Sewing on Saturday: Workshop celebrating the launch of "Naaien & Stikken"

Do you have them? Those days that are packed with those favourite things like sewing, having coffees, laughing out loud and learning something new all in the same day? A day you just wish does not end. Last Saturday was a day just like it!

I was invited by publisher De Fontein|Tirion to join a workshop together with 14 other bloggers to celebrate the launch of a new book called "Naaien & Stikken". It is the Dutch translation of that wonderful book accompanying the even more fun BBC series "The Great British Sewing Bee". The new series started last Tuesday, 9.00 pm, and I enjoy watching it so much!

But back to Saturday. The workshop took place at Texielstad in Tilburg. It was like walking into a candy store, so many lovely fabrics, pure happiness! And not only do they sell fabric, also every accessory you will need, zippers, buttons, thread, needles and complete sewing machines.

We could all make something out of "Naaien & Stikken". Most of us made aprons, which was so much fun! And I even brought my own sewing machine, so I could get started immediately.

I learnt a lot and enjoyed meeting the women behind several of the blogs I like to find inspiration such as the one of my friend Maaike from creJJtion. Also the ladies behind some of the web shops I go to, to buy my fabrics and haberdashery like VanMarieke and SewNatural were there. It was like meeting someone you already know, I so love how that works. And to my surprise several of them said that they have read my blog or follow me on Instagram, yay!

At the end of the afternoon we all finished our projects and everyone really loved the results! 

I will post more on the book in a few days, including a more elaborate show & tell of the apron I made. If you want to have a look at "Naaien & Stikken" click here. I can definitely recommend it, even if you don't sew, because the pictures in it are so beautiful!

Thanks again so much to the De Fontein|Tirion team for inviting me. Hope to see you soon!

Xoxo, Maartje

Makes and Bakes for a little girls third birthday!

This weekend was one big celebration. Our little girl L turned 3! Oh how time does go by so fast. It feels like only yesterday when she was born! 

On Saturday we had her birthday party. Our house filled up with family, friends and lots of children and she enjoyed it all so much! My mom baked her famous apple pie, especially requested by our girl. And I did some baking and made her a birthday cake which was delicious and I totally forgot to take pictures of it ~oops~. It was a delicious recipe and I will absolutely bake it another time (and remember to take pictures). To give you an idea, I will try to describe it for you. I started with a biscuit base, cut it into two slices and I filled it with raspberry jelly and butter cream, a red fondant topping and some whipped cream. Hope you can picture it in your minds eye ~smile~.

After a good night's sleep it was time for some Makes and Bakes! Our girl was celebrating her birthday at daycare on Monday, so something had to be made for that.
L really wanted me to Bake Carrot Cupcakes. I had never made them before so after some online studying, I decided to use a straight forward recipe. It basically was just 240 grams of flour, 240 grams of sugar, 200 ml of sunflower oil, 300 grams of finely grated carrots, 2 tsp of cinnamon, 3 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt.

I gave it a "Bakes by Maartje" twist by using self raising flour and leaving out the baking powder. And instead of using regular sugar, I used dark brown sugar. And I must say, they turned out to be delicious! I packed them into lovely boxes from Hema and that was that!

And then it was time to do what this blog is all about. Makes!
This time I made little drawstring bags and filled them with a little cake tin, six small crayons and a matching coloring book.
Our kids are both in the same play group at the daycare, so I asked for a list with all the kids names on them. All in all there are 18 kids (11 girls, 7 boys) including ours, so I decided on making separate bags for the boys and the girls.

I chose two canvas type fabrics and used navy blue Hoooked Zpagetti to make the actual drawstring for the girl's bag and a similar type string in grey for the boys' bags (not the one shown in the pictures above).

I used this tutorial (in Dutch) and adjusted it by first ironing the fabric and creating the tunnel for the string to go through. Then I sewed that part, and used a safety pin to pull the string through. Then I folded the fabric, right sides towards each other and sewed it, turned it out and then I was done!

My girl really liked the little presents and she had a great day today! The kids all loved the carrot cupcakes and I will probably make them again next month, when our baby J will turn 1!

Would love to hear what you think of my Makes and Bakes, so if you can, leave a message.

See you again soon!

Love, Maartje

Packages and presents - winning the Ladybug & Co Give Away

Hello again!

Picking up where I left you in yesterday's blog post, there was not just 1 present in the envelope I opened, but there were 2!

Not only the lovely blue and white Audrey Pouch with Flower, but also the package contained a present with Annemarie's Give Away in it!

Because it had been a while since I entered her Give Away, and another winner was announced, I did not quite know what was in it anymore. 
But then a while later, the original winner did not claim her prize so she announced a new winner, ME! How great is that!!!

I opened up the package and in it was a lovely fabric envelope! Again a lovely and very stylish creation by Ladybug & Co! On the outside a lovely blue polka dot and on the inside a pretty flowery lining. Inside there were 4 pieces of fabric, 2 of them were used to make the envelope. She also added a bright pink polka dot and a blue flowery fabric. I LOVE all of them. My mind immediately went crazy thinking of things to make with these lovelies!

Here are the pictures of my prize Give Away, I could not be happier with it! So Annemarie, thank you so very much for this double treat! Will keep you and all of my readers posted, so you can see what I will Make with these pretty fabrics.

And to my readers make sure you check out her blog Ladybug & Co (in Dutch, but with a translate button ;-) )

See you again soon and have a lovely weekend!

Love xoxo,
Maartje

Inspiration for future projects

So hello stranger, how have you been? 
The past three weeks went by so fast, I cannot believe it! When the weather was good, I took our little guy outside and enjoyed the sun while it lasted. So no sewing, a little bit of crocheting, but mostly I spent my time reading, catching up and finally sitting down with a huge pile of magazines and some lovely books I bought myself as well as reading up on my favorite blogs and web shops.

And while reading, making a list of new Makes to be done in the next few weeks/months to come.

So stay tuned for some skirts and dresses for my girl, some pants for the little guy and I want to make a cover for the bouncer chair, so our little boy is totally snug and comfortable.

See you soon!

Love,
Maartje

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

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

Reupholstering a roman blind

Hello again,

Has spring sprung where you are? Here, 15 days after Joppe was born, it is still very chilly. With a fierce wind blowing from the East, I have not taken our little boy outside yet. Hoping it will get better next week... 

On the upside, it gives me some time to catch up on blogging. I still promised you a post on the reupholstering of the roman blind, so here goes...

So, before Joppe was born, I wanted to make sure the nursery was suitable for the arrival of a little boy. Therefore I wanted to redo the roman blind, which was in the room. It was fuchsia pink and at first I decided to dye it a lovely navy blue, but unfortunately, as it was 100% polyester, the dye did not take at all.

So I had to think of something else to do. As the lampshade in the nursery was a navy and white-checkered fabric, I went to my favorite fabric shop and bought a few meters of matching fabric. Using fabric glue and my sewing machine, I reupholstered the roman blind.

The curtain has four stiffeners at the back of the curtain, so folding over the fabric where the tunneling is and using the fabric glue, was not an option. I cut into the fabric and sewed the seams.

Then I folded the fabric around the original curtain and using glue, I attached the seams to the back of the blind. That way I could secure the fabric before stitching it with my sewing machine. Using my crochet hook, I stuffed the fabric into the tunnels.

Then I turned curtain with the back facing forward and using the original stitching, I sewed the curtain so the horizontal panels were visible. If I did not do that, the fabric would look very weird when I would hang it back up in front of the window. It was a tricky job, because I was sewing with the back of the curtain facing up and it was 120 cm of straight sewing, it was quite hard to keep it straight. In the end, I am very happy with the result, even though the stitches are not perfectly straight.

And when hanging them, the nursery immediately turned into a boy’s room!

Have you ever done anything like this? Would love to hear from you!

Thanx for stopping by today!

Xoxo,

Maartje

One week ago...

... our son Joppe Wisse Maes was born! This past March 11 was the coldest since 1928! Today he is one week old already and doing very well!

Cannot help but want to show you a lovely picture my sister-in-law Anique made over the weekend of our two precious children. I am so grateful for these two little ones (as is the husband of course ~smile~)

I will pick up where I left off blogging last week in the next few days! I still want to share with you how I reupholstered the fuchsia pink roman blind in the nursery and I also made some wall art using flock foil.

Looking forward to hearing from you, wishing you a lovely week!

Xoxo Maartje

Makes by Maartje: A Playpen Mat

Hello!

So lovely of you to come and visit my blog (again)! Today is all about the playpen mat I made for our son to be! As I am not experienced at all in writing tutorials, I hope you can understand my describing the different steps I took to make this Make! Hope you enjoy it and would love to hear from you.

So with our second child on the way and the creative spark that is slowly but surely bursting into a flame, I decided I wanted to make our son a playpen mat. My mother-in-law made one for our daughter two years ago, but this time I wanted to give it a go myself.

Our playpen measures 80 x 100 cm. With our daughter having hit her head a few times when she was tiny, I wanted to make one approximately 100 x 120 cm.

So I came up with the idea of using three different kinds of fabric. The color scheme for the nursery is navy, gray and white. Even though the playpen is in our living room, I decided to go with the same colors for the mat.

I bought four kinds of cotton fabric in various blues and prints. A navy one with small white dots, navy with small white stars, a patchwork fabric with stars and stripes, also in navy and white and last but not least, a Delft Blue like fabric with old fashioned mills, wooden shoes and tulips on them. But when laying out the design, I decided to not use the Delft Blue one as it did not complement the color pallet or style. That one will be used for another one of my Makes ~smile~

I cut two types of fabric into four rectangles and sewed them together. Nothing fancy, just straight forward sewing. I did hem the fabric as in my experience, babies do drool and puke on these mats from time to time. By hemming the fabric, it will surely survive our laundry machine ~smile~. After sewing, I ironed out the edges, giving it a straight and nice look. It also allowed me to iron out some creases in the fabric.

So the four blocks are the base of the mat. With the navy and white stars fabric, I made a border. Since my mat was a bit bigger than the base of the playpen, I wanted to use that same fabric as backing of the mat.

Before cutting and measuring the backing, I cut the edges. My mother-in-law helped me so I cut all of the fabric as economically as possible ~smile~.

For padding the playpen mat, I used a fairly thick duvet from my favorite Swedish shop, Ikea! I cut it into the right size, after I sewed the edges to the four rectangles.

Then I put the large panel of fabric on the floor, with the rest of the white star fabric underneath. Then I cut out the backing, remembering from one of the tutorials I read, to add 2 centimeters on each side, allowing the lining to have enough room as it was so thick.

With the right sides of the fabric on top of each other, I pinned them together without the lining in between. That way sewing them on my machine would be much easier. I also measured the playpen, to check where I needed to attach the ribbons I wanted to use, to secure the mat to the bars of the playpen. Then I pinned on the ribbons and started sewing it all together. I left an opening as if I was making a proper duvet cover, to be able to put the lining inside. Then finally I cut the lining to size and sewed the opening shut.

Only thing I have to do now, is to sew the rectangles, the lining and the back of the mat together, to prevent the lining from shifting. But that will be done over the weekend, and I will have to do that manually, as the total package will not fit my machine without wrinkling all of it. And I would hate for that to happen of course!

Pictures of the final result will be posted later on. 
My next Make will be a flag garland from the leftover fabrics. I will post that in a couple of days. So until then, thanx for joining me today!

Xoxo,

Maartje

Welcome!

Hi there, and welcome to my blog!

On this blog I want to share parts of my life with you. Especially the creative part that is!

The past couple of years, basically since my daughter was born in 2011, have sparked the creative flame that I wasn't all that aware of. 
Always having been interested in styling our house into a home and reading up on home decorating, I was always fascinated by the idea of creating and crafting. Having never had the courage to just do it, I only thought of what I wanted to do, instead of just going about doing it!

Over the past two years I thought, why wait and just give things a go! Last year I bought myself a sewing machine, because I wanted to make my lil' girl some skirts and dresses. My mother-in-law could teach me a thing or two in that area, so I thought, just start! Also my husband was very encouraging, which helps!

I ended up making a cute flowery dress for my baby! Unfortunately the not so nice summer of 2012 meant that she only got to try it on for size.... Hopefully this summer will be nicer so she can wear it again (with some alterations because she has grown quite a bit haha!). Other fabric, meant for a tunic and legging, is still sitting in my cupboard, waiting for another chance ;-)

Last year my husband did an international project for his company, which resulted in him going off to Toronto, Canada for almost four months in total. I stayed in Rotterdam, with our daughter. And having a daytime job, I just could not pack up and leave of course ;-)
Fortunately I was able to fly in on two different occasions to spend a couple of weeks there with him and our daughter. During that time, Maaike, wife of a Dutch colleague of his, who had moved there in 2011, sent me an email with all things nice to go do and see while in the TO-area. We arranged to meet, so she could give me a guided tour. We had a great time and has become a very dear friend ever since. She's a very talented designer and crochet lover, last September she taught me the basics in crocheting! I still have not managed to finish my first project, but I will not give up and keep persisting ~smile~

The crocheting sparked another craft I had not done since I was 8 or 9, which was knitting! I knitted myself a very comfy cowl, and have several skeins of yarn lying around, waiting to be knitted into something pretty!

Being pregnant now with my second child, a boy, to be born mid March 2013, has me crafting around our house, preparing it for the arrival of our baby boy!

Since my maternity leave started mid February I reupholstered the fuchsia pink roman blind in the nursery, sewed a mat to put into the playpen and made a big memo board to hang on the wall in his room. I also made matching garlands to hang on the playpen and in the nursery. 

And these things combined have made me think about starting this blog. To share my Makes with you and maybe even to inspire others to start crafting and creating.

So, during the next week, before our son is born, I will post some of the projects I have been working on. I will also try to figure out how this blogspot thing works, so I can personalize my blog by adding photo's and that sort of things ;-) And after, I will obviously continue blogging ~SMILE~

So thanx very much for stopping by and hope to see you again soon!

Xoxo,
Maartje