A short break

With the girls still on break I decided I should take a little blog break too, rather than getting frustrated because I didn't get online. I'm not blaming my kids for not posting, quite on the contrary - I have the feeling I need to spend time with them - now - they're just growing up so quickly... I'm sure you'll understand...
So, I'll be back in a couple of days!

Enjoy your weekend and have a great week!

xo, P.

A man and his boat...

I can't believe this week is almost over. It just started.
I didn't even manage to keep to my more or less regular posting schedule.
So what have we been up to? Nothing much really but we had a nice and relaxing week. Since the weather has been great all week we tried to spend time outside as much as possible. Not that going out to buy shoes (M.'s feet are getting bigger...) really counts as an outdoor activity, but we walked a lot that day.




On Thursday we went to les Jardins du Luxembourg - always a favorite place for many reasons. We started our afternoon there with some quiet time first - equipped with that morning's harvest of library books, we sat down and read. Well the girls read and I took pictures - of them and the people around us. And then we started walking (the girls wanted to go to the swings) and that's when we came across this man and his boat. It took him several years to build and an old stroller to carry it around town. The boat was entirely made out of sticks, wood, string, lots of string, even more string, old shirts, paper,... and was further decorated with toys, charms, jewelry, little notes from passerby... As I was taking pictures I overheard the guy who made the boat and his friend debating on how they could make it float - "deux bidons de cinq litres, peut-être?" Clearly, they weren't done with this project.



We continued our way through the park, to the swings and next to the playground. While the kids were playing I wrote down a couple more ideas for bags. And then I remembered this lovely boat by Ann Wood with tutorial... Wouldn't that be a nice project for the girls and me?




So, yesterday morning I asked my girls if they were into some boat making? "YES!!" Too lazy to start up my computer, the only one connected to a printer, I decided to make a design of my own. The first design didn't make it, but we thought the second one looked ok enough. Since I just got rid of all of our cardboard boxes I used some heavy weight bristol paper instead. The three of us worked the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon at covering the bristol paper with newspaper strips. We still need to give our boat some sails (good thing little H. has been collecting sticks lately...) and have to further decorate it (the girls went through their jewelry boxes already...) but we are unanimous: our boat is going to be great.
Most likely, it won't float, but, hey, aren't we good swimmers... ?!

Strawberries...

We love strawberries - they taste like spring.

The girls have their spring break, now. We don't have any real plans yet, but that might change. Right now, they just enjoy playing together. They really missed each other last week. Little H. is finally her usually self again, too. She felt tired the first couple of days and had some trouble transitioning from days filled with activities and friends, to the normal house setting and routines. I can relate to that, I often feel like this when we come back from a trip or vacation. Luckily the weather has been on our side, so last weekend we spent as much time as possible outside, even had lunch outside, and sat at home with the windows wide open.
Little H. even got new sandals...

And we all had strawberries, lots of them!

I'm wishing you a great week!

xo,P.

And the winner is...

... comment #23:

Nö said...

Oh it looks great and it would suit me because I'm a "the smaller the bag the better it is" kind of women (very unusual I know).

chicharrera (at) gmx dot de
April 14, 2010 6:31 PM

Congratulations, Nina! I'll get in touch with you to collect your details.
And thanks to everyone who participated!

Back!!

She's back!! She's back and had a wonderful week! No need to tell we're all happy she's back!
But we oh so messed up at pick-up! I still feel horrible about it. I still feel like I could cry...

They were supposed to be back at 4:00pm today. Because I didn't want M. having to wait at school for too long in case little sister's bus would be late, I arranged with her teacher that I would pick her up a bit earlier this afternoon. I was at school way too early, had to wait for M. as she was still at her P.E. class, but she showed up at said time and we left school perfectly on schedule. We even had time to pick up a flower for little sister. All was going well.
M. and I, ended up being 15 minutes early at the pick-up location and so did daddy. And there, we ran into another mom who told us she just got a text message letting us know the kids were stuck in traffic and hence would be 15 to 30 minutes later. 'That would leave us enough time to go for a quick coffee'. And so we did with a couple of other parents. The rest of the story you can of course guess... The bus caught up on its delay and got there at the scheduled time. Only, we weren't there...
Can you believe this!? I could cry when I got a text message telling 'the kids are back', while we were still sipping our coffees...
Anyway, M. and I jumped up and started running like crazy - I guess K. was running too, I can't tell, because all I wanted was get there as fast as I could.
I'm not sure little H. actually noticed we weren't there yet. But it ruined everything for me - I wanted to see that bus pull up the parking area, I wanted to see those little faces behind the windows, I wanted to see that door open, I wanted to see my little girl and let her know we had been waiting for her to come back.

- instead, however, we had been sipping coffee...

Spring in a bottle

I'm still keeping our clear glass empty juice jars.




I like to put flowers in them and place them around the house.




Aren't those stems beautiful?




I love the intricacy of layers and layers of petals in ranuncula's.



Do you have a favorite spring flower?

The // BTL // classic mini :: keep on reading...

I'm happy to introduce the latest off-spring in my bag collection: the //BTL// classic mini. Classic, because it has my signature leather squares (one on the back and one on the front). Mini, because of its size: 30cm wide and 20 cm tall without the handles or about 40cm with the handles included.
Very minimalistic as usual, but I think it's cute and elegant. I especially love the leather - its natural tan - and how well it combines with the oatmeal colored linen. The lining is linen too, with an irregular shape polka dots print in matching colors. This little bag is just perfect for taking lunch or pic-nic wherever you go, for keeping a bottle of water, sun glasses and sun screen, cell phone, mp3-player within reach when heading to the gym or the beach. The three pockets on the inside will help keeping your stuff organized.

And you know what? This bag could become yours. To enter this give-away, just leave a comment below, before Sunday April 18th 11:59pm CEST. Make sure to leave a valid e-mail address. If I can't reach you, a new random winner will be chosen right away. The winner will be announced on Monday, April 19th.

Good luck!!

---

Comments are closed now. Thanks for participating! The winner will be announced on Monday, April, 19th - so, stay tuned...

And all is quiet...

Today was the big day - little H. left this morning with her class on "classe verte". She woke up cheerfully and all excited. She finished breakfast in no time, got dressed in even less time, all while chatting and talking and rattling. Because we couldn't keep it any longer, we left too early to the bus station, and hence got there way too early - just like many other parents of evenly nervous kids. She pulled her suit case for quite a bit on our way there, 'as she needed to practice...', she said. When we got there the teaching assistants took over the luggage and put it in the trunk and then the waiting for the actual countdown began. We met her room mates and plenty of other kids and parents, some of them a bit more quiet than usual or quite the contrary. Let's say our little H. belonged to the latter group. Yes, she shed a few tears because "she would miss her big sister so much", but the sadness lasted only a few minutes. She was one of the first ones to get on the bus, sat down at the window and waved us goodbye with a big, big smile, holding up her little bear so he could see.
And then, they were all gone...
And next thing were my tears - only a couple.
Because I was proud of her,
because I was happy to see her this way,
because I would miss her,
because this day had finally come.
She'd been waiting for it for so long...

Have fun, my little girl!
... et "Bonne nuit!!"


xo, Mommy



Note: We made a couple of surprises which we hid in her suitcase. The instructions for the Sarubobo puppet I found at Mairuru's and I added a little sleeping bag for it. And then there's "la boîte à bisous" - she announced many times herself she wanted one of those too... so we couldn't let her go without one. We wrote sweet messages on tiny strips of paper and rolled them up, glued a family picture on the inside of the box and further decorated the box with flowery wrapping paper.

Getting ready...

We're almost there! Tomorrow we can start packing for real. Only a few more things to label and we're done!
As you may know from previous posts, little H. has food allergies. This means she has to take some medication with her on her trip too, just in case. Most likely, she won't need any of it, but you never know. Because I didn't want to send her away with her meds in a plain plastic bag I decided to make a bag instead - very last minute, I know. To make it even more last minute I couldn't really figure out what I wanted it to look like exactly. I wanted it to be very basic and handy for the teachers (easy access to medicines as well as posology and other useful information). So, this is what the 'allergy kit' ended up looking like - a very basic drawstring bag indeed. The beauty of this bag, however, is in the detail I believe.

I used a red cross picture, found on the net and printed it on iron-on transfer paper together with her name. On the back, I made a little transparent pocket finished with a fabric flap and Velcro closure. It perfectly fits index cards with all necessary allergy information and the posology for the different medicines - right within eye sight whenever needed. To make this pocket, I used the vinyl envelope some new panties came in. I have been saving up vinyl packaging ever since I came across this interesting project through Whip Up. I used French seams as described here and made boxed corners. In order to keep the bag from opening I added a small fabric "stopper" to the drawstring, which slides up and down accordingly.

This project took me way longer than intended and necessary, but it's so much nicer than a plain plastic bag - don't you think??

Now, one more thing before I sign off: make sure to come back next week as I'm planning a small giveaway here - just to say thanks to all of you for the support, the encouragements, the compliments, the cheers... I felt/feel deeply touched when reading all of your comments... Thank you so much!

In the mean time, I'm wishing you a very nice weekend!

Cheers,

xo, P.

Exciting!

detail of something new I'm trying

I'm so excited! I couldn't believe my eyes yesterday when I sat down for a minute to go through my reader on a way too busy Wednesday afternoon. I scrolled over Design*Sponge and 'Wait a minute - is this my bag? On D*S?! ' And then I started reading. I know of only one Virginia who could possibly be behind this. Thank you so much, Virginia! This really made my day! My sitemeter recorded 2599 visitors yesterday - this has never happened before, I can tell you! And aren't those Josh Blackwell bags in the same post really cool?!

I'm still quite busy with getting things ready for little H. so I have no new bags to show, unfortunately. But in between the laundry, labeling and packing a couple of new ideas crossed my mind. For bags and even for some other stuff.
Next week, hopefully, I'll have more time to further explore...

Nice weekend

I hope you had a fun (Easter) weekend. We certainly did. We didn't do anything special really, except for yesterday when we went for a long walk through Paris. But overall it was a nice and relaxing weekend.
Yesterday, the weather was just perfect for one of those long walks. We took the metro to Place des Vosges from where we walked to la Bastille, and next went on to the Seine. We then took the riverbank all the way down to Place de la Concorde, where we decided to take the metro back home - for a moment we thought we could make it back home just walking, but M. who's still recovering from a minor injury looked tired.
People were having picnics - their first one of this year? - along the Seine, or just sat down to read or take a nap, or having a chat, enjoying the first sun rays after a long winter inside. It felt so good to spend the afternoon outdoors... We got home with our batteries reloaded and our minds worry free.

It promises to be a busy week here. I'm not sure there will be any creative time in it for me. I do have a couple more of ideas for bags but I need to set my priorities which right now are getting everything ready for little H.'s trip next week with her class. She'll be leaving on 'classe de decouverte'. Her first time away from home. She's excited and a little worried about it, just like me. My little girl will be gone for close to a week...
Well, I'd better get started, now, labeling her clothes and making sure she has everything on her list!

Wishing you a great week!

xo, P.

PS: I'm wearing this today - for the first time. I didn't change the necklace after all and when the girls noticed the necklace this morning they both exclaimed: "Oh mommy, I love your new necklace! Did you make it?!" And then M. continued: " Can you please make me one? You should make a whole bunch of them and start selling them! Really, mommy, you should!". That's so funny and sweet - ever since I started this blog the two of them have been on the outlook for a place for me where I could start a store - the bike shop which closed down is still there favorite spot and they would help me run the store... So cute!

// Happy Easter //

Wishing you a happy Easter weekend!
I'll be back on Monday!

xo, P.

New prototype

I got a new 'prototype' ready. And I think I like this one. A lot. Chocolate brown leather for the reinforced corners, oatmeal colored linen - still by far my favorite fabric - for the outside and a very soft off-white printed linen for the inside.

And now, I need to run - I still need to get a small Easter-themed something for my girls and I volunteered to fix some sort of cake for little H.'s class tomorrow. I might give our moelleux au chocolat another try ...

Have a wonderful day!

xo,P.