A whole new blankie!

Around new-year I promised to reveal my new blanket in progress, so here she (yes, it’s a her!) is:

Or at least, parts of her :-)

A granny square blanket she will be!

More than 20 different colours, surrounded by neat, white little borders…

I’m going to try not to repeat the same square twice, so every block of colour will be unique :-)

A blanket big enough for two she will become, so many more squares are going to be made!

Again the cotton is Drops Paris, crochet hook number 4 and lots of patience :-)

And with every finished square, I'm tucking in the ends! I'm not going to finish off hundreds, thousands of little tails at once :-)

(that's what they call learning from experience...)

For the moment the counter sits at 65 blocks… And needed are around 450 squares, so my big she’s-finished-reveal won’t be for next month! But this blankie is a good on-the-run project, so she’s travelling around with me :-)

What do you think about her? Her colours, pattern, the white borders?

Love, Zjizjipke!

DIY (p)inspiration

I’ve collected some more inspirational pics from Pinterest, this time from my board DIY…







I linked the photos to their original home on the web, not always their pinned source… Sadly some pinners don’t always respect other people’s efforts and refuse to pin the original, but instead link their own sites. The Playmobil-men one took me ages to try and find the original source, but I got lost along the way… Sadly my language knowledge isn’t that good to understand Spanish websites. (So the coathanger with Playmobiltoys isn't mine, but the original owner couldn't be tracked, if anyone finds the original source, please let me know!)



But nevertheless enjoy the (p)inspiration!



love, Zjizjipke!

And the winner is…

Friday at midnight I closed up my first (of many hopefully) give-away.

I wrote down all the names on little papers and made sure no names were visible, so the innocent paw wouldn’t choose her favourite and therefore forfeit her innocence for future draws…

We shuffled around the very important bits of paper and then it was time to draw the winner of the first blogversary of ‘Zjizjipke’.

Hey! No peeking!

The Housecat picked a paper...

and it was…

CreaCuties!

Congratulations! Could you email me your address, so I can send the package your way?

Thanks to all who entered and comments are always welcome!

Love, Zjizjipke!

Empty cupboards…

Well, I’ve been a busy little housekeeper the last few days!! Been decluttering, reorganising and getting rid of stuff… Only two things remain to be tackled! The hallway cupboard, not that big of a task and… *enter drumroll here* the wardrobe! I’m really bad at throwing clothes out or, even worse, shoes…

I’m going to try and focus on the wardrobe Sunday and next week. So if I go missing, I’m staring at piles of clothes, pulling out my hair, deciding what to keep and what to toss! And now with all those great ideas about recycling old clothes, eliminating will be even worse!

Last year I also did a get-rid-of-things-tour trough the apartment, so it wasn’t that bad this time. I’m trying to keep up the ‘don’t buy stuff you don’t really really need’ routine. One step closer to a smoothly going household!

Inspiration about decluttering, buying less and living more can be found here, here, here and here (all in Dutch).

Love, Zjizjipke!

So sweet!

Me and my BFF (she’s my absolute bestest friend in the whole wide world, my shrink and partner in crime all wrapped up in one) give each other Christmas presents each year. This year she made a crochet nurse to hang onto the package I got! It’s so sweet I just have to share it with you!!

She even made her a blonde like me :–)

By the way, the background are the new sheets I got form my mother, they're so pretty and colourful, I love them! Only The Boyfriend has some reservations about the pink bits… Oh well ;-)

Love, Zjizjipke!

Give-away!!

My blog turned one on January 1!! *throws confetti in the air, singing Happy Blogday to you!*

So in its honour I’m going to make one reader very happy!! Yes, it’s give-away time!!

What is there to win?

Well, a book about crocheting amigurumis, this is the same book I found the cake pattern in. ‘Superlieve figuurtjes zelf haken’ (in English, something like ‘how to crochet super cute things’)

And this book will be accompanied by some buttons, cotton and ribbons… So it’s kind of a surprise!

How can you enter?

Leave a comment and be a follower. That’s it, easy peasy! All, also international peeps, can enter! I’ll let an innocent paw decide who wins this nice little present :-).

Give-away will close on Friday 20 January 2012 at midnight CET. Winner will be announced that Saturday or Sunday, depending on the kitty’s mood to play…

So start commenting and following! Mentioning the give-away on Twitter, your blog or Facebook is really, really nice, but not mandatory to enter. You will however receive eternal gratitude ;-)

Love, Zjizjipke!!

The give-away is closed and the winner is revealed!

Thanks!

A few weeks ago, I entered a give-away from Nicole (Nicollie.nl, a really, really, really cute blog!) to try and win some of her homemade buttons.

And yes! I won!

Then came the daunting task of choosing… Almost impossible to pick only one set, they’re all so damn pretty! After scrolling, scrolling some more, deciding, changing my mind, I finally made up my mind :-)

Yesterday I opened my mailbox and there it was! An envelope from Holland… I raced upstairs, took a picture:

and opened the package. A paper package, a little, sweet note and some cards from Nicollie.nl:

And in the paper were these buttons:

So cute!! Thank you, Nicole!!

Love, Zjizjipke!

Hello 2012!!!

Welcome all in a shiny, brand new year bursting with promises of joy, love, happiness and new opportunities!!

Whatever happened in 2011 that annoyed you or put you down, leave it behind…

A new clean slate, no room or energy for things you hate! Only do and invest in that what makes you happy!

Enjoy 2012!!

Love from Zjizjipke, Maija and The Boyfriend!

PS: A lot of new exciting posts are coming up! For my first anniversary of the blog I‘m doing a give-away later this week, a new blanket in progress will be shown and lots of other fun things are happening here, so keep posted!!