Foxy tote

Well, I'm happy to say that I am back in service after what my hubby calls a "hiatus" of not really doing anything "productive" for a number of weeks... Of course, he is normally referring to my exercise regimen, but I think I can also use it for my absence in creativity over the past 4-6 weeks!  This is not to say that I didn't have other things going on in my life, including illnesses, recurring headaches that are really getting on my nerves, kids to take care of while hubby is working 16 hour days through the audit busy season, and trying to fulfill Santa's present to me from 2011.  Santa mentioned in his 2012 letter to me that if I didn't follow his orders, I "...may not get any gifts next year except for a big pile of reindeer food (because we have so much extra in the North Pole) that you could feed Z's stinky mice. My reindeer food has a special magic ingredient to make the animal's poop not stinky - I hate stinky animals." Now, in 2011, Santa gave me a very generous present stating that i "...should take time to redecorate your apartment in terms of new furniture/pictures/paint/lights/table, etc."  So what's a gal to do?? I definitely prefer new furniture to reindeer food (although I would really like that magic ingredient to make the pet mice a bit less stinky!), AND given Santa's history, I don't want to miss any future presents; so, I've been busy finding the perfect dining room table, chairs and a sideboard for our place. I'll post about it and a few other things I've been up to for our place once everything gets delivered. I am so excited!!!!! Enough about Santa and the wonderful man that he is :-)!

Here's a tote bag made from pvc plastic (similar to wax cloth) that I just finished for my friend's little boy. It is about 13 inches wide by 17 inches high and is not lined so they can use it for wet or dry things. He likes foxes and I found an iron-on transfer of a fox in my stash that I put onto a leafy print and then added a bit of stitching to its ears and tail. The "N" is the first initial of his name so he will always know which bag is his. I thought it turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. Hope he likes it too!

I hope to be back soon with more posts. Until then, have a great start to the week!
J xx

Tribute to a wonderful woman

Gram and Dadak with Miss A and Mr Z in October 2012

My Gram passed away last night. She lived a wonderful 90 years and was married to my Grandpa (now 92) for around 70 years (think it might be 71...). She's been such an integral part of my life for the past (almost) 40 years and I am so blessed to have had her in my life for so long... as well as part of my children's lives. Not many people get to spend time with their Great-Grandparents for as long as my kids have. She had a beautiful smile, a loving heart and was always there with open arms when we needed a hug. She also had the softest skin with less wrinkles than most people half her age, a tribute to daily applications of Ponds Cold Cream :-)! Guess she must have been a believer of this old advertisment!

As I sit here in a state of overwhelming sadness, I keep thinking of all the things she taught me growing up:

- how to draw animals and landscapes 

- how to paint (we loved to watch Bob Ross paint "happy little trees" or "perky little clouds" in 30 minutes)

- how to sew (she made so many of my clothes as a child)

- how to play games (we played games like Yatzee, Uno and Rummikub when we stayed with them rather than sit in front of the TV)

- that exercise is important - she and my Grandpa always walked after dinner or in the mornings (they were the "mall walkers" in bad weather)

- that cooking is fun - she enjoyed cooking and made the BEST meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a tomato gravy that you could ever eat (mouth is watering as I think about it...too bad I don't have her cast iron skillet or I would make one as a tribute to her!)

- and finally (well not really, but I won't go on more than this), that family is important - we got together for ALL holidays, birthdays and anything else that we thought needed celebrating. I am so fortunate and blessed to have had a loving, caring family close by as I was growing up. 

Gram and Miss A in October 2012

I leave you with a photo taken in October after Gram and Miss A finished pushing each other up and down the hall with her walker. They had such a good time as you can see by their glowing smiles. May you rest in peace with our Lord and Savior, Gram, and be our guardian angel who watches over us every day of our lives. I love you and will always treasure the memories we had together.

J xx

Better late than never...Christmas Market success!

We had fresh snow on the ground, a chill in the air and a beautiful, sunny day for our Thalwil Arts & Crafts Christmas market last Friday!  I wanted to get some sneak peaks of the things I was making posted before the market took place. Unfortunately, all the late nights of preparing for it caught up with me and I didn't manage to get anything posted to my blog... Well, I'll make up for it in this post and will show you lots of pictures of our little market and the things we sold! 

My rack of bags - I was so excited with how many I managed to get done in 4 weeks (along with all the other bits below...)!

Cards, cards and more cards!

My card kits, tag kits, button hair pins, and more!! 

Barb's table with her awesome paintings (I now have two of them :-)!!)

Erica (in glasses) selling some lovely Peruvian hats to our neighbor

Miss A even had her own table and managed to sell quite a few of her things!

Svetlana and her table of jewelry and knit products

Dennise's handmade jewelry (unfortunately didn't get her picture with it...)

As you can see, we had lots of stuff to sell and did a pretty good job of it over the course of the afternoon and evening! It was so much fun to have a wonderful group of women, all selling handmade products to our friends and families. Could this be an annual tradition?????? I sure hope so!! 

Here are a few more shots of some of my products:

Button hair pins and a few flower headbands

Pretty wrapped Lindt Chocolate bars

Create-a-card kit in decoupaged box - includes 10 cards and lots of bits to make them your own

Create-a-card kit in decoupaged box - includes 10 cards and lots of bits to make them your own

Create-a-card kit in decoupaged box - includes 10 cards and lots of bits to make them your own

Small embellished burlap gift bags, perfect for Advent presents

Miscellaneous tags

Merry Mochaccino mixes in jars

I hope to be back with you soon to show you some of my other little projects and orders that will be filled before Christmas! 

J xx

Bag lady...

Hello!

The sun is finally peaking through the clouds after a rainy night and morning, and I am so thankful it is because tonight is the big "Räbelichtliumzug" in our village. This is an annual event whereby the kids carve turnips, aka Räben, put a candle inside them and carry them on a stick through the village with their school class. It is kind of like carving a jack-o-lantern except it is taboo to cut entirely through the fleshy bits of the turnip. And I have to say, these turnips must have growth hormones or something because the one we carved this year is about the size of a small soccer ball! Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to parading around the village in the rain, so am VERY happy to see the sun shining this afternoon! Below is an image from Google for other Räbelichtli since I haven't taken a picture yet of Miss A with her monster...

BUT, this post is not really about Räbelichtli!! I wanted to share a few of my recent bags that I was busy making on the weekend. I think I made 7-8 bags this weekend, along with a few key chains using some of my new key chain fobs that I got on our recent trip to the US. I do miss all the "stuff" from the US that is just so unbelievably expensive in Switzerland...

I found this cute box pouch on Pinterest (used this tutorial)

I love this gathered clutch also found on Pinterest (from this tutorial)

The flower print bag shown above is one I designed on the weekend and in spite of the work involved, I just LOVE IT!!  It uses the same concept of gathering the bottom but then I added a top piece to sew a little outside zipper pocket into (for keys, phone, etc) and it has 4 small pockets inside for credit cards, etc. It is also a bit larger than the other clutches to allow for a few more essentials that all women need to carry with them (and yes, we NEED our lotions and potions, dear men in our lives!). I'm thinking the next one I make like this will have a thin strap that one can hang on/across the shoulder. One of these days, I will get my act together and put together a tutorial for it...

Hope you are all having a good week so far! I'll be back soon with more sneak peaks at some of the things I'm making for our market!

J xx

Christmas is coming!!!!!!

Wow, time has sure flown by and I've been pretty pathetic about posting anything... Guess that's what happens when you go on vacation for a couple weeks, have a hobbling hubby who has two partially torn ligaments in his ankle and have two adorable (yet demanding) kiddos; oh and a house that needs cleaning every once in awhile!

So, this will be a short post to let you know I am back in action and BUSY preparing lots of goodies for our Arts & Crafts Christmas Market that we plan to have at my house at the end of November. My lovely neighbor and I did this a couple of years ago after determining that the somewhat larger Christmas markets were not as much fun (more foot traffic, but less purchases for the time invested). We are so excited to have five vendors this year, including ourselves, all selling handmade products from jewelry to paintings to handbags to scarves...and lots of other bits and bobs, too! I've been cranking away this week making cards and tags and will try to post some in the coming days. I seriously wish I could clone myself for the next 4 weeks!

Hope you are well and gearing up for the holiday season!
J xx

Fun with wax cloth - tote and zipper pouch

It has been a fun morning in the sewing room for me! I completed a tote bag with a recessed zipper top (first one ever made...!) and a small zipper pouch, both made from red & white polka dot wax cloth. I love that stuff but it can be a bit challenging to sew if one doesn't have the right footer on the sewing machine. I learned the hard way last year...fabric didn't move through the footer and ended up looking TERRIBLE! Now I have a good teflon-coated footer and all is well!

I love how they both turned out! I found a cute metal dragonfly in my stash of stuff  and put it on the outer pocket of the tote and stitched some little loops to look like it was flying. This pocket also has a magnetic close to help keep those little bits and bobs inside the pocket. I found this tutorial from the blog My Spare Time to show how to sew a recessed zipper. To be honest, I am glad the first one is done as I've been too scared to try it on any other bags. I'm happy to say it was much easier than I expected :-)!

Here are a few more close up photos:

Recessed zipper tote - size approx 16 in h x 15.5 in w

Inside of zipper tote bag

Zipper pouch with handle - size approx. 9in w x 5.5 in h

I have more projects in process and will post more soon!

Jxx

DIY Tag tree: 40 Reasons why you are...SPECIAL!

One of my dearest friends in Zurich celebrated the BIG 4-0 last week and because she is such a wonderful, caring person who would do ANYTHING for ANYONE at ANYTIME, we wanted to do something extra special for her to let her know how much she means to us.

Being the crafty one of our little group of gals, I thought it would be fun to make 40 tags stating all the reasons why she is so special to us (of course, we could have come up with more but thought we should restrict it to 40 for 40!). Over a coffee and chat, we had fun stamping, punching, stitching and gluing tags with what all we came up with. Then we rummaged through my house for the perfect vase (that just so happened to have perfectly matching sprays of fake flowers), added some curly hazelnut branches from lovely Nicole's yard, tied all the tags to the branches, added a bit of burlap-type fabric around the vase with some coordinating ribbons and VOILÀ, here's the result:

Yvette was so happy with it and she told me today (almost a week after receiving it) that she still hasn't been able to read all the tags because she gets too emotional! 

I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends here in Zurich since our families live more than 4500 miles away. Thank you to all my lovely ladies for your kindness, help in times of need, and also all those enjoyable coffee mornings that we couldn't live without!!!!  May God bless you all!

J xx