Howling at the Moon

 Last week Heidi from My Sweet Cottage shared her handmade wreath here . The pictures of the wreath came with a tutorial and to my delight I found out I had the necessities in my own garden (grape branches and hydrangea). I cut the branches the same day, formed a wreath, bound the branches with thread to keep them in the shape I wanted and hung it to dry for a couple of days. Today I cut hydrangea flowers from different bushes and inserted them between the branches.After that I bound everything together with binding wire. That was all it took. I really like the result.       And take a look at our new little cat friend James. Only nine weeks old.       Tutorial: you can find instructions at My Sweet Cottage Supplies: Grape Branches and Hydrangea Flowers    ~*~   The Naked Cake with Summerfruit was featured by Scrapality !   

Last night we made a great deal: we exchanged a homemade cake for an adorable little tomcat!        Naked Cake with Poppy Seeds and Lemon Cream, topped with White Chocolate and Summer Fruit   What you need For 2 cakes: 2x200 grams butter 2x200 grams sugar 2x3 eggs 2x250 grams cake mix 2x50cc milk  2x2 tablespoons poppy seeds 500 grams mascarpone 1 lemon 25 grams of vanilla sugar white fondant 2 tablespoons  cream  100 grams white chocolate summerfruit (raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, redberries, blueberries etc)   What to do Preheat oven at 160 degrees Celsius Mix the butter until soft.  Add sugar and mix until smooth Add eggs one by one and mix after adding each egg Add milk and poppy seeds Mix for three minutes Bake the cake for an hour Make the other cake (or you can make the two cakes simultaneously, if your oven is big enough and if you have two cake pans of exactly the same size) Let the cakes cool down and cut them both i...

We're still in the Tenth Birthday with Cat Theme-modus, so here's the next project I made for my daughter's birthday: the Party Sweater. Bunting and a cat, that should be pass for festive, what do you think? I bought a not so expensive sweater, cut the cat and the bunting out of iron on flocked textile transfer and ironed it on the shirt. Easy as that.   www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ The Peacock Feathers Mochila I made just before I went on vacation is featured by Scrapality and by Oui Crochet !! Thank you very much, Andrea!! My Lampion was featured this week by Across The Boulevard ! Thank you, Beverly! My other Crocheted Lanterns were featured by Creating My Way to Success and by Oombawka Design ! Thanks, Jill and Rhondda! 

As I promised you a while ago, here are the pictures of the mochila I made for my daughter, for her birthday.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ My Confetti Invitations were featured by Sarah Celebrates ! Thank you so much, Sarah!

  www.betweennapsontheporch.net Months ago I made a chalk board on the door in my kitchen for my daughters to draw on, but the only who is actually using it, is me. This time I used it to draw a X-mas Tree on.  Underneath the tree: our cats Dolly, Ronnie and late Sjakie.

My daughters of 7 and 4 have their summer vacation ('Vacation again?!', you might think, and that's exactly what I think every four weeks (more or less) when they have at least five days off again; kids here in The Netherlands have about twelve weeks of vacation in a year), so again I have to think about entertainment every day. But today was my lucky day, because I got an idea served on a silver platter! Since my oldest daughter's birthday is in a couple of weeks, I was searching for some nice presents (because what to ask if you already have everything?). I came along a picture of folded animals and when I searched for a whole book with folded animals, I came along a website where one can print such animals! Even better: for free! Great idea to fill some of this ocean of vacation days ahead! www.betweennapsontheporch.net Tonight I made this one for my daughter as an example. If you're out of children's entertainment ideas, too, you can find th...

My daughters had another school vacation (we live in The Netherlands and they have at least six holidays a year, each lasting a week at a minimum), so I had to think about activities again. Since we have an annual season ticket for the zoo, we go there at least once every holiday.  For the first time ever I saw the wolves howl! Here are some zoo pictures.   Usually we go to the theater or the movies also during school holidays. We went to House of Magic this time. It's with a cat and just because of that highly recommended. Other things we did were the playground and the fair (which, totally accidentally of course, takes place during the children's holidays). And we baked cookies! My daughters made these: And I baked Strawberry Cookies:     www.betweennapsontheporch.net For this I used a American Cookies recipe and replaced the chocolate for strawberries.

I found this cross stitch pattern at  Subversive Cross Stitching  (you can buy it  here ) and the pattern just reminds me of my beloved black cat Sjakie, who could have said it himself.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net It's cotton yarn and burlap, which is great material to cross stitch. ~*~ My Crochet Flower Dress is both featured by The Cottage Market  and Go Crochet Crazy this week! Thanks,  Andrea and Mary!!  

Do you remember the Yarn Basket I made a while ago, to keep all the balls of yarn that were laying around the house in one place?  When I was busy making it, my cat already showed excessive interest in it, but after it was finished he made it his home and only came out of it for food or business he had to do around the house (fighting off other cats in our garden, that means). Long story short: again I had no basket for my yarn.    This is him, looking quite innocent, but this is a face he only has inside the house, when other cats can't see him. Yes, you noticed it right: my cat has a very short tail. Lost in a fight, after another cat bit him and the tail got inflamed and necrotic and had to be amputated.  Makes him even more The Tough Cat.  And although you might think he has learned his lesson, he still can't get enough of fighting and comes home with blood, scratches and bite wounds. No lesson learned at all. 'What is mine, is mine' is h...

A couple of weeks ago I made this letter for my oldest daughter, but of course my youngest wanted one, too, so here it is: the R! www.betweennapsontheporch.net

A couple of years ago I had a little webshop where I sold hand made stuff for babies, like blankets, play mats, toys and felt letters. The shop is long closed, but sometimes I like to make one of the things I then sold and this felt letter is one of them.   www.betweennapsontheporch.net My oldest daughter's name begins with an Y, so the Y was the letter of choice.

Black Cats and Red Hearts - The Perfect Combination! www.betweennapsontheporch.net Pattern to be found here

Sometimes I just feel like making a Cat Thing, so I made this: www.betweennapsontheporch.net   ~*~ Wow!  The Cottage Market  has featured me! Again! And I was also featured by The Silly Pearl! Thanks, Andrea and Steph!!