Smile!

Wooden nesting dolls by Ingela P Arrhenius via Kidsdinge, wooden bird via Sissy Boy, softie via HEMA, vintage chair and blanket.

Last week I found a great surprise in the mail. Kerry from The Seventy Tree send me one of her beautiful 'Smile!' prints and two Dala horse cards. She wanted to thank me for sending her a little package with amongst others a VTwonen magazine in which her work was featured but which she never received from the publisher.

Top: Artwork by Hollie Chastain, Stanley Donwood, Sandra Juto. Number nine via VTwonen. Left chair via Yvestown. Below: Yellow balloon via PSikhouvanjou, postcards by Vincent van Gogh, Fiep Westendorp en Sanna Annukka. Tiny label by Bombina Studios. Framed bird card by Rural Pearl.

This gift really made my day and I immediately started to look for a nice place for the print. I first tried a spot on the chimney, but I thought there was enough artwork already. So I ended up making a whole arrangement in a nice corner of the living room, in stead of cleaning the house like I had planned. Know that feeling?

Actually I had intended to put up some small shelves there, but I like this so much, I'm not sure what to do with the shelves. I might still do that and frame Kerry's print later on, but for now I'm really happy with this corner.

Jeu de Paumes books via Yvestown and Juffrouw zonder Zorgen, vintage crocheting (haken) book via Ingthings, yellow notebook 'Smile' via Studio Stationary, white cup via Ikea.

Stamping away

I meant to make some hand stamped wrapping paper for a while, but it took some time to find white ink and Kraftpaper. The ink I found a year ago in Stockholm and I recently run into the paper. So when I was making a package for Kerry from The seventy tree, I had a good reason to finally try it. At first, the stamps weren't very visible, but when I added some water to the ink pad, this was the result. I think it looks quite good. 

White ink from Versacolor by Tsukineko, also available via PSikhouvanjou.

And since I had the stamping tools out anyway, I thought I could give another idea a try as well and so I made this stamped notebook. The idea was to make a symmetrical pattern, but I didn't have the time to draw lines first, so I just stamped away...And now I actually quite like the random pattern. I'm not sure what would be better. What do you think? Next time I'll make both, so I can compare. 

Notebook via Dille & Kamille, red ink Colorbox by Clearsnap

Nursery (2)

Daan is exactly like me (besides he cries much more than I do). He never wants to go to bed, he is always hungry and needs lots of attention. Which I love to give of course. But because of this, I can never find time to make some more pictures of his room, as I promised to some of you. So when there is the tiniest possibility of quickly taking some pictures, you have to take advantage of that, even if the weather is cloudy (little natural light), your baby is crying and the floor is dusty. Right?

So, this is it. The room still isn't 100% finished, but someday it will be. For sure. I'm so happy with the little cabinets and the hospital closet. And with the dresser, which I bought for nearly nothing on Marktplaats (Dutch Ebay). The colour is even better in real, it's painted in Soft Jade by Abbondanza Paint.

Lamp, medicine cabinet and yellow tin via Retroloekie, all other cupboards and rocking chair via Marktplaats, pillow via Lagerhaus, circus box (which is holding a very cute breakfast set) via MadebyGUP,  yellow fish via Een nieuw avontuur, blue fish (next to curtain) via Juffrouw zonder zorgen, yellow bin via Ikea, basket and stool via HEMA.  Miami green wall paint via Abbondanza Paint.

Nursery (1)

I received some great links and advise in reaction to my Twitter and blog requests on nursery decoration advice. However, I hadn't finished decorating the room when Daan was born. The bed wasn't assembled, the curtains were somewhere in a bag, the dresser missed its door knobs and the wardrobe missed its doors. Daan didn't mind of course, but I realised it wouldn't be easy to find some time to finish it with him around. So in fact, it still isn't finished, but we are getting close. So I wanted to show you some previews, but what I hadn't realised is that it is not easy to take pictures too. You have to wait for some good light, and when its there, he was sleeping and I didn't want to wake him, or I had to feed him or something like that. Anyway, last week I finally made some pictures, hopefully some more will follow soon!

Wall decal by 41Orchard via Bloesem Kids, paint for bed via Abbondanza Paint (color Brigth Ocean), blanket and wooden train by Hema, Ikea Beckvam spice racks (inspiration from Ohdeedoh via Doorkyra on Pinterest). Claudettes postcards by Darling Clementine via Een nieuw avontuur.

Birth announcement cards

Daan was three weeks early, and hadn't decide on a birthday announcement card yet, even though I wasn't surprised that he came early. We couldn't easily find a nice card that we both liked, so I decided to make one myself. It took me more than a week to draw some designs, cut the stamp, decide on the text, find the right cards, ink and corner cutter and make the cards while taking care of a baby, but we managed to send the cards in the week after the due date, not unreasonable don't you think? it was the first craft project since his birth and since then I haven't found time to make something else, so I'm very happy that we managed to make these.

Ink by Versacolor via PSikhouvanjou, rubber and cutting tools by Speedball via Stampeaz.

Daan is born

The 7th of May our son Daan is born, three weeks early. He had to stay in the hospital for a week, due to some minor problems, but he is totally fine now. Since then, my whole life is filled with taking care of him (never new breastfeeding would take so  much time!), and I couldn't find any time to make a proper blogpost about this great news. However, after a whole week in which he hardly slept, it seems like he is starting to like his bed, and if found my Macbook patiently waiting for me :).

Daan is of course the cutest baby I've ever seen, we are a very happy little family now, so I doubt if I will be able to write about other things in the near future. Hopefully in a few weeks I ....until then, if I've any readers left, I hope you will stay with me!

Nursery decoration advise needed

I know it has been quite here, and even on Twitter you won’t hear me as often anymore, because my Iphone is stolen. However, of course I’m still busy renovating the nursery and the guestroom/workspace. In fact, the nursery is almost finished, all walls and the ceiling are freshly painted and looking really fresh and cute. I bought a vintage dresser, baby bed and rocking chair online, those need some paint soon and I hope to start with it this weekend.

Than I need a wall rack to hang above the dresser and a wardrobe. I’m thinking about some white lockers, but if you have better ideas for those two?

Beside the renovation and decoration work I’m also shopping for lots of babystuff. And I actually have a hard time finding cute blankets, sleeping bags, a diaper bag, stuff like that. And I also need some nice lamps. Usually I have a long list of things I would like to have for the home, and the same goes for clothes. That’s because I read so many blogs and magazines. But I hardly read any kidsblog, so I’m really behind on that kind of stuff. I just don’t really like the stuff they sell in the large babystores, so if anyone has great tips on nice brands or online stores, please let me know in the comments below.

I’m really looking forward to your ideas!

To show you what I like, some screenprints of my Pinterest page

See more of me...

Life has been pretty busy lately with all the preparations for the baby who is expected at the end of May. We have been painting the nursery, looking for nice vintage furniture online, visiting day care centers, making lists of things to buy and so on. I never expected it would take so much time. But on the other hand, we are also both working (almost) full time and renovating our home, so I guess altogether it is quite a lot.

Luckily I'm still feeling quite good and the baby is doing great. But the downside is that I hardly can't find time to make regular blogposts. However, i do find time for one or two tweets a day. Apparently I'm so much more critical when it comes to blogposts. I want the photos to be perfect and write a nice little something to go with them. For tweets, I just take a picture with my Iphone and that's that.

So for those of you who want to see what I'm up to but who don't use Twitter, it's possible to pollow me on Twitpics. You can see al the (crappy) pictures that I post on Twitter there, together with the original Tweet. it's even possible to subscribe to the RSS feed. The most recent pictures are also shown on this blog at the bottom of the right sidebar.

I hope this will help to stay in touch with you all.

In four weeks my maternity leave will start and I hope I will find some time to blog by then.

All pictures in this post are also shown on Twitpic and are taken with my Iphone and not edited.

Portugal

Last week we went to Portugal to celebrate one last holiday together before our baby will be born. It was so nice to relax and think about all the exiting things that are coming. We had a lot of fun, although the weather wasn't great. Because it was raining a lot, I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here are some nice ones...

I did make some drawings though, of which I showed some on Twitter and maybe here later.

The weeks before Portugal were very hectic. We got new doors, windows and window stills, but lots of things when wrong and need to be redone. we also bought some baby furniture and got new white linen curtains for our living room in summer. I really hope to take some pictures soon, but it's such a mess in here because of all the construction work, it will have to wait.

BTW, I still don't like what blogger does to my pictures, the look less bright and sharp, any advise on that?

Stockholm

I'm making room in my house and in my head to prepare for the little boy that we are expecting in May. This also means that my old PC has to move out and therefore I'm browsing through my holiday pictures and that reminded me of a promise I made to you, namely that I would publish some pictures of our visit to Stockholm last July.
So here they are, if you like them, I might publish some more pictures of other holidays here as well. Perhaps London, Sicily, Berlin or Maroc?

BTW, what does Blogger to my pictures? They somehow look less sharp and less soft at the same time....Anyone ideas what to do about that?

Still renovating our house...

Hi guys, it's been a while, isn't it? I just couldn't find the time to make more blogposts. There are so many things I would like to do before the baby is born and I just don't have as much energy. We are renovating the guest room, so it can be both guest room and study in one to make space for a nursery. And we are having new windows and doors in some of the rooms and replaced a radiator. In between, we thrifting furniture for the nursery and renovating that too. If you are following me on Twitter, you'll get a glimpse of all that.

But, although I haven't been blogging as much as I would have liked lately, I did make some pictures and scans  for my blog.  This stamp I made for the son of a friend who was baptised last summer. 

Christmas ornaments or spring decoration?

I just bought three really cute christmas ornaments with 50% sale at Sissy-Boy's. The tree I will save for next year, but I think I can still hang the little bird and flowery heart somewhere, don't you think? They look quite spring like to me...

I won't just tape them to the wall though, like I did for this picture, but it was the only place in the house where there was a little daylight....

Update

As you can see, I've added a Twitterbox to my sidebar. And a tweet by Annadenise.nl reminded me that it would be more consistant to use the same name for all my accounts. Which means I've changed pinterest.com/floddertje to www.pinterest.com/wijeisenijs, so now you can find us at: wijeisenijs.blogspot.com, www.twitter.com/wijeisenijs and www.pinterest.com/wijeisenijs. That's easy, isn't it?

Tweet

I've created a Twitter-account. I figured that the combination of limited time/energy, lots of commuting time and a new Iphone could be very well used by keeping you guys up-to-dated. But since there isn't a good blogspot app, I thought a Twitter-account could be a nice addition to this blog and my Pinterest page. I'll try to add a Twitterbox to this page soon. For now, you can follow me on http://twitter.com/wijeisenijs. Hope to see you there as well!

For now a belly picture of 16 weeks....

Surprise, surprise

I know you haven’t heard from me for a long time, but I had a good reason. I was to tired to post anything because…I’m pregnant! I’m so happy! We had to wait for over a year to get pregnant, and sometimes I still can’t believe there really is a little baby in my belly now. I’m feeling quite good, I’m almost 16 weeks pregnant now and my energy is starting to come back a little. What remains is pain in my lower back, so I can’t really work on the house now. And we’ve just started rebuilding a room on the first floor. We’ve taken the walls and ceiling of that room down and my husband now has to rebuild it on his own.

I hope I’ll be able to post more often from now on and I’ll show you some pictures of that room then as well. For now, just some recent Iphone poleroids.

While I was too tired to write anything for this blog, I did read blogs from others now and then and have been pinning my favourites to my pinboards on Pinterest and I will continue doing that, so, even when it’s quite here you might find something new there….

Just a little more patience

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I have my reasons and I’ll tell you more about that soon. In the meantime, you don’t have to do without me, because I do post on Pinterest once in a while, because that doesn’t take time at all. So check out my pinboard on Pinterest!

Sometimes it's just waiting for you on the street...

Where I live, there's an antique and thrift market every weekend in the city centre, and there I just bumped into this dresser. I really like it!

What about Pinterest?

Recently I learned about the existence of a website called Pinterest. Many of you probably know this site but for those who don't, Pinterest is a site where you can "pin" all the interesting things you find on the internet on your own virtual pinboards. For me, it seemed like the perfect solution for all the pictures and links that I am saving on my computer, and the one at work, and on my husbands notebook, my Moleskines, and of course my favourites on Etsy, Google Reader and so on. Of course, when I am looking for one of those images I can never find them. And when I do, I don't remember how I got them, which is not so nice if you want to show them on your blog and give proper credits. So from now on, I' am using Pinterest. I'm still pinning things from all the sources I mentioned above, so apologies if I missed some of the credits. Hopefully I'll do better with this new tool.

Anyway, I’m allowed to invite five friends to Pinterest, so leave a comment if you want an invite!

Art journal try-out

This summer I went to Stockholm (tell you more about that later) and soon after that we went to our summerhouse near the sea. My mum was there too and she brought some postcard sized aquarelle paper and water-soluble crayons. I wanted to try them and with Stockholm still fresh in my mind I made two postcards in art journal style. I like the result, and it is a great way to keep memories alive, so I might try to start a little art journal later this year.

It would be a great way to use the many hours I spent in the train commuting to work. I need to find other materials though, because the crayons I used (Caran d'Ache) were not really suited for the job to my opinion. The good thing of the crayons is you can use them without water in the train, and than finish it with water at home. However, when using such a small paper size (A6) I need something that you can use for very detailed work. And since small paper is easier to carry with you, I might try markers or perhaps aquarelle pencils. But I am afraid the colours won't be bright enough then. What do you think?

Screenprinting class (4)

This is the final print I made in my screenprinting class and the one I am most proud of. It took me a couple of lessons and a lot of drawing, copying, cutting and glueing but it was definitely worth it. I didn't use the computer at all, so it was a lot of work.

And even though there are definitely things that could have been done better, like putting the birds in a straight line instead of slowly bending down to the right corner this is the first print that I really like to show to other people. It is a great feeling when you wear your own printed shirt and people compliment you on your shirt and you can say: 'made it myself'. Yay!