Yeah baby!!!

Finally, on my third try, my cupcakes finally looked decent! The second batch tasted best, so I'll probably be doing extensive Google research tonight to figure out why they dropped like bricks and how I can prevent this from happening next time.

Anyhow, they were fine, so I decided to decorate them using this idea. Giving it my own twist, of course. They were a gift for a friend who is expecting a baby. I am glad that she liked them!!!

Disappointment...

Is it childish that I am disappointed? This is the second batch that turned out this way... Now I can either use a different recipe or use the box of cupcake mix... My pride is completely gone.

I'll let you know tomorrow if it finally worked out.

Pinwheels

Thanks for your get-well wishes! My Cold is still stuck somewhere in my lungs, but it's retreated from my nose, so I can breathe again. Oh joy!

Anyway, time for something crafty!!!! A friend of mine asked me to make a play-rug as a gift for a newborn baby. Of course I'll make one! We tried to make it bright and cheerful, because babies love bright colors and contrast. And we made it nice and soft, because it will probably be used on the floor. And since babies spit, we have made it out of 100% cotton with a fleece backing, nice and soft and easy to wash! those were the criteria, and then I could go crazy with it... And since I love pinwheels, this is what I ended up with! It's 1.40 m by 1.40 m. Big enough to roll around on...

I hope they love it!!!

Hatchoooooo!!!

Sorry it's been so long since my last display of craftiness, I am still alive, even though sometimes it feels like I'm not... I have a cold, or should I say a Cold, so annoying that it should have its own social security number. My voice has left the building completely and my head is pounding... And meanwhile, my little boy is screaming due to teething and my two year old is screaming due to... Well... Being two years old, I guess.

I can't wait for the cold-bugs to leave so I can start making stuff again...

Meanwhile... Sorry! I'll be back as soon as possible...

Happy valentine!

I hope you were not disappointed today. What is it with women, we all say we don't want anything because flowers are too expensive this time of year, chocolate makes out butts too big, and cards are commercial nonsense... But expect a big scolding if you forget to think about valentines!!!

Anyway, since we have so many birthdays coming up, I decided to make myself a cake for practice. I did make it easy for myself, I bought a ready made cake from the supermarket and decorated that. I wanted to try and make 'real' flowers, but I need a lot more practice!!!

Laminated mini notebook tutorial

Cool, huh? Now you can make your own! Make one for small ideas, for quotes, or just for your grocery lists! Recipes work well too... Use ads fron your favorite products as covers or pages from an old cookbook! Make a travel journal from your outdated atlas! The possibilities are endless!!!

Take out your laminating machine, a laminating pouch, two pieces of beautiful paper (I used two pages from my favorite magazine) and five sheets of plain paper. You van also use paper with lines, whichever you prefer. You'll also need a ruler, a needle, some floss or thread and a knife or scissors.

First off, cut the paper into small pages, 10 cm by 15 cm. Stack the pages.


Laminate the two pages the same way you do with the ipad sleeve: place the pages wrong sides together in a laminating pouch and laminate them. Cut the laminated pages into strips, 21 by 10 cm.


Take the top page and fold it in two. This will make sure that you punch the holes in the center of the page. Punch a hole through the page on the line using the needle, on 1 cm onder the top of the pages. Punch a next hole 2 cm below that one. Another 2 cm lower another one 2 cm below that one and a last one 2 cm lower, this one will be 1 cm above the bottom of the page.


Place the page back on the stack and put the stack on the left side of your laminated cover. Punch again in the holes, now punching through all the pages at once.


Thread the needle. Start sewing the pages together from the middle of the book, pull your needle through the stack and back through the next hole. Turn when you reach the end. Make sure that the thread is pulled tight and tie a knot in the middle of your page, where you started sewing.

Fold the book on the sewline. It will help your book to close easier if you leave it in between two heavy books for a night.

Cut a half circle and a slot in the cover.


Fold the flap over, closing your notebook, use the needle to make markings where the slot should be, punching a small hole in the cover in the corners of your half circle. Open the book and make a cut between the two holes. Slide the half circle in the slot and have fun with your new mini notebook!!!

Guess what...

Finally I will reveal what this is...



And guess what... Shocker!!! It's a notebook! Duh! ;-)

And not just any notebook, it has a laminated cover! This is the notebook in all its glory...




And it's super easy to make!!! I'll tell you how to do that tomorrow, my ipad is refusing to upload the pics. Sorry!!! Tutorial will follow tomorrow!

And the winner is...

Thank you all for participating in my ver first giveaway! I hope that it will be the first of many... If you're not the lucky winner, you'll find the other two books in my Etsy shop tomorrow.

And the lucky winner is...

Susiepollowitz!!!

Dear Susie, please e-mail me (maaikee@yahoo.com) with your choice of books and your address, so I can send you your prize!!!

Tomorrow I'll let you know what this is and how to make one... Get out the laminator!!!

The first ever Hoppin' Up giveaway!

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on my Ipad sleeve! I do have lots of fun with the laminating pouches, but also I still enjoy making notebooks (you'd almost forget that it all started with the books)... And as a small token of my gratitude, I present to you... My first ever giveaway! Here's what you can win...

If you're the lucky winner, you can choose one of these three notebooks!



One of these you have seen before in this post, the other two are new, so I'll show you some more pictures first...







All you need to do is leave a comment to this post, and tomorrow evening, 10 PM CET I'll randomly draw the lucky winner!!!

Still working on the laminating things, so when this giveaway is over, I'll show you what this is... And how to make your own!


Ooooooh, my first teaser too! ;-)

what a week... Already!!!

And it's only monday!!! This week, my blog was mentioned twice on blogs by my favorite magazines! On February 2nd, 101 woonideeën featured my books, and today, the easiest Ipad sleeve EVER was mentioned on the Flow-web log! I am so proud!

Hmmmmmm... Am I proud enough to do my first give-away...? More tomorrow...

The easiest ipad sleeve EVER tutorial

A tutorial? Yes! And the easiest one EVER! You know I have been looking for a nice sleeve for my ipad. And because I needeed something to protect the screen and to hide it from the munchkin (she loves it, and knows exactly how to use it, I had to switch on the locks so she wouldn't go and buy apps by herself) I had to figure out something temporary. And today it hit me!!! Easy to make, nearly free and completely and totally personal!




You need:
two pages of nice paper, I used pretty pages from my favorite magazine Flow,
A ruler
A knife or scissors (you get a better cut using a knife)
A laminating machine
A laminating pouch


Cut the paper to size by putting the sheets on top of eachother and making a rectangular shape sized 20,5 cm by 29 or 30 cm. The length is not that important, you'll be cutting it to size later anyway. Width is most important.


Place the sheets of paper exactly aligned in the laminating pouch.


Laminate the pouch with the two sheets. Make sure the sides are closed well, laminate twice if necessary.


Place the ruler on the pages and cut the top off, leaving about 27 centimeters of paper.


Open the pouch that you now have and place your ipad inside.


Make one for every day of the week with your favorite pictures!!!

By the way, did you see our giveaway?

Getting old... ;-)

No seriously, I'm just joking. Sorry mom... It's her birthday today (I'll be saying that a lot in the next month and a half) and I made her a cake yesterday evening. I bought some extra decoration options at Koek-It, just in case the flowers I had in mind didn't work out. I still have a lot of practice before I can copy things from the Cake Boss, but I still like the result! Too bad we weren't allowed to try a piece, my mom wanted to keep it in one piece so she could show it off all day.

More books tomorrow, by the way. I'm getting more and more custom orders, some of them follow through, some don't, but I'm keeping busy...

Retro... Or vintage?

Am I the only one who is confused about that? Where does Vintage stop and Retro start? I am a very big fan of, as I like to call it, cheesy-oldfashioned. Whether that is vintage or retro. Like this fabric. It's not old, it's from some 2008 collection, but it looks so... Eh... Groovy?

The book will be available in my Etsy shop later today... Just in case anyone is interested...

Wrappin' it up

Last week, when we went to admire the baby, I didn't just bring the diaper pouch as a present, because I am really into cookies lately. So I also brought...... Cookies. Duh.

I did feel that I needed to make them a nice present with some nice giftwrapping. So I used the same fold that you can use for cherry bonbons. Turned out nice, huh? I put a piece of cardboard under the cookies to keep them in their place. ...time for a tutorial?

The ipad sleeve

If you know me a little by now, you should know that I am never satisfied fith the first versions of the things I make. Even with my ipad sleeve. I do like the apples I stitched on there, but that's about it. So I'll give you a little sneak peek while I am working on the second version. And other things, more about that tomorrow...