Golden oldies

Yesterday, I've been to an Oldtimer day near the castle of Doornenburg: a perfect location! The surroundings make it very suitable for taking nice pictures.

Here's an impression:

The volvo P544, which we call 'Kattenrug' (Cats back) in the Netherlands.

Not sure, but I think this is a Ford model A.

An MG TA.

Hello beautiful Traction. And seriously, evertime I see this car, I know it's the most beautiful car I've ever seen.

Skoda 1102.

I think the surroundings do so much to the pictures!

Car dump

Hubcap two is finally finished! I bought my new light fitting at a second hand store in Nijmegen for only 75 eurocents, since mister Twice is Nice is not that nice anymore.

This time I used a Mazda hubcap.

Here it is. I'm planning to hang them outside in our garden. We have a very nice veranda in our garden, but there is hardly any light. It's always a bit of a mess over there, but it's really a nice place to sit. Especially at night. That's why I decided to spice up the veranda while my mum is on holiday. (Hope she doesn't read this so it will stay a surprise for her)

Another Bassie

My placemats have been a success. My mum is supervisor at some place where mentally handicapped work at daytime. She took the placemats to her work, because there's a machine to plastify over there. All people working there liked Bassie and Adriaan so much!

Also my cousin's little son saw the placemats. He especially liked Bassie.
'Can I have 'em?' he asked, but unfortunately the placemats were made for someone else. He was so disappointed. That's why I've been asked to make another Bassie placemat for the little boy. Well sweety, of course I would like to!
Hope he likes this one too. I thought it wouldn't be funny to make two identical placemats. Only a slight change can make a lot of difference.

Hubcap in progress

I finally made some time to work on the second hubcap. Since we don't have good light fixtures outside, I asked my mum if she would like me to make a playful light source outside with those hubcaps. She liked the idea.
Today I've cleaned the Mazda hubcap. I found out that cleaning it with the help of a shower works so much better than doing it outside with an old toothbrush and a showering can.
I just put on the first layer of paint.




Besides that, I've almost got the doors painted. I have to wait for the last door to arrive, because one of the doors damaged while getting it out, so we are now waiting for a new door to be made.

Random

Okay. I've got nothing finished.
There's something I'd like to have fixed. I told about my growing collection teapots. Soon there won't be enough space left on the shelf above my closet, and besides that, I want my pots to be more visible. Half of the pots are difficult to see, because of the height.
I've just started to dismantel a wooden garden door I once found just around the corner of my house, ready to be thrown away. The screws are pretty rusty, and some are complety screwed up, so it's already a nice challenge to get all the screws out :)

I've got some new things in mind to craft. I still have got a hubcap left, from which I want to make another light fixture. Besides that, I might get a few old bike wheels. I already have some inspiration of what to do with it. Then there are backlights from a car to use, more wood to use, and some sewing projects I want to finish. Enough ideas.

Oh by the way, I'm excited. I've got 10 followers at the moment! That makes blogging so much more fun, knowing that people appreciate what you're doing. Thanks!

Operation hotelroom 4

My collection of teapots is growing and growing. I found some new antique pieces (yessss, with golden details!) in some cabinet yesterday while cleaning and rearranging the house.





And if you've got a collection you treasure, why not displaying them? Why not arranging them on a place so you can always look at it? I'm afraid I'll soon have to find a second solution to store them, because the shelf seems to become a little small for a steadily growing collection.

But this is me. This is what I like.. I bet you won't find a collection of teapots in a dull hotel-room.

Bassie & Adriaan placemats - plastified

My mum took the placemats to her work, where they have plastified them.
I just wanted to show you people the results of it. I like 'em!



Note: If you click on the image, it will zoom in. Then you can see the result much better.

Operation hotelroom 3

Having holidays means being away a lot. Most of the time it concerns doing things which I enjoy a lot, but it does mean that posting comes second.
However, being away also brings me new inspiration and new reasons to post things here. This morning I found out that making a bedroom of my 'hotelroom' partly comes with time.



I have got this headboard which is made to put things on. However, I didn't have more on it than just the alarm clock and that brown candle. Why not? I haven't got the foggiest.



My mum gave me these postcards. They represent my two favourite cities. Paris and Stockholm..



Two little presents I got. It's true, the little Norev car is perfect. Sizes are the same, details are well done, and I like the fact that the varnish is already damaged before unpacking the toy. Makes 'em even more realistic! Hello, it's an oldtimer?! :)

Bassie & Adriaan placemats

This weekend, I've been busy painting placemats for my uncle. I have got an uncle with down-syndrome, and he just got a new apartment. My family has bought a new fancy interior, but it still looked a bit empty. Now I know that my uncle loves Bassie & Adriaan. It's a Dutch duo, with a clown and an acrobat, teaching children about places all around the world. He loves the programme and has dozens of video tapes, DVD's, CD's, Bassie & Adriaan cuddly toys and images in his photo albums. I first wanted to make a painting for on his (still too white) walls, but he already seemed to have a picture of Bassie & Adriaan framed, ready to be hanged up on that wall.
When I introduced the idea of painting some placemats for on his (always empty) table, my mum got excited and told me it was a great idea.
So.. that's why I painted Bassie & Adriaan.





I hope my uncle likes 'em too!

Shirty present

No tutorial this time, but I just want to show you a present I wrapped yesterday evening.



Don't you people think it really looks like a male shirt? If there are really people who would like to know how to do this, I'll post a tutorial. Otherwize I'd just keep it as a 'chefs secret'.

Secondly.. I still miss Sweden. If I had the chance, I would go back as soon as I could. To bring Sweden to me, I decided to bake cinnamon buns (Kanelbullar) this morning. This is a typical Swedish sweet bread. Oh and they were delicious! I really love these Kanelbullar. Probably because I love the taste of cinnamon so much.
Cinnamon on apple, in desserts, on cappuccino, as favourite ice-cream taste, on vanilla ice-cream...

T-shirt Cardigan

Almost all of us have a t's in our closet that we don't even wear. Because they are not the right colour, because they are too tight, too loose, or you just don't like to wear it as a t-shirt.
I had the same issue with some green t-shirt.
I wanted to give the poor thing a second chance, so I made a little cardigan of it.
The only thing I did was to cut the tshirt in the front in halve, to then make a new seam.
Because the t-shirt was pretty small, I was afraid I couldn't close it if I would make a button hole. So I chose for a little hook with a hole.





At the end, I also patched up some buttons on the upper side, but somehow I'm not very satisfied with it, so I think I'll remove them again.
Still have to think about how to spice up the cardigan then, because else it would be a very very boring piece.

Pinkcess

In Stockholm, I had bought this very cute flattering top. It was not expensive, but that was for a reason. The upper button was attached by a safety-pin, there were some pieces sticking out, and I thought the bumpy sleeves were extremely ugly. Besides that, my arms fit in those sleeves more than twice.



However, I loved the body so much that I decided to buy it.
I unpicked the sleeves carefully, because it was stitched in such a way that it was impossible to just cut it off. That would become a complete mess.
The old sleeves were big enough to make two straps. I even have a big piece of cloth left, and I only had to use one sleeve for two straps.
After lots of picking, removing, cutting neat, and attaching buttons, this is the end result:



I love it. The colour doesn't even bother me, since I'm mostly not that fond of pink.

Burned Rom Case

CD's are rather expensive, and even though burning CD's is illegal, lots of people still continue copying. And if you copy, do it well! Use a quality case to store your CD in, and make a proper front image. The best thing to do is actually to use the image of the original CD cover. Those are easily to be found on google.
Some tips to make a neat CD cover:

1. Look for the original image of the album cover by typing in the name of the album on google.
2. Take an image that is big enough, and copy it.
3. Paste the image into Microsoft word.
(Please don't paste it into Paint, because Microsoft works with CM, while Paint works with pixels)
4. Make sure the image is really a square. The measures should be 12,1 cm × 12,1 cm
5. Print it, cut it out, and put it in the CD case.



Simple, neat, professional..