Revamping boxes and portfolios for starters

Are you ready for Natasha's 'Revamp it 'party on Friday? See the button on my sidebar. Just as an appetizer I will show you some revamped items that I sent to Andrea in return as part of our swap the other day. I told you before that we did a 'junque in your trunk inspired' swap. Well my trunk started its life like this:

a.s vrijdag geeft Natasha een revamp party, zie button in de sidebar, dus ik dacht alvast een voorproefje te geven; revamp je doos ;-), zal ik maar zeggen;

Het begon allemaal met zo'n lelijke glimmende hoedendoos.
A hidious shiny hatbox. First you peel of the plastic of the box and then you put on some wallpaper, which in my case didn't go too well. There was a big wrinkle in the paper that I couldn't get out as the paper was attached too quickly, or should I say the glue dried too fast. So I took a color copy, glued it on some cardboard aged it a little, put it on the wrinkle et voilà:


Plastic eraf trekken, behang erop, over de enorme kreukel een gekopieerd etiket dat je eerst op karton plakte, vintage lint et voilà^
Yes there is still a small wrinkle here and there but that adds to authenticity, I think. Of course the blue vintage ribbon does that too.


Bij de kringloop kocht ik een bonbondoos bekleed met moiré zijde
Revamping box nr. 2
I bought this Belgium moiré silk chocolate box at the thrif store, yes it was already empty :-(. I made a color copy on linen fabric, sew that on the box, made a kind of a frame with vintage lace and added some vintage millenery flowers sent to my by the 'hat whisperer' herself in a previous swap. This is my revamped box two:


Plaatje van stof, kantje en wat vintage bloemen erop en klaar om gevuld te worden
Of course I filled up this box too:


Doos met inhoud, voordat het inhoud werd. Klik op de foto's voor meer details.
You can click on the photo to see some more details.
Now we have had revamping the box, next is revamping the portfolio:


We gaan verder met 'revamp your portfolio'. Elke kartonnen map kan dienst doen. Behang erop plakken, plaatje steentje, sleutelgat en lintje bevestigen en vullen met oud papier dat de Amerikanen ephemera noemen. Al deze spullen stuurde ik naar Andrea Tarling, met wie ik swapte zoals ik al vertelde.
Sorry no before photo, but I always use the simple portfolios you can buy anywhere. Take some wallpaper, a German scrap, you know by now that that hand is one of my favorites, add a keyhole and some vintage ribbon, I don't think you need more of a tutorial, do you?
I filled this one with ephemera.


Een tweede portfolio vulde ik met stof, knopen en een vintage schortje om zelf nog op te pimpen.
Next portfolio I filled with fabric scraps, buttons and a vintage apron to foof up.
The image of the label was plucked from Barbara's blog 'Oodles and oodles', as was the image of 'Marianne', I showed you in a previous post, I forgot to tell you that, sorry about that Barbara.


Deze map bekleedde ik in stijl met een stevige stof. Gewoon geplakt met tacky glue, ik vrees dat ik het voor mijn post as vrijdag ook nodig zal hebben.
To be in style I glued fabric on a portfolio, inside and out, so that you can glue the fabric together. I recently discovered Aleene's tacky glue and I am affraid it will feature in my post next Friday too.

And now for something completely different:
en nu iets heel anders:

een bordje pimpen ;-)
Revamping a small plate ;-):



Thanks for joining me here, I hope to see you on Friday at Nathasha's 'Revamp it' party. I think I will have an early start as the Aussies are about 8 hours ahead of us in time. Cu then xoxo LiLi M.

Bedankt weer voor je bezoek, ik hoop je vrijdag weer te zien voor Natasha's revamp party.
Fijne week nog, xoxo LiLi M.

Sweet eye candy!

Hello everybody!

Een tijdje geleden vroeg Andrea Tarling van Vintage Bella Studio mij om een persoonlijke swap met haar te doen. Nou prima! In deze post laat ik jullie zien wat voor heerlijke vintage dingen zij mij stuurde. De afspraak die wij maakten was: we sturen elkaar een versierde doos met vintage dingen en een zelfgemaakt iets. Kijk gezellig even mee:

A little while ago my blogging pal Andrea Tarling of Vintage Bella Studio and I agreed to have a little swap. It would be a junque in your trunk inspired swap, a swap originally hosted by Heather of Pretty Petals in Spring 2008. Just put a lot of vintage items and a crafted item in a decorated box. Look what talented Andrea sent me:

As I opened the box the sweet tissue papers were smiling at me, over here I can only get white. So the packaging already was a hit to me!


And this is the 'trunk' Andrea made me; beautiful vintage wallpaper, vintage crepe and seam binding, to good to open, which I eventually ;-) did...I couldn't help myself:


The box was filled with all fun vintage goodies, that are hard to find here, as the vintage leaves on top of the box.


Here is a photo of the loot, but let's see some details;
you can click on the photos, as usual.


Shadow box designed and made by Andrea.
The photo doesn't do it justice, so lovely. It is in now my little studio of course.


A sweet ornament foofed up by Andrea with millinery flowers and vintage seam binding.


Is this eye candy or what? Look at this lovely pincushion Andrea made me.


Just look at those colors! See the wallpaper scraps and the tag Andrea has made me, yummy!


Of course Andrea knows that a girl has never enough ribbons, nor millinery flowers!


Yeah, yeah, I just said that!


Andrea made several pieces of ruffled crepe paper and some strips of vintage wallpaper tags, so beautiful!


And of course I love love love this beautiful antique pitcher. And the vintage napkins, one of them in the upper right corner.

This was so much fun Andrea, thanks a million!
Next time I'll show you what I sent Andrea.

It's swapping time again:
Last time I already told you that Stephenie of Just a little bit pink is hosting a swap; I thought of you.
My partner is the lovely Kitty of Reflections from the stone nest. Kitty is one of the most friendly people in blogland and on top of that she has an exquisite taste. Whenever I swap I always have a 'doubting' period, when everything is in that package on the plane already. I don't know, it's just my nature.
Anyhow; take a little peek in Kitty's box:


Just wait and see in a couple of posts, there is Natasha's revamp party on Friday too, what is inside. In the mean time, take care, enjoy yourselves and create some lovelies!
xoxo LiLi M.

Bedankt weer voor je bezoek, pas goed op jezelf en vergeet niet van vandaag weer iets moois te maken, xoxo LiLi M.

Blogging for Bliss

Korte Nederlandse vertaling aan het eind.

Hello fellow bloggers out there and others of course!

Today August 4th Kari Ramstrom of Artsy Mama is hosting a blog party in honor of the launch of the 'Blogging for Bliss' book by Tara Frey. I haven't seen the book yet, obviously we have to wait a little longer for it here in Europe, if it will be available at all over here, but we all know that ordering in the States is easy as pie nowadays. The internet has made the world so small. Blogging has the world turned even smaller to me on a personal level.

Made for Karla and Beth's bling your birdhouse party, part of this has become my profile photo

I started blogging in September 2007 after a short period of lurking. I have been creative all of my life, but I never felt at ease with the 'color by number' creativity that I surrounded me here in the Dutch hobby shops. I have been a collector all of my life too and I have written dairies and journals as long as I can write, so discovering blogs felt like coming home to me.

Collection of vintage hankies. All white as is typical for the antique dutch hankie.

Yes, there are people out there that understand the beauty of jars and jars of vintage buttons. Of collections of hankies, vintage bling, need I go on? And those people write about it too! On top of that those people create with these vintage goodies, that was new to me, though I always tried to recycle materials, being a child of the sixties.

So I choose a name and got started: I started writing in English, as I definitely wanted to reach out to American crafters in the first place, but I have met creative people from all over the world; from Sweden, Chili, France, New Zealand and Singapore to name a few.

Soon I discovered that this world was so stimulating to me. Meeting new friends from all over the world, reading about their lives and commenting, making a dialog, has enriched my life more than I could ever express here. That is part of my bliss! Thank you very much!

Here is an impression of my blogging life until now. I have experienced that all bloggers are very generous, but I have decided to leave that out of this post, I'm afraid that I forget to mention somebody.

A few weeks after I started blogging I joined my first art challenge, hosted at that time by Louise of Beachy's cupboard, that no longer exists, her current blog is Whispering Poppies. I made this collage^


I joined my first swap, hosted by Heather of Pretty Petals, my partner was Carola of Boxwood cottage. I sent her amongst others this^ little paper dress and the purse. I still didn't show you these.


That little dress inspired me to make this garland, a witch wardrobe for Wanda, of the Rat's pajamas my partner in the Sweet and Sinister Swap hosted by Kari Ramstrom.

I never celebrated Halloween before, because we traditionally don't do that here in the Netherlands, but when I read about it in blogland I liked it!

I even dressed up as a witch, for the Halloween blogparty of Vanessa of a Fanciful Twist.
Don't worry, it was fun but

This ^ message was inside the paper doll I made for Debra in the Halloween flight swap she hosted herself.


I think it is nice when you try new things, like celebrating Halloween. In fact it inspired me to make what I consider my master piece until now:


What I especially like is that showing your creations is so stimulating in blogland and can even make new friendships. There are so many nice people out there, thanks for visiting my blog and stimulating me and cheering me up!


Not only Halloween inspired me to create, Valentine's day did that too, another party that isn't traditionally celebrated over here in the Netherlands.




I always was a camera shy person (I don't know whether you can tell lol, but I have to admit that I am simply having trouble taking photos of myself too).


My daughter usually takes the photos of me. We haven't named her after photographer Eva Besnyö by coincidence!
But the fact is that I am not that camera shy anymore. It is more easy to accept yourself when you are surrounded by real women all day in blogland, thanks for enhancing my self image ladies!

Taking photos everywhere has become part of my routine,

before you know it, you are documenting your life in quite a fun way; of course we all are such adventurous ladies, just watch my visit to the garden center ^!
Blogging really stimulates me to be creative, taking photos is part of that, I like to experiment taking photos for my banner:

Like this one, that didn't made it. My banner photos are all in my side bar. Yes and I know I'm still carrying my July banner! I haven't found a matching back ground for August yet.



I even met a great photographer Susanna Gordon and her friend through blogging and was part of this ^ very fun project.


Blogging can make you get out of your comfort zone.
I was creating these ^ kind of pop up cards for quite some time, when in February 2008 Linnea Maria won my give away and I wanted to make her a more Scandinavian French inspired pop up card:



When I started blogging I joined a challenge to reorganize my studio. I did that without buying new stuff, I painted and revamped a lot of junk from the attic. I was happy but hubby was even happier for decluttering. What a bliss!


My latest swap was a personal swap with Andrea Tarling of Vintage Bella Studio. We did a junque in your trunk-inspired swap and this hat box, here after make over, was the trunk I sent her, but I will tell you all about that next time.
Now I am joining Stephenies 'I thought of you swap', but I don't have any sneak previews :-( for Kitty and you.

There is always a party going on in blogland and I love that. Not that my life is always a bowl of cherries, but I like to keep this corner of my life as cheerful as is possible. There is enough drama around us already. I know that there are a lot of blogging women out there who are trying to make this blogging world feel better, thanks for that!


So I end with this party girl, it is Karla Nathan's grand daughter Sugarwings, disguised by me as a  button fairy. I sent her to Karla for her 50th birthday.

My life has changed in such a positive way since I started blogging. I want to thank you, the readers of my blog, as well as the writers of the blogs that I am visiting. Unfortunately I couldn't mention all swaps, I choose the ones that I thought fitted best in this post. I love you all!
Blogging is so much fun.

Have fun at all participants at the Blogging for Bliss party. Kari of Artsy Mama has a whole blog roll of people who are playing.
Did you know that I never heard of the word bliss before blogging?
I do hope I got the meaning right! Thanks for visiting me, I'll try to visit every blogger who is blogging for bliss! xoxo LiLi M.

Vandaag ligt het nieuwe boek van Tara Frey "Blogging for Bliss" (vrij vertaald bloggen voor geluk) in de Verenigde Staten op de schappen. Reden voor Kari Ramstrom van Artsy Mama om een blogparty te organiseren met dezelfde titel.
Natuurlijk zijn het op de eerste plaats de contacten die het bloggen zo leuk maken, ik wil jullie allemaal hartelijk danken daarvoor. Voor mij is het ook heel belangrijk dat het bloggen me creatief stimuleert. Ik ben mijn hele leven al een frutselaar en een knutselaar, maar de laatste jaren dreigde dat wat ondergesneeuwd te raken. Ik heb wat voorbeelden van door het bloggen gestimuleerde creativiteit in mijn blog verwerkt. Met opzet heb ik ervoor gekozen om de vrijgevigheid van bloggers buiten beschouwing te laten, ik ben zooo bang dat ik iemand vergeet.
Bedankt voor je bezoek, groetjes LiLi M.


shadow box sent to/voor Marianne @ a songbird is nesting

Broek in Waterland

I would like to thank everybody who visited my studio last week, it was a bit crowdy but very cozy and I loved to meet you all, thanks for your visit!

Hallo allemaal,
Wij hebben vakantie en doen 'dagjes uit'. Misschien vinden jullie het leuk om mee te gaan naar Broek in Waterland, dat zo'n 10 kilometer boven Amsterdam ligt. Ooit zag ik een artikel over de pastelkleurige houten huizen in Broek in een tijdschrift. Dat was inspiratie voor onze schuur. Dus op naar Broek in Waterland en een sloepje gehuurd. De foto's spreken verder denk ik wel voor zich.

We are having vacation right now and as we traveled to the US this spring, we only do small trips this summer. I know, some people take inspiration from places like Paris and Istanbul when they create,

but when hubby and I built and painted our shed,

we took our inspiration from this:

The wooden houses in Broek in Waterland, which I had seen in a magazine.

Broek in Waterland is a small village a few miles up North of Amsterdam.
Nowadays I should translate 'Broek' (pronounce brooke) as pants, but I discovered that Broek is an old word for swampy. Somehow I think I don't have to tell you what Waterland means. So as you can understand, we didn't use our car to discover Broek in Waterland, but we took our picknick basket and rented this baby:


a very flat boat, which we call a 'sloep' (pronounce sloop). Yes this is an electric, silent, environmental friendly and non stinking boat. It is small, which is very convenient in our landscape see:




A huge yacht is of no use over here. Too bad for the heirs of Aristoteles Onassis!


While there is so much water around, the ground here is soft and that's why the people up here used to built wooden homes.


And they used to paint these homes in pastel colors.




Even the dogs over here have wooden and pastel colored homes.


Not to mention the ducks!


We did enjoy the beautiful wooden houses


and the blooming hydrangeas everywhere


and the typical Dutch open and flat landscape, which will always be something special to me.


Someone abroad once told me that the Dutch are born with webs between their toes.


Like this aalscholver.


I wish we were!
We could sure use them over here.


Bye girls, thanks for having us in Broek in Waterland, it was even better than in the magzine.

Thanks for visiting me, have a great day whether you are having vacation or not.
xoxo LiLi M.