Flowers for the pretty lady

About three weeks ago it was my mom's birthday and I celebrated by staying for the weekend. We shopped at the thrift store, ate cake, barbecued in the back yard, watched silly cartoons and had a blast. We also did something we talked about doing for ages: we got my old toys from the attic and went through them. We had so much fun just digging through dolls' clothes and barbies! I used to love my barbies and I was so careful with them. They still have all of their original hairdo's, outfits and even shoes! I could even remember when I got most of them and who gave them to me.
I found a bag of barbie clothes and went through those too. I got to the Kelly stuff and had an interesting idea. What if I try some of Kelly's clothes on Alice? Most of it was too wide or too short, but the sneakers were a match and I came up with a cute outfit. The purse is original nineties fake barbie, but I kinda like it. I remember playing with that purse (it opens!) and it completes the outfit, so it came home with me :)

I think someone in the miniature world must have noticed Alice looking fabulous. This week when I walked through my street I saw a gorgeous tree blossoming in a radiant pink. I smelled it, but went on, not thinking any more about it. But yesterday there was a miniature bouquet of them on our doorstep with a little note that had Alice's name on it.

Here she is holding them. Aren't they pretty? I have no idea what they are, but they look like tiny peonies to me :)
They smell good too and they grow in little groups which makes them perfect dollhouse bouquets. I'm not sure how long they'll last, but I might try and dry them.
For now, we've put them in a vase with water and placed them in the windowsill of the stray house.

Chaplin & Crochet Costume

We were lucky yesterday! I brought some garbagebags to keep our legs dry, plus we sat under the trees. It rained for about 20 minutes and then it stopped :)
The movie was wonderful and the live music made the images come alive. I had such a blast and I hope the theatre club that organised it will do this again next year!
Here's a little collage of low quality phone pictures I took for you. In the upper left is what they called the emergency lighting lol.

As for the crochet... A classmate was asked some weeks ago to do the design for a play that a couple of history students are performing. She asked around for help and me and another girl ended up designing two dresses. One of them is a little make-do, because the assignment came very much last minute. So we decided to sew together a shirt and a skirt and that'll have to do. I can't show it to you yet, because it's not ready yet.
The second dress is for a woman who is a psychiatric patient and thinks she's gone to heaven. She puts on a dress, walks up a table and recites some monologue. My classmate and me thought of making the skirt out of crochet, but we wanted to make it a little more unique and it has to be airy. So I thought of making plarn, plastic yarn. I found a tutorial here and got to it. I've been crocheting since thursday and I'm only halfway through. Still I'm satisfied, because halfway through means aproximately 1900 stitches! That's right, 1900 stitches, all of them single crochets.

Here's the progress so far. The skirt is 110 stitches wide and will overlap at the back. As you can probably imagine, I don't think I will ever forget how to do a single crochet ever.

After the basic skirt is finished I'll make a trim of double crochets that will hold long strips of tule and plastic. Then, a couple of flowers on the bodice and maybe something for her hair. I so hope it will look like we planned and I so hope the dress fits and nothing happens to it before opening night. I guess that's just stage fright :)

Don't rain on Charlie please

I'm not always bothered by rain. In fact, it makes plants and flowers grow and I love to have my street green and blooming. But why does it have to rain right now? There is a free silent movie on the field behind my house tonight! Charlie Chaplin's The Kid with live music and an explicator, in the open air! I'm so excited, can you tell? :)

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Animated short about a toilet paper roll

I just realised I've never showed you guys this video! I started this blog to show off my creative stuff and I forget only like one of my favourite video's ever LOL.
I made this video for a project week at school. Once in a while we have a week with no classes so we can work on one big project. Such a relief, because it gives me the opportunity to dive into something really deep without distractions :)
The last time I signed up for theatrical storytelling, a class taught by Emiel Driesten, someone who graduated from the same study I'm taking. A fun guy who never taught before, but got the creative juices flowing in everyone!
The assignment was made to make you tell a story. You had to pick a daily, meaningless object or little situation (like toothpicks or turning off the alarm clock in the morning) and make it important. Elevate or enlighten something seemingly empty by adding rituals to it. My object was a roll of toilet paper.... Mind you, we had to pick the dumbest thing we could think of before we got the rest of the assignment. Then I chose a trail of rituals that has always been part of my life: those we have with pets. And then we got to pick our medium. Well that was easy, I wanted to do an animation video! Animation is one of my great loves in life :) The teacher though was a bit skiddish about having only 2.5 days left to write, draw, animate and edit an entire short. I was confident though, because if you're having fun, you don't really notice it's already midnight and you're still only halfway through editing... And I did finish in time!
So without further explanation, here is my animation video! Enjoy and let me know what you think!

P.S. The titleword 'rol' is the Dutch word for roll.
P.P.S. Turn on your sound, the music adds a lot and is not annoying, squeeky or screamy :)

Giveaway

Allright, I've given it a week and that's a long time for someone with as little patience as mine. Maybe creating something for a giveaway was too much to ask. Maybe I should have waited longer. Maybe people were just busy. Doesn't matter, I've decided to put the whole creative contest in the trash and have an old fashioned giveaway. I'm changing the theme and the rules too, but not the date.

As I said in my previous post, I'm really into crocheting lately. I've taught myself through youtube the night before my last evaluation day. I finished all my projects and had nothing left to do. That made me incredibly nervous, since I usually have to work late at night to round up the last things. So to keep mind and hands busy, I got some yarn and a crochet hook and sat behind my laptop trying to crochet. And whadayaknow?! I did it! Since then, I haven't stopped crocheting and trying out new stitches and patterns. So the prize is something crocheted :) That's all I am going to say about the prize for now; I want to keep it a surprise!

The new theme is rainbow, because I just love colors and it gives me some room to play around when making the prize. The rules are as follows:
1: you must be or become a follower of my blog
2: you can enter the giveaway until the 20th of june (which is my last evaluation day at school)
3: if you link back to this post on your blog or website, please use the button below or the one in my sidebar (it's not obligatory to mention the giveaway, but if you do I'd love to hear about it!)
4: let me know what your favourite color or color combination is
5: let me know wether or not you have one or more cats in your home (ruling your life and haunting your dreams no doubt :) )
6: answer in a comment on this post and let me know where you're from (you can enter the giveaway no matter where you live. As long as you have a mailman, you're fine!)

GOOD LUCK!

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Patriotic thoughts

I was cleaning the bathroom this morning, which is my least favourite part of housekeeping. I turn my thoughts away from the scrubbing and instead try to let my mind of the leash. I thought I'd explain this to you, otherwise you might not understand how I got from shower drain to patriottism. I sometimes contemplate about my country and it's position in the world. Holland is tiny and yet quite influential, globally speaking. In about 350 km (220 miles) you can travel from north to south and yet we're reaching 17 million inhabitants. And what a varied people we are! So many colors, shapes and sizes that don't always coexist nicely. Except for when it comes to national pride, like the World Cup or The Queen's Birthday. Then, all of a sudden, everybody looks awesome in orange LOL!
This got me thinking on what excites me about my country and what it's known for. Most people think of the Dutch drug tolerance, tulips and wooden clogs. But please please realize that there is so much more to The Netherlands. We don't all use drugs and we certainly don't all wear clogs (seriously, I once met a girl who didn't believe I was Dutch because I was wearing shoes and spoke English!). We DO however all ride bikes and eat strange food. Licorice, hagelslag, kibbeling, stroopwafels (caramel filled thin waffles) and beer with foam really rock our boats, silly though they may seem to others.
Then I got to thinking about other countries and what they are (in)famous for, especially the USA. Before I started blogging I didn't know much about the States, except for what I learned from tv and movies and we all know those are deceitful. Since I started following blogs, I've gotten to know America in another way. Of course, I've never been there and haven't studied anything America-related, but still I feel like I've tasted a little bit of the American Way of Life through reading blogs, because they are written by real people and are about their daily lives and loves. And guess what? I've decided I want to visit the States, once I get the chance. The chance may be far away though, since I'm a student and travelling across the Atlantic is not cheap. Well, one can dream right?