Tag: Present

Kiddy-presents

Although my previous post was from a finished project. I soon discovered that I’d actually forgot to post about this project I finished way before that. Half June, the lady who supervised my thesis went on pregnancy leave. I wanted to make her and the kid a little present. I came up with a poppy, again.

This time I didn’t know the sex of the baby, and I had apparently used up all my yellow poppy suitable fabric. I only had blue left, and didn’t like that very much. So on the hunt  I went, to find myself a new bit of soft fabric that I could make a poppy from. I eventually found some red and green and white striped/blocked/whatevered fabric that was suitable enough. I’d apparently already used a bit at some other point and therefore it was missing a little bit. I trimmed of the other end also. I put the body together and added the head. When that was all finished, I needed a hat for it. I figured I could sew the offcuts together to make a bigger strip and that could be the hat. So I did just that.

It’s a bit Christmassy, but this is the final result. I think he’s cute.

Poppy

She seemed to like it too, so that was good.

In other news, I handed in my thesis on Wednesday and have received the results. I scored a 7.65 out of 10, which means I’ve passed my thesis and am now waiting for the secretariat to input the grade into the system and make me graduate! Yay! I’ll be a ‘, MSc’  soon!

Present

A friend of mine is born on the first of January, which is a terrible day to be born if you ask me, or him. This has just passed but he wanted to celebrate his birthday at some point. I talk to him practically every day, so I figured he would need a present. Even if he wasn’t going to officially celebrate his birthday. So I started on quite a personal project: a pack of cards.

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He finally celebrated his birthday yesterday, so although I finished the present a month ago or so, I’m only now allowed to post about it. Anyway, on to regular programming!

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Now, you might think, cards, that’s quite boring.. no?

But over the past year he has been telling me what he wants for his birthday, this has included a baby jaguar, panda’s, a weird-looking spider thing, Afghan hedgehogs, a fox etc. I don’t think I can ever really ‘get’ those things for him, since some are endangered or illegal and more stuff like that.

He’s also a big fan of magic, card tricks and the like. He quite likes to play games and is always in need of a new deck of cards. I connected those two things and decided to come up with a deck of cards that had cute animals on them. Admittedly I didn’t check for copyright on all those images, but I figured, it’s for personal use and they will not really be used.

Anyways, I opened up Powerpoint and made 52 cards. In the left top corner I put the value of the card Ace to King, beneath that the category of animal and in the top right corner I put one of the four suits that cards have. The cards were coloured according to their category and a picture was put in the middle. Then the writing on top of the card was mirrored on the bottom, like so:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The four categories are: Cats & Dogs (with the cheetah, fox and a variety of other cute catty and doggy pictures) these are also diamonds. The hearts are (Under)water, with a variety of water based creates (turtles, frogs, octopi, dolphins etc.). Spades are Wild (bears, giraffes, hippos, sloths etc.) and lastly clubs are Garden (with spiders, deer, hedgehogs, owls etc.). There are 13 cards in each suit, 2 additional jokers (with little children in respectively a dragon and a frog costume) and a name card.

I then got it all printed on matte photo paper, I have since figured out that this might not have been the best idea, but it’s done now. They are not very easy to shuffle, so card tricks may be problematic, but it’s the idea that counts right?

After I printed and cut all the cards (see the corners of the cards in the picture? I had to cut all of those out), I made the box. There was a leftover bit of photo paper and I printed a name card for the front. I measured the size of the cards and gave it a bit more space and tadaa, the present was born. This was a fun and easy way to create a personalised present. I might do it again some time!

Box

Present

I made a present for a friend of mine. It has just been his birthday, and I saw him the day after so I figured I’d make him a present. I have the feeling that he likes and/or needs hugs sometimes. So I decided to make him a little stuffed toy. It’s a very soft yellow fabric from my recent fabric market haul. I always figure that with present it is the idea that counts, and not necessarily the execution or the actual thing you give.

He knows I also sleep with one of those ‘poppy’s’, so I decided to give him one, so he knows that there’s someone thinking about him too. I forgot to take a picture, but it’s really similar to this one. The main differences are: it’s yellow, it’s got ~knuffel (this is the Dutch word for hug) and my name embroidered on it and it’s a bit over stuffed.

He seemed to quite like it, the idea anyways, and I got a text the other day with a picture of it, so that was nice. I’m still working on the dress for larp (it’s now been practically done for weeks, I need to add a lining to the skirt, hem them and possibly make a hook-eye closure for the top of the skirt), which, if I make the time, could be done in an afternoon. Wish me luck on that!

Washing Machine

It is customary in the Netherlands to celebrate a thing called Sinterklaas. It’s basically a different version of Saint Nicholas or Santa. However, we celebrate it on the 5th of December, we tell kids it’s his birthday, but the real Sinterklaas died that day. You buy gifts for people and sing songs. Some people celebrate it by making ‘surprises’. All the names are put into a hat and everyone gets one that is not his name, they buy presents for this person and make their ‘surprise’. The surprise is related to the person you buy the presents for and also has a poem with it.
So.. for the 2011 celebration of Sinterklaas (which we celebrated the 18th of December)  I had my mother’s name. She has been complaining that she hates sorting our black socks, because they are all different but all black.  I made a washing machine, I put some coloured socks in with instructions on them and she had to match socks and follow the instructions. She seemed to like it.

It was all made of cardboard and covered with white paper. I used a picture of our washing machine to make the label in the top right corner. Here are some pictures:

 

I really enjoyed myself making it. It was fun to see that it did work and that she liked it. All in all my Sinterklaas was a lot of fun.

Long Time No See

Yes I know, I’ve not been here for a while. I have no excuses. Well one, my sewing machine broke in December (which is quite the problem), so no sewing related things. I have made some things since the last time I’ve posted. A mp3-player pouch, it’s awful, ugly and crude but I needed one soon and my machine had just broke, and it works, so that’s fine. I’ll update it when I’ve gotten my machine fixed.

I’ve started a skirt that just needs hemming and buttonholes, (it’s almost all done by hand since my machine broke..), however, this was the beginning of January, and I’ve since done nothing to the skirt.

I did make a present for a friend, which was a pouch, this time with a flame embroidery. The pouch from all sides:

   

 

The last picture might look weird to you.. white things with dots and stripes on them? They are a couple of pebbles I got from our front garden. I painted dots and stripes on them and put them in the pouch with an instruction leaflet. When playing you can use them as runes or play games with them like Pigs. It is not very useful, but I thought it was fun. He seemed to like it, so I’m happy. I’m going to attempt to write more here, to make me do other things than watch television.

Presents

I have a birthday party tomorrow. However, I was faced with a problem. What could I possibly give as a present? I had no ideas, so eventually I decided to make something. Next question: what would I make? Something easy but nice looking, the answer was, so I decided to make another ear bud pouch (previous one). I found a nice blue fabric in my stash that I’d used for a pencil skirt (and still had 3 meters left after that). Which looked quite nice, and I had a zipper which was quite close. So I used those, here it is:

Front pouch Back pouch

One adjustment I made compared to the previous one was that I added a ‘pocket’ on the back of the pouch, so you can put a coin in there for a shopping cart or something like that.

So the other bit of the gift has 2 parts. If I show them to you, can you guess what they make together?

Well here they are anyways:

Ribbon Pins

Left is a ribbon (oh, what a surprise ; )) and right is a set of tiny clothes pins that I’ve glued a funky bit of ribbon too.
Did you guess?

The answer is: A Christmas Card Hanging Line! (Or birthday cards, Easter cards, whatever cards you may get). Tadaa!

Finished present

With two cards, I really like the left card. In the Netherlands children come around each year selling so called kinderpostzegels, or children’s stamps. The proceeds go to a charity to help children. One year they had kinderpostzegels that were designed by Dick Bruna, the writer of Miffy (or Nijntje, in Dutch). They also sell cards that are designed by the same person, and the left is a walrus of Dick Bruna, I still have a soft spot for Nijntje related things, that’s why I like it so much.

Well off to bed soon, so I can be cheerful and happy at the party tomorrow! I hope she likes them!