Howling at the Moon

Just about three weeks after Christmas, my youngest daughter has her birthday, so after weeks of making decorations and such for Christmas, I always have to hurry to make birthday things in time.  This year she got a book from Sinterklaas called 'Bibi's Bijzondere Beestenboek', meaning Bibi's Book of Extraordinary Animals in Dutch. It's a book with short chapters, each chapter telling about an animal's special feature. One of the chapters is about the anglerfish, a monstrous fish with sharp teeth that's living in the deep waters of the oceans. Its special feature is an angler on his forehead, that has a little light at the end. The light attracts prey, so he doesn't have to search himself in the dark waters of the depths.  For some reason my daughter loved this animal from the moment she saw it, so her birthday has to be themed 'The Anglerfish'. I really had to do some heavy thinking to come up with something, but at least the invitations

The things I really wanted this year and actually are mine now:   As you can see I only got three of the things from my Wanted-list. Not that I didn't buy any new clothes this year, but to be honest the things I bought didn't look like the clothes I 'Wanted' at all. I'm totally back to hoodies and jeans, because they're so much more comfortable for me. I have to change clothes a couple of times a day,  because of my job (I'm an OR nurse), so dresses and such aren't practical at all.  Besides I find it more and more difficult to find nice clothes that don't look like something I featured in 'Wanted' before, so I want to try something new.  I find a lot of inspiration at Pinterest and starting this week I want to feature something on Friday I think is worth making and then show you my own interpretation of it next week. I will call it 'Made It!'.  The first Pinterest wanna-make is a little rabbit rattle fo

Ribbon Skirt by Lena Hoschek

As said before, baking cakes and cookies, and especially the decorating of it, isn't my strongest feature. But with this cake, that I made with my daughters to be the big ending of the Christmas Diner at my parents house, I think we nailed it! And of course a cake like this isn't just reserved for Christmas Diners; you can make it all winter long.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~  My Christmas Drawings were featured by Embracing Change ! Thank you, Stacey!

This week my daughters had their annually Christmas Diner at school. Months before it actually takes place, they're looking forward to it, this highlight of their school year, so I love it to help them make it extra special. Some weeks before the diner we buy a fancy dress, we pick a hair-do and choose what snack we will make for the diner.  I like to think I'm pretty handy when it comes to crochet and crafting, but creating a hair-do always ends in a disaster. I'm not really sure why, but I think it has something to do with obstinate hair and a lack of patience. So normally I ask my sister in law, who's a real artist when it comes to hair, to do the hair of my daughters. Unfortunately she had other things to do, so I had try it myself.  May I present: www.betweennapsontheporch.net For a tutorial on this hair-do go over to Babes in Hairland !

A couple of weeks ago I made this shawl for a former colleague. The postman delivered a box with yarn and a pattern and after crocheting the shawl I kept the pattern for later use. I didn't think 'later' would be 'pretty soon', but when I saw some nice yarn while shopping for something else, I thought about the pattern and bought it. And because I wasn't distracted by mochila orders this time, the shawl was finished quite fast.   www.betweennapsontheporch.net While crocheting the shawl, I found the pattern here on Pinterest one day, so I guess it's alright to share the link if you would like to make your own...

Black Skirt by Lena Hoschek

Last week my daugthers made Ginger Bread Houses. Last year I baked the houses myself, but due to a lack of time this year I bought ready-to-go houses, that only had to be decorated.  While they were decorating the Gingerbread Houses, I crocheted a Gingerbread Man. Okay, to crochet de man took just a bit longer than decorating the houses, because the time my daughters want to spend on decorating gingerbread houses is limited. They just can't wait to eat it.   www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ My Crocheted Christmas Baubles were featured by Pattern Paradise , Sew Can Do and by Scrapality ! Thank you, Ladies!

Because I had some leftover yarn, accidentally in white, red and green, and saw a nice slouchy hat for kids, I used it to make one for my youngest daughter. With polymer clay I made peppermint candies to give it a more christmassy look. Just what my yougest daughter loves.   www.betweennapsontheporch.net   ~*~ My Christmas Tree was featured by Creatin g My Way to Success ! Thanks, Jill! 

Last spring I went to my friend, who's living in Menorca (you can read about/see pictures of my trips to Menorca here , here and here ) and stayed at her house for a couple of days. One of the things we love doing together is singing along with Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline. We sing along with practically everything, but Dolly and Patsy are our favorites. In the end I asked her if she knew a band called Dr Hook. I'm raised up with this music, because my dad's a fan. I played some of my favorite Dr Hook songs on You Tube for her and my friend was immediately hooked (yes, I know, I had to be a stand up comedian...). 'We must go to a concert', she insisted. I told her the band members would be a bit older now, as in around eighty years, and they probably wouldn't perform anymore, blah, blah, but she wouldn't hear it.  Much to my suprise: Dennis Locorriere, one of the lead singers, has formed a new band that learned to play all the Dr Hook s

A friend of mine has send me a Christmas Card of her family together with the dog. The dog is wearing a christmas hat. For fun I told her I would send her a card back, with me and our Flemish Giant (a large, very large rabbit). The rabbit's name is Haasje, which means Little Hare, a name my youngest daughter has given him. This is him.   So I started to crochet, not really sure what would come out of it, because Haasje has some really big ears, that definitely wouldn't fit in the hat. I had to make up something that would by-pass his ears. I first made the woolly edge, large enough to fit around both his ears, and than the actual hat. I only attached a small part of the hat's edge and filled the hat with fiber fill, so at both sides of the hat sits a large hole for Haasje's ears. Fits perfectly. And look how handsome he looks, my big friend! Haas didn't mind at all to wear a hat. He stretched his hind legs and was laying with half closed eyes, licking my

50s Outlaw Biker Jacket by Collectif

With my daughters I made a Christmas Wreath with Perler Beads , as showed here before. The colors we used were green, red, white and gold. We hang the wreath in our kitchen and because I don't like it to use entirely different colors for the kitchen tree than the colors already used, I wanted to have the same colors for the tree ornaments. Red, white and gold were no trouble to find, but green is exceedingly old fashioned, I think, because it was nowhere to be found. So I had to make something myself and came up with these crocheted baubles, that are filled with styrofoam.    www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ My Jumbled Christmas Tree was featured by Pattern Paradise ! Thanks, ladies!

Now that Sinterklaas is gone, I wiped out the chalkboard drawing of Sint on his horse on the roofs of Amsterdam and made a snow globe. After that I decorated the tree in the kitchen and made some drawings on the windows. Now the kitchen is ready for celebrations! The Peppermint Tree Skirt you see in the picture with the tree I made two years ago. It was already forgotten again, but when I cleaned out a cupboard I found it and thought it would match with the rest of the decorations. ~*~  My Perler Beads Christmas Wreath was featured by Scrapality and by Sew Can Do !     Thank you, Andrea and Cheryl! And t here was an other feature, namely the Fat Cats , by My Hus band Has Too Many Hobbies !   Thanks, Laurie!