A fine cold day in the city

 

These are bags made from ties.

I already posted a blog about the fair (with handmade products) in Dutch. So for all the people who can't read Ducth, a brief introduction. Last sunday there was a fair at Groningen. People only sold their handmade stuff that day and some materials with which you can make your own stuff. So me and my mum decided that we had to go there, because we love to see handmade things. And off course we hoped we could buy some materials to make our own things.

The fabric, lace and CD

So, yesterday we went to Groningen. It was very cold (poor people who have to stand all day at the fair!) but it was fun! It was so nice to see all the different things people made of different materials. I didn't buy any handmade objects, because most of the time I thought, well,  I can make that myself easily. So I only bought a piece of lovely vintage fabric :D (yay for vintage!) and some vintage lace :) After the fair we did some more shopping in Groningen I bought a nice green sweater and a Nick Drake CD.
We spend the night at Michael's (my mum's boyfriend) place. Because we wanted to go to another shop which wasn't opened on sunday. When we left the house this morning, it was snowing, with really big snowflakes :D! There also was a student protest in the city, because the government wants to make studying almost impossible for all students and students-to-be. If you want to read more about this subject, my good friend Nelson wrote TWO(!) blogs about it (in Dutch) so click :)

I also had to buy a new mobile phone, because my is completely blue, so I can't see what I'm doing anymore :P Now I've one with a Qwerty keyboard, because this was a cheap one and I don't want to spend a lot of money on a mobile phone. On our way to the multimedia store I saw something that reminded me of a person who means a lot to me! Do you want to know what is was? Scroll down ;)

Ta-daaa!

Top 2000

Something for the dutchies again!

Elk jaar begint het december-gevoel weer in november. Als we weer mogen stemmen voor de Top 2000! Het uitzoeken van de beste 10 en nu zelfs 15 nummers, kost mij meestal wel een uur, als het niet langer is. Maar al zoekende krijg je weer dat gezellige, spannende gevoel, want het is (bijna) winter, de feestdagen staan te wachten en natuurlijk de Top 2000 op radio en TV! Daar kan ik mij elk jaar weer op verheugen. het wachten tot jouw platen voorbij komen en het kijken naar de Top 2000 quiz. Mijn lijst voor dit jaar is:

Beatles - Norwegian wood (1965)

Kinks - Sunny afternoon (1966)

Boudewijn de Groot - Picknick (1967)

Who - Baba O'Riley (1971)

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Almost cut my hair (1971)

Yes - Roundabout (1972)

Steely Dan - Do it again (1972)

J.J. Cale - After midnight (1972)

Creedence Clearwater Revival - I heard it through the grapevine (1973)

Electric Light Orchestra - Evil woman (1975)

Bob Dylan - Hurricane (1975)

Neil Young - Like a hurricane (1977)

Cure - Close to me (1985)

Talking Heads - Slippery people (1985)

Pearl Jam - Just breathe (2009)

En de vrije keuzes:

Vashti Bunyan - Train Song

Leonard Cohen - The Avalanche

Jeff Buckley - So Real

Nick Drake - Northern Sky

Brian Eno - This

I woke up in fairyland :D!

Home made

I finished another object for my Etsy shop-to-be! It's a tiny owl purse :) Because I love owls and I want to make as much as possible things with animals on them. Ta-daa:

Again this one's made from felt and the owl has shiny eyes :D

That's not the only thing I've been up to the past days. I also made a sticky toffee cake! I often heard or read about it, and it always sounded very appealing to me! So when we had some dates lying around in the kitchen I decided to grab them and turn them into a divine sticky toffee cake. Using this recipe.

This is how my kitchen looked like when I was finished :P

Hm, this doesn't look very appealing, huh. But wait 'till it comes out of the oven.

Yum, this was so good! Especially the toffee sauce ;-)











Well, now I'm going to do some sleeping. See you guys later :)!
Love

Wolletjes en zelfgemaakte dingetjes! (Something for the Dutchies)

This post will be in Dutch, cause it's only interesting for the Dutchies amongst us ;-)

Ja eindelijk! Leuke evenementen voor breiers, spinners, vilters, etc.! Volgende week zondag (28 november)hebben we een heuse 'Die zijn leuk!' markt in Groningen. Op de vismarkt worden allerlei zelfgemaakt dingetjes verkocht. Maar ook kun je breiwol, stoffen en andere dingen kopen om zelf aan de slag te gaan. Klik hier voor een overzicht van alle standhouders. En last but not least, wordt er op 17 december een heuse Midwinterwol georganiseerd! Volgens de website een markt voor alle wol-, spin-, brei-, vilt- en weef-liefhebbers! Op de markt zijn tevens verschillende demonstraties en workshops, dus genoeg te doen en waarschijnlijk weer veel te veel leuke dingen om te kopen :-P!
De Midwinterwol is in Boven Pekela, dus ik weet nog niet precies hoe we daar moeten komen, maar daar wordt vast wel een oplossing voor gevonden :-) Klik hier voor meer informatie over de Midwinterwol. Ik heb nu al zin in deze leuke markten!

Weekend cooking

I love to cook and bake. I can´t decide what I love more. But I do both things on a regular basis and people seem to like the things I make very much. I´m pleased to hear that, because I don´t use recipes that often. Most times I just throw some things together and like magic it turnes out to be edible. So I can´t always give you the recipes, because often I don´t even remember exactly how I made it ;-)

Friday evening pumpkin soup.
















Saturday morning ciabatta's

This was the first time I made a ciabatta myself! It's quite simple to make, but you have to keep in mind that making a biga involves 12 hours of waiting. So you can do that the evening before you want to make a ciabatta. Then the biga can rise in the night. The dough has to rise 1,5 hours and later on another 30 minutes, so keep that in mind! I can give you the recipe of this one, because I didn't figure this our myself. Unfortunately it's only in Dutch, but there are lots of ciabatta recipes on the net. If want the recipe: click

This is how I love to eat my bread. First a layer of cream cheese and on top a layer of 4 fruits jam. It's reminds me of cheesecake :-)

Autumn Magic

I love to see all the handmade things on diffrent blogs. One item in particular caught my eye. It´s this beautiful autumn light from Twig and Toadstool. When I saw it I instantly wanted to make it myself. But first I had to gather some beautiful red leafs, a glass bowl and some glue/coat. I found some wonderfull leafs and pressed them between a pile of books for a couple of days. Next I went to the secondhand shop to buy a glass bowl. I bought different coat then Twig and Toadstool, because I couldn't find any Mod Podge here. Maybe I should have waited and try and get it, because now my lantern is a bit stripy and I don't like it, but hey it was my first try! It's still turned out lovely, but I think I painted to thickly with my coat.

It begins!

You have to paint a layer of coat on teh bowl itself. Then put the leafs on it. I think it's the best to let the first layer dry a bit, because if you put the second layer on it to quickly, the first doesn't have enough time to dry. Maybe this is different if you use Mod Podge... The coat is first very white, but when it's dried properly, it will turn out transparant. I used a mat coat, because I didn't want it to be too shiny.

First layer of coat and leafs. I don't have a picture of the coated leafs.

After this stage you paint another layer of coat over the leafs, so they will stay put. Let it dry and this is what it looks like in the end: ta-daa!

And voilà, my magic autumn lantern.

And a close-up. I love close-ups!

Maybe some of you already know. I'm planning on opening an Etsy shop, somewhere soon. For the people who never heard of Etsy: click
Mostly all teh things are handmade, but people also sell vintage stuff. It's so nice to see al; the handmade stuff, and it inspires me so much to make things. Some years a go I made myself a pen case from felt. I've made it all my hand, even the sewing, and it turned out lovely. Now I wanted to make another one, to sell on Etsy. The autumn inspired me to make a squirrel/toadstool case. Again it's made of felt, and all the sewing is done by hand, because it's to small to do it with the sewing machine I think. The tiny toadstool is made from selfdrying clay, painted with acrylic and covered with translucent nail polish.

The squirrel side.

And the toadstool side.

And a close-up of the toadstool lucky charm.

Hopefully you can buy it in my Etsy shop soon. But I have to make more stuff before I open it. I'm now making a tiny owl wallet. I have lots of ideas, so this winter I'm cutting and sewing.

No I don´t want a coal generator in my backgarden!

For the dutchies I guess I don´t have to explain what is going on in the ´Eemshaven.´ Cause everybody is talking about the new coal generator that Nuon is building there. They're actually planning on building a third one (there already is one.) The third one should by build by Essent. When I stand in my room at night I can see al the lights from the generator peeking out above the dyke. When I stand in my room by day I can see some yellowish smoke rising up from the generator. And when I make a nice walk on the dyke or when (in the summer) I spend a day out between the sheep I can see the ugly thing, polluting my lovely view, but even worse, the environment. Here you can see how close the damn generators are to the place I live in. The lowest cirkle is approximately around my house, and the upper one is where the first generator is, and the 2 others will be.

The worst thing about it all is that the generator is situated next to the 'Waddenzee,' which belongs to the World Legacy! Greenpeace has begun a public protest against Essent and Nuon. Almost all people in the Netherlands get their power and gas from one of these companies. Greenpeace wants them to switch to another company if Nuon and Essent continue to build the generators. I think they made a great commercial against Nuon, but sadly nobody wants to broadcast it on TV or Radio. Here it is:



For the dutchies here is a link: http://www.greenpeace.nl/stop-nuon-en-essent
You can send Nuon or Essent a protest email.

I do hope Nuon stops building! I'll keep you up to date about the campaigns and (hopefully) their results.
That's it for now!

Love Nienke