Howling at the Moon

 A couple of weeks ago I went for a workshop Delft Blue Painting with two colleagues. I have painted a little chair in Delft Blue style a while ago, but somehow the colors didn't look like Delft Blue at all, but after the introduction prior to the actual painting, I understood why. I used different colors of blue, but Delft Blue is done all in one color of blue; the darkness of the blue is determined by the amount of water you mix it with. The blue that's used for Delft Blue painting is cobalt. We got a tile to practice on, brushes and a little piece of compact cobalt, that looked totally black. After outlining a flower with a pencil (a design we had to practice with), we had to wet the cobalt and could paint, starting with the lightest color of blue, which looked grey on the tile. To get a darker blue we had to add more cobalt and we ended with the darkest blue. To get the blue color the tile has to be baked off at 1200 degrees Celsius.  After the practicing round, things got...

 Every now and then I make some piece of clothing, mostly for my daughters. The finishing touch for me is to sew on the leather label with my name. I order the custom made labels on line, but find them quite expensive, so I am looking for an alternative for a while now and thought about pyrography. So I ordered a pyrography pen, that arrived yesterday. The only thing I have to find now is inexpensive leather to cut little labels from. To practice a bit, I tried my best on this charcuterie board, that I already had.  Not that bad, for a first attempt, but I will use another wood variety next time. This board is made of bamboo and I guess pine will do better because of its softer consistency.     ~*~ My Apple Sauce with Fresh Ginger & Pumpkin Spices was featured by All Things Kitchen !      

  What I like most about having a garden is all the birds, insects and little critters that it attracts. Especially in the winter I have feeders and such for birds everywhere. Unfortunately we don't have trees in our garden, so birds have to stay low and because of the cats strolling around in our neighborhood (and in my own house) they don't feel entirely free to eat as long as they like. Change is coming, because we had a landscaper here a couple of weeks ago, but the actual building of the new garden will have to wait until spring. When everything is finished there will be lots of trees in our garden and hopefully lots of birds with that.  I drew some of the birds we had this winter in our garden. A colorful gathering when they are in the garden all at the same time.   Clockwise you see: Great Tit Magpie Blue Tit Wren My garden is in The Netherlands, Europe.  Do you have the same birds in your garden?

 This year the grandparents from both sides will come over to celebrate Christmas at our house. As infection rates make it possible, that is.  I find it more difficult each year to think up presents, especially for the grandfathers. Of course there are things they like, but if I don't want to come up with the same presents year in, year out, I have to search longer and longer every year to come up with something original. This year a colleague of mine had a great idea: personalized Christmas ornaments. I don't know about your parents, your mother especially, but mine loves everything grandchild related. So balls with the names of all grandchildren on it, seems like a great idea.   I found out secretly which color the Christmas decorations of the grandmothers have, bought glass balls and a paint marker and searched online for a nice font. And this is the result:     

This tree I saw on Pinterest . I liked it, so I made it. Matches great with my outdoor Christmas decor.  Update: Just a tip if you want to make this tree yourself.  right after I posted this tree, I went to the blog of the maker to thank her for sharing this idea and saw I could have used fonts that could have been transfered to the wood. Would have saved me so much time as I had seen this before I started. Mine is all hand lettering.

My daughter has got some handlettering books from Sinterklaas and while I was cleaning her room I flipped through a couple of pages. I was immediately inspired and made this mug. It's a gift to myself, because a good cup of coffee can really feel like a hug in a mug, am I right?

This weekend, while the rain was falling hard and the wind was blowing fast, I made this drawing on my kitchen door. After four months of ongoing summer I was so looking forward to Fall, that I'm really early this year with my decorations and Fall recipes. Normally I wait until October.   September is my favorite month of the year: you can smell Fall in the air a little, but there are still a lot of beautiful, sunny days. A sort of extended summer actually. But I've had enough summer, so Fall begins now in my house.  ~*~ My favorite Fall recipe is the one for speculaas. I think I've shared this recipe here many times before, but I of course I grant you this delicous cookie also because that's how I am, so here we go again.     What you need:  300 grams flour 175 grams butter 150 grams brown sugar 4 table spoons speculaaskruiden (a mix of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper and cloves)   1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tabl...

Another item in this year's Birthday Party preparation, with Cacti as a theme, chosen by my daughter the party animal: the invitations!  It's been a long time since I made simple drawn invitations, but I like them!

It's the end of the year again and that means Teacher's Day here in The Netherlands. Kids bring little presents to school for their teachers (and some don't) and they're playing games all day long.  This year both my kids have teachers from the sporty and healthy type, so I baked banana breads without sugar in it (added the recipe) and bought coffee/tea mugs.

One of the things that was on the to do list a couple of weeks ago for my other blog , was inviting one of my friends over for coffee and lunch by sending her some flower seeds in an envelope as an invitation.  I saw this idea here , but thought it would be nicer and more personal to not just print out an envelope template, but draw flowers on the envelope myself. I bought some seed packs, cut and folded the envelope and drew the flowers that are supposed to come out of the seeds on it.  

A while ago my daughters and I went to see Coco, the Pixar animation movie about a little boy who wants to find his dead father in the after-world. The movie has the Dia de los Muertos as a theme. We all three loved the movie, even more: I think this children's movie is the best movie of 2017!  Besides all sorts of varieties on the Calavera Margarita, there were a lot of other typical Mexican things included in the movie. One of them were alebrijas, fantasy animals from Oaxaca that are painted in bright colors. Before the movie I had never heard of alebrijas, but as soon as they appeared on the screen I knew I wanted to make them with my daughters.  My daughters have one of their many school vacations this week and fortunately there's a craft store around the corner were paper mache animals are sold. We all found an animal that we liked, bought new paint also, and so it happened that at least one vacation day was filled (besides that we went skating, YAY, because fina...

A while ago I told you about all the disposable vegetable jars I keep to use for whenever. I'm about to disappear underneath a layer of vegetable jars so I thought maybe it would be a nice idea to use some of them for Valentine's Day. I bought a white and red glass paint pencil and a chalkboard pencil, so I could draw what I wanted to see on the jars with chalkboard pencil first. The chalkboard pencil is easily wiped away in case of errors or if you just don't like your design. When totally satisfied, you can trace your drawings or writings with the glass paint pencil. After baking the jars in the oven,  you can wipe of the rest of the chalkboard paint.  Another tip: if you're not very good at handlettering or drawing you can place a drawing or text behind the glass and trace it directly on the glass with a glass paint pencil.  Some tealights in the jars will do the rest! Gives nice patterns on the walls, too!

Last weekend we celebrated my youngest daughter's birthday for family and friends and this week her own friends from school will come over for a little party. As told it's unicorns all over this year and because most of the festivities will take place in the kitchen, I tried my best to draw a nice unicorn on the black board that we have on the kitchen door.  ~*~ My Unicorn Pinata , also made for the party, is featured by Scrapality and Creative Jewish Mom this week! Thanks, Andrea and Sara!

My favorite drink is coffee! Yours? I know I'm by far not the only one who can't start a day properly without a cup of coffee, or a 'bakkie troost' as people (especially older people) in The Netherlands call it, meaning 'a cup of comfort'. For my parents, as being a bit older people, I made two cups that I handlettered with a porcelain pencil. Both quotes are from songs. The first one is from a Dutch song and means 'Coffee, coffee, delicious cup of coffee', the second one is from a song by Dr. Hook, namely Cookie and Lila. Maybe you remember the post from last year , about going to Dublin with my father to go to a concert of Dr. Hook in the Olympia Theatre. I made this mug is as much for coffee as to remember that great trip. In a little jar I've put instant mix for Wiener Melange. I thought it would be a nice little Christmas present for coffee lovers. www.betweennapsontheporch.net

The Kitchen Door

Next week is the last week of school before summer holidays finally start, so this week my daughters and I were busy making gifts for their teachers.  The class parent ordered all children to make paper flowers and to write compliments on it for the teachers, so she can put them all together and make a garland of it. We made the Calla Lilies , as showed earlier this week.  But of course my daughters also wanted to give something of their own. I bought paper bags that my daughters could write and draw on and filled them with some relaxing summery stuff. My daughters drew all sort of tropical things on the bags.   I made tags for the bags with text. It's in Dutch, as you can see, but it says something like 'after putting lots of effort into us this year, hopefully this vacation you can unstress with the things in this bag'. In Dutch this rhymes, haha!   www.betweennapsontheporch.net Besides a pineapple stress ball, nail polish,...

~ I love Pinterest and would like to make one thing that I find on Pinterest every week. Since I have a lot of pins (that I've just pinned and only that), I hope this will be a way to reduce the amount of pins on my boards . It can be anything, from cooking to crochet and from sewing to papter crafts. Just small projects that doesn't take weeks to make ~ This week I made a toy for my cats. Nice project that only takes a little bit of your time and you know how it is with cats: they will be thankful for ever and ever... Instead of making the toy in double crochet in one color, I used different colors and used a tapestry pattern, that you can find here .   w ww.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ A couple of weeks ago my husband renovated one of our bathrooms. Above the wash basin sits a mirror with a frame for pots to put plants in. As someone who hasn't a green thumb at all it doesn't make sense to put plants in it, because even cacti expire in a coupl...

On work days, when I or my husband can't pick up the kids after school ourselves, they go to childcare service. One of the teachers has found another job, and although my daughters only go once a week to childcare service, she has taken care of my daughters for quite some time, so we wanted her to give a present. I made a couple of Ibiza Style necklaces my daughters could choose from. The other necklaces they can sell on King's Day, which will be at the end of april.   www.betweennapsontheporch.net Together with these necklaces we gave her a large wooden box of daffodils and a handmade postcard.

Simple and easy, fast and quick.   www.betweennapsontheporch.net All you need is a pen to use on china and a white mug. Use the handle to make one side of the heart and draw the other half on the mug. Add words. That's it.