It's a bit last minute, but I thought I'd share my Holiday decorations.

I don't know about you guys, but when it comes to Christmas decorations, I always have these brilliant ideas which are great and easy in my head but complicated and frustrated in reality.

This year I thought how wonderful it would be to integrate a bit of typography in my decorations so I decided to print out some words, stick them onto cardboard, cut it out and with the help of some gold spray paint, add a bit of holiday spirit. But off course I had to choose a serif font which looked wonderful on the computer but was hell to cut out. Luckily in the end all turned out well as the following photo proofs.



And then, as the French would say, the pièce the résistance.



I spotted bauble wreaths popping up at various blogs. I wondered how hard it could be – I mean it's just sticking balls to a wreath – so decided I might as well give it a try. I kind of underestimated how many baubles exactly go into a bauble wreath. For all you decoration virgins, I think there are about 150 in mine. That amount means a lot of glueing, and even more annoying, a lot of watching glue dry. But I think the result is pretty stunning. Because I like it so much I'm actually too afraid to hang it up like I was planning to, so I think I just leave it lying on the coffee table. Nice and safe, just the way I like it...

I already posted about the mural I did for my sister's bedroom.

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=289329.msg3283325#msg3283325

But that's not all she got: I also made her a feather lamp.



I had seen similar designs on the web and here on craftster, and decided to try and make one myself.

I used a pink Japanese paper lamp as base.



I drew about a million - or so it felt - leaves from craft tissue paper, using a stencil and tracing pencils (used for sewing) and then cut them out with scissors.



Then I added glue at the top of the leave using a glue roller.



And started sticking. (I fixed the lamp to a microphone stand to keep the lamp sturdy while sticking)



Because I used different colours for the paper lamp and tissue paper, you get a great effect when it's lit.



I really liked how it turned out...

But it gets even better, my talented boyfriend – his artist name is Toonpoot - made a matching painting!

I designed and painted this mural for my sister's new house.



I'm not that good at freehand drawing so I made the design in Illustrator and we then projected it on the wall using an video projector from my boyfriends work.

We traced the outline with a pencil. And then started filling it in. This step actually went a lot faster than I thought. It did however take about 3 coats to get the color right.

I also made one like this, as a present for my sister. This picture is obviously not the finished lamp, my sister hasn't got around putting it up yet.



(More pictures of the process on my flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25469518@N03/sets/72157606292700633/ )

This Christmas I made my sister - who's just moved in with her boyfriend - an interior related gift. I made her this memo board.



I painted an MDF board with school board paint from levis. Then I added little canvases covered with vintage fabric so she can pin stuff to it. I got the inspiration from '101 woonideen', a Dutch interior magazine.

I thought I share my tree with you, I'm very proud of it, even if we had a rather difficult start. (I put out my back helping the boyfriend drag it up to our second floor apartment.)



This year I decided to go for white and gold decorations with just a few touches of silver since I ran out of gold ornaments 







Most of my baubles are vintage. I'm a big thrift store fan and since I go a bit shopping mad around Christmas, it's also good for my wallet



I made my own garlands using hard cotton balls from the craft store and wooden beads that I painted gold.
I'm very proud how these worked out!

I made this teacup candles a while back as a present for a friend who had just moved into her first apartment. I totally forgot to post them, but I guess better late than never



I love making these, there just so easy and they always look beautiful!

Last weekend I had the urge to make some cupcakes, a feeling I often succumb to. I was however a bit disappointed that, after the baking was done, I didn't had a nice way to present them. The sight of 12 cupcakes cramped on one plate, was just a little bit unsatisfying... And the boyfriend wasn't at home so he couldn't solve the problem by sneakily eating half a dozen behind my back.

But then I thought of the cake stands I saw on various places on the web, made out of vintage ceramics. So I decided to make my own cake stand and headed over to my local thrift store.

And this is what I came up with.



It's a very basic stand but since I love using patterned cup cake papers, I thought simple might be best. I might make a more elaborated stand in the future, but for now I'm quite happy with this basic one...



And in case the above picture made you drool all over your keyboard, you can find the recipe for the Banana Nutella cupcakes over here:
http://www.deliciousdays.com/archives/2005/07/05/nutella-banana-muffins-a-wonderful-metamorphosis-of-banana-bread/

Let me start this post with a confession: I love buying shoes, lots of them, especially vintage shoes.

For a time now I was looking for a way to show off my collection to it's best. I thought I found it on http://www.purenomade.co.uk . That was until I saw the price, 20 € for a cardboard box! I'll make that myself thank you very much!

So may I present you my brand new shoe storage facilities!







UPDATE:

After much demand, I present you: the tutorial!

Things you'll need:
- 1 mm brown cardboard (min. 59 by 94 cm - 1 board per box)
- gray cardboard, a bit sturdier than the brown one (min. 59 by 94 cm - used to make template)
- spray paint (or alternatively paint and a roller)
- glue ( I used Uhu Hobby glue)
- cutting mat, cutter, ruler and triangle ruler
- masking tape
- eyelets  ( 8 for every box) + eyelet tool ( don't know if this is the official name)
- cotton cord
- Sharp pencil

1. Draw the following template on the grey cardboard, make sure that it's absolutely perfect since you'll be using this one to make all the boxes. The triangle ruler is very useful here! Cut out the cardboard template.





2. Put the template onto the cardboard and trace. With the (triangle) ruler, draw the folding lines onto it with pencil.

3. Cut out the brown cardboard. Don't cut out the inside frame yet, otherwise the box will be harder to fold!

4. Trace over the cutting lines with an empty ballpoint, this will make it easier to fold the folding lines. You can alternatively use a pencil, just use a blunt one and put enough pressure on it.

5. Fold the box. The pencil folding lines go into the inside.

6. Cut out the inside frame. Now carefully tape the frame back into the hole using masking tape. Make sure the masking tape is on the outside of the box.

7. Paint the inside of the box with spraypaint.

8. Put 2 eyelets through each 2cm by 30 cm side flap (where the cardboard will fold/come together) one per corner. Make sure they line up with the eyelets on the side flap underneath ( doesn't have to be perfect). There will be 8 in total in every box.



9. Take out the inside frame. Be careful you don't damage the cardboard.

10. Glue the 2cm by 35 cm flap down. It's best to put some weight inside the box on the flap for a while to hold it down until the glue dries up.

11. Put cotton cord through the eyelets. Ask your boyfriend/husband/friend/mother... to hold the side flaps together. Tie the ribbon. And, voila, you're done!

Please let me know if something isn't clear or if there are questions!

I finished this bag and wallet yesterday, they are a christmas present for my sister. Yes, I love a good deadline 



The green fabric is cotton; the buttons are made from some vintage fabric I found tucked away in my grandmothers closet.

The pattern is based on the pleaded iridescent clutch.
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=24610.0



I used a contrasting orange for the lining.



And I made a matching wallet!
Pattern can be found here:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=101026.0



This is my first time making a bag and wallet, and I think it went pretty well, hopefully she'll like it!