Limited Edition

I sincerely think our local Ikea branch has a stock problem. The staff denies with a smile; but where are the nice pillow cases, napkins, and gadgets in bright fashionable colors? The only thing they have a load of are Samla storage boxes, they are exposed at every corner.

The ‘Limited Edition’ version of the Billy bookcase –the one with the turquoise inside and white outside- that I had in mind for the boys bedroom seems to be sold out.

Out of sheer necessity I bought the normal white version. Back home we made our proper ‘limited edition’.

The bookcase was temporary assembled to mark the height of every shelf. Consequently the fabric was cut to size and glued to the back of the cabinet with some homemade modpodge (I just mixed white school glue with water). Our homemade Billy bookcase!

I do not like the idea of fabric and glue; because if you do not like your project after gluing it all together you cannot recycle the fabric anymore. Nevertheless in this case necessity knows the law.

Luckily the boys, myself and even our dinosaurs are happy with the result …

Double winner

This weekend we won the last tournament of the 2012-2013 rugby season. The Dubai Hurricanes got the first place after five blood-curdling games.

As a souvenir: I got two medals! The blue medal makes me feel like a champion every morning when I look in the mirror.

Elisanna reforms me

Although lately it seems to fly bags at our blog, I am not a real big fan of bags. I use the same handbag since three years. Nevertheless her blog slowly makes me change my mind. I think I do like bags, at least I like her bags!

We made a collection of bags to wrap gifts. 

Since a year, this Chinese fabric has been waiting for the perfect project. This bag is ideal for it.

The bags are not reversible as I did not find a matching fabric. The liner is made from off white Ikea cotton.

As I do have this fabric in several colors we created a bag in each of them.

Her patternand instructions are very user-friendly, even for beginners -at least if you understand Dutch.

Some nostalgia for Ghent

Our yearly holiday in Belgium is still a couple of months ahead of us. Nevertheless we are starting to look forward in seeing friends and family, to play with our cousins and to shop in Ghent.

Last summer I discovered cheesecake in two different places (Julie's House and Barista) in my favorite town and although cheesecake is not a local specialty it reminds me of Ghent as I ate it there the first time. 

Since September I planned to bake a homemade cheesecake and finally I found a good recipe:

CHEESECAKE

Ingredients

200g of Lotus Speculoos

500g of Philadelphia

4 eggs

50g of butter (and some extra for the mould)

20cl of cream

120g of caster sugar

2 soup spoons of flour

Juice of 1 lemon

Preparation

Butter the springform pan. Put the cookies in a zip lock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Melt the butter in the microwave oven and mix the crushed cookies in the butter. Put this mixture in the baking tin and press firm. Place this in the fridge while you make the filler.

Squeeze the lemon and put the juice together with the philadelphia cheese in the kitchen robot. Mix properly till you do not see any more lumps, consequently add the cream, the eggs, the sugar, and the flour then stir in well.

Pour this mixture over the cookie base. Put the cheesecake in a preheated oven at 150°C during 50 to 60 minutes.

This weekend we were very lucky as we attended a performance of a singer songwriter of Ghent who performs in our local dialect. The day after, we were hoarse but had great memories. Thanks Mr Kurt to make us feel like home.

Gymnastics outfit: part 3

This is the third and –currently- last part in our series about gymnastics outfits. Our youngest gymnast requested pink, flowers and butterflies. She got a salmon costume, made of soft and  elastique nicky velvet, decorated with purple butterflies.

Inspired by her elder sister’s tricks, she wanted to show off her abilities. Aerial skills, is aiming too high but she is almost capable to perform a bridge and a split.

Her second outfit is made out of neon pink swimming costume fabric, and is decorated with blue flowers.

The girls tried to make a bridge over each other,...

… but split together seemed to be the easier and safer option!

Gymnastics outfit: part 2

Internet let us down again so it took us a while to post the gymnastics outfit, but here we go....

Louka asked for a gymnastics costume with a dragon, or … maybe she preferred stars, but then again flowers can be nice as well, …? A difficult decision; so we decided to make a series of costumes and so avoid deciding.

All three the outfits went down well with Louka en she enjoyed even more than usual while taking the shots for the blog. We both show a preference for the pictures taken at ‘aerial skills’ training.

As proud as punch and with a big smile she shows off her ‘tricks’ and off course also a little the gymnastics outfits.

The aerial skills classes take place in fantastic surroundings. The girls are performing on the satin fabric in between the paintings and sculptures in a local art gallery, ArtSawa.

This green outfit was made from swim costume fabric, we bought at Tahir. We embroidered neon pink flowers to decorate the outfit.

The outfit with the fire-breathing dragon …

And finally her absolute favorite: The stars! The color combination makes it look like we want to advertise for America en that was not the purpose, but Louka doesn’t care a toss and cheerfully swings around with it.

I designed the pattern based on the shape of her swim costume and some old gymnastics costumes. The nicky velvet fabric was less rigid than the swim costume fabric so the pattern was cut a little larger when using the swim costume fabric.

Exhausted after class. 

The outfits we made for Jade will be presented later. I do not inform you in advance when, as internet is not as reliable at the moment as I wish for.