Congratulations

Today it feels like a great day to hear a YES!

Enjoy to the full, it is your big day! 

And now ...

And now ... we can finally present you the homemade gifts for the cousins!

The three sons of my youngest sister received a jumper; we adapted the pattern of the hoody from the book Stof-voor-durf-het-zelvers and made a hoodie without a hood!

Her eldest son, cousin J, got a Viking jumper, Louka poses with a jumper just a little too small for her, but perfect for her 7 year old cousin. As I am the godmother of cousin J, he also got another gift which we will show later.

Her second son, cousin L, got a jumper with elephants. According to Omar the jumper fits like a glove! He actually wants to keep it for himself!

The third son in the row, cousin A, got a dragon-jumper! Jade shows off a jumper that fits her perfectly; nevertheless the jumper is on the short side for her cousin. A cousin who is 18 months younger than her! He is about to turn 4 but looks like a 6 year old!

The eldest son of my elder sister also got a jumper. Cousin O got an elephant jumper in a different color combination than cousin L.

Luckily we more or less have at least one child to pose with every jumper that was made!

Pattern: The hoodie pattern from Stof-voor-Durf-het-Zelvers.

Fabric: The elephant fabric is from Nosh Organics bought @ Roos en Violet. The dragon fabric is from Znok and the Vikings are from Bora for Lillestof, both bought @ Bambiblauw.

Santa

Our globetrotter left with a suitcase filled with presents for under the Christmas tree. 

The making of the presents was on the to-do-list for a while and as usual we put it on a back burner. So the past week we worked late nights, but we are happy we finished everything and even had some time left to take pictures before wrapping it all up.

We will unveil what is in the presents later when the lucky ones had occasion to open their presents till that time enjoy the look of our tree,

In the meantime we wish you a merry Xmas and a happy NewYear. 

Globetrotter

Since she was 6 years old she wants to travel independantly to Belgium to visit her family during the Christmas holidays. We tried to postpone it a little but meanwhile Louka is 9 (just not 10 years old) and she flew all alone from Abu Dhabi to Brussels this week.

As proud as punch she arrived with a suitcase filled with homemade present at her grandparents place.

Her hand luggage was stuffed in a newly made backpack. 

She herself choose the fabrics and we brainstormed together about the pattern. She picked ‘toile cirée’ from Petit Pan in various colors.

We decided to make a backpack with a single shoulder/waist strap.

Inside there is place for her passport, some reading books/magazines, the official-flight-paperwork can be stowed away seperatly, her home keys are on a sling inside the bag, and there is a small zippered pouch to store some money.

The Ipod Touch, her early Christmas present, can be stowed away in a tiny little pouch on the front side of the shoulder strap.

For the occasion she borrows my headphones.

A bottle of water is within arm’s reach and there is some storage space in the front flap as well.

She is well armed against the cold, as ‘Sinterklaas’ brought a lovely thick jumper earlier this month. Hopefully it doesn’t rain too much as we didn’t buy a raincoat.

The journey passed off quietly. No tears, at least not from Louka, all the more from her brothers who were scared something would happen to their sister.

How cute is that?!

Enjoy yourself and see you soon big sister!

Eco-le

‘Mon Eco-le’, the nursery of our youngest, gave all the parents a Xmas present; a coconut shell with chive planted by our own kids.

His favorite sister can show his creation as he does not like to pose today.

Xmas tree

I choose only my preferred Xmas tree decorations to be taken out of the storage. The boys smartly found a way to get to the bling bling stuff they love.

We never thought they would be able to reach the boxes with hidden treasures, till their 5 year old sister walks down the stairs with a hidden gem. We rush upstairs and this is how we found the boys!

Elias told us how he got up: “We used a little table, put a metal box on the table and on top of the box a little chair, and then mum, well I used my muscles!”

They are not the only monkeys in the family.

Wrapping

The last couple of days lots of presents have been snapped up. Since the mailman dropped a box of Petit Pan fabric and paper our gift wraps look like this nowadays!

I love Petit Pan!

Happily EVER AFTER

A couple we are friends with, are soon to be married. I wisely refused to make the wedding dress and left that to an expert, but there are plenty of other things to be sewn for the big day.

As a keepsake for their marriage, they will give a CD to their guests. Inspired by her work with paper from a world atlas, we made the CD covers.

She is Australian, he is Romanian and they got to know each other in the United Arab Emirates. Thus the corresponding pages were ripped out the world atlas and sewn together with some brown recycled paper.

The paper was plasticized on the inside to prolong the lifespan of the covers.

The ‘newlyweds to be’ are in charge of making the CD, I am curious to hear their choice of music.