advent calendar

There are some traditions that you'll never get tired of. The holiday season is my favorite time of the year and some of my best childhood memories are getting up in the morning and being excited about what awaits me in the advent calendar. Starting the day with unpacking a little present is a great mood lifter on those dark December mornings... I'm super excited about the advent calendar my mom made for me this year!

It's 24 (Christmas eve in Germany is celebrated on the 24th) individually packed little somethings to brighten up my mornings. I love how cheerful and bright it looks! I hung it above my bed and it's the first piece of Christmas decoration in my room - seen that it's December 1st I should really start decorating our apartment for Christmas!

I'm really excited about the gorgeous lace ribbons, strings etc. that I get to re-use for packing Christmas gifts :)

DIY Washi Tape Chart

My washi tape collection has grown quickly and keeping track of all the tapes I have is getting more and more difficult. Also, washi tape is very expensive (in Germany at least) and so I like to see how the finished product will look before I rip off a stripe. Also the translucency of the tape makes it sometimes hard to imagine what it will look like e.g. on a pattern paper.

This morning I came up with a quick and easy DIY to solve all the problems mentioned above.

What you'll need:

one transparency

a pair of scissors

your washi tape stash

a hole puncher

First, cut your transparency into rectangular tags. My tags measured 1" x 2.5".

Next, punch a hole into all of your tags. I used my crop-a-dile and hole punched all at once to make sure that the hole was at about the same spot on all pieces.

Next, stick a stripe of washi tape onto each tag. 

Put a binding ring through all of your tags et voilà, you have a washi tape chart!

You can add new tags as you buy new tapes. Your wahi tape chart can be easily stored - just hang it on a nail or some hook. You can lay a tag over a project you're working on to see how the washi tape will look like. You could also take the washi tape chart with you when you buy new tape, to see if the new tape will fit to other tapes you already own and to ensure that you don't buy a tape twice.

I hope you have fun making your own little washi tape chart :)

Knitting Needle Organizer

As my knitting needle collection is constantly growing, keeping the needles organized is getting more challenging. I wanted to make a needle case that would hold all of my DPs and interchangeable needles, as well as some crochet hooks and other bits and pieces a knitter needs.



After browsing the internet thoroughly, I didn't find anything that I really liked. So I had to come up with my own design. As it turned out, sewing this organizer was pretty time consuming. It turned out larger that I had expected, but I still love it :)

I used leftovers from this project for the outer fabric. I'm in love with Echino fabrics. One can make several projects from one piece of fabric, as the designs change and it feels like one gets a 3 in 1 fabric ;)



It opens up almost like a book. There's plenty of room for all my interchangeable needles, some crochet hooks, cable needles etc.



Next there are cables, stitch markers, DPNs and a zippered pocket for needles, more stitch markers etc.

This project took much longer to finish than I had expected. But! I love the outcome and it is big enough to hold many more needles. I definitely wouldn't recommend this for beginners, as some parts were quite tricky to sew. But there are many simple tutorials out there for needle organizers (one, two & three).

DIY: Jewelry

I recently ordered some jewelry making supplies online which I intended to use in art journals.

But why not make a couple of cute, vintage-looking necklaces and earrings? Here's what I came up with:

Cute bird, sewing machine & camera? And a vintage look? I like!

I don't have any of those fancy jewelry making tools. My list of materials is quite simple:

1. a nice cup of coffee/tea, nice weather and a cozy place in the garden.

2. a tablecloth (it prevents things from falling down), some pliers(I recommend to clean them. The ones I found were quite dirty...) and some pendants, necklaces etc.

You can always use old necklaces, earrings etc. and use the materials to make new, handmade beauties.

I got all these from a dawanda.com shop

I like to keep my jewelry rather simple, so I usually only use one charm/earring.

These are also cute, little gifts. If you don't want to invest money in charms etc, you can also use buttons, little thrift store finds, pompoms and small fabric elements like yo-yos and small flowers.

Happy crafting!

ReStyled Vol. I: Camera Bag Insert

As you all might know by now, I recently bought a new DSLR. Unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in my old camera bag. Which I didn't use often anyways, because I don't like to carry two bags. Most women probably agree that the average camera bag is not very... stylish? Or let's say it doesn't look very feminine. Although there are some cute camera bags out there (like Epiphanie or Jo Totes), they don't fit my student budget.

Soo here's what I came up with:

Take a bag you really like. Honestly, this is a lot of work and I wouldn't recommend doing it for a bag you might not like anymore in 2-3 months. I took the Fossil Weekender I normally use for school or for grocery shopping etc. since a lot of stuff fits in it. For protection and stability I used an old camping mat as lining. The only thing that I had to buy was a velcro fabric that enables me to restyle the bag quickly (I paid 3,15euros about 2 yards. A pretty cheap camera bag, huh?).

This is what the finished insert looks like. I didn't care what the outside would look like since I plan to have it in my bag permanently. I used a dotted fabric my mom had on hand to make it somewhat more colorful. Unfortunately, the velcro fabric was only available in a blueish-grey tone. I'm not particularly fond of the color, but at least it's light so I find all the stuff quickly :) 

My dad has a fancy crumpler camera bag where I saw inlets that were round-shaped. I liked the idea. It's perfect for lenses or just storing a water bottle to make sure it stays in place and you don't risk having your drink spilled in your bag.

And this is what the camera bag looks like when it's empty. For school, I just take out all the inlets and I have a sturdy bah. The padded inlet is also great for carrying around a laptop and other stuff that shouldn't b handled too roughly.

If you have any questions on how to make a camera bag insert, go ahead and ask me. I'm not an expert, but think I could give you some useful advice :) You don't need a lot of sewing experience, either.

Much love,

Marie

C'est Bon // French Madeleines (original)

Today, I baked some Madeleines and I thought 'Why not share it with my lovely blog readers?'

They're really easy to make and it only takes about 12 minutes to prepare them!! 

First, you wanna turn on some music :)

Here's what you'll need to bake about 30 madeleines:

200g sugar

Butter-Vanilla Flavor*

~90ml milk

3 eggs

250g flour

some baking powder

90 g butter (or margarine)

Since the preparation doesn't take long, I recommend to preheat your oven to 200-220°C right away.

Start with mixing the sugar, butter-vanilla flavor*, about 2/3 of the milk and the 3 eggs together.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour with about half a teaspoon of baking powder together. Then, while the mixer is still turned on, carefully add the flour and baking powder to the rest of the dough. Don't put it all in at once (because it makes a huge mess. Believe me, I've tried it before...)

 Last but not least, mix the (warm) butter or margarine with the rest of the dough. I recommend you to take butter, because it tastes better imo, but we didn't have any so I used margarine.

Mix until the dough is creamy :) If it is too thick, add some more milk. If you put too much milk in, just add some more flour.

Grease your baking-tin well. I used silicon ones so I just rinsed them with cold water.

Put the dough into the madeleine molds until they're filled to the top. If you don't have madeleine molds you can take cupcake molds or make your own madeleine molds out of aluminum foil. We only have two molds and I was too lazy to wait until they were finished and re-fill them. So I just took small cake molds and filled them.

Bake the madeleines for about 10 minutes. Mine had to stay in the oven for about 15 minutes. If you take cupcake molds, I would add 3-5 minutes since they pastry will be thicker.

I like them light, so I usually take them out of the oven when they're golden at the edges. You can also wait until they're completely golden.

Once they're finished, take them out of the molds and let them cool. You can eat them while they're still warm, although they're traditionally eaten cold.

Bon appétit :)

*Instead of butter-vanilla aroma, you can also use vanilla, rum or citron flavor and/or grounded almonds.