Visiting Lachafa in Münster

This blog entry is full of inspirations! 

At least for me but I hope you'll also find some inspirations. And please tell me, because Lachafa is my little (no not so little anymore) sister and I am just sooooo proud of her and her stuff (and ideas and creativity... okay, I guess you got my point ^^). But I think it is the in the rights of a big sister to be proud of her younger siblings :) (for my little brother search for tophino in my blog, he makes great music!).

Just have a look at this collar she made! With hundreds of tiny beads sewn on a piece of felt! And all what she said was: Oh, that was easy...

This are long paper pieces she pinned on her wall. Her plan is to change them from time to time to change the decoration in her room (she is a student now, sharing a flat). 

She cut a lino stamp and printed it on the paper. You see that only a quarter of the ornament is the real stamp.

She made a combination of a pillow and a plushy! 

You remember my polymer clay buttons? Take a closer look at the eyes of the whale! :)

This one is a crochet scarf... 

...you can just tighten it. But she told me just some days ago that she used the scarf as a skirt! 

Some pictures about Münster... 

Giant geckos (a Tokkee! I had some a few years ago! Love them :))...

...climbing up and down the houses.

The same time you can find miniature versions of the city...

...would all suit into the mouth of the gecko ^^

I always love this kind of facades...!

Lachafa :)

From every point of the city you can see steeples...

...but don't believe you could sue them as a help for orientaion. Way too many!

And she made me also a crochet cap like hers! (and will make me another one.. just a reminder sweetheart! ;))

You see the cages? Behave!

Yes... this one is frightening!

The light was just magical...

...and the ducks too cute ^^

Oh, every city needs water!

The street art Lachafa and I found... and the ruins of their train station I'll show you in another post :)

Bits of this and that (or how looks my table)

I thought maybe you would like to see some of my thousand UFO which lay around or in big piles on my desk! No, I don't show overall pictures, the mess looks even worse as a foto! ^^

The star is made out of real clay and "stamped" with some lace. 

Below you see some new carved stamps. I am just carving a lot of more new stamps because the ones from my giveaway never arrived their destination... (yes, I was surprised how much it really hurts to know that the stuff one made is lost...). So the new batch is nearly finished... hope I can send it at the weekend.

*sniff*

But back again to... stuff! Some pendant I am using as a experiment to play with all my 3D laquers. And pieces of a big cone I drilled a hole into (with my dremel! ;)). I also added a thin layer of silver with acrylic paint. I think it brings the texture better to the eye... 

And a button. Of course.

A lot more of plant material! Kasuarines, don't know what the yellow are and also the long one was something my family found being on Mallorca... (and of course they thought of me!). Also with some silver colour added....

Wooden stars... Still without holes. They also need a thick layer of laquer... or maybe more colour. Although the colour seems bright it is almost a little bit dull in reality.

The cover of a fraunhofer magazine. I love the little pictures, perfect inspirations for stamps! They captured the essence of the silhouettes in a great graphic way!

Old christmas decoration... turned to earrings. The metallic colour is great, shining but not too extreme.

Started scanning / taking pics of beautiful wrapping paper (small used leftovers). Oh, I would love to have fabric like this!

As soon as you put something new on the floor... (I want to paint or wrap the wood)

...the black shadows arrive!

Tape! I bought for christmas a lot for family and friends :) And one set for myself...

Some clay stuff... 

Just an example how the advent calendars looked like...

Still don't now what to make out of this tiny crochet flower. But love the beads!

There is more... lot more... but maybe I'll repeat this kind of impressions :)

Just the idea of a pink - hairpin...

This are two crochet yarns combined (one more a sand colour and the other more rose or a very light pink). So really more the idea of pink than a real pink colour ^^

I crochet a flower with the two yarns... and then put it around a hairpin with little glas stones :) A very fast and easy project! Of course part of the pink advent calender 2011....!

More of the crocheted necklaces...

Like the crochet necklace I made before (here), just with other kinds of yarn. The upper one is cotton thread for crocheting, the black one a cotton yarn for just everything and the light grey is polyacryl. Normally I prefer cotton but the polyacryl yarn was very cheap and available in a nice range of colours so I took some of it for playing and practicing :)

For the grey and the black one I used some satin ribbon for closure. I still don't know what I want to use for the small crochet threat, maybe just some silver hook? Although I love crochet stuff, it is easy to get way too fancy with it ^^

The black was really kind of hard to photograph... mh... and I need some kind of model for this stuff because these crochet necklaces looks so much greater if they are worn! Hopefully Lachafa will help me with this when she is back home over christmas :)

Crochet necklace - something simple...

...but I still really like it. I made some more already ;) Just with different yarn and little changes to the design (which I had for some time now as a handwritten copy from a friend). Most of the time I am trying a pattern at first and then starting to make my own variations. Lachafa is way more flexible than I am and just crochet freehand all the time! (Sweetheart, did you finish the pattern for me? ^^) But I am growing in my skills more and more and I love to realize how fast that can be!

To start with a big project like a afghan was perfect for me because my hands got back to the movement, the rhythm and flow taking stitch for stitch. Although the afghan changed into an UFO (at some point it was way too heavy to take with me all the time and most of my crochet  am doing while talking with friends), it taught me a lot just by doing it.

To quote my sister (she said this yesterday ^^): Just start!

This is really the most important thing next to: Don't be afraid of wasting stuff! If it is gone, be it! No difference to lying in the stash :)

And yes, there will be beaded versions too :)

Alone - with pink fabric and a request

A friend asked me whether I could make some kind of hair accessory with a special fabric. His girl friend made a "Schultüte" which she covered with this fabric. The "Schultüte" was for his niece because she is starting school now and the official celebration with the school is today.

"Schultüte" is again a little bit of  difficulty to translate. Not because of the words but the meaning. It is (says leo dict) a large cornet of cardboard. It is filled with sweets and little gifts. In germany children gets them at their first day of school. Mostly one big one from the parents and from family and friends little ones... or everyone stuffs little presents in the big one from the parents :)

The request was just to make something for his niece hair. They didn't want to add more sweets ^^ So as you know me: I played. 

I'll show you my way of creating the hair clips because it is really easy. For this one I just cut out circles from the pink fabric and smaller circles of cord for the support of the fabric.

The hairpin already had the sparkling stones. I cut a little hole in one cord piece and put it in between the metal clips and the a larger cut (so the stones cut come through) to the other cord piece to put it on the top of the clip. I glued both pieces together. Then I cut the three pink fabric pieces (a long cut for the stones to go through). I just put them on top and added a little bit of glue between the single pieces. 

For the little rose I folded the fabric and sewed a large and narrow triangle with the wide side open. The fabric was turned and just rolled together to form a little rose. Some stitches and a lot of glue hold it together ^^

More glue hold the ribbon on the hair clip and the rose on top... That was all :)

For the last one just have a look here (or here for another one) :) 

This little heart I got from a granny swap as a little gift. I added some crochet strings and I hope it will make a little wristband for the girl.

By the way: If you like my hand carved stamps, have a look here to get some ^^