One world one heart

Just a post between other posts. This is too good to pass.

This world of bloggers is such a nice world, you get to know people, people are sending each other packages and little cards. It almost seems if people are happy to give and to share. Last week I was a winner of such a giveaway which was organized by Heather Bullard and I was thrilled.
That's why Lisa Oceandreamer hosts a blogger giveaway event. And I'm one of the more than 242 participants. The drawing is next Thursday on Valentinesday.
Actually I was a bit of an opponant of that February 14th. Here in the Netherlands there was no such thing as Valentines day, but since globalisation the shops are filled with merely very ugly and useless stuff. Too commercial for me. But this is something else, its about sharing and getting to know each other. So welcome every one and join the fun!

This is my give away:

I have changed this stationary map a little and filled it with:

Mmm what is this???

Two cards I have made

Some scraps and some self-made heart shaped notes

This picture didn't want to load, what a shame, some surprises for those who have given their comments already...
Two old bingo cards and 4 new dutch Christmas cards with old pictures though...


Some ephemera. It's a word I have recently learned since my frequent visits to blogland. But those old papers were me all the way.
Here are some french pages, a sheet of music paper, two playing cards. And two pages of a dutch 1918 magazine with those beautiful adds.

Last but not least; some old and new but vintage-like wallpaper.
I'm addicted to wallpaper for about 10 years or so. I keep going to Laura Ashley's for pieces to try on my wall. Even play little acts with friends who need some wallpaper there too (shhht).
I never knew there were so many wallpaper addicts. Now I have discovered the vintage american wallpaper, mmm I wil not rest until I have ordered some of those sweet pastel colored pieces.

Well I have closed the file.
I hope your crafting imagination has been tempted!
Want to be a winner? Being here can be only one step from that goal.
The next step is giving a comment on this post. This post only!!!
You don't have to be a blogger but make yourself traceable. So leave an email adress if necessary.
I will draw a winner on February 14th, local time, which is CET.
Good luck to you all! So nice to meet you!

Sorry!! Its now Valentine's day here in Western Europe (CET).
I'm closing at a 158 comments (ooops).
You cannot enter anymore, but I wish you a happy Valentine's day!!!

Victorian Card making; a LiLi-like tutorial

Hi all!

I have been busy!
First this cupboard was changed

into this one:

I thought it would take me two days or something but actually I was busy a whole week! This cupboard is LARGE!
Then we build another cupboard in our basement, with three sliding doors, so I can save a lot of things

This box only took about a day and a half to explain to hubby (but why that MUCH Lili??)
And I have cleaned all our linen closets. The thrift store is going to pick up a lot!! Usually I like what I buy, but sometimes...I have decided now that it is better to part with those 'mal-buyings' as soon as possible, in stead of keeping them year after year, feeling guilty every time you clean your closet. Nope. That crimson red cloak/coat in which I visually double size has to go now! Phffew what a relief!
And of course I was cruising the internet looking at all those valentine creativeness and things to buy.

Somewhere I saw those Victorian three dimensional cards. I have bought some replicas in the early nineties in London.
when you look sideways to such a card you see this:

and they inspired me last year to make this birthday card for my aunt.

Ooo I liked those Victorian Valentine cards, so why shouldn't I make those myself? I started Saturday and couldn't stop! You really should click on the picture. It was too sunny yesterday in our living room, but I definitely wanted to take to pics before the first cards would be send today! And I think that the 3D effect isn't as stunning in the picture as in real life, to tell you in all modesty.


Please do try this at your home;
All you need is some german scraps.(I have tons of them. Using them all the time.) Some card board which is used for making cards. Some glue and scissors. And when you are very uncertain you will need a measurement instrument, like a ruler.

This is how it works:

You bend the card the way it can stand and then

This is of course just an example, you cut a heart shape of music paper, which you glue directly on the card.

Now you cut a small strap. Fold it into some kind of rectangle. If you are uncertain use your ruler, but you can just do it when you have a good eye. Be sure to check: when you fold a right rectangle you can fold it into a diamond square as well. Mmm you learn some maths while reading my blog!

Glue this rectangle onto your scrap (in this case a rose) and the other side of the rectangle onto your card:


Oops, I'm holding the card upside down now, but I do hope that you know what I mean...

The next stage is almost the same, but I forgot to take a picture hahaha!
Fold a rectangle, glue that on the little guy (in this case) and glue the bottom of the rectangle on the bottom of the card and the upside back onto the rose that has already been attached in a previous stage.
Now your card is three dimensional, can stand on it's own and can be folded in an envelope!
Of course you can cut the bottom into a nice shape and glue some additional scraps as well.

You can put your message on the bottom of the card, even put some nice stamp Happy Valentine or some cupid on it!
I do hope you understand my tutorial! Actually when making pictures and making a card it didn't work out, it was the first card which couldn't stand on his own and couldn't be folded neither! So I did another card and mixed up the pictures.
If you don't understand, please don't hesitate to ask, I will explain better.
Next time I will show you the Victorian Waving Card, an invention of yours truly! And I will announce the winner of the January give away.
Speaking of which; one of these (kind of) cards will be given to someone who gives a comment in February!
Could well be this one:

Or this:

Or this one:

See you all next time when I'm going to show you how to make those waving hands!
Take care, xoxo LiLi.

Having a bad hairweek and a January giveaway!!

I have been so busy. I just didn't have time to blog. We have been decluttering and reorganizing our house. We (read I) have way too much stuff, so we brought an awful lot of things to the goodwill store ( I wasn't even allowed to bring my own stuff away and to come anywhere near to that store). And Hubby had to ride 2 times with our Renault GRAND espace filled from top to bottom. Some things went, like the neongreen pvc rainboots with stiletto heels I bought at Fiorucci's in Milan (Italy) back in '86 ( I have kept the box though). Other things are now taking new positions. Hubby finally drilled some holes to hang the rack I received as a birthday gift from my cousin. He wouldn't have this 'brocante' rack in the kitchen......but......

When he managed to get the rack onto the wall, he even styled it. Mmmm some things seem to be contagious!

And then of course there was my hair adventure.
I guess it started in Italy about 18 months ago...

At that time I was having a reddish 'coiffure'. During our stay in Venice, sun and sea made a blond out of me, again!
Well, I decided to stay that way for a while, but the lack of sun and sea out here, made it necessary to me to use some chemicals to color my hair once in a while. The results differed...last time when I experimented, probably beginning of December 2007 I had to use 3 packages of hair color shampoo (the one that lasts) until I reached a kind of yellowish blond that was acceptable. When I went to my hairdresser, to have a cut, he said: You're blond! (they just don't like it when you do these kind of things at home. I do understand that.) But it's so much cheaper to DIY your haircolor AND it saves an awful lot of time. OK there are some risks as well....
I told my hairdresser that the color was not exactly what I had in mind. So he told me that when blond is too yellow you have to make your hair a little violet. I have to say that I agreed and experienced this in earlier years myself. As my hair has been white, yellow, orange, deep red, brown, I guess black and gray were the only colors missing in my hair-experience. The hairdresser told me also that my hair would look fabulous a little more silvery, more platinum, with little purple strikes. Well I thought that after 3 packages of superblond my hair could do with a little rest, but that platinum blond sounded just like me:

This would be the new me, blond/silvery/ purple hair, woman of the world....(of course no cigarette, but this picture does reveil the reason why I started smoking once. Luckily I quit some years ago.) So when I saw a dark stripe on my head I thought it was time to go to the hairdresser again. This time I would take no risks whatsoever. Ok world, just wait for the new LiLi to arrive!
It all started quite disappointing when the boss of the salon told me that I couldn't have platinum-blondish hair and purple ends in one time. Ok it would look good when leaving the salon but when I would wash my hair, every hair would turn violet, another possibility, purple extensions, wasn't possible at this time either; they wouldn't hold onto the new colored hair. They could color my hair platinum blondish, but I had to wait for about a week until they could finish the job with purple. Well all right I would

be blond first. Ok, Saturday at 2 p.m. in a hair salon, mirrors everywhere. They put me somewhere in the middle of the salon putting the chemicals on my head, modeling my hair like a very funny little cap and I saw my hair slowly turning into....yellow, a kind of corn color. "Ehm, ehm, isn't this color just a little tiny eeny weeny bit too yellow?", I asked shy.
'You never can tell when it's still working...' I was told and so I sat there for two hours....still...yellow. Then he washed my hair, put something in it, washed it out again, gave me a massage with something else, put on a red light, rinsed the hair
again, put an amazing lot of gel into my hair and started to blow it dry. For a while I was stuck in my chair, I just couldn't open my mouth...but finally I told the hairdresser that I didn't thought that was me. That yellow hair, those tiny curls I hated every hair!! Ok, the hairdresser was honest, it definitely was too yellow, but now he was going to put another color in my hair, a silverish blond color, which would turn the yellow into white. So I would end up as a platinum blond. Ok chemicals on my head again, modeling my hair like funny looking cap again...sitting in the middle of the salon again...washing the chemicals out of my hair again, putting something onto my hair again, lamps again. Oh my, I thought I was going to take roots...Finally they uncovered my hair and started to blow again. AAAAAAAAAh this time I was even more shocked. I was as gray as a pigeon. Oh no this was definitely not ME. And it was definitely almost closing time...

Do you want to have it changed now, the hairdresser asked me, OOOH YESSSSS what do you expect?? I was going to meet Elizabeth for the first time the very next day. Couldn't face her as a person with less blond hair than my grandmother when she died at the age of 84! Well I could choose; just stay gray-headed for the weekend, or turn back into yellow-blond now...While the salon was already closed. Sorry, but that was an easy one. I just don't want to be gray yet, not before I'm about 101. So I turned blond again...I have to say a little more lemon blond. Out of 3 the last was the best color..yes I'm always
optimistic. But it turned out that I didn't want to be lemon blond for more than a few days.
So, yesterday I had a haircut and the hairdresser changed my hair from blond into a kind of auburnish-eggplantish color for free and I sat there for another three hours. I won't bother you with the process this time...but I have to say I'm happy now.
So Elizabeth is one of the few people who actually saw me with that lemon blond hair. I stopped by and look what she gave me:
oooh she is such a creative person! Thanks Elizabeth, it was so nice to meet you!!

While telling you that tiring hair story I was able to show you a part of my hair clips and hair grips on cards collection.
I think they are quite fun. And they still are cheap. I think I have never paid more than a couple of euros a card.
Do you want to start your own clip- or grip- on- card collection? I can help you getting started. Just give a comment on this post or one of the next posts in January and you are joining the free giveaway. Of course there will be a hair clip card involved, but it will be a surprise!

                                                                                                            

                   

                      




Somewhere Februari I will draw a winner.  I am still  so busy,  having  a self made inquiry for school to score. And I have organized a swap for 86 women attending a dutch home improvement internet site! I want to be more creative, the only thing I made this week is a self made present for a little baby girl: Just stick her name on one and some polka dots and lavender hearts on the other little coathanger.

I just don't have time to have a paid job!
Ok see you next time, don't forget to post a comment, remember the giveaway! Take care! LiLi