Recycling stationery/Papierwaren, recycled

At this time of year, I find pleasure in recycling all kinds of paper that falls into my hands while cleaning up and sorting out.



My daughter's beautiful dolphin calendar and another one, with angels, will get new lives as gift bags and matching greeting cards - and some of the Christmas cards look almost even better when decorated with punched stars, sewn sequins and beads, then glued to black or white card stock.



A pile of one-side-printed work sheets from school is chopped up and held together with a buldog paper clip to serve as a note pad - and old envelopes will be closed lengthwise and serve as seed bags later on this year.



Reading Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord's lovely blog and homepage and following her YouTube-tutorials on recycling one-side-printed paper into small books of all sorts, we will have plenty of pages to fill with thoughts, words and drawings throughout the year!

Maybe this will be the year where we all will put even more efforts in sustainability and recycling - it's important and it's inspiring: please read more on this matter at the blog 'A sustainable life', written by Elizabeth, Jude, Julochka and Rayfamily.

(German summary: Es gibt unzählige Möglichkeiten, einseitig bedrucktes Papier zu recyclen - eine davon ist, kleine Bücher daraus zu machen, wie es Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord in ihrem Blog und auf YouTube anschaulich erklärt! Notizblöcke, kleine Sackerl und Billets sind andere Optionen.

Vielleicht wird dies' das Jahr, wo wir alle nach mehr Wiederverwertung und Nachhaltigkeit streben werden ... mehr dazu auch auf diesem Blog.)

New year - new projects/Neues Jahr - neue Projekte

Ooops, and again this year is running along much faster than I thought it would ...

As I've had problems with my internet connection lately, I started the year concentrating on cleaning up and sorting out my work-space/studio - a never-ending job it seems, as I gladly allow myself to drift off the cleaning and instead start arranging the freshly found objects into some new projects ...

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I have a lot of interesting stuff there in my stash and really should dig into this before considering any further shopping adventures - does that sound familiar to you ;-)?

But of course there must be exceptions, like for haberdashery or bargain leavings and leftovers ... :-)

On Etsy, I recently found a bag of coloured fulled/felted cloth scraps for sale and thought they would be nice to combine with some wool thread embroidery on felt. Actually, I've planned to use them together with pieces of old sweaters, felted in the washing machine - and maybe some embellished/punched wool as well.

So I started with a small project - it's a cover for a wheat&lavender cushion - the type you heat up in the microwave or in the owen for comforting warmth.



About a fortnight ago, Elizabeth/Landanna wrote about her needlebooks and how dear they are to her. Her description of them was so inspiring, that I suddenly felt the urge to possess a needlebook, too ...

All materials were already there in my stash - I just had to put them together!



And while working on the cushion cover, I've simultaneously started stitching on another little needlebook, using the same materials as for the cushion ...

Guess the cleaning-up has to be postponed again!

(German summary: Beim Aufräumen fallen mir immer wieder interessante Materialien aus dem 'Fundus' zu - und ich lasse mich gerne ablenken! 'Nadelbrief' hat für mich so altmodisch und verstaubt geklungen, bis ich das Posting von Elizabeth/Landanna gelesen habe - und mir auch ganz dringend eines machen mußte ...! Der Wärmekissenbezug ist aus Walkstoffresten auf Filz - da kommen noch ein paar Stickereien hinzu.)

Fragments for the New Year/Neujahrsfragmente

A new year, and some new fragments ...

The first one, an experiment with bamboo fibers on wool, found in my stash, now embellished with cotton thread in a running stitch and some metal thread for the cross couching.



Makes me think of snow and starfilled winter nights, of Santa's beard, of longhaired reindeer winter fur and of the Northern light.

The second one, another experiment, this time with bleached linen fibers on wool cloth - now embellished with a piece of blueish organza and another metal thread:



makes me think of birch tree bark and of a hidden cobweb door, to be trespassed by fairies only ...

What fragments may this year bring, which will be brought to mind?

(German summary: Zwei neue Fragmente zum neuen Jahr; mit Bambus-Fasern und etwas Stickerei, das winterliche Assoziationen bringt - das andere mit Leinen-Fasern und ein hauchdünnes Stück Organza, eine Feen-Tür vielleicht ...)

'Tomten' - An old Swedish Christmas tale

I guess everybody's busy, just like I am, working on the last caring preparations before D-day ...

But maybe you have a couple of minutes to sit down with a cup of tea, rest your legs and ease your mind - and enjoy this old Swedish Christmas tale, inspired by a poem by Victor Rydberg, later adapted by Astrid Lindgren and illustrated by Harald Wiberg - this is an English/American version of 'Tomten':

Rock carving fragments/Viking comic

A couple of new fragments, which I would call 'Viking comics', as they show moving men and animals in action ...

Although I'm not quite sure if this first motif really is a Viking one ... With no doubth it shows reindeers, and this kind of carving is more likely to be of Sami origin - there are similar Sami pictures in the book 'People of Eight Seasons' by Ernst Manker, which I once borrowed at the Stockholm City Library. (More about the Sami people in this earlier posting.)


When visiting Sweden in spring, I went to the Historical Museum in Stockholm with my drawing pad and jotted down everything which caught my eye in this pictural respect.

At the museum shop there were some fabric prints too, and I think these sheep might be influenced by those prints ...


As far as I know, this last one is really a genuine rock carving found in the county of Bohuslän (Sweden), at Tegneby, Tanum:


The embroidery technique itself is not very spectacular - I just used the common basic ones in order to keep it as simple as possible and let the graphics of these ancient, unknown artists talk for themselves.

(My friend Elizabeth/Landanna wrote in her blog today that she'll be posting about 'helleristningar' (rock carvings) tomorrow or during the weekend - so why don't you pop over and have a look - I will for sure!)

(German summary: Drei ganz simple Fragmente, aus dem Bilderschatz der skandinavischen Geschichte - die dargestellten Tiere und Menschen, alle in Bewegung, lassen mich fast an ein Comic strip denken ...)

A little extra for the third of Advent/Kleines 3. Adventsextra

Tomorrow is the 3rd of Advent, and I guess you might be busy baking ginger bread and making Christmas decorations. Last year I made simple yet quite nice snowflakes - and this is how you make them:



What you need is a packet of basic, white pipe cleaners (available at all tobacco shops) and a wire cutter (or old pair of scissors). The pipe cleaners mostly come in a packet of 100, they're not expensive, and as you only need 4 1/2 pieces for every small snowflake and 6 pieces for the big ones, you'll get a whole bunch of them - to hang in the window or in the branches of your tree - or on the parcels or greeting cards.

For the smaller ones, you cut up five pipecleaners into half, leave three halves for the base and cut up the rest into halves again (one half or two quarters being left over for the next snowflake). For the bigger ones, you cut a third off the basic three branches and chop up the remaining two ones into thirds, no leftovers there.



There's no glueing - just twist the branches once or twice to get stability, the same goes for the small branches.

And while you're doing this, you might want to listen to Bing Crosby and David Bowie in one of my very favourite Christmas performances:





Have a nice and comfortable week-end!

(German summary: Eine kleine Adventsbastelei für den 3. Advent - Schneeflocken aus Pfeifenputzer! Und ein wunderschönes Duett von Bing Crosby und David Bowie, zur Einstimmung auf Weihnachten. Ich wünsche Euch ein schönes und geruhsames Wochenende!)

Christmas Ornament from Julochka!

This very beautiful bird sat down in my mistletoe today - it was made and sent by Julochka in Denmark. She and I both participated in the Christmas Ornament Swap organized by Elizabeth/Landanna.


And as if this would not be enough, she also gave me another handmade ornament from the Philippines, where she had been travelling lately:


Oh, I do very much enjoy this swap :-), thank you so much, Julochka! Let's persuade Elizabeth to organize another one next year, too, shall we?

(German summary: Diesen hübschen, selbstgenähten Vogel habe ich von Julochka in Dänemark bekommen, als Teilnehmerin am Weihnachtsschmuckaustausch! Sehr nett, so ein Tausch :-)!)