moving -> come visit me!

I'm on a journey ... Not a real, physical one.

But, I'm doing something new. And I needed a new "home" for all of the good stuff.

www.marianenita.com

is my new blog. Please come visit me :-)

Baby clothes + fabric paint = cute gift

This makes a cute and customizable gift for a baby.



You need:
Plastic sheet or plastic pocket (or use freezer paper if you prefer)
Tape
Fabric paint
Pen
Scissors or knife
Iron
Sponge and/or paint brush
Baby clothes (begin with washing them)



Draw a picture (or find one on the internet + print it) and tranfer it to the plastic sheet with a pen. Cut it out with your scissors (I often use sharp nail scissors or embroidery scissors) and tape it to the fabric. I recommend putting an old newspaper (or similar) inside, to prevent the fabric paint from "bleeding" through.

Use a sponge and/or paint brush to apply the paint. After a little while you can remove the stencil (and if you want to you can rinse it under warm water to remove the paint and then use it again with other colors). Let it dry for a day (or according to the manufacturers instructions) and then iron it.

Ready to use, or give away :)

On a rainy day :: Spring arrives

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard a familiar sound, yet it took me a while before I realised what it was: rain. We've had an extremely long winter and not until now spring is, slowly, arriving.



Those past few days the weather has changed every day. From sunny to very windy to rainy. The snow is melting, the streets are cleaned up, and we see spring flowers in bloom. There's still ice on the lake, but only the birds walk there now.

Today I have to leave the lights on. Outside are dark clouds and heavy rain. Annabel is asleep and I've had a chokladboll (chocolate ball) that Nora made yesterday evening and a cup of tea. During my pregnancy I hated tea (still I missed it), but now I drink several cups a day of different kinds of tea ;-)

Days like this one are cosy and nice in a certain way. I feel I don't really have to do anything; I can let myself just be. I read a bit, email with a friend, and feel sleepy - and it's just okay. It's actually perfect.

How to make neater stripes when knitting

I recently learnt something new at my knitting class.



I took the class with some of the mom's of Nora's friends. Our leader, Alice, is a sweet old lady who used to teach knitting, sewing etc at schools, but is now a retiree. We met at her house (and yes, she used to treat us with tea or coffee and cake) ever second week earlier this year.

She knows so much about knitting (and, as she said, the opportunities in knitting are endless, so she's still learning new things), she's like a living knitting encyclopedia.

When class begun I had already knitted half of the first sock, the one to the left. Alice taught me how to make the stripe look better: First and last row with the new color, only knit, no purl.

Really simple, and as you see it makes a huge difference and looks much more neat.

Shared at Frontier Dreams :)

Ps. Yes, it's 1 knit, 1 purl on the left sock and 2 knit, 2 purl on the right one. I had forgotten the first one at home when beginning the second one, and didn't remember correctly ...

What we've been doing

This is what my - our - life has been like lately.

Photographing children: creating a calm background

I love to shoot pictures of my children and with newborns it's so easy (they don't run around! ;-) ). I wanted to share a few easy tips with you on how to improve your photos. Just simple things that doesn't require special equipment or skills.



I want to begin with talking about the importance of the background. As fun as it can be to see your piles of clothes, toys, furniture and cats in the background, it's most of the time disturbing your eye. A calm, simple background help us focus on the motif in the photo: the baby/child.

Do you want to know how I created this green background?

I put a blanket on our bed.

It's as simple as that :-)

You can try with different kinds of sheets, fabric, curtains, blankets etc. White is classic. Try pastels, patterns, gray, neons - It's fun, easy and inexpensive to play with backgrounds. Use what you have at home.

Don't put the baby too close to the background, as you'll see all wrinkles etc on the fabric/blanket then. I shot with f/5 to make the background even more blurry, but if you've got a more simple camera you can see if you have a portrait setting on it (use to look like a head). Focus on the eyes to make them the most sharp part of the photo - you want to draw the attention to the eyes, as that's where people naturally look when they meet someone or see a photo of a person.

This is what it looked like "behind the scenes":

My children's names

How did you choose name for your children?



Nora has been one of my favourite names for many, many years - long before I met Magnus, long before I even knew I wanted a family. I think I first fell in love with the name when I was ~10 years old and went to the theatre with my best friend to see Ibsens Et Dukkehjem (A Doll's House). Nora is the main charachter in the play.

Nora is also from a book I read and loved when I was young: Maria Gripe's "Agnes Cecilia - en sällsam historia" ("Agnes Cecilia" in English).

So when I met Magnus, I said that if we have a daughter, I want her name to be Nora. Actually, I said I want her name to be Nora Nenita. If he liked it. And he did ;)

Nenita is my middle name too, and my aunt's first name. It's spanish.



When I was pregnant with Annabel we decided Magnus was the one to choose a name. But when I mentioned Annabel, he fell in love with that name to ... and an Annabel it is. I suggested we'd take a middle name from his family, so her name is Annabel Eva - Eva from her grandma.

Annabel is a very uncommon name in Sweden, but it's not an unknown name. There's a song about Annabell Olsson that I think most of us have heard, at least when we were children. It's written by Lennart Hellsing who's written many popular Swedish songs, poems and books for children.

Here's the text, followed by a (terrible) google translation:

Annabell , Annabell,
Annabell Olsson,
hon sitter och drömmer,
när månen går opp.
Hon vandrar i trädgårn,
och luktar på blommor,
och sjunger bland liljor,
och rosendeknopp.

Annabell, Annabell,
Annabell Olsson,
hon torkar ej disken,
och bäddar som vi.
Hon väljer bland pärlor,
och trär dem på snoddar,
i siden och sammet,
hon dansar förbi.

Annabell, Annabell,
Annabell Olsson,
är inte som andra,
som bråkar och slåss.
Hon är en förtrollad,
prinsessa från sagan,
som råkat gå vilse,
och bor här bland oss.

**********

Annabell, Annabell,
Annabell Olsson
she sits and dreams,
when the moon is up.
She walks in the garden,
and smell the flowers,
and sing among the lilies,
and rose bulbs.

Annabell, Annabell,
Annabell Olsson
she does not dry the dishes,
and make the beds as we do.
She chooses among pearls,
and threading them on strings,
in silk and velvet,
she dances past.

Annabell, Annabell,
Annabell Olsson
is not like others,
who argue and fight.
She is an enchanted,
princess from the fairy tale,
who get lost,
and live here among us.

You can hear the song on youtube, here.

a girl

I've been silent and I guess you know why.

The 26th was Nora's birthday (5 years old!). We begun celebrating it the evening before, not knowing if we'd be at home on her birthday. In the morning we had cake and gave her gifts. In the evening we went to the hospital, and on the following morning (my mom's birthday, by the way), our little daugther was born.



This is Annabel, a few days old. We're so in love with her :-)

A silent week ...

One might think I'm having a baby, not updating the blog for a week.



But no. I've actually told the baby to wait a bit more. We catched a cold. I'm quite okay, but Nora has kept us awake many nights with fever and cough. She's a bit better today and slept quite well tonight.

We made bookmarks

I wanted a simple and quick craft, so I decided to make a few bookmarks. Seconds later Nora joined me: "I want to make bookmarks, too!". She made one for grandma and one for herself. I made three and sent away all of them.



It didn't take us many minutes to make them, but sometimes that's the best kind of craft.

Do you use bookmarks when reading? I often forgot to, but when I got a handmade one in August I started using it and since then there are bookmarks in about half of the books I'm reading (yes, I read many books at a time).

Keep calm craft on ... :-)