the box bag

Remember those?:

Although I´m getting a flue, should sew things for 2 current swaps and getting insane from waiting for invitation to an Accenssment Center, I finally managed to sew something using the purple fabric with the tiny golden stars and the striped one you see in the picture above.

I wanted to use both together but didn´t know for what kind of project. On the other hand I wanted to try out the tutorial, Kelly from dragon[knit]fly wrote for her box bag, in awhile too. I thought over it the last days and finally decided it would be fun and the fabrics could work for this project.

This morning I started, because our weekend trip starts on friday and I realized that I don´t have any bag to put my tootbrush into *sigh*. Buying a new toilet bag was not to be at issue, cause my pride as a DIY freak doesn´t allow me to buy things you can make yourself. And the toilet bags you can find in the ragular german shops are boring, ugly or made for visits at the hospital. nothing colorful and not ugly at the same time :(. So I used Kellys tutorial, added an inside pocket to it and worked up my left over xmas fabrics, black cotton fabric for the bottom, red ribbon and a bag named DIMPA.
OK, I used only a part of her, but for a good reason: Dimpa is made of some kind of canvas cover, which makes the bag leakproof inside.
Oh my, I don´t want to bore you ;), here are some pictures of my first selfmade toilet bag:

I think, I like it and, cause it was my first time (another ;) ) I´m a little proud of the result, too. What do you think? Should I sew more bags like this? While planing and sewing I realized, that Kellys pattern also is perfect to make a huge travel bag. I just would have to add some strap handles and perhaps a divided pocket inside. Guess what else is missing for our trip ... *grin*
So long, nanshee

I wasn´t that lazy...

The last week was full of new ideas and musings, finding new great blogs and sites about crafting and, of course, making new stuff. For an order at my DaWanda shop I made a new herbal oil, with Provençal herbs and a new designed label for it. Sadly in the picture you only see the bottle and the new label, not the oil itself, cause the order was about 200ml of oil and the bottle I used was a little oversized:





Then I made new antique-styled paper for new labels, cause I have to design and print new ones for the soaps, which will be ready and dryed the next days. For this I used sheets of plain printing paper, stron black tea, some cold coffee and a sponge. With the sponge I patchy spread the tea (the leaves inclouded) an the cold coffee all over each sheet and let it dry:







After drying I took the sheets, joggled the leaves of, held them under running water and then scrunched them up. After this I ironed each sheet. Now they look like something between old laid paper and vellum. Looks great and is an chaep and easy way to get a stock of good and sylish paper for your labels. The finished paper was used for my old labels too, so her is an older picture that shows you the effect:





I think, I´ll write a little more exact tuotrial about it over the weekend and publish it here for you.

I also tried out a new recipe for a solid body butter bar , made of coconut oil, shea butter and scented with jasmine and orchid. It smells awesome, classy and maidenly at the same time and my very dry skin seems to be deeply gratefull for this extra of fat and moisture.
Yesterday I made another herbal oil, asian styled this time, with an exotic and spicy taste of chilly, black pepper, ginger, coriander and garlic, tinted with curcuma for a dainty yellow-orange colour. Today I´ll drain it, I´m very curious, how it will taste at the end.

Next week we´ll have our first wedding aniversary, so hubby and me make plans for a little trip. I´d love to visit Amsterdam, I never was there before and it´s not so far away from here. We´d like to go by car, so my main activity at the moment is, to find a cute, not to expensive b&b or appartement, where we can stay over the weekend and park our vehicle nearby for less than 30 euros parking fee per day. Does anyone of you have a suggestion or commendation for me? We´d like to stay over the weekend, arrival is planned for friday night and check out on sunday. Your tips are very wellcome :)

You can see, I am and was quite bussy, and there´s still more to come...

so long, have a nice weekend :)