Colouring

Happy New Year!

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20151227_150522May 2016 be good to you all 🙂

I’ve been colouring my new Cat colouring book, it has really fun pictures.

I also received  one of the Kickstarter rewards that I was waiting on. It’s a book called Dry Season Only, about a trip to Botswana. A group of artists went on a two week trip there with the express purpose to get inspired and make art. The kickstarter was to raise funds for the trip and the printing of the book. The book is absolutely beautiful. Filled with travel journals from all of them with text, drawings, paintings, photographs and tutorials how some of the bigger art pieces were made. A very fine showcase of the beauty that is Africa’s wild nature.

20151228_222317Yesterday was a fun day, in so far as national-blow-shit-up day can be fun. I worked during the day so that was business as usual. In the evening we watched TV, ate tasty shit and even played a board game. At Nienke’s suggestion.

So I pulled out a game I got a while ago but had’t gotten around to playing yet. It’s a game based on Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. The game has three characters that move around the board. That board is divided in three parts.

In the first part all characters move separately without being tied to a player. That means that every player can move whichever character they want. The goal of the first part is to collect items. When the first character reaches the lake, the second part starts.

Now, all characters get on the raft and try to cross the lake. Again, each player can move the raft and the goal for the players is to collect items. When they get to the other side, the end is in sight. All they need to do is go up the lava stream and reach the exit. The players take turns and pay for the moves with the items they’ve collected. When the characters have reached the exit, the points of the remaining items are tallied. Player with the most points wins.

I got lucky with my item finds and won the game.

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Today was a work day. At work we had divided the three holidays between the six of us. I chose today. There wasn’t a lot of work to actually do so it was a nice and quiet day of working at home. Followed by a nice and quiet day of relaxing at home 😀

Merry December Gift Giving Holiday

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20151225_150117The holidays are upon us!

Nienke and I started our gift exchange on the 24th. I had gotten her a cardboard cutout of David Tennant as Doctor Who. I’d hidden it at my Parent’s and then sneaked out in the afternoon to get it. I constructed it at my parents, walked it over to our front door, placed it and rang the bell.

Nienke opened the door and it was hilarious seeing her reaction. Full of surprise and laughter.

I’d also made a felt adipose to go with it. I found a pattern online and over two or three days made this. The feet are slightly too long, but it does help him sit better.

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She gave me the blu ray of Mary Poppins, I love Mary Poppins! It’s one of my favourite musicals.

The rest of our gifts we exchanged the next day. I’d gotten Nienke a book of Ghost stories, a Supernatural mug, a small watch, guitar picks and chocolate sushi. She gave me a Supernatural book, a colouring book of cats, a box of chocolate and a Funko Pop of Anna from Frozen. She said one of the presents was still missing and that I would get that later. So I held back a present for her as well 😀

20151226_192157I love my prezzies: Anna fits perfectly with the Elsa I already have. I don’t have that many Supernatural books yet so more is always good, and the colouring book was already on my list.

The next day, Nienke was over at her parents, and my parents came over here for prezzies and dinner. I got Mom the new CD of Adele, Dad two nice animal prints and both of them some chocolate. They got me a nature documentary about the wild areas of the Netherlands, and a colouring book of the province.

We were going to eat raclette, so I pulled out the raclette set from the attic. I think the last time we used it was before I even moved out… So more than a decade at least. I plugged it in and we waited for it to get to temperature. But not two minutes later, the whole house went dark. A short.

Using my phone I made it over to the table to unplug the raclette. Then on to the cupboard to switch the circuit breakers back. When the lights were back on, I checked the raclette. It was really hot despite only being on for two minutes. It was quite obvious that the raclette was no longer safe for use.

We still needed to eat, so I piled the meats in an oven dish and placed that in the oven along with the veggies. In the end, the food was just as tasty like this. The desert was an ice cream cheese cake with caramel topping.
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City Stuff

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20151122_18024320151123_191302I’ve been colouring in my Animorphia book some more and last weekend finished this bird. The day after I made gorgeous burgers with cheddar, alfalfa, jalapeno, fried onion and American sauce. They were delicious.

Wednesday I hit the city with Mom to go shopping. We’d been talking about doing a day out like that for a while but never got around to it until now. We started at the market square and I showed her Sostrene Grene.

They’re one of my favourite stores with knick knacks and random things that change regularly. This time around I got some fabric, some stickers, some cards, a blank book, a bell jar, wood chips, some christmas puppets and a tote bag.

20151125_131550We also went to the Bristol and there I found a nice pair of ankle high shoes for only € 35,00. Since winter is coming and I need a new pair that is warmer than what I now usually wear, I snagged them up.

After the market square we made our way down the main shopping street. We took our sweet time for everything and when we got to the Hema we decided a break was in order. We had some food and I had a beautiful iced coffee.

Then, from the Hema, we stopped at Zara and I bought the sweater I left behind earlier this month when out with Gert. Except I got it in a darker colour now. When we were done there, it was time to go back home.

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The next day I had a double movie date with Gert, again. We saw The Good Dinosaur and Mockingjay, part 2.

The Good Dinosaur is a fairly standard Disney story. It takes place on a planet earth where the dinosaurs didn’t get wiped out. Main character is this dinosaur kid who’s clumsy and feels like he doesn’t fit in. His dad tries to help and sets him the task to protect their crops from vermin. The kid fails at that so he and his dad go out for some character building. Bad stuff happens, dad dies, kid feels guilty. He gets accidentally lost and needs to find his way back home. He then comes across the vermin, which is a little human boy. Except the humans aren’t very developed yet and the human kid basically acts like a dog. Together they set out to get dino kid back home.

The travel part where they try to get home is the best part of the movie. It’s funny and sometimes touching. The beginning of the movie where they give a peek into how dinosaurs run a farm is fun too. The emotional stuff is a bit heavy handed sometimes. The animation is very nice in some places, but okay in others.

Mockingjay was a very good film. As far as I can remember it’s still very close to the book. I liked how Katniss is really getting into her own and seeing through things now. I think I wanna see it again.

When I got home that night, a package was waiting for me. In it was this little statuette of Jonas. It is the final piece of my Kickstarter reward for the Wormworld Saga book 2.

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Creative Pursuits

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20151002_234514Kim got me this gorgeous colouring book for my birthday. It’s called Animorphia by Kerby Rosanes and has a lot of animal and nature things with tiny doodles in and around it. I’ve started colouring in it this week.

Nice, and relaxing. Felt tips going smoothly over the paper. Spotify on in the background, or maybe some TV that doesn’t require undivided attention. Tea at hand. Even some baklava one of those evenings. Perfect moments like that.

20151003_015037I’ve started with the interior cover pages. The right page is now done, the left one is in progress.

Earlier this week my cousin’s baby was born. Mom and I have making a fun little gift basket for the baby and the parents. As part of that, I’m making a hanger thing. But since I’m incorporating her name on the hanger thing I couldn’t start actually making it until after she was born and we knew what that name was going to be.

20151009_225855I have thin MDF shaped like birds, butterflies and hearts. I’m covering those in patterned felt. The front side gets a letter of the baby’s name and some embellishment. A bead, a charm something like that. Then I’m attaching them together so it can be hung.
At first I was going to go with a horizontal hanger, but after I had the first two shapes attached I realised they were too heavy. It wouldn’t stay without tipping over. So I will be removing the bits I need to re-use, and start anew.