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.

beasts, benches and bed frames

Lately the weather has been so beautiful, that even the biggest sceptic (and for Dutch people, blaming the weather for being bad comes as natural as breathing) can’t deny that spring is operating in all earnestness, and everything is teeming with life. 

The branches of our various fruit trees are heavy with blossoms, and the air itself is positively buzzing.

Our cats, Inky and Lieve, have gotten so fat that every time they squeeze themselves through the cat flap to go outside, it looks as if our backdoor is giving birth.

Throwing some (lamp)shade... a diy'd industrial lamp!

The cashier, a man with an alarmingly bushy moustache, gazed upon all the stuff we had dumped upon his counter (two books, a slatted bed base, cd's, some kitchen stuff and the star of this blog:an enormous lamp) scratched his equally bushy ear and announced in a loud voice: "madam, sir, 10 euros please!"

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?

Midas' touch: the upcycled desk organizer

Before you get dishearted by the look of this project: don't!! It's really, really easy and requires very little carpentry skills! 

"Nooo! You can't use that! I need it right now!" "No you don't!" Joost and I looked at each other, hot-headed and both pulling at a corner of what appeared to be a wooden box.

oh my, trouble in paradise....

DIY || yarn-wrapped porcelain painting!

Ah blue.... the colour of summery blue skies, calm seas, tranquility, and probably the most loved colour in the world.
And ironically.... also the name of a mood that pictures none of the above.

And boy, I was feeling it.  Might be autumn, might be stress, I don't know, but I just couldn't get myself to be creative. But as the saying goes: if you're feeling blue, paint yourself a different colour.. or just put that blue onto something else and make good use of it ;)

So, I made these painted mugs. Except that they weren't actually painted: I did something far easier: I wrapped them with paint-dipped yarn. So no painting skills needed at all!

picture-perfect is just another word for boring || sideboard becomes bench

uhg, I feel guilty for leaving you alone! There were probably some very good reasons for not finding the time to write some blogs, but I can't remember them at the moment, so I just feel guilty. So guilty, that I actually gave up my little lunchtime-stroll to write you the long-promised post about my little bench!

Remember how I told you about how I upcycled one of the sideboards that was left in our kitchen?  Well, that was not the only sideboard left behind by the previous owners. Enter sideboard number two:

That one!
(thank you real estate agent for taking all the pictures that I forgot to take!)

That first sideboard may have been a nightmare to remove, but this one was even worse. It was attached to the wall with a thousand screws, and I literally had to break it in pieces to remove it from the wall.

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.

Cant ignore the past: the upcycled sideboard.

DIY clothespin poetry

It was fairly early this morning, when I walked into my garden with a big basket full of laundry to let it dry outside.
And while I was standing there, I suddenly realized how incredibly beautiful that moment was.

moving files: the room that must not be mentioned

( small note for the tender souls amongst us:  I'm in a slightly rebellious mood today, it might show;))

if you've got a little experience with house-hunting, you might have noticed a pattern: brokers always tend to ignore a vital part of every home: the loo.  I mean, I can understand it: in our lives we all tend to ignore the loo and the business that belongs in there, but still.....
In all the houses we have seen, I think the most elaborate description of a loo we heard was " it is functional."     ...    Really?

I mean, how great would life be if brokers would approach the loo with the same enthusiasm as they describe every other room and say something like:  "Voila! and this is where you will poop! Look at how magnificent it is!"  and we would respond like " mmm, yeah, that looks like a magnificent place to poop, I look forward to that!" that would be absolutely brilliant.

So, in a vain and cheeky attempt to change the world: look at our updated loo!

moving files: the upcycled kitchen, part 1

"errhmm.... You might want to put in a new kitchen...." the broker said, when he first showed us the house. Although brokers are usually not too happy pointing out necessary investments to a potential buyer, he just couldn't deny this one: the kitchen was indeed beyond hope.

Wait, would you like to see it?

hmpff...

What you are looking at is a patchwork of everything: a small vintage kitchen with beside it some weird extra cabinet with a piece of weathered wood, and a gap next to it where our oven just didn't quite fit in. Oh, and did I mention the styrofoam ceiling, the range hood that didn't fit and the tiles with a color of moldy eggnog?

Something definitely needed to be done, but buying a new kitchen, as the broker suggested? no..... we have something much more fun in mind!

DIY leaf printed fabric

After the heavy rainfall of last week ( which created a temporary rivier in front of the house), the plants and trees in our garden are growing with such an astonishing speed, that I almost suspect that Hagrid has been toying around with them. So of course; what else could I do but giving today's blog post a botanic twist?

I really love the recent (well, kind of recent) botanic trend, but rather than hopping off to the nearest interior shop and buy the same botanic inspired that everyone else buys, I decided to make my own version of it, by printing fabric with leafs!  And guess what; it's really simple, and gives an awesome result! So why don't you give it a try as well?

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!

easy like sunday morning, and an upcycled lampshade

Yesterday, as Joost and I were hurrying through the house and packing things, one member of our household that did not feel the stress at all:




Purrr....
Oh, sometimes I really wish I was like Broen... I'd even accept such hairy legs if that would be what it takes ;)

a geeky rocking horse

Last Saturday, Joost and I looked at each other in slight panic: we had a birthday coming up for the son of one of Joost's friends, and we had completely forgotten to buy something for the child.

In my opinion, buying gifts for a one-year old is a headache anyway: they are too young for the really cool things, and too old for the baby-gifts. Fortunately, the father of this child has a not-so-subtle hobby: Star wars.

Well, yeah.. something like that!

So instead of doing the sensible thing and just buy a book or something alike, we decided to thrift something and turn it into something Star wars related.
So, ( with a trunk loaded with things to donate) we happily hopped off to the thrift shop!

And there we found this faded little friend:

a rocking horse! We thought it was perfect for a one-year old, but the paint was a little faded, and the wooden rockers were slightly spotted.
So, we cued the Star Wars music ( PAM PAM PAM PAMPAPAM PAMPAPAM....) and set to work!

Recycle week day 7: Magazine stool

" So... What are you going to do with your magazines?" Joost asked while we were clearing our bookcase. "Do you really want to keep them all?"
Whoops. Joost was touching a sensitive point here: my addiction for home design magazines. I just love them. I especially love looking at the incredible expensive things in them and thinking: "I TOTALLY could make that myself!!"

That addiction has resulted in quite an impressive staple of magazines. I really cherish that moment of smugness ("you little fools, buying all these expensive things that you can make or thrift?"), so the magazines had to stay. But something had to be done, so -after a quite ingenious design I saw a few years ago- I decided to make a stool with them!

recycle week day 6: Bottoms up!

Earlier this week, I received a message from Tambra, with a link to this creative lady. Bottles are so versatile, it immediately inspired me to make something with bottles as well!

But before I let you in on my crafting adventure, I first HAVE to show you the amazing work of this lady:

so, so, so cool!!! 

But as I started digging through my house looking for empty bottles, I suddenly realized something: We already had a quite amazing bottle-craft in our house...  So I hope you will forgive me for the fact of sharing that one with you today!

recycle week day 5: a trip down memory lane.

Last week, I've been going through my old belongings. Going through stuff I didn't even rememver I owned, deciding what should stay, what should go and -the things you've read about- the things that deserve a second life. The reason for this? Well, we're moving houses!

Yes, Joost and I have bought a really cute little farm house, and we are moving houses in only a couple of weeks. Of course I've known about this for a for a few weeks now, but I didn't dare tell you yet since we hadn't yet received a final decision from the bank. But now we have, and it's official: We are leaving!

For me, it will be the fourth home I live in in only 2,5 years (the end university life/start of working life is a chaotic time) So, first things first, I'm going to give you a little peek of what -in a 100 buckets of paint- will be our home:

If it's old, I'm sold...  and it has a huge backyard!!

recycle week day 4: soda can stove

Behold one of my all-time favorite upcycling crafts!!

I'm a pretty big fan of camping. Not just any camping, no the wild camping, survivalling kind of camping, where your ass freezes off, and your idea of luxury is a pair of clean socks. ( Hey, I live in the Netherlands, our most dangerous animal is the honey bee... I need some adventure in my life!)

making dinner in Dalarna, our shelter in Belgium (at -16 degrees),
wild camping whilst cycling through Nothern Sweden, wild camping whilst canoeing in Glaskogen.

Love those memories!!
Sounds like hell, you say? Well, don't worry yet: although today's craft might be veerry handy if you have a hobby like mine, but it works very well in the luxury of your porch/backyard/beach/at your BBQ. Because this is what I'll be making today: a stove made from a soda can (okay... beer can, but soda sounds nicer!)