Happy Holidays!

I'd like to show off some final holiday crafting for this year. I finished this needle felted pouch last night. The heart-design complements the cover-design of the "poeziealbum" inside. Our cousin Rio had a little "poeziealbum" on her wishlist and I truly hope she likes this one. A "poeziealbum" can best be described as a friendship book which kids pass along to their friends who then make a drawing or write a little poem dedicated to the owner of the book - we used to do this long time ago when we were kids and apparently kids still do so in Belgium. Not in France though, given the difficulty I had to find one here...This one still needs to get wrapped this afternoon and then packed with all the other presents and stuff we need to take with us tomorrow.

Signing off for the week now, and the year, I wish all of you Happy, Happy Holidays! I'll be back on my little blog in 2009 and hopefully so will you!! Cheers!

Kitchen science lab

Santa came a little early this year. Mommy Santa and Daddy Santa couldn't wait any longer, I guess... The girls were really happy with the presents they found under the tree this morning. An absolute topper was the experiment kit Santa brought for M. - something K. spotted while we were out hunting for Christmas presents over lunch break a couple of weeks ago. Both girls have been into "experiments" lately with all my glass jars disappearing into their rooms, filled up with, well, stuff: liquid stuff, colorful stuff, even yukky stuff. With this kit I won't have to go look in their rooms anymore for a jar with lid when making a vinaigrette. The science kit included, among other equipment, testing tubes and litmus paper strips. We almost ran out of litmus paper as we've been "experimenting" for a major part of our Sunday morning. The whole family got fascinated by these little pieces of paper changing color. Tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, coffee, vinegar combined with baking soda, salty water, coke, milk, apple juice,... you name it, we've tested it! Fun and exciting!!

Another fun thing Santa brought was this pompom maker. Some pink-purple pompoms have found their way into our Christmas tree already... No need to worry anymore about a lack of Christmas decorations ...

Christmas break, finally!

I'm glad the Christmas break finally is here. We so much are in need of a little break over here. I'm just off the antibiotics, feeling OK again. K. hasn't been feeling well for about a whole week now. He still has a couple of days in the office before he can take some time off. Little H. actually missed her last day of school. She came down with a fever on Thursday night (luckily that was after her Christmas recital in school, which she had been looking forward to so much), and told us she was "épuisée". And sure she was: she fell asleep on the sofa, was even too tired to have dinner. She stayed home from school on Friday, still sleepy and not hungry at all (which is very unlike her...). Today, however, she woke up just fine and I'm really happy about that. Now I keep my fingers crossed Margot won't get sick as both sisters like to share, even their glass of juice... They helped themselves this morning and prepared their own breakfast: one glass of juice and two straws! How sisterly cute...

I've added some pictures of (a selection of) the creations the girls brought home from school. They've done some cool things this term. I particularly like H.'s skeleton and body book - a project they've been working on in English class for several weeks. I can only say she has an incredibly good teacher! The body facts she came home with, the songs, rhymes and poems, the skeleton (did you notice the lungs - little balloons!) - really great! M. went to the "Musée Bourdelle" and made the head (I couldn't find the proper word, but I'm sure you know what I mean) out of clay during the on-site atelier they had afterward. I just love it! That's just another thing I like about breaks: the little treasures they bring home from school!

Finally, I'd like to conclude with this quote I read in an editorial today, from the French scientist and philosopher Lavoisier (1743-1794): "rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme". I found this a very interesting thought - in the article it was used in the context of how we, humans, deal with the Earth and its resources. Just think about it...

Have a fun and relaxing weekend!

Goodbye present

Just a quick post to show off the little goodbye present M. made last night for a classmate who's moving to the other side of the world over the Christmas break. She made a couple of these last year for her Californian girlfriends (pictures below). It's an easy craft for little hands with not too much sewing involved. The felt zippered purse we still had (I got a bunch of these last year at "Le Pain d'Eipces", one of my favorite toy and craft stores here in Paris). The decoration, however, is from M.'s hand. She chose the felt flower, the fabric in the middle and a matching button, things I keep at hand for small projects like this one. All she had to do was to sew on the button, the rest being caught underneath. She embroidered the stem and leaf, and ready! This project took only about half an hour (designing included), but I think it looks really cute.
Oh, and the painting underneath is one H. made: a mandala, colored in with the watercolor paint Sinterklaas brought. I think this one will make it to our kitchen wall...

Some of last year's little purses...

Christmas party at the gym

Yesterday, we went to H.'s gym club's Christmas party. It's actually also M.'s gym club, but she was too old to participate. She's 8! I guess the club or la Mairie has a budgetary problem. At "le gymnase", where the event took place (and a different one than the one where they practice)there was another problem: the heating didn't do it. It was freezing in there! Good the kids had an obstacle course to keep warm. Nothing like that for the parents, however...

No pictures of the event, though, for the simple reason I messed up every single one of them. They all came out blurry. So, I can only show you the "static" ones of a gym that obviously has seen better days...
I REALLY need to READ the BOOK!!


Festive, huh!


Lines...


and more lines.


I guess the heating is not the only thing needing a little fix...


Can you spot the tennis balls??


Oh yes, and Santa made his appearance, too. He promised H. a "dinette" (a little kitchen). I think we might be in trouble...


Note: When re-reading this post, I think I sound a little, well, ungrateful. The kids did have fun and the coaches did a wonderful job. Santa even brought chocolates and had a little chat with every single kid. I just wanted to put that straight...

On display

When my parents visited last weekend, they didn't only bring presents from Sinterklaas, but also two of the three objects in this picture: the hook in the middle and the scissors. The hook belonged to my paternal grandfather, who started knotting rugs after his retirement. The scissors are my paternal grandmother's sewing scissors. My grandmother, "Bobonne" as we, her grandchildren, call her, is 94 now and moved to a nursing home a couple of weeks ago. I've always known her sewing, knitting, crocheting,... She's too old now for all of this, but she was really good at it. Thank you, nonkel Luc, for dropping these off with my parents! It is much appreciated as you can see!

I added the bobbin of sewing thread as I thought it fitted in nicely. This thread belonged to my maternal grandfather. He was a tailor in times when men still got their suits custom made.

Needless to tell why I like these three objects...

DIY Christmas trees

We went to get our Christmas tree today. Only problem: I can't find our Christmas decoration stuff. It's probably still in storage somewhere after our last move, though I was convinced I brought everything home. I hope the box will still show up, but for the time being I had to come up with something else. As we have quite a collection of Christmas ornaments by now, just not in the right place, I didn't feel like buying even more. So, I checked my craft supplies and came up with these: Christmas tree ornaments made from wine corks. A fast and easy craft!

All you need is this:

- wine corks (don't change your drinking habits now, though)
- hot glue gun (not for little hands!) or any other glue that will keep the corks sticking together
- a (serrated) knife to slice the corks (needless to say this isn't a job for little hands either...)
- some wire, thread, ribbon...
- something to protect your working space

Here's how it works:
1. Cut the corks horizontally to the desired size (I cut mine to about 1.5 cm or 0.6 inches - this will determine the thickness of your tree). Cut some pieces lengthwise as well - these pieces will become your tree trunks, so you need only as many of these as the number of trees you're going to make
2. Glue the pieces together, working by rows (first 3 then 2) and next glue the rows together in a 3-2-1 triangular setting. Glue on the tree trunk.
3. Take some wire, thread, ribbon, ... and work it around your tree. Make a tight double knot at the top and use some glue to fix it. Make another knot so you have a loop to hang up your ornament. You could probably skip this part and just thread some wire through a hole you make at the top of the tree.

I left my trees the "natural" way as I liked the differences in color and the stamps some of them had, but you could easily further decorate them or have your kids decorate them with paint, glitter, pompoms etc.

We didn't have enough time to decorate our tree tonight, but we'll do it tomorrow after school. Depending on the result I might post another picture - I'm getting worried all of the sudden that the ornaments might be too heavy for our poor tree, though I'm sure, in that case, we'll find some other use for them... Why not decorate Christmas presents with them?

Update: We finished decorating! And we all like the way our tree looks! I did find some ornaments after all - not the ones I was looking for - but we do have plenty!

It's snowing!

I quickly assembled snow garlands for my girls with the snow flakes we made over the last couple of days. Taking the picture actually took me much (MUCH!)longer than the sewing. The picture still looks horrible, but I gave up! I didn't even notice it was snowing outside until right now!! Can you believe it?!
I really should start reading the book I got on how to use my Nikon D40 and get the most out of it... Really!

Love in a box

We had quite a busy but fun weekend. Oma Nicole and Opa Bert visited us and brought the presents Sinterklaas dropped off in Brussels for the girls. The girls really enjoyed the special attention only grandparents can give. There was a lot of laughter, silliness, cuddling-up and "conspiracy" (H. packed some personal belongings as she wanted to go back to Brussels with Oma and Opa). As the weather was nice (though cold) we walked quite a bit through Paris and showed the Montmartre area, made a long walk along the Seine, went to the the Marché aux Fleurs et Oiseaux (maybe not such a smart thing to do as M. really wanted to adopt one of those cute, fluffy, little rabbits).
And in between all these activities and M.'s homework we even found time to make lots of snow flakes (thanks to maya*made: newspaper snowflake garland: a tutorial - as I was a little lazy we just used Origami paper instead of cutting our own squares) and to decorate and fill up our shoe box for the "Love in a Box" project which was due today. With just some tissue paper, a couple of snowflakes, glitter and lots of glue we were able to produce a really nice box. I hope we'll make a little girl happy with the small gifts inside.
Inspired by the first box, M. wanted to decorate a box of her own to stuff her little secrets inside. We worked on it together after grandma and grandpa had left and this one too turned out beautifully. I really like how she decorated the lid: yellow for the day, blue for the night.
The craft paper Sinterklaas brought came to a good use already... Dank u, Sinterklaasje!

Sarkobama mystery solved...

Remember how I last week wrote about the "Sarkobama" posters I spotted on Boulevard Haussmann? The posters showed up in many other places in Paris over the past week and no one seemed to be able to find out who or what was behind this campaign. That is until yesterday. Yesterday, Greenpeace finally admitted to be at the origin of the campaign and immediately kicked off the sequel, "Yes, you must!" . In doing so, Greenpeace wants to draw attention to the EU Conference on Climat Change which will be held in Poznan on December 11-12th. And as France is still presiding the EU until the end of this month, they urge Sarkozy to bring the change so much needed. Will he be as successful as his pal, Obama, last month? We're about to find out...

Surfer's blue(s)?

I painted M.'s room last weekend. It used to be plain white (well, if you didn't pay attention too much to the dirty hands and other marks all over). Now, the walls are "surfer's blue". She'd been asking to have her room painted for quite a while and last Wednesday I finally took her to the paint store to chose the color. And, she ended up choosing surfer's blue*. Did she have California in the back of her mind when choosing the color? I'm not sure, but the color definitely made me think of this...



And yes, I surely do miss the pools and the Californian sun on some days... So, now I just need to sneak into M.'s room and have a little chat with my big girl!

* H. made her choice too and it was hard to explain that I wouldn't be able to do two rooms in one weekend - so, H.'s room is next on the list and will most certainly be painted pink ...

Velvet

I took this picture at the Opéra Garnier - I finally made it there last Thursday and had a guided tour. What a magnificent place! Though I'm not sure if this sofa sits comfortably at all - I didn't try it - I liked it's simplicity, the red velvet, the light...