Happy Hippo: sewing a garland for charity

Hello you! So how was your week? Did you do anything special? Or are you, as I am, looking forward to a long weekend?

Besides enjoying the lovely weather we had for a couple of days this past week, I really wanted to finish up the garland for Happy Hippo Foundation. For the birthday boxes they provide to underprivileged children up to age 12, the lovely Annemarie from Ladybug & Co and one of her friends came up with the idea to start sewing garlands to add as an extra to the birthday boxes, so their birthday could be even more festive! And it's a lasting and reusable item as well, yay!

On her blog you could download the templates to three different patterns and instructions were provided how to make them (all in Dutch). Goal was to gather 300 garlands.

As I do not know if my garland is for a boy or girl, I decided to use a red polka dot and a bright blue starry fabric, and a white bias tape. A fresh and happy looking combination I thought. 

Following the instructions I cut, sorted, sewed, turned inside out, poked, measured, pinned and sewed some more. And then my garland was finished! I took our lil B-boy out for a walk to the postal office yesterday and sent my contribution to Happy Hippo to the provided address.

I knew the goal of 300 garlands was almost complete and thought, would it not be great if mine was the 300th one. And what do you know, today I got word that my garland actually was no. 300 ~smile~

Some 30 more garlands can be sent in for this charity, so if you have some fabric left hanging around your house (scraps are great for this purpose) and feel like some sewing, sign up!

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Love,

Maartje

Spring inspiration!

Hello you! Spring really seems to be here now where I am, so I have been enjoying breakfast in the sun and the outdoors a bit more the past week! Is it as lovely where you are?

I did some weeding in our garden as that was growing with leaps and bounds and the husband put in several new bushes to green up the place, yay for him ~smile~ !!
So there has not been a lot of Making going on here... or blogging for that matter, as I hope you can imagine.

But hey, Spring is here, so I am not complaining! Some of my walks outside had me going to a lovely shop nearby where I treated myself on some lovely and inspiring new things. Several fabrics, a new book on decorating the home and Green Gate wrapping paper which was on sale!
At another store I got some folding paper and paper punches for my daughter to use and very nice washi tape to add to my collection ~smile~

I also went to my fabrics lady where I could not resist the cupcake and macaroon fabric and the blue one with roses on it. With the rosey one I want to make a dress or skirt for my daughter, so that one will be on the blog when it's done.
Any suggestions from you guys for the macaroon one?

So I am headed off outside again with the little B-boy, enjoy your week and see you soon!

Love,
Maartje

Pillowcases... final touches for the nursery

Hi there, so nice to meet you here on my blog!
As you know I have been busy the past few weeks to catch you up on all my Makes for the nursery for our little baby boy.

The final bits were some pillowcases to finish off the look. I found a great pilow cover tutorial on the lovely blog of MiekK, which you can find here (in Dutch).
Even for me, with only a bit of sewing experience, it was very easy and it turned out very well, if you don't mind me saying so ~smile~

I made two pillow covers, one measuring 50 x 50 cm and the other slightly bigger at 60 x 60 cm. 
Following the instructions step by step, I measured, cut and sewed both pillowcases, using a navy canvas and some left over fabric I used to reupholster the roman blind (blogpost can be found here) for the 50 x 50 pillow.
The second one I made from the same navy canvas and another left over piece of the postal bag fabric I used to make the memo board (blogged about that one here) and I only finished that one last Friday. Therefore you get to see the results now and not last week as I had planned ;-)

As you can see, the white Ikea chair got a completely new look and feel. By adding the postal bag fabric, it really lifted the color scheme of the room with the little bits of red and the sandy color of the pillowcase.

So here's a little peek into the nursery. Since the nursery is on the Northeastern side of our house, light is a challenge when taking pictures. So hope you can see how it all combines so well.

See you next time!

Love,
Maartje

Wall Art for a little boy's nursery

Oops, over a week has passed without posting a thing on my blog! I suppose I could say, life happened ~smile~
I have been enjoying our little boy a lot, getting to know him, which is so wonderful. His big sister is very loving towards him, I love how she has totally accepted him as part of our family! Since I am recovering well, I can spend more and more time out of bed and around our house. And that feels great!

I wanted to share a great and easy make with you today, the wall art I made for the nursery. Here goes!

So with the nursery almost turned around from a girly girl nursery to a baby boy one, I wanted to add some final touches to complete the look.

I wanted to make some wall art, using a blank canvas, some fabric and flock foil (grey and navy). I ordered the flocking material here and two days later it arrived in the mail, yay for fast deliveries! 

Since the birth announcement card had elephants on them, I wanted to include them in the nursery as well. A couple of weeks before J was born, I bought a lovely blackboard garland at Leen Bakker, shaped like elephants.

I used one of the elephants to outline the shape and cut out the pattern.

Then I placed the pattern on the flock material and using scissors, I cut out the elephants, one in grey and one in navy.

Then, using my iron and two pieces of fabric cut to fit the canvasses I wanted to use, I ironed the flock elephant onto the fabric. The grey elephant was ironed onto plain white fabric, and the navy elephant was combined with a grey and white gingham fabric. Make sure you use a tea towel between the flock and the iron when ironing the flock onto the fabric of your choice.

I let the fabric cool for about 15 minutes, before stapling them onto the canvasses. Finally I placed the canvasses onto the console in the nursery, where they will sit temporarily until I decide how and where to hang them on the grey wall ~smile~

This make was a lot of fun to do and not hard at all. Everyone can do this, so why don’t you give it a try. I would love to hear about your flocking projects!

Love,

Maartje