pillowcases

Many years ago, I covered my pillows with fabric I have now grown out of - meaning: I really don´t like them anymore. I have been thinking about new pillowcases for a while now and during a visit in  IKEA the other day I got some really nice fabric on sale and some lace curtain-scraps for almost nothing. The best thing about the fabric probably was the color: curry/mustard/crazy-yellow/greenish. 

This is what I made out of it:  

Nr. 1.

IKEA fabric and curtain-scraps: 

it was a bit tricky to sew the two fabrics together but it was worth the effort...

I really love the way the yellow/greenish shines through the white lace curtains

(p.s. my older son likes this one too and want´s one of his own to sleep with in the night)

the back: my cases are open so it´s really easy to wash them

Nr. 2.

An old doily from my favorite thriftstore and IKEA fabric

 - what a nice way to use/recycle old doilies -

the two together, waiting for their brothers and sisters I´m currently working on...

crochet stool cover

Since I first saw pictures of wood&wool stool I´ve been dreaming of making my own crochet-stool-cover. I searched a long, long time for the perfect stool for this project... and last summer in july I finally found it in my favorite thrifstore (I blogged about it here - it took me 2 attempts to get it :-)!!

After painting the stool with some white wall-paint, the next problem was that I simply could not decide what pattern and colors to use for the squares  - that´s why I haven´t finished the cover until now.... crazy, I know... but when I realized that I could simply make another one if I didn´t like the first one anymore I could finally get myself to finish this project.

Details:
yarn: cotton from Söstrene Grene (2 shades of grey and mustard yellow)
hook: 2,5
Patterns:
grey squares: Sarafia by Handóð
yellow squares: chart found here

We use this practical and pretty chair as a side table, play-table, a seat, a chair for the feet, we put our food-plaits on it, our laptops, toys, our cups of coffee... we just love it - and since it got covered even more! :-) Now I just have to find 3 more so that everyone in the family has it´s own stool with it´s own unique cover!

Ikea-hack

I have a favorite spot in the living room where I love to sit and knit. My knitting-corner can be quite chaotic and my knitting-related-things have been taking over the rest of the room - do you know the feeling? That´s why I went to IKEA the other day, and I bought a "Rast" chest of drawers for my knitting-corner in the attempt to make the living room look a bit more tidy and my husband happy :-)

Since Rast doesn´t look very pretty or interesting the way you get it at the store, I knew from the start that I wanted to pimp it up. I used some wall-paint I had at home and bought some really pretty knobs at Bauhaus... I´m not only very happy with the result, but also quite astonished about the way it turned out.

Here you can see how it looked before...  and now take a look at it after my hacking:

my new, off white Rast

 

 Love those knobs... they make such all the difference

 My new, tidy and well organized knitting/crochet-corner... 

I made the crochet-jar myself...

... and as you might have guessed, I got those retro-looking, wonderful doilies at my favorite          thrift store :-)

 

candle making

The other day, my oldest sister gave me a huge amount of wax for candle making. The special thing about this wax is, that it used to belong to our beloved grandmother Guðný who passed away 1996. Our grandmother used to make a lot of beautiful candles and when she died, my oldest sister started using this wax for her own candle-making. My sister has not been making candles for many years now and gave it to me, knowing I really wanted to start candle crafting with my boys. I guess, one could say we´re going to keep this wonderful tradition alive.

I had a lot of fun making my first 4 simple, little candles and now I´m fantasizing about what kind of things I could use as molds, candle-colours, different kind of decoration-possibilities (leaves, pictures, candle-stickers...), scenting candles, candle-dipping...

A treasure: the only two candles I´ve got left, made by my grandmother 

(takk elsku besta Lóa mín - ég get ekki sagt þér hvað þú gladdir mig mikið með þessu!) 

my first candles, using old candle holders from a thrifstore

I really love those two - I used 2 pretty cups I found in a thriftstore to make them... I´ll be hunting for more cups like this... they´ll make great gifts...  

I found out, I could use the old cups and candle-holders as molds too, because it´s so easy to get the candles out of them - and than they look like this: 

I just had to show you this wonderful little thrift found of mine: a cute little 50'ies/60´ies bear, who now gets to keep my rings safe (the doily is an old thrift found too)

Things with a soul

I´m still making my granny´s but I decided to post them all at once next week. Instead, I wanted to share my treasure hunt with you!

Yesterday I went to my favorite thriftstore and I found some wonderful things - things with a soul. First I found a necklace and a brooch- the lady in the store told me it belonged to an old lady that passed away. The old lady loved those pretty pieces of jewelery and took such good care of them ... kept every single one of them in tiny little boxes. I feel lucky, that I get to keep on loving them... I love things with a soul and that´s why I like thrifting so much: you can buy things with story of it´s own, a soul.

the necklace, it silver and it seems to be a bloodstone

the brooch, pretty flowers... I´ll use it on sweaters, hats, shawls, dresses.... 

I also found this wonderful stool - it´s really worn out and I wonder who has sat on it, what it has been used for... who it has belonged to through the years and how it got to that thriftstore? I actually saw it 2 weeks ago in a the back of the thriftstore and they didn´t want to sell it then... but yesterday I asked again and nice lady sold it to me! :-) Lucky me! I´m going to do something special with it this weekend and I can´t wait to show you the result!

so many possiblities...

Rhubarb-love

I told you last year and I´ll tell you again today: I love rhubarb! You can cook it, bake it, dye with the leaves or use the stems as a dye-mordant! Yesterday I got some really nice and cheap strawberries and decided to make some strawberry-jam... and since I found a lot of "wild" rhubarb the other day, I wanted it to be a strawberry-rhubarb-jam. I tell you: it was so worth the effort!!

How I did it:

1 kg strawberries
500 g rhubarb
600 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar 
enough red melatin to make the jam thick enough (Bónus)



I cut the fruit into small pieces and let them soak in sugar, vanilla sugar and melatin over night. The morning after I cooked the jam until the fruit got really soft and used my hand blender to make the blend smooth. Pour the jam into pretty maison jars and enjoy!

 

 I also wanted to show that flowers don´t always have to be storebought to be pretty and decorative! 

 

Forget-me-not, picked on my daily walk yesterday... got the pretty little vase in a thriftstore and I love it... 

 

wonderful colours, love the pretty the blue. yellow and white togehter...  

got this perfect little vase in a thrifstore too - perfect colourcombo: purple and turquoise... 

I picked those on my daily walk too... you can eat the flowers in the back - looks really pretty on a salad!

My older one, Bidenam picked those on his own, yesterday... isn´t this the most perfect bouquet??

wonderful Lupina...

 

Sewing weekend: bibs and a laptop-sleeve

Note to self: on this picture of my boys, having fun with their chalk you can see, how the most simple things can make you happy, if you just notice them...

A strange thing happens, when I pick up my knitting-needles on weekends and start to knit: my boys and husband seem to need my help and attention for everything they do... with my sewing machine it´s a totaly different thing: when sewing, it´s almost as if I was home alone - strange, isn´t it?
But now you understand why I went crazy on my sewing machine this weekend...

I started by making some bibs (slefsmekkir) for a pretty little boy I´ll soon be visiting for the first time. You can never have too many bibs!! :-) I used a towel (úr Rúmfó), some pretty fabric-napkins, the remains of my husbands trousers I shortened and a green doily (yes, those bibs are made for a boy)... I used this great bib-tutorial by sew she sew´s. It has a great a free pattern and the bibs have the perfect size... I really love the way they turned out!

The second thing I made was a laptop-sleeve, for my sweet and tiny laptop. The outside fabric used to be a curtain (from a thrift-store), the lining is made out of a towel and remains of my own old trousers (pics are at the bottom of this post). I also used snaps (smellur úr Rúmfó) to close it...

Amazing how this...

... can turn into this:

this one, used to be trousers... (strákarnir kalla þennan: töffara-smekk)

the trousers-bib on the inside:

this one used to be a fabric-napkin:

X-napkin with a pretty doily that works for a boy too...

green doily-bib and the blue one on the inside (a towel):

2 snaps, for 2 sizes:

1 snap:

and this thing (what is it called??):

I also love how an old curtain, a towel and this...

can turn into this pretty thing... it´s almost like magic...

How I love this amazingly pretty, vintage, woven, mustard fabric! I really do! The best thing is, I still have 3 huge curtains like this one left to play with...

Together with my pretty curtains, I found this knitted beauty in the thriftstore for almost nothing... it´s white, it´s lace, it´s vintage, it´s handmade... it´s perfect!

Project Restyle: a DIY cake plate

A while ago I posted this about some cool things I found in a thriftstore and told you that I was going to do something special with the candle holder. Today was the big day: I finally finished my special project!!

Step 1: what you need is this:

A pretty plate - I´ve had this one for many years, got it in a thriftstore in Germany

A pretty candle holder - I got mine in a thrifstore in Árbær (Reykjavík)

Epoxy glue, bought in Húsasmiðjan

Step 2:
The next thing to do is to glue the candle holder and the plate together...

... et voilá: you´ve got your new cake plate! :-)