You’re a tacky dog collector before you know it

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Sometimes you sit on the couch..look around you…and discover you’re becoming a tacky dog collector at a very rapid pace. It’s not already as bad as it sounds, but I have to be careful. In the blink of an eye, I’ve become a hoarder with cupboards filled with porcelain dog statues. That might get me on Oprah, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing :-)

A nice example of my tacky dog wake-up call occured a while ago when I visited a thriftshop with my sisters-in-law (what a lucky girl am I, to have two sisters-in-law that want to go thrifting with me and find it actually funny to see me marching through the racks with old stuff with a ‘serious business’ look on my face). I stumbled upon a very, very tacky (I admit it) poodle statue and asked my sisters if it would be a good plan to take the poodle home with me. I’ve never seen the look on two faces change so fast from amused to complete horror. I shouldn’t have told them about Frank, my porcelain greyhound (above), or Lolly, my vintage dog planter. I should have kept my big mouth and just buy the poodle and hide it from my sisters-in-law. Alas…me and the poodle weren’t meant to be. My sisters convinced me not to buy it. They warned me I was rapidly changing into a crazy porcelain dog hoarder, that my Love would leave me and that I might even get on Oprah with my crazy collections.
Ah well…I didn’t know what name to give the poodle anyway.

Show me the content of your bag and I’ll tell you who you are

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If I have to carry all that weight in my bag, it better looks nice together.

Since January doesn’t seem to come to an end and there’s a complete lack of good light to shoot pictures, there’s nothing left but to look at the content of my purse and find some sunshine there. (It’s the superlative of sad, finding joy in a bag :-)) The owl phone case and keycord come from Larie! (her Etsy here) and are especially made to fit my Nokia (I’m the only soul in the world who doesn’t own an iPhone), wallet from Oilily (there are a sweet little Persian kitten and a bear with a hat at the back, it took me 3 minutes to choose this one ;-)), the diary was a present of 101 Woonideeën for my Woonbeurs participation.

This weekend is all about DIY around the house. It’s kinda boring, but it needs to be done.
Enjoy your Sunday. Let’s hope the light returns soon, before I move into my handbag.

P.S.: It’s not too late to join the vintage craftbook swap..check here!

About a wall panel and an attacking cat

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Molly is the sweetest cat on earth. I’m certain I wrote this a thousand times before, but it’s just the one and only truth for me (like it is for every other cat owner).

Let me start by explaining why.

I’ve been changing the arrangement of the embroideries for my wall panel again and again and finally became satisfied with the result. I attached the top four embroideries with a tacker to a wooden lath and attached the other embroideries to those four, using some strong thread and a big, sharp needle (punctured about every finger on both my hands). If you’d like to make something like this yourself keep in mind that some embroideries need to be tightened at the back with a piece of cardboard and thread, to keep them in the right shape.


During this project, I was sitting on the ground (which became, by the way, very uncomfortable, along with the punctured fingertips ;-)) and where I am, Molly is. She sat next to me, watching what I was doing. Cat’s have a strange need of attacking imaginary enemies though, and all of a sudden she discovered the thing she needed to attack..underneath my project. Have you ever tried to sew something together when a cat keeps jumping upon it?

There’s no other creature on this earth that’s allowed to jump on my embroidered wall panel, bed or kitchensink. But Molly can. She made me laugh so loud, it made my stomach hurt. That’s exactly why we love her so much. She is so darn cute, we could eat her.

Top picture: the finished wall panel… with the stairs that still need some finishing (which is of course the understatement of the century).

I’ll try to shoot some more detailed photo’s of the front and back and write a little tutorial about this one.
What do you do with your thrifted embroideries?

Wanna swap?

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A while ago I wrote about my big blogging issue post and how I wanted to get this blog a bit more interactive. Being a total space cadet when it comes to swapping and other kinds of interactive blogging thingies, I’ve never tried them, even though it seemed fun to me to interact more with my followers than just sending my gobbledigook into cyberspace.

Since I find so much nice stuff on my thrifting adventures it’s impossible to keep everything…so let’s just try this and see what happens.
Welcome to the first Planet Fur swap..ever! (It still feels kinda strange, taking my first steps into the magical world of swapping…it actually feels more like terrifying. ;-D)
I would like to swap these two Lis Paludan 70s craftbooks: ‘Nieuwe borduurideeën’ and ‘Borduur met plezier’ (freely translated: ‘New embroidery ideas’ and ‘Fun with embroidery’).
Please leave me a comment somewhere in the upcoming two weeks and don’t forget to mention which book you’d like most…I’ll decide at the beginning of February.
Thank you and good luck!

Een tijdje geleden schreef ik een post over (bijna) al mijn blog-vraagstukken en hoe ik dit blog wat interactiever zou willen maken. Ik ben een ontzettende nitwit op het gebied van ruilen en dat soort aanverwante zaken, dus ik durfde het niet eerder aan om er een post aan te wijden, ondanks dat het me leuk leek om eens meer te doen dan alleen mijn gebabbel de ruimte in te sturen.

Ik kan nu eenmaal niet alles wat ik bij mijn tweedehandshamstertochten meeneem kwijt en dit is een prima manier om er een ander blij mee te maken.
Daarom: welkom bij de eerste Planeet Vacht ruil! (Zelfs nu voelt het nog een beetje eng om dit te typen, maar ik zie wel hoe dit loopt…straks moet ik met mezelf ruilen…zooo hoe bedoel je zelfmedelijden? ;-D). Ik zou graag deze twee Lis Paludan jaren ’70 handwerkboeken willen ruilen: “Nieuwe borduurideeën” en “Borduur met plezier”. Als je denkt “Hé grappig, ik doe mee!”…doe mee en laat ergens in de komende twee weken een berichtje achter, ook met je voorkeur voor een boek. Ergens begin februari zal ik kiezen.
Poe, spannend! Veel plezier en alvast bedankt!

Craftbooks galore

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I’m not famous for my patience and because of that I still can’t crochet, knit or… (fill in another fantastic creative skill). I don’t exactly understand why I always buy secondhand craftbooks thinking: “Ah! Knitting! And oeoeoe, such nice patterns! I’ve always wanted to learn how to knit a lovely little retro jumper, so this one goes home with me!”.

My heart aches seeing all those lovely patterns in Lis Paludan’s crochet books…and not be able to execute them (unlike Ingrid, who crochets these lovely little Lis Paludan slippers).
To be honest, the only thing I’m really good at is making the things I make for my shop. Just because it didn’t took me years to learn how to draw a pattern and how to sew a blanketstitch. I’m more of a self-taught woman, that is.


You can imagine what I thought when I bumped into the book pictured. It’s called “Het grote kruissteek boek” (“The big embroidery book”) by G. Bengtsson, E. Hansen and I. Winckler. Embroidery fortunately, is a skill I master (not a very difficult skill, but it is a skill :-)). The spoiling factor in this one is my lack of patience. And the fact that the patterns that once came with the book, aren’t with the book anymore (the only disadvantage of buying second hand books).


It seems to be the perfect excuse to not embroider these and just look at them and dream about that day you hear yourself thinking: “Wow, such nice retro patterns, I’ve always wanted to spent a month sewing a super-retro embroidery!”

Now I think about it, that day might break earlier than expected.
The tree with the little birds at the bottom right doesn’t seem to be a very time-consuming project. If only I could get my hands on that pattern…
anyone?