Pink drawsting

I thought Susie ought to get something as well since Maja just "ordered" a bag from me. Sus loves to put things in little bags and carry them around, and she always pinches Maja's wee bags. So I used some more of my flea market fabric and made her a pink drawstring bag.

It wasn't easy to take a pic of the new owner... she's always sooo busy...

...So I caught her while she was stuffing her toys in her new bag.

Ok, so she finally tired of running and stuffing and stood still long enough for me to get (a good) one.

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I just want to mention there is a great give away over HERE.

Strawberries in October

It was Maja who insisted I buy the strawberry fabric at the flea market on Saturday. There was a bit of mildew on it, so I didn't really want it. But she insisted... "can't you sew me a bag of it, mum? Pleeeeeeeease?" What can you say... I guess I could just cut round the mildew... I threw it in the pile of other fabrics... And here is the bag... Tadaaa! I used one of the other flea market fabrics for the lining and pocket.
The pocket on the front is a "double" pocket, one with a zipper and one behind. Quite handy.
It has an inside pocket as well... a girl can never have too many pockets...
Maja was so eager to get her new bag, that I finished it already Sunday evening (but haven't had time to blog it before...). And here we have the new bag owner... happy as can be!

Tourists and a flea market

I just realized that we hadn't been in to see Oslo since we moved here in the beginning of August... so since Maja didn't have to go to school on Friday (they got Friday off since they had to "work" at the charity event on Thursday evening) and hubby was off work on Friday as well, we decided to spend the day as tourists... in Oslo!

So, of course, we had to do all the touristy things like: - take photos in front of pretty fountains,
-Take a picture in front of the Opera house, and walk onto the roof of same house
- lie down and enjoy the sunshine
- take photo with the guard in front of the King's castle

Well, enough of the touristy things... When we took Susie out for a walk in her push chair to get her to sleep on Saturday, we came by a flea market.... Heheyyy.... In we strode to see if we could do a bargain... It's been years, and I mean years (probably a decade or two), since I went to a proper Norwegian flea market. I was a bit apprehensive, bringing this stack of fabric to the lady behind the desk... thinking this will be a fortune (everything is expensive here), but boy was I wrong... Happy happy joy joy... I paid next to nothing for this... Some of the bits are quite small but a couple of these fabrics were huge!
I also found these wall hangers that I'm sure I can use for something.
I've already found use for the blue one. I cross stitched this dream catcher... ehhh... (blush)... five years ago, and I still haven't hung it on the wall. I didn't have a wall hanger for it... All it needs now is some interfacing on the back and it's ready to hang.
Just a detail of the dream catcher. I used beads and metallic thread for effect on it. I can't wait to hang it in my bedroom...

Carrots and mice

I've been baking today. Maja's school was arranging a night for collecting money for this years tv charity event, and everyone was asked to make a cake. I decided on Maja's favourite... carrot cake.
P1 was responsible for selling the things the pupils had made. There was lots of things to choose from... decorated boxes, mints, jam, felted apples... P1 had made mice with a peg inside (for hanging notes...) so I had to have one of those. I bought the one Maja'd made.

Here we have Maja (and her teacher) in action... I think she took great pleasure in "working" in the shop...

Over and done with...

Today I feel a bit... I don't know, not empty but... dunno... I didn't really know what to fill my day with (even though I still have boxes from the move to unpack). I guess the planning and making things for the market has taken a lot more time and energy than I thought... And now it's all over.

We had a beautiful day at Bortelid on Saturday. The weather gods were on our side and there were plenty of visitors.

Here my mum is getting our stall ready. Her rugs are on display, we only have to arrange the table...
The table is finally set up and ready for customers.
We were lucky with the weather. Nice and sunny and not too cold. It was a bit windy though, so I'm glad we had a tent. There were plenty of visitors to the market as well.
My mum in action...

The sale went fairly well. It could, of course, have been better (couldn't it always...??). At least I didn't lose any money on this, and my sales covered the petrol money for getting there.... and I'm happy with that. We met a lot of really nice people and I hope to be able to do this again sometime. (There are more photos over on my mum's blog)

And over to something totally different: Maja has finally lost her first tooth!! Hoorayyy!!!

Ready for the market

I'm almost ready for the market at Bortelid this Saturday. I'm putting price tags and my card on all the things at the moment. Just thought I'd show you some of the things I've been working on lately and will be selling at the marked.

Here are my egg warmer hens... Aren't they cute?? Well I think so, and I hope someone else does too, or else I'll be able to have one heck of an egg party afterwards...!

I've also made three angels. Christmas angels or all year round angels?? That's up to the buyer. These are my own design. I got inspiration for these from different places, but I made the pattern for them myself (couldn't find a pattern I liked.... I loaned the pattern for the wings from a "Tilda" book though)

Toilet bags and make up purses in different sizes and designs. Most of them I didn't use a pattern for, but the pattern for the two box bags in the lower right corner I kindly got from Elna W. Næss.
The colours are more true on this picture...

Travel Tissue Holders...
And some hearts to hang...
I've also done some crocheting. Old fashioned pot holders.
And knitting. Dishcloths. I used the ballband pattern for these.
(I think maybe the colours got a bit rich on this one...)
Knitted woolly socks... will keep your feet warm. I only made one of those though...
I also have a few things more, but I think I've showed them before, so I'll leave them for now.

I'm very excited about this whole market thing. I've never done anything like this before. Hope someone wants to buy something.... that would make me happy. And if not... I've sure had a good time planning and making all this.

I'm back, I'm back!!

I'm just popping in to tell you all that I'm finally back online. One should think we'd moved to a third world country when it comes to telephone and broadband... we've been in the new house since 1st August and we got broadband only a couple of days ago... Don't know what took so long.

Anyway.... At the moment I'm trying to sort out my 600+ emails and I've got a lot of catching up to do, so this won't be a long piece... Just thought I'd let you know that I'm still here.

The move to Norway went well, and as you all know we spent a few weeks at my parent's house while waiting for this place. We're now almost settled in our new place... just a few more boxes to go. I'm running out of places to put everything though, so I'm not quite sure what to do with the last boxes. I've kind of just put them to one side and decided to deal with them later. And by later I mean after the autumn market at Bortelid on Saturday (11th Oct). My mum and I will have a stall there, selling (hopefully...!) things we've made.

Trying to make things to sell in between moving house and staying with parents hasn't been easy. I've been sneaking off sewing 2 minutes here and 2 minutes there while unpacking, cleaning, playing with my kids, bringing and picking Maja up from school and trying to find all my "sewing accessories" and fabric... but I'm getting there. I don't have any pictures of what I've made yet, but I promise to show you later.

Today I've been baking a cake for Maja to bring to school tomorrow. It'll be her 6th birthday!! We won't have a birthday party for her this year since we don't really know anyone here yet, but we'll make the most of it and go out somewhere for a meal (probably pizza...) and take her to see a film at the cinema on Tuesday.

Summer holiday- at last...

Long time, no see... but now I'm finally in Norway! At my parent's at the moment. Our new place won't be ready until August. I just thought I'd show you a picture of how we've lived the last few weeks... nice, ehh??
Moving house is just too much stress... We've still got a few suitcases in our house in Scotland that I couldn't bring on the plane, so we'll have to go back sometime soon to pick them up.

Before we left for Norway our friends Audrey and James made us a lovely farewell- party. They made great food, and we had lots of fun. They'd decorated a wall in their kitchen with pictures and a beautiful homemade farewell sign. Here we are, the whole family ready to move on....Audrey was such a good help for me the last few weeks, inviting us for dinner (more than once), lending me a travel cot so Susie had somewhere to sleep, popping in for a coffee and a chat (to keep me sane from all the packing...) and of course throwing this lovely party. Thanks Audrey!

We arrived in Norway just in time to catch the last strawberries... yum yum... We spent the beginning of this week up at my parent's cabin at Bortelid. There was a great surprise waiting for us there... new swings for Maja and Susie. They were both sooo thrilled!
We spent four lovely days at the cabin, relaxing, reading, eating and as you can see from the picture, we even did some knitting... (well... one of the persons in this photo didn't knit for real, just borrowed my knitting for the sake of the photo... but it looks quite cosy, don't you think?)
We might go back to the cabin again next week. I must admit it was really good to have time to just sit and do nothing for a wee while...

I'll show you pictures of my knitting soon... I just haven't got round to take photos yet.

Another giveaway...

Head over here for a chance to win a great tidy bin. You have until saturday.

Oh... I just love giveaways... I never win anything, but it's still quite exciting.

Awarded and tagged...

I got this award from Lappequri about three weeks ago... My very first award!! Thank you sooo much. It means a lot to me! I'm sorry I haven't blogged it before, but in all the stress of packing up my house and not having my computer (where I made a note to remember to blog about it..) it just kind of slipped my mind...


I guess I have to send it on...

First of all I'd like to send it to my mum. I think she was so brave to start her own blog when she didn't really know that much about internet or computers or anything... well done mum. Keep up the good work!

I would also like to send it to... uhhhmmm... I can't think of any just now that hasn't got this award... It's been around for a while now...


I've also been tagged. This must be about three weeks ago as well... It was Ruth who tagged me, and now I have to write a whole alphabet about myself...

A-Always happy
B- Bilingual
C- Crafty
D- Daughter
E- Eight divided by two= 4 cups of coffee a day...
F- Fair
G- Good friend
H- Honest
I- Iron.... never!! (only when I'm sewing...)
J- Joker
K- Knitter
L- Loving
M- Mother
N- Norwegian
O- Optimistic
P- Pilot's wife
Q- Quilter
R- Renting a house soon
S- Sing a lot
T- Tonje...
U- Useless when it comes to finding a word that starts with "u"
V- Very useless when it comes to finding a word that starts with "v"
W- Wine lover
X- X-mas presents... love them!
Y- Yippeee... almost done!
Z- Zzzzleepy...
Do I have to do the three extra letters in the norwegian alphabet since I'm norwegian...??
Æ- Ærlig
Ø- Øredøvende stille...!? dvs flink til å bråke når jeg skal være stille...
Å- Å, så vanskelig dette var!

I would like to pass this challenge on to:

Emily

Eileen

Anne Marie

Giveaway...

I just thought I'd let you all know about this giveaway... I know it's a bit late, but I didn't know about it until now... and I get an extra entry in the giveaway if I link back to it.

I've never won any of the giveaways I've entered, so I'll do anything to up my chances... lol...

It's all gone....

...well... not all, but most of our belongings are now gone on a journey to Norway. We were up till 2.15 last night packing boxes and loading them into the van we'd rented. The trouble we had renting the van is a completely different story... let's just say it wasn't as easy as one would have liked...

The last week has just been crazy... packing, packing, packing and... some more packing. Hubby left with the van early this morning, so today the house is a complete mess, all the stuff we couldn't fit in the van is just sitting on the floor, bits of cardboard boxes and tape everywhere... I'm not sure what we will do with the rest of our stuff... maybe try to sell some. I've still got the sofas, telly (with no aerial...), all our chests of drawers, bedside tables, bikes and a few other bits and bobs here. The computer is gone though, so this is written on an old laptop. I don't have any photos on the laptop, and I don't have any way to get my photos from the camera onto the laptop, so I guess the next few posts will be photoless...

I still haven't decided when I will take the girls with me and go to Norway. The place we're going to rent isn't free until August. I'm planning to go before that though. We'll just stay with my parents for a wee while... the girls will love that.

Moving is just too stressful.... and the worst part is that we're just going to rent for a year or so (while we look for something to buy) and then... we will have to move again... urgh...

Yesterday was Maja's last day at school by the way... It was a bit sad leaving... both the school, which we are very pleased with, and her friends. Especially her friends... I wonder what the Norwegian school will be like?? I don't suppose they do long days (9 - 3.20) like here... so that will be a big change having Maja home more. And no uniform! Will she still get lots of homework? Will she get bored since she has to start first grade again (they start school when they are 6 in Norway, and here they start before they're 5)? Questions, questions... I guess I should stop worrying about the school stuff... I'm sure it will work out fine as soon as we get used to it... but I do worry still....

To Switzerland and back

Last weekend I was in Switzerland with my family, to attend Pirmin and Angelas wedding. It was a beautiful wedding in a beautiful old church set in even more beauiful surroundings. Even the place cards were beautiful... decorated cookies... wow!
We didn't understand much of anything anyone said in their speeches (or in the church)... If they only had spoken "normal" german instead of "Käse Deutsch" (as my hubby calls it...) we might have stood a chance... but it didn't really matter because all the people at our table during dinner spoke english very well and we all had lots of fun.


The girls had a ball of a time. Maja was so lucky as to be allowed to hold the brides bouquet at the party... she was sooo thrilled... and they both loved the table decorations as it was big bowls filled with water, candles and rose petals... why are children always so attracted to water??


This was just a short trip, going there on Friday and coming back on Monday. But we had a great time, we even managed to squeeze in a short hike up in the mountains behind the hotel.

As for the present... the place mats... I only managed to get four of them done in time. I was up past midnight two days in a row sewing, but... I really struggled with the quilting (the thread kept breaking), so things took much longer than expected. I will finish the last two asap, and send them in the post though...
I just had to add this photo of Susie...