) but let's just say that if I had been a baboon, they surely would have thought I had my fertile period. 

Luckily, the view during my cycle ride is not too bad...

See that tiny white house on the left? That's ours!

As I soon discovered, not only my butt and bicycle, but also my collection of bags is not entirely adjusted to the long bike rides: I only own shoppers and hand bags, which aren't very useful on a bike. So, I decided to make myself a backpack!

moving houses, moving schmouses.... and a refashioned dress!

Hi guys!

First of all, can I have permission to say 'UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRGGH'!
and then some more uuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeerrgggg... and well, more of that.

moving houses sucks so hard, that if I could put all that sucktitude into a machine, you would have the best vacuum cleaner in the world. I banged my toes against Every. single. moving box in the house. I have turned three boxes upside down looking for scissors, and now Joost is calling from the kitchen, asking if I know where I packed the nutmeg (!) which i know, because I packed it at the bottom of a box, but I have no idea which one. So, yeah I think I will start liking moving houses again as soon as we've got the keys to our new place, but so far, I am hating the guts out of it!

But to cheer myself up, yet another throwback-refashion! ( I will soon be making things again. promised!)

refashioning: Bow-time!

Bonjour!

As I am writing this, I'm wiggling my toes towards a lovely French sun, overlooking one of the most beautiful sceneries of in the Morvan. Yes, I'm spending my weekend abroad! (magnifique etc etc)

Well.... after I had written that sentence - indeed underneath a lovely French sun- I spend my weekend with other French activities, such as drinking wine, shouting at French drivers (but not at the same time) and eating cheese. So, woefully, I have to inform you that the rest of this blogpost is written in plain old Netherlands. But to make you slightly jealous, this was my view of the weekend:

a grassy hill and a cute niece!

Skirt day: the 10 minute no-sew circle skirt

In the Netherlands -not really internationally known for its beautiful weather- we have a phenomenon called "rokjesdag".- Skirt day. The first day of beautiful weather where women en masse shave the hairy caterpillars that have been their legs during wintertime, and emerge as beautiful, bare-legged butterflies wearing their newest skirts. The mystery of skirt day is the fact that all those women simultaneously know when skirt day appears.

As an author on urban dictionary writes:
"I woke up this morning, strode outside, saw dozens of beautiful girls in skirts on the way to class, said a brief thank-you to God for their smooth and fit legs, and promptly declared to my friends, "Today ... is Skirt Day."

Obviously, men love skirt day. And truth be told; so do I. Isn't there a sense of happiness in walking bare-legged, sun shining on your skin, feeling the wind breeze through the remnants of your leg hair? (haha, sorry!)

Skirt day is probably still weeks from here, but with the beautiful weather of last week, I began to look forward to my summer closet. Thus I decided to make a skirt.

Not just any skirt: the easiest, breeziest skirt in the whole wide world.  

queens of scraps

First of all, a belated happy easter to all of you! I hope you're having a great weekend. I have very fond memories of celebrating easter as a little girl at my parent's house: all the flowers in and around the house, the egg-hunt in the garden, the lovely breakfast (breakfast is my favorite meal) and of course eating yourself sick from all the chocolate eggs.

This year, we passed that tradition on to my two little nieces, who were staying the weekend at my parents' place. I of course didn't want to miss out on the amount of chocolate eggs, wine (and dirty diapers..), so I also paid them a visit. I hadn't seen my nieces in a while, and wanted to bring them a little gift. Since my oldest niece ( she's three) is fond of dressing up as a princess, I decided to make them little crowns, made from scraps of fabric!

refashioning a shawl into a dress: yep, you read that right!

Remember I told you that I had a pretty awesome refashion for you in store? Well, I finally managed to take some pictures of the result, so today is the day to inform you of my latest refashion! I'm pretty excited about it because of the following reasons

1) It involved a dress. And dresses are my favorite kind of clothes.
2) It's made from a simple shawl, which usually cost around 0,50 at the thrift shop.
3) It's really easy, and I'm sure you can manage it too!!
4) I haven't seen anyone else doing this, so it feels like an invention ( although, it may be my crappy google-skills that are at play here)

so let's get to it, shall we?