KissKus

Summer party

Busy times here with the end of the schoolyear near. Lots of events happening and parties to attend. Yesterday we held our own party for Amber.

The day was a success.
Some highlights were:

Unwrapping presents

Off for an adventure

A water fight (it was warm!)

Birthday treats for the children to take home

And grandma made another party dress.

Another reason to celebrate is that this is my 400th post! I would love to do a give-away, but I just wouldn't manage it right now. Perhaps a bit later on when life isn't so hectic.
Still I would like to thank everyone who has been reading some or many of those 400 posts. Blogging has definitely enriched my life and I still enjoy it very much!

Happy weekend everyone!

Fridge Art

Our fridge is so typically us: colourful and eclectic and -alright- messy.

I love these two pieces of art by Amber. The drawing she made last year before Linus was born. Don't we all look neat and perfect? And I look so slim too, even though I was about 7 months pregnant then... good girl!

This paperhand parrot is wonderful as well, I think. And I'm very proud of the fact that I personally placed that crochet magnet on its eye... what a smashing detail!

More fridge art here. And on this weird and wonderful place that is Flickr there is also this group where people simply show there fridges.

Birthday crafts

Naturally I did a bit of crafting for Amber's birthday. It wasn't as much as I'd originally planned, but I tried to let go of some of the obligations that I usually impose on myself and I was ok with that (pat on the shoulder).

I didn't make her birthday dress, for instance. My mum did, however, so it was alright to let go off that one this year. Unfortunately, I don't have a proper photo of the dress, since the weather wasn't great yesterday and Amber had to wear tights and a cardigan. It's quite a simple dress, but made from a beautiful knitted fabric and it looked very sweet on her. More surprisingly importantly, she liked it too!

Today she handed out treats at school and with this I also didn't go overboard. I made cakes and decorated them. Not very difficult and they were well received and all eaten.

I did make her her own bunting. Bad photo, I know, but I just can't seem to take a proper photo of bunting. I've been making lots of birthday bunting this year and there is definitely more to come too :)

This last little project wasn't made by me, but by Michel. He always designs all our invitations and does a great job. He is my photoshop hero! Isn't my banner looking a bit dusty, by the way ;)

Now all that's left is Amber's birthday party, which we still have to set a date for, but which has to happen before the summer holidays start. I suppose some more crafting will be in order then!

Kids ATC Swap

Amber and Simon participated in the Kids ATC Swap and they had so much fun!

They were both very enthusiastic about the whole project and both managed to bring it to a good ending.

When we got the list of names and addresses the first thing we did was look up in the atlas where all the countries and cities were.

Then for several days they worked on their ATC's .

One of Simon's masterpieces.

Amber went with a happy theme.

We also printed tiny envelopes, which they decorated.

Amber wrote a letter in which she told about her life in The Netherlands, which we then translated into English (we attached the original letter as well). Simon dictated his letter to us.

After all the fun and hard work they posted their own letters.

And now they are receiving lots of exciting mail! Yeah, it was a lovely project. Hope to do it again sometime!

Bring it on!

At long last the summer holiday in our part of the country started! It feels as if we're the last on the planet to finish school for the summer, but as from today Amber is home and we're all determined to enjoy it.

The fun started yesterday evening when Amber and Simon cuddled up together into one bed. It was one of things they wanted to do this holiday and they didn't waste time. They looked so cute and snugly together! And although they admitted that they chatted for a bit, we didn't hear a thing. Tonight they want to sleep in Amber's bed.... we'll see.

Another thing that was on the holiday to-do list was eating choco-muesli for breakfast. So that's what they had this morning. They were still in their pyjamas and quite frankly, I still am!

We have many more plans for the next six weeks: fun days with all the opa's and oma's, at least one trip to the beach and we'll go to France for two weeks. We're counting off the days already!

The only thing that's not cooperating is the weather... it's like autumn here. So wet and chilly... brrr. I do hope this summer will be better than last year's! It's so funny to think that in other parts of the world summers guarantee warmth and sun; here in Holland it's always a surprise what kind of weather we'll be blessed with. I suppose it keeps things exciting?

As soon as the rain takes a break today I will let the children play outside. Michel made such a wonderful ladder for Simon the other day. He is so pleased with it. His new favourite game is to climb up the tree and to hide something there in the branches. Then Amber or I have to come and see the treasure that he'll pull out which usually is a stick or something.

Look at his little happy face! I will miss him so when he'll start school in September!

Oh, look at these gorgeous flowers that Sarah sent because I attended her wedding! They're beautiful and they bring some much-needed brightness into our house... thank you so much, Sarah!

The crafts that went with the birthday

There were a lot of things that I needed wanted to make for Amber's birthday.
In my life there is always that dilemma: will I go mad and try to make everything myself, or will I make it easy on myself and simply buy everything? In the end it's usually a mix of both these things. For instance, I can't remember ever having baked a proper birthdaycake. However, I do make it a point to always make Amber's birthday dress.

Another thing that I find important is to think up of something creative for birthday treats for school. Last year I made fabric flowers and the year before that we made boats. I was wondering whether it's a Dutch tradition to hand out treats at school? It's just that I can't remember ever having read about it on any of the international crafty blogs that I read.

Anyway, to my mind the best treats are unique, but also simple to make. This year Michel and I came up with the perfect idea: fish rods.

Now, I would love to tell what I used to make them, but I'm afraid I'm only able to do so in Dutch: soepstengels, rode en zwarte dropveters en snoepvissen. Thanks to Nichole I now know that I used breadsticks, red & white shoestring licorice and Swedish fish. All sweets came from Ikea, so you might be able to get them there.

This was so easy to put together. We made the fish rods on Sunday and kept them fresh in ziplock bags. We decorated a cardboard box with blue wrapping paper and fish stickers (both Ikea). Then we punched holes in the box and all I had to do the next morning was put all the rods in there.

This is how we tried to transport the whole thing to school:

Amber carried it when everything started to collapse on Linus.

It was a huge success with both children and teachers (and parents).

After this there were still some things to make for her party on Wednesday. Of course I didn't start until the very last minute ;)

For the treasure hunt I made oilcloth letters that the children had to collect during the game. I used a cup to draw the circles unto the oilcloth. After cutting them out and sewing them together, I attached a letter sticker... finito!

For favours I made small oilcloth bags.

I used my girliest oilcloth... I actually love the pink gingham myself! Again, the bags were very easy to make, it's just a shame that I had to work on them so late into the night...

I made cupcakes to put in the bags. Although I don't think I can call them cupcakes...my cakes don't even come close to all the wonderful creations that I so often spot in blogland, but they looked cute enough and were tasty as well :)

In the end, this was the result:

Please notice that I re-used the letters from the treasure hunt to create bags with the girls' initials on them... pretty clever or not?!

And that was the end of that... I promise no more posts on Amber's birthday! Oh, by the way, I'll announce the two winners of the give-away in next post. Enjoy the last bit of weekend, everyone!

Matroyshka/babushka help

A while back I decided on a theme for baby's room: the main colour will be turquoise and I want to add matroyshka/babushka elements.

From Tiel.

So far I collected some illustrations that I want to frame and I'm building up a small stash of turquoise fabrics for the quilt and other decorations.
What I would really like, however, is to buy some matroyshka-fabric as well (I already have the Heather Ross print, but that's the wrong colour unfortunately) and I'm hoping that you guys can help me out a little.

Do you know of any links to the fabric I'm looking for? As I said the main colour of the quilt will be turquoise, but any kind of blue, or red, will do. Do you know any good (bonafide) and preferably affordable online fabric stores? I only ever once twice bought from Reprodepot, which I was very happy about.

I hope you've got some helpful tips for me!

By the way, while surfing the net I came across this fabulous site. I'm now trying to determine which set(s) I'm going to buy.

Ack, have a look at this blog... such lovely things on there!

And this fabric is just the best!

Does anyone know where it comes from?

This is me: Amber

September 2006: our house, zucchini in the garden

I'm not really good at keeping a record of my children's development. Simon still has no baby-album. In fact, he doesn't even have one proper photo of himself, because we never print any photos from our digital camera... I haven't been keeping a baby-diary with Simon either. Also most drawings that Amber made through the years have somehow gone missing.
This is why I'm grateful for:

• this blog
• Amber's teachers

Amber came home last week with a booklet full of drawings that she made this year. Included were several techniques like folding, tearing, gluing etc.
However, my favourite part were the drawings that she had been making of herself in this schoolyear. Some highlights:

August 2006: Don't you love the bellybutton and nipples that show through her clothes?!

February 2007: I like how she has drawn the little ponytail that she wore that day

March 2007: Look at that pose! Do you see Michel/me and Simon in the background?

August 2006: Summer vacation, spending time with her aunt from England (my sister)

December 2006: Sinterklaas, that creature on the left is a horse!

June 2007: Celebration at school, picture of her on a camel in the rain

Thank you, Amber's teachers, for making this wonderful booklet and for making me feel a little less like a slob!

Check out some more (older) drawings here.

A golden frame

Sorry to go on and on about Amber's birthday... this is the last post on it, I promise!
I just want to share with you another thing that I came up with for her party.
I liked Amber to give out a small present to all her guests and I came up with a frame that would contain a photo of Amber and her friends. I thought it would be fun if the children would be involved in making their own present.

So I bought cheap wooden frames from IKEA and small wooden cut-outs from Hema.

All children were given a frame that they could decorate the way they wanted. We helped them gluing it all together.

After spray-painting the frames golden, I jumped on my bike to get the photos printed.

I wrapped them up and added a thank you-card that I had made previously.

Both children and parents were very happy with this framed memory :)

Pre-party crafting

The days before Amber's birthday I spent many hours working on projects for her party.
I'm happy to say that I finished everything that I had planned beforehand!

First up were the treats she would hand out at school. I used the scrappy flowers that I made a little while back. There were still a lot of buttons to be sewn, but luckily my MIL's helped me with that. We then put the flowers on sticks. I bought small cakes and stuck the flowers in them.

The result was pretty and colourful.  Amber was very pleased with them and so were the children in her class... pfeeew!

Next up was the birthday outfit. This is an annual tradition (for myself!). From experience I know that sewing an outfit at the last moment can be an extremely stressful thing to do, so I was smart and bought a sweet dress from H&M. Nonetheless I did finish the outfit in time!

I'd been looking at all the lovely smocks that were appearing everywhere in blogland... I knew that that was what I wanted to make for Amber. This was the pattern I found. It looked much too small for Amber, so I just made it larger. I could only hope that it would fit, since trying it on would spoil the surprise. I made trousers to match.

The whole outfit was made from red gingham, blue polkadots and a little blue flower print. It all looked wonderful together (unfortunately the photos aren't great). The smock is completely reversible, something Amber really liked. I was so pleased that the outfit not only fit her, but also turned out exactly the way I had imagined!

I had also made two smocks for Vita, Amber's doll, from Kirsten's pattern. It worked very well, Kirsten, thank you!

Well, I have one more crafty thing to show, but I think I'll save that for another post... otherwise this one will get ridiculously long!