LeiLiLaLoo

A new day and a New year, happy 2012!!!

2012-01-08T01:27:00.000-08:00

Thank you Stephanie for your kind words...A little Q&A with me over here at her blog..

Snaps around the house...

My reads...

Christmas over here...

2011-12-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

Making a 'Grand Christmas Ice cream', yummy for them, yukki for me ;-))

*How was yours???

A single mom's cry

2011-12-20T13:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it’s just mega hard to be a single mom. Yesterday the ‘disaster-day’ started out with me suddenly falling ill with a fever, I barely could drag my groceries in the door without falling over. I then went to bed for an hour. I had just one hour to sleep it off because I had to get my kids out from daycare and school. When I woke up after that hour I could really not see how to get out of my bed on my bike in that hostile feeling cold windy and rainy outside world. I am so lucky I could call the person that takes care of my daughter and she picked up my son and brought them both to my doorstep. Thank god for you Mimi!!!!

In the evening the disaster day went forth when my daughter took a sip of detergent that’s put in a children’s they can blow bubbles with, (I have no idea how that’s called in English I’m sorry). I had to give her something greasy (butter in her milk) and call the doctor what to do next. Luckily she did not throw up so there was no risk for an chemical pneumonia, (until she would throw up that was). She slept well after that and the next day she was fine.

Today we went to a lovely Christmas dinner organized by the lovely Mimi and my friend who has three young children. The kids had a really nice time. When we came home, (me still feeling groggy from the fever night before), they had to off course unpack some of their gifts and one of them were these little starts we call them in the Netherlands, that you light with Christmas or new years eve. After i lit it one of the stars to show them how it looked, my son wanted to hold it after the burning was done. And in a blink of an eye he touched the upper part very briefly, it was still very hot! So he burned his finger. I could kick myself in the head for allowing him to hold it! Luckily there wasn’t any real damage to his skin besides redness, but off course it hurts soooo much. It took him about one hour and a half to calm down and fall asleep.

So now it’s my turn to go to bed. But first I needed to get this chain of unfortunate events off my chest...

....hope everything will be calm and peaceful tomorrow...

What we have been up to...

2011-12-11T11:57:00.000-08:00

Printing with rust

2011-11-20T03:33:00.000-08:00

Been experimenting with eco dye and rust printing....plan to make some special stuff from these for my shop in spring.

Beautiful decay

2011-11-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

Playing around...with a droplet stamp :))

2011-11-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

2011-11-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, today i looked through my old photo archive and found pictures of the time that I started out on Etsy and on this blog. I originally started my shop with selling fabric I myself hand printed with stamps I also cut myself. . I really enjoyed doing that so much, I felt a bit melancholic looking through these old pictures, thinking why don’t I do this anymore?? Then the answer came to me immediately, that was before I had two kids! At that time my oldest was a just a baby and I had free time on my hands during naps and so on. Somehow those kind of bitties of free time got lost in life as I live it now..Maybe it will come back one day...when my kids get a bit more self sufficient as they get older? In the mean time I like dreaming about it J

Stapled ART! Elana Herzog!

2011-10-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

These are Afghan rugs stapled to the wall by Elana Herzog. I was blown away by the fragile look she had given the rugs through stapling them. What I like about it as well is that it's also a piece of ‘politicical’ art, with a message. It’s called 'Civilization and its Discontents from 2003'. She made this installation in a New York gallery just before the invasion in Irak.

Via

Love Humanoid

2011-10-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

I just stumbled across these beautiful pictures with beautiful items in them. Humanoid fashion line. I found one on pinterst.com, (BTW: Pinterest is now my new favorite time-consuming place to go to kill time I don’t have enough of) and started to browse through the Humanoid site where I found out almost all of their newest designs are simply gorgeous. The muted color palette they use, the simple lines, their sense for the subtle and for the detail, and raw-like materials are all very inspiring.

Sketchbook..

2011-10-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

My Funny Girl...My Indie Pindie!

2011-10-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

No words nessecary...Just these; My gorgeous, my girl, my sweetie, my darling....My Indie Pindie!!!!

ON SALE

2011-10-24T01:29:00.000-07:00

Original painting - "Lemons and Lemonade" Was $55,00 Now $40,00, Here

Folksy Ribbon Collage Triptych- Was $45,00 Now $35,00, Here

Folksy Ribbon Collage Triptych-Was $45,00 Now $35,00, Here

Have been painting at 5.00 a.m.

2011-10-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

Early morning, 5 a.m, kids still deeply sleep, dark every where, cold winter air, wearing three sweaters, hot coffee, my favorite early morning radio show and PAINT!

......Hydrangeas, dead birds, paintbrushes, white peonies, bees, spoons, cherries and vintage swedish wall paper.......

My daughter made her own mr.duck...

2011-10-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

My sweetie girl finger painted some muslin fabric with textile paint the other day. I sewed her a ducky softie from it, because when I took a look at her painting I immediately saw a duck . That’s how her newest friend mr.Duck emerged out of her own painting.

Autumn impressions

2011-10-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Autumn illustations

Autumn palette

My late grandfather the artist

2011-10-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my cherished photographs of my late grandfather. He died over twenty years ago..I still get a warm fuzzy feeling when looking at him on these pictures. He was a charismatic man, an artist...a painter and a cenographist in the Slovak theater.

This lady was his mother...

Finally something to say..only not with words this time...

2011-10-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

No words, just new paintings....

Night flowers

2011-09-05T05:17:00.000-07:00

My favorite flowers photographed at night time in my living room...and a little preview of new pillows to come to my shop soon...

So Long My Friend..

2011-09-03T10:49:00.000-07:00

Is this goodbye my dear friend Summer??? Was this the last of your warm and beautiful days? Let's meet up again next year..Hope that moment get's here fast. It was so much fun having you around...Thank you..

!~Great post how to print your own fabric easy and inexpensively

This sweet couple is a real team!

2011-08-31T00:58:00.000-07:00

I already talked about this here on my blog but I feel the urge to tell you something about it again. The work I do besides creative work is my healthcare job, in that job I work with new parents. I help them to get back on their feet the first week after they have given birth. It at times is an extremely rewarding job because I get to experience the initial feeling of anxiety turned into a feeling of it’s going to be all okay from the new parents. They start out feeling a bit panicky fresh out of the hospital with their own bundle of joy on their home couch. But by the end of that first week they see that they can do this too, take care of their child on their own. The feeling of happiness on their faces is a huge reward ones I leave them behind after eight days.
And i get to go home with a warm feeling inside me knowing i met some really special people.

The past week I got to have that wonderful experience ones again. I worked at the home of such a lovely couple, at the end of the week I felt really sad to leave. They are a special couple, one you see very rarely. They could work so well together they started to ‘make’ things together. The cutest thing I ever heard was they knitted a sweater for their baby girl together. One of them did one arm the other did the other and so on. I was so moved by this joint project.

Another thing they made as a team was the coolest couch you ever saw! They found an old door somewhere on the streets of Amsterdam and made it into a couch..really fabulous!

*Thank you Leonie and Dirk for giving me the permission to show pictures on my blog of your wonderful work of art!

I met her in person and she is so lovely..

2011-08-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

The day before yesterday I met Stephanie Levy in real life for the first time. You know she is the famous blogger, from studio with a view and from her other blog Artists who blog. She has just created a new blog for which she is doing a new big project called Twelve Countries in Twelve Months.

You hear people say that meeting people from the blogging universe in real life can sometimes be a disappointment. But my meeting with Stephanie was all but disappointing. Stephanie Levy is a sweet, energetic and super inspiring woman. You can have an endless bubbling on on going conversation with her. I unfortunately did not have unlimited time. I had to go back home to my kids, but it felt so nice to talk to her that I thought to myself several times that I would ask my babysitter for forgiveness later, because I really really did not want to go home yet...so I ended up getting home a little later then I planned but my babysitter is a sweet girl who did not mind, lucky me...

We met over coffee because she is doing a wonderful tour through some cities in Holland. She meets up with bloggers in those cities to do interviews with them. When she contacted me I was so thrilled. I loved the idea immediately, to be able to have the experience to meet with her over coffee.

*Thank you Stephanie for your wonderful company....and next time no AirBnb needed in Amsterdam...

New Pillowwwsss

2011-08-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

In my shop now...

The magic black berries create, no not the phone!

2011-08-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

Here as promised some more pics of my latest solar dye sessions...this one is Black berries!

Color addict

2011-08-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

Can’t describe the thrill it gives me in words. To look for plant material just outside my building and let it do it’s magic and become an incredible color in fabric. I call this my ‘scarf project’..it involves experimenting with plant materials for these past two years and looking for the perfect fit with the fabric. I am still making up my mind wich fabric, silk or a very thin cotton, i will be choosing for the scarf’s. They ultimately will be all solar dyed with multiple layers of color, that’s why it takes so long, two years!...this is truly called slow dyeing :)

I am looking forward showing you all the pictures I made in the past couple of dye sessions. The subject of solar dyeing is super photogenic, I love all the photos (and dye)results..

Here are some sample pots with various plants..

"Braids project" translated into jewelry

2011-08-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

Finally I had the courage to translate my fascination for braids into jewelry. I have tons of ideas. It took me months to muster up the courage to finally make some of them into a necklace. I am pretty nervous of how they will be received as this is not familiar territory to me, YET.

Any way enough talk about my self-conscious mind..they are in my LeiLiLaLoo shop right now...

Scary and exciting at the same time!

2011-08-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

Viewing and listening to all that has been happening for the past months throughout the world I can’t help but develop some sort of philosophy about it. Or more importantly to try and put it in some sort of spiritual context. This morning when I was listening to yet another report about the downfall of the stock markets all over the world I heard them say; “stock brokers are losing their faith in the big companies”. Then it hit me; in spiritual sense this world doesn’t even exsists at all, it only exists because we believe it is there. Some people believe a table only stands before us because we believe it is a table when in fact it’s only energy vibrating in a certain way. So now the worlds structure as we know it and as we believe we depend on is about to change dramatically because we stop to trust it’s there! We allowed doubt to enter our minds and souls. Even people who care only about money and earthly things like stock brokers are at the breaking point of stopping to believe the world they love(world made of money) is even there. Maybe this is the age of Aquarius really setting foot in our souls these days? It’s scary and exciting at the same time. So many questions arise in my mind...will we be able to gather food for our children? Will we be able to communicate through the internet like we take for granted. Will we even survive this change?

On the other side of stock market drama is the basic need of survival, like the terrible hunger in Africa right NOW!!! The riots in the East, even Israelian people has started to go flood the streets to ask for justice this past week... If this is Aquarius time is coming...maybe I am kidding myself but I hope it is! I suppose it can't happened without a fight and without breaking down the old structures. I wish we will all come out stronger and happier!

*Love you my friends..keep strong!

Here is a little sneak peek....

2011-08-07T02:26:00.000-07:00

Secretly been working on a new pillow collection..

Soon they will be added to my shop...

A 'Late summer collection' i call it....

Daily life, no words

2011-08-05T00:16:00.000-07:00

*Smock pattern on tree

Been away...actually I still am

2011-07-19T01:45:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry to not having taken the time lately to maintain my relationship with all of you wonderful people out there..I have been, and still am going through some stuff, which makes me not want to talk much about anything. Besides working and taking care of my kids and myself i haven't been up to much on the creative front, which makes me a bit sad. But i believe there is a time for everything, first things first...Hope you folks are not going to leave me forever..I’ll be back here eventually..I’m sure :))

Food for the soul, my soul....

2011-06-28T23:52:00.000-07:00

*Elephant Ceramics

*Barbara Munsel
*Mady Dooijes
*Myriam Balay

*Beauty Comma

*Fort makers

*The makers

Breakfast with diving glasses :))

2011-06-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just can't believe what these two come up with :)) When I came into the living room this morning they were having their oatmeal with their diving glasses on. I quickly grabbed my camera but I was too late to make a shot of both of them wearing them. By the time I came back into the room with my camera my daughter had already took her neon yellow pair down... But that didn't matter because I thought this is a nice enough shot of 'the having a quick breakfast before going diving couple' as well :))))))

My almost (first)editorial ...

2011-06-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

A while ago I got an email from an editor with the Dutch magazine called ‘Flow’..a real beautiful kind of magazine. The editor who contacted me was interested in knowing if I would like to be featured in the Etsy courant they planned to create in the June issue of Flow magazine this year. Well YEAH!!!! Off course I would like to be in their magazine!! I jumped up and down from joy, this could well become my first very much desired editorial....and in such a super cool magazine on top of that!

After two months or so, just before the magazine was due to come out, she contacted me again to tell me her boss editor had chosen others and not me to be featured...and that she was sorry...

Well, so was I...Hopefully my first editorial isn’t far away...

Today I bought the magazine because I was so curious who they had picked..and there on page one was my dear Etsy friend Nina, with her beautiful Etsy shop, Nina In Vorm

Congratulations Nina J

Some Great Etsy Finds I Have Found This Week :))

2011-06-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

1)Fabulous picture made by Knitalatte aka Resurrection Fern

2)Beautiful collage made by Essimar

2)One of my very favorite artists!!! Rikkianne Van kirk of You Sentimental Idiot

3)A truly super beautiful painting by Ana Gonzalez Prieto

4)A Gorgeous Indigo bag by Enhabiten

5)A set of fabulous block printed scissor pillows by Sugar And Fig

6)This is a cute little dress made by one of my super favorite dress makers on Etsy, Creole Sha

7) This superb 'Richter bag' is a very special bag made by Lambert. It has a very special story to it, if you have a moment you should really go and read it over here

My new love..ceramics...

2011-06-10T13:34:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered that it is very cool to have a mother who is a specialist in ceramics, and especially in glazing...I went there for the weekend and could not stop myself from playing with her clay..Now I am anxiously waiting for her to put it in the kiln and after that to play around with the different glaze colors of hers...I plan to make lots of jewelry type of objects. Oh and....and buttons. I am so anxious, you can't imagine :)))

*These pics I took around her studio...they are colors samples she made. She uses them to decide what glaze/color combinations to make on her clay sculptures.

Some more SpoonFlower experiments

2011-06-08T00:16:00.000-07:00

I have tried out a few fabric designs through SpoonFlower recently. I needed to determine the print quality and decide which way I want my own fabric line to go. Here are some of the recently printed results...

******If you feel like giving me some feedback on them you are more than welcome to do so :))******

Made some ElderFlower lemonade this weekend...hmmmmm

2011-06-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

I love the beauty of the Elderflower. She is magical to me..This year i was somewhat hypnotized by her. I wonder what that means? There are all sorts of stories about her to be found on the internet. In those stories the elderflower is often being portrait as a symbol of wisdom and protection of the homestead and even of the dead. I just don't know why i am drawn to it this year so strongly..I wonder...

... Here i have harvested the Elderflower. I am ready to pull off the flowers so they can be put in the glaze pot. I want just the white flowers to be in there without any of the green parts.

Put all the delightful white flowers into a closed glaze pot filled with water and just let it rest on a shelf for 2 days. This way the elderflowers' enchanting smell and taste will be pulled from the flowers into the water. This water becomes the lemonade later on.

After 2 days you sif the water really well in a super clean kitchen towel. then you put it in a pan on your stove and add lemon and sugar to it. I have used 1 kilo of sugar for 3 liters of water, and 3 organic lemons as well.

Then you boil the water and the sugar really well...and put it into the sterilized bottles you have prepared...

A Yummi sight! Ready to be enjoyed!!!

There are many ways to tell yourself you are beautiful :))

2011-06-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

And this is one of them :)) These are sew-in labels. The are to be sewed into your favorite pieces of clothing to remind yourself of the fact how wonderful you look :)) Available in sets of 10..here...

A wonderful day, NDSM shipyard Amsterdam

2011-06-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

My sister, my kids and me had a wonderful day at the Amsterdam shipyard called NDSM. It’s a wonderful mysterious and very very inspiring place. Traveling there is an adventure by itself for little two and four year olds. There is a ferry going there from Amsterdam central station. It was a extremely bright and sunny day. Which was perfect whether to take pictures in.

And on top of that I came across a few still blossoming elderflower bushes. I was so happy! Elderflowers blossoms hold my total attention this year. Last year I already was dying silk and cotton fabric with them, but this year I tried some more, currently I am making syrup to make fresh and delightful lemonade with. Because of this year’s extremely warm and dry whether their blossoms turn into berries a lot earlier then normally, so I was out harvesting the blossoms a few times last week and could find just enough blossoms to dye another batch of fabrics and make the lemonade. What I would like to try next year is to make fried elderflower blossom as an entrée at a dinner party and to make some facial cleaning tonic as well. As I read the list of what one can do with this magical flower it seems so incredible this can all be done with these blossoms. Their smell alone is mesmerizing...Coming up in a new blog post are some pics of the lemonade being made and a translation of the syrup recipe.....

Some beautiful architecture pics seen at the NDSM shipyard...

Anxiously waiting for the ferry to pick us up..

In the water behind my son you see an old black submarine ones owned by the Russians. The colors in this picture remind me of those old pictures of me and my sister when we were little. Hurray for I-Phone photographs :))

This building i find sooo beautiful! It's an apartment building build partly over the water.

Is this how our subconscious talks to us?

2011-06-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

The 30^th of April 2011 was my D-day! D-day was about finally feeling the strength and the courage to initiate a major change in my life and the lives of my two children.. divorce! Just days before my D-day I made this drawing. Looking back, and even in that moment I drew it, it feels like this was exactly pinpointing the sore and the pain in my marriage that had been there for so long and had gotten worse and worse. It feels like some level of me was talking to another level of me, and saying; Please finally agree with me! Please finally open your eyes and see the problem and see you are on a dead end street!

I finally let go of that heavy load I was tied to..and it feels like I am able to breathe again! I hope this feeling will last forever! I know I should not ask for the impossible, life is no picnic! So in the mean time I will enjoy it to the fullest (while it lasts). Thank you universe!

My First one in hopefully many more!!

2011-05-26T00:07:00.000-07:00

I am so proud to present the first, in hopefully many, fabric design I made through SpoonFlower. I am having tons of ideas to create a whole line of fabrics...Not many of you may know but this was the job I had for many years. This was in the times, (who can even imagine there were times like that), before Etsy and blogs existed. I was a surface designer, mainly designing fabric patterns for various European companies. The dream to launch my own fabric line one day was there for so long, I kept it inside for years because of lack of technical possibilities. Then I got to know about the amazing company SpoonFlower, and now everyone can launch his or hers own fabric line!!! Right know ideas are flying around ready for takeoff. The only down side is I will have to make a fair initial investment and wait for two or three months for each order to get at my doorstep.. So stay tuned and please.......be a little patient...I am working on more...

This fabric I show here in these pictures is to test how people feel about my designs..This one is for sale in fat quarters in both my shops as off today... I call it 'Poppies, Oh my lovely Poppies'

My Little butterfly is two years old today!!!

2011-05-25T00:10:00.000-07:00

Today it has been two years since my little darling daughter was born! Look how adorable she has become...I am so proud of her :)))

*************************************

So sorry i haven't been around much on my blog. I haven't been so absent since a long time. I would have liked to be able to spend more time on my blog..but life has me by my hair at the moment. I am adjusting to a whole new situation of being a single mom! It's liberating i can tell you, i am not on the complaining side of the story. But as single moms out here know it can be also hard..at times...So besides from being in the middle of a divorce, yes divorce! I am trying to keep my head above the water with a few things...But i am good! Feeling better since so long.....

Mothers day 2011

2011-05-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

Mothers day 2011 has come to an end...besides from the heavy feeling of future (?sad?) changes about to enter our lives, I had a lovely day with my two wonderful kids...I’ll embrace whatever change comes next and hope to stay strong throughout that...

How was your mother’s day 2011?....

The pictures of my kids and the flowers above i took at my dear friends house, isn't her home lovely and serene??

The following pictures are pics from inspiring pages out of a magazine at a friend’s house, I don't remember the name of the magazine, sorry...

Easter Holiday pics

2011-05-05T00:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter...

2011-04-25T05:57:00.001-07:00

It has never been such a warm Easter in history they said on the radio today...I love these temperatures, even if it feels slightly odd to look at my kids splashing around in the baby tub on the balcony in April....when it feels more like a very hot July.

How was your Easter this year?

Blossom rains and broken i phones

2011-04-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

Today (-and any other day this past week) was heavenly whether wise...Yesterday I decided in the spur of the moment to buy a new bike on my way home from work. I did not want to enter any inside of any vehicle to find my way home any longer. I wanted to breathe the air and to see the blossoms falling and feel the sun on my skin. My husband’s bike got stolen again recently. Apparently we live in a "we hate bikes outside the apartment building” type of neighborhood. Any bike of us that we leave outside for more than 10 minutes, to go up for a sec is mysteriously gone by the time we get back. It’s pretty frustrating I can tell you.

Any way my husband is using mine since his got stolen again. And I am going to work by metro and tram most of the time any way since I work about 10 km(sorry no idea how many miles that is) from home usually. But yesterday I felt this incredible urge it called “I NEED TO BE OUTSIDE BIKING NOW”!!! So I bought a new secondhand bike, she wasn't super expensive neither super cheap, but I think I did myself a huge favor :)))

The other thing is what just happened and is pretty frustrating as well is that while flying home on my new bike and while listening to the radio on my I-phone, it suddenly stopped. And I haven't been able to get it back on since, the I-phone itself I mean, not just the radio. I did not even have her for such a long time, maybe one year now, but I think even a commercially high profile gadget like this one has a longer life then just one year? I'm hoping it will get back on as mysteriously as it turned itself off....help me hoping please....

Scraps...Scraps and more scraps...

2011-04-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

I have this problem that whenever I make something with fabric i can't throw away even the tiniest piece of scrap after i finished my project...This has caused me to have bags filled with scraps, boxes filled with scraps, more bags and more boxes filled with scraps then I can store really. But nevertheless i can't let go...So I’m also always on the lookout for ideas what to do with my scrap collection...today i stumbled across the work of two lovely artists who know their way with scraps...

The patchwork flowers I found on Elisabeth's blog, they are by Ratzer

These beautiful quilted leaves I found on Nina's blog, they are made by Kerstin Svendsen

Sneak peek...

2011-04-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

20 new paintings are on their way to my shop....They are inspired by these banners I made a while ago. This week my head was overflowing with flamenco's, butterflies, lions, birds, elephants, giraffes, a crocodile, a whale, a snail and a baby duck... For every animal I did research about their symbolic values and their typical characteristics. Then I let my instincts find a virtue that inspires. I looked for a beautiful virtue that we might meditate on every now and then....much like a mantra....to remind us that life is precious...

I will make them available as regular a4 sized prints, AND…I’m so excited about this…..as prints that are mounted on wooden panels and that can be hung directly on a wall. They look so beautiful, almost like a real painting. These will all be listed during this coming week, starting from today. I will offer them in my LeLiLaLoo shop between my pillow collection. But.....I also have opened a new Etsy shop especially for them called Apple and Pie....I opened this separate shop to give them a clear stage, a stage just for my new babies :))

Inspiration Thursday, instant love!

2011-04-07T02:54:00.000-07:00

Today when I visited Lena Corwin's blog i fell instantly in love with something she wrote about. Laura Carlin, her work is rich and smart, it's elegant and incredibly imaginary...Love love love!!!!

~Oh, and if you like baby shoes that look so good you would like to eat them, go and pay a visit at Nina's blog and see her post on Collegien sock shoes. Be aware if you haven't had lunch yet :))

New inside out pillows

2011-04-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

These are three new 'inside out' pillows, they are available in my shop right now...

Have I ever told you....

2011-03-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

Have I ever told you i live in a very inspiring neighborhood of Amsterdam? It’s in an outside skirt, famous for its diversity of inhabitants and also for some less positive stuff, but that doesn't matter for this post. It's called "the Bijlmer" and some people call it “Little Africa”. And that last name really fits like a glove because sometimes when I do my grocery shopping I become conscious of the fact that I’m the only white person there. It’s kind of a strange feeling, but I also like this feeling because with it comes the perk of being around a lot of inspirational people :))

What's up?

2011-03-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

What's up at your part of the world? Has spring arrived there yet? Here we had some realy great spring days..hope they will last a little longer, could use their energy, i'm feeling tired lately because of some financially related misfortunes..

Made a treasury today..."Let's Live'

2011-03-18T03:16:00.000-07:00

Here

Tears for Japan

2011-03-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

No words, just tears..

How did my 'get your painting on' class end?

2011-03-15T00:38:00.000-07:00

Recently I took a wonderful online paintings class. It's called 'Get your paint on', it was hosted by two really nice and skilled women, Mati McDonough and Lisa Condon. They teached me some very valuable and inspiring things about painting. I am very happy I took the class…I can recommend it to anyone who is interested in joining their next classes.

However on one hand I’m sorry it’s over, on the other I am also glad it is. Because now I can slowly search my souls and take my time to implement some of the things they have taught me. And most importantly find my own way in this…

I just want to say thank you to Mati and Lisa again J

'Branding' what is that???

2011-03-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

I find myself to be a prisoner of this chain of thoughts many times; As an artist you want to make art, free art, that's the reason for choosing this kind of life after all. But at the same time you don't want your art to be stacked somewhere on the addict or cellar. You want it more than anything hanging on someone’s wall, making some one happy when looking at it. That’s part of the magic of creating. So inevitably you find yourself in the spider web of finding a balance between commercialization (branding your work)and following your heart. How does one keep oneself from paralyzing while thinking these things through. This what I ask myself many times...

Veggies & fruits, new paintings in the shop

2011-03-10T12:01:00.000-08:00

This is my newest series of small canvasses, (4" x 5" & 6" x 6" ) feauturing fruits and Veggies...

Available in my shop from today as affordable originals, not as prints.

Today spring stroked my face and inspiration Tuesday came along

2011-03-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

A huge hint of hope today. Bright sunny weather and standing in the sun i could actually feel a tiny little bit of warmth comming through my thick winter coat....

My spring inspiration today is from the wonderful work by Elizabeth Merriman, found through Mati Rose

LeiLiLaLoo art for kids, 'letter paintings'

2011-03-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

I for Indian

A good while ago I made paintings of all the letters in the alphabet for my newborn son’s nursery. Four years later I decide to make prints of them and offer them in my shop…Hope people enjoy them as much as my son did J

I could not only offer the whole alphabet because it was originally made in Dutch. Just the ones that corresponded with the English letters. I am thinking of completing it with brand new paintings to have all the 26 letters complete in English as well…

H for hair

R for rainbow

F for flamenco

Y for yoga

Y for yogurt

Inspiration Wednesday "COLOR"

2011-03-01T23:26:00.000-08:00

Sadly i don't know where i found this photo so i can't link to it's origin, i'm so sorry.

This weeks inspiration is about color. Spring is not yet in the air, but I’m imagining it already is…

Dress made by Irana Douer

This dress was made by Prudence on Etsy

This sweet skirt was made by Blossomnbird

This drawing was made by Aussiepatches

This sweet set up comes from a Japanese craft book, sorry i don't rememeber which one.

Made some new ink drawings

2011-03-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

'Mimi, the girl who was born in the circus'

Here are some of the newest ink drawings I made on my favorite kind of paper, coffee stained paper J

I usually prep my drawing paper with coffee before I start to draw, it gives the paper a special brown warm glow…I like to do it because this paper is very inviting to start drawing on, much more so then plain white paper is.

These drawings are in my shop right now.

'A horse is a girls best friend'

'Alice, the girl with the house on her head'

Inside Out Pillows

2011-02-27T02:46:00.000-08:00

These two pillows are new in my shop, here and here. They originally are made from vintage cross stitch embroideries. I turned the back side into the front, because i liked that side way more. It has 'life' to it, and it makes the embroidered roses look like painted roses...

I wish spring was here...

2011-02-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

It's so frustrating, one day spring is definitely in the air, i see the little white flower heads popping out of the ground everywhere around me. Me feeling deliriously happy! Next day, grey heavy clouds...cold cold cold...next day SNOWING again!

Where are you dear beloved spring?

I am longing for you...When you decide to come i will be jumping with joy <3

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I had a real busy couple of days...

2011-02-22T02:15:00.000-08:00

I had a real busy couple of days. How about you?

The past weekend was GREAT and busy.. my dad came over from abroad and entertained the children, they were going out of their minds(including my dad)… jumping around, throwing their selves at him, laughing (almost) all the time, playing games.

Me I had some late night talks with him, which was really nice. Now I’m tired and trying to catch up with sleep by going to bed real early. It’s not as it used to be, that late night talks could go on for weeks when I was young. Now I pay the price for it right on the day after…

In the mean time the e-course ‘Get your paint on’ is going further. But we are almost finished, I’m sad to say, we are in week four already.

Inspiration Thursday

2011-02-17T02:27:00.000-08:00

Maira Kalman, she is such a super fantastic artist!!! A great inspiration!

Kees Van Dongen, is also a very inspiring painter. Look at the colors he uses. It's amazing!

Getting out of my comfort zone!

2011-02-16T02:45:00.000-08:00

Here i have done a color experiment. Normally i use bright colors. And particular colors, like light blue and pink are always present in I all of my painting work. I’m getting a bit sick of this repeating path of mine. So two nights ago I tried to get out of my personal comfort zone by mixing colors that i ALWAYS avoid when i make paintings. I grounded over 30 big and small canvasses with those unfamiliar colors. Than I laid them all together on the livingroom floor to create quilt like setting and photographed them from above…Just to see what kind of effect it would have on me seeing all the colors together that I usually tend to avoid..I must say seeing them all together makes me want to start painting images right away, I can’t wait until it’s this evening when my kids are off to bed and I can start working on these…

Week three of getting my painting on

2011-02-15T13:02:00.000-08:00

Since the first day I begun this e-course ‘Get your paint on!’ three weeks ago I feel like I’m on fire! Thank you Mati & Lisa!!!

Here’s the beginning of my third weeks assignment. Oh and in case you are not noticing, COLOR is this week’s theme…

Three palette pictures of yesterdays painting session...i was mixing and experimenting with color on canvasses all yesterday’s night. After four hours of painting the palettes looked the best of all :))

Picture Tuesday

2011-02-14T23:51:00.000-08:00

Today I’ll post pictures without too many words…..............

Symbols

2011-02-13T03:47:00.000-08:00

In this painting I set out to try two main things; first is layering, something I usually find really hard and thus avoid.

And the second thing is finding my personal language in symbols that resonate for me… I’ve been struggling with this topic for a while, and I’m experimenting with various symbols to see wich ones feel most personal to me. When I make drawings & paintings i look back in the course of time to see where my language in symbols is going. By looking at all I make through these eyes I’m trying to find out which symbols really resonate with me and which ones don’t. So this panting is about that. It includes symbols I’ve used in previous work…these are symbols I feel drawn to right now.

People who inspire me a lot in terms of symbols are Margaret Kilgallen, Betsy Walton, Mati Mcdonough, Amanda Blake… Basqiuat, I could go on here because I draw inspiration from loooots of places..

Inspiration Saturday

2011-02-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

Michael Cutlip

A very wonderful aspect of the painting class I’m in right now.. For those who don’t know yet it’s the “get your paint on’ class with Mati and Lisa, people share inspiration with each other. It’s a really wonderful aspect of this class because I’m getting to know artists I wouldn’t want to live without.

Mati McDonough introduced two artist I did not know before and with whom I’m left in great awe off. The first is Michael Cutlip!!! And the second one is Enrique Martin Celaya !!!

Michael cutlip

Michael Cutlip

Enrique Martin Celaya

Week two, results of 'get your paint on'

2011-02-10T07:40:00.000-08:00

This weeks assignment for get your paint on was so cool. We should allow ourselves to try something we hadn’t tried before, inspired by an artist we admire. I chose Claude Monet, and more specifically his outragesly beautiful water lilies series!

Give Away!!!

2011-02-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

I think it is high time for a give away again, don't you? Well i'm going to give this pillow away! But before you go off and leave your comment here please read on...

~This give away is NOT HERE but at FINE LITTLE DAY! Elisabeth was so incredibly nice to host this for me. Thank you Elisabeth! It runs until the 13th. All you have to do is go over there and leave a comment...

Gocco versus Yudu, anyone some thoughts on this?

2011-02-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

I just bought a Gocco recently. A second hand one that is. I'm thrilled to start experimenting with it as soon as i find the time. But today i started to doubt my choice a little when i read this post about the Yudu, a system much like the Gocco seems to have more advantages, especially cost effective ones related to the materials one needs to print..

~Anyone with thought's on the matter is very welcome to comment(anyone else too), i would like to know your experience with either of them..

My father is teaching my son how to dance HIS tango :))

2011-02-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

My dad does this for his living, he teaches people the tango Argentino :)) For real! He's 62 now and still doing his thing...In this video you see him teaching my son some dancing moves with a chair and a stick :)) It's so sweet :))

Week one, results of 'get your painting on'

2011-02-06T06:33:00.000-08:00

The first wonderful week of my e-course with Mati and Lisa is done now. The inspiration for these works were the wonderful Gee's Bend quilts. And I guess this is my interpretation of them. I must admit that it’s hard to show them in a public place like this because they truly were made from a study and learning point of view. I tried some stuff I haven’t done in a long time. Like working solely in abstract form here, and trying to play with a few layers. I have no clue yet if they are any good. So if they’re not, I’d love to hear some constructive feedback on them. I’m in this to learn and I ain’t afraid of some good critique, just fire away…

Great coffee here

2011-02-05T06:37:00.000-08:00

Love this Amsterdam Café. It has a Mediterranean atmosphere to it and is run by a couple of Moroccan guys. Every time I visit it seems I’m back in Spain where I lived for a couple of years back in the early 90tees. I sound old, don’t I. It’s walls are totally covered with portrait photo’s they took of the visitors of their café. I think it both is a genius idea and looks fabulous. The girl in the bottom pic is my sis.

Last but not least they serve the best café latte in town :)

Inspiration Thursday; Gee's Bend quilts

2011-02-03T00:17:00.000-08:00

Aren't these quilts mesmerizing?! All images come from HERE

And the series continues....

2011-02-02T06:12:00.000-08:00

I have made five new design in my series of "house pillows with lovely interiors", they are in my shop already :)

1)My lovely salla, 2)My lovely kitchen, 3)My lovely patio, 4)My lovely dining room, 5)My lovely Sunroom.

Painting e-course with Lisa Congdon and Mati McDonough

2011-02-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

I've joined in the e-course "Get your painting on". Lisa Congdon and Mati McDonough are teaching this e-course. It has started yesterday and I’m so excited about what it is these two ladies can teach me. I love their work and have been following them for a while, actually since I started my "online life" in 2007. They were one of the first artists I encountered on Etsy and I have been in love with their work since :)

Best friends in the circus

2011-01-29T23:32:00.000-08:00

'Best Friends in the circus'

I always enjoy making pillows for the children’s room so much…These pillows are new and will be in my shop shortly ;) Both sides were made from natural linen, the roofs were made from solar dyed cotton fabric and the pompoms are made from various natural colors of the softest lamb’s wool. I feel kind a proud of them. I really like the slightly odd combination of animal stacked up upon each other, they make me smile…..

*Note; Because these pillows are big and really labor intensive due to lots of hand sewing, plus they were made out of eco conscious materials they come rather expensive…They come at $75,00 a piece.

~ I do think they are worth it though : )

Dolls, i really love them!

2011-01-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

Dress me UPdate

2011-01-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

FINALLY!! My long overdue Shoppe update has begun. I am thrilled, because i have been working on a series of almost sixty new pillows over the course of the past two months.. It has been difficult at times being able to find necessary sewing time. That's why I am so incredibly thrilled to finally have been able to finsish them up, photgraphed them. Yesterday i've started listing the firts group of my new 'dress Me Up' Collage Pillows in my shop. It feels like, YEAH!

Dreaming of a summer garden

2011-01-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

I am not a person who knows his way around the garden. I do wish to become one day. Especially now I have been given the chance to rent a small piece of land near our apartment to grow vegetables and flowers on. My dream is to create a garden to support my solar dyeing activities. I am going to plant some nice flowers who have strong colors to experiment with. It’s still January I know, not the best time to plant anything yet, but I am dreaming of a beautiful summer flower garden already.

Hydrangea are one of my all time favorite kind flowers. I can’t dye with them but I sure like looking at them. I also love to witness their decaying beauty, I never throw them away…until I absolutely have to.

My sister's got talent!

2011-01-16T03:36:00.000-08:00

I’m telling you, my sister has got such an amazing talent. She sadly enough has been hiding it from people because she feels too shy to come forward with her fantastic paintings. Last week she called me up out of the blue if I could help her open an Etsy shop. I could not believe my ears! I jumped on it right away and took some test pictures. It was a bit too dark in the room so we can’t use them for her shop but they do give some idea of what she does.

How to Build a Low Cost Exposure Unit

2011-01-14T01:30:00.000-08:00

What's on my table...

2011-01-12T08:02:00.000-08:00

This wonderful yard heavenly blue Nani Iro fabric which just has arrived. I bought it here.

My current mood board which is getting more chaotic by the minute. I put on it every idea i get a glimpse of in a sketchy kind of way. The main themes I’m working on at the moment are hair braids, bows and dresses...

One of the dresses waiting to become a pillow...

A stack of pillows waiting to be listed for my new shop update to come.....hopefully some where withing the next week...

My best thrift in 2010

2011-01-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

This 70ties dollhouse was without a doubt my best 2010 thrift. I look forward to play around with it. So when life hands me a tiny bit of time(who am i kidding) i will start to refurnish it with the turns of ideas swirling in my head...

And this little guy too :))