And the winner is......

I like angels.

I think we need a guardian angel or two in this world.

So the wool was felted into angels with faces made of buttons with tiny little crowns cut out of old metal candle holders.

Now we just need to know who these angels will watch over......

It is Elis!

Congratulations dear Elis. Please email me your address and I will send you your little guardian angels.

Take care

Jeanette

Creative day & a sneak peak

Today I had a day off. Before going to sleep yesterday I lay for a while contemplating the enormous amount of creative stuff I would finally have the time to do. I had a long list…. Naturally it didn’t quite turn out that way. My daughter’s sore throat turned out to be tonsillitis and needed a trip to the doctors and I had to go shop for food and then to the pharmacists for medication and….But this is what I managed to tick off my list

I made an autumn wreath for the door

Carved out one seriously big pumpkin and put tiny Christmas light bulbs in it





Went to the thrift store and bought an old wooden flour sifter, a polka dot dress that I just might be able to wear in ten kilos time, two old lampshades that I am going to strip from its fabric and make something else out of, embroidery yarn for a bargain and about one zillion tiny white buttons.

Well 830 of them to be exact. Not mother of pearl buttons or anything fancy like that just plain white ones but I think it was the amount that got to me…. They had 800 more in another plastic bag but I chickened out and left those to other buyers. Might go back tomorrow though….



The pink knitted strait jacket is also coming along nicely…..



….and I started on the gift for the give away. Do you want a sneak peak?



It involves prefelted wool, buttons and old metal candle holders. So you kind of wish you hadn’t made a comment eh? Well I promise you it will look better than this when it’s finished.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend
Jeanette

Celebration and a Give Away

I started my first blog in February 2007. Back then I wrote in Swedish and being a keen photographer it was initially a way for me to do something else with my photos besides saving them in my computer. It was also a way for me to express myself, put words not on a paper but a “digital” paper of sorts instead. I wrote for myself, not really thinking that anyone else would be interested. After a while I started to get comments and then I was hooked!

Some of the comments where in English and I started to realize that I had readers from all over the world. It was a feeling of great joy but also amazement. So I began writing in English and I installed a Google Analytics visitor’s count. Not to keep score because the amount is uninteresting for me but to follow from what countries the visitors came. I still love to watch the map and its little dots wondering what made someone from for instance China, Russia, Latin America or Turkey to stumble over my Blog. Thinking about who they might be and what kind of life they lead…..

When I started my first Blog I could never in my wildest dreams imagine that I would get a “twin sister” in Netherlands, a soul mate in Australia and creative inspirational friends from all over the world. Or finding out that one of my visitors lived on the other side of the park from me, meeting her and get a friend for life!

My visits to Blogland are a constant source of inspiration for me. There is a heck of a lot of talented bloggers out there!

Today my Google map showed tiny dots in 58 countries! Oh joy!!! So I think a celebration is in order! What better way to celebrate it than having a Give Away eh? A little felted piece maybe? Or one of my other creative things inspired by Blogland? I won’t tell you what. That will spoil the fun…….. and to be honest I haven`t actually created it yet....

So all you dear visitors out there leave me a comment and on Monday the first of November I will draw a winner!

Love to you all!
Jeanette

Embroidery, distractions and a pink straitjacket

I have started on the embroidery on my mittens. I was inspired by the lovely flower that Maria at Jag blommar made on her jacket. Unfortunately I am SO easily distracted….I found another book at the library you see and it had a pattern for the most beautiful knitted shawl. Made in mohair so thin it looked like it a spider’s web.



I know I should be finishing my mittens. I really need them. It’s so darn cold in the mornings now! But it’s like an alien force takes hold of me and I can’t control my actions….so before I knew it I was inside a yarn shop buying 100 g seriously pink mohair and here I am knitting and NOT making any progress on the mittens.

I am a weak person!

Take care
Jeanette

PS My husband looked at the pattern and wondered why I was knitting a pink straitjacket. Naturally I said it was because I love him like crazy....ha, ha

Love hurts

Being a mum can be really hard on you sometimes. To stand beside the one you love so much and watch her endure her own private pain, anxiety and frustration knowing that there is absolutely nothing you can do to make it go away. You can’t put a band aid on it, kiss it and make it better. This is beyond band aid, this is about losing your trust in someone you considered being your friend. This is a “life sucks” experience! This is something she will think back on as a life altering experience when she grows older but that’s not much comfort now is it?

But do you know what? Although I have preached non violence to my kids from an early age and have tried to tell them that violence doesn’t solve anything I must confess that my most primal feeling right now is to hunt someone down, grab them by their ears and shake some sense into them. No one messes with my kid and gets away with it! So dah! I don’t do that of course. She is 80 kilometers away from here and luckily for them so are they.

The hard thing though is that the only thing I want to do is hug her, hold her, wipe away her tears and say that life sucks now but it will get better. One day at the time. But the only thing I can do is talk to her on the phone and tell her that I love her.

Yep, being a mum is hard.

Love you kiddo!

Take care
Jeanette

Walk on the beach and heart stopping activities

Yesterday my husband and I meant to do a bit of renovating on the country house but the weather was crisp and clear and the sun shining so we decided to save the renovating for a rainy day and drove to the beach instead. It was blowing a hard northerly wind and the waves were spectacular. I love walking along the seaside looking for seashells, feathers and interesting debris washed ashore. Who knows you might even find a message in a bottle.







Afterwards we drove to my Johanna’s school to watch her practice show jumping. Not my favorite thing I am afraid. I get so nervous. I think it’s due to my former occupation as a physical therapist when most of my patients were suffering from brain damage due to accidents. I simply know too much about the consequences to feel really at ease. But a mother got to do what a mother got to do so. …

I had my camera with me and stood out on the course taking photographs feeling better and better about the whole show jumping thing when suddenly it happened. Kalle rode towards the fence and stopped like he had hit glue. Needless to say Johanna didn’t and she hit the ground with a sickening thud. My heart stopped! Amazingly enough I could still walk over to her and there she was lying on the ground calmly breathing slowly and taking stock over the damages. In a minute she was up again, grabbed the horse, gave him a serious bellowing and then up in the saddle again. Jeez, I wonder where she got her genes from. Not from me that’s for sure. God I admire her!



After the practice was over I meant to have a quiet talk to Kalle about the fact that evil horses end up at the glue factory. But then he nudged me with his muzzle and searched my pockets for apples and I went aaahh and all gooey inside.

Those brown eyes get me every time.

A real cutie isn`t he?

Take care
Jeanette

Mittens and distractions

Ta dah, my mittens are done.

Yeah, I know they look like a pair of kettle holders but some serious pimping is still to be done! Some embroidery, buttons, pearls, some vintage lace perhaps or….

According to the weather forecast we can expect cold weather and night frost this weekend so I really should get started on that pimping but unfortunately I keep getting distracted by this fabulous book that I found at the library.

Creative Cloth Doll Making by Patti Medaris Culea

I don’t give a hoot about mittens right now, I want to make cloth dolls !

Aren’t they beautiful?

Hope you have a creative weekend!

Take care
Jeanette