Lovely blog award

This morning I opened my mailbox to find a

surprising message that said:

'You've won the lovely blog award!'.

It was given to me by Miseducated,

who's blog I didn't know yet, to be honest.

I am surprised I didn't know it though, it's

fabulously cute and has whimsy written all over it :)!

And there my name was, right in between almost all the

blogs I love the most! I'm so honoured that I'm in a

lovely blogs list together with amongst others Pugly Pixel

and Gnome-N-Birdy!

So ladies and Gentleman, here it is...

My first international award ^_^ !

Isn't it pretty?

As acceptance of this award,

the following criteria should be met:

~ Accept the award, post it on your blog together with

the name of the person who has granted the award and his

or her blog link.

~ Pass the award to 15 other lovely blogs.

~ Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they

have been chosen for this award.

I thought about how I want to pass on this award,

usually I take the same blogs with every award.

But this time I want to do it different.

I'm going to award the blogs, who's design I

find amazing and pretty. Blogs that are different

from others, blogs from what you can see have

been really played with and have been a lot of

work :). A blog gets already so much better when

it has a good design :)!

So here they come...

1. MiniToko

2. IttyBittyBirdy

3. Splendid

4. Little Z Handmade

5. Seabird

6. Skunkboy Creatures

7. Make something happy

8. Katie Cupcake

9. Jennfunique

10. Cutify my world

11. Essies handcraft cuteness

12. Ismoyo

13. Berrysprite

14. Miss makes a lot

15. Tizzalicious

And now that the award has entered the Netherlands,

I'm sure it will find it's way to all my other

favourite blogs as well :)!

Love,

Nikki

Summer, Friends and Fun!

I had a lovely day yesterday.

I woke up with one thing on my mind;

I have a Nikon! We truly are inseparable ;).

Me and some friends were going to the park,

to enjoy the sun and eat and laugh and swim!

But first, I baked some cupcakes to take with me!

And I tried doing a little self portret :)

After that I went to my friend Lies, we baked

a cake for our sweet girly 'Cherry', who had some

disappointments over the last couple of weeks...

We love you sweety!

The sunbathing and chilling began...

And the pie was yummy :)!

We noticed a tiny difference between my legs (white)

and Lucia's legs (brown) :p

We were all very happy to see our friend Maarie again!

She spend the last year studying in England, and we really

missed her! Maarie was also very happy :)

There was love...

And Lies gave me her sweetest look <3

Robin smoked a sigar

Dogs were being cuddled <3

And I learned that some dogs run so fast..they fly!

My bike was enjoying herself too

We stayed out till after dark, and I did some

experimenting with the moonlight and shutter time :)

It's summer...

I love it!

Love,

Nikki

Nikki ♥ Nikon

This and that :)

Hi guys!

Sorry I haven't blogged much this week :(

Blogging for me, in my head, goes strictly

together with pretty pictures, but since

I don't have pretty pictures I didn't feel

like blogging...Oh I know it's silly.

But speaking of pretty pictures, I'm finally

ready to buy my first digital SLR camera!

There were a couple of camera's in the race

and my budget doesn't leave me lot of choices...

But... I'm very content with my final decision.

So tomorrow...

I'm going to get....

The Nikon D3000!

I'm so exited! And I just can't hide it!

I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!

I know nothing yet about how to handle an SLR so I'll

probably need lot's of practice, but hopefully you

can all view my pretty pictures soon :)!

I need to tell you about the marvellous day I had today!

I went to see Pâmela from Feito Com Amor!

I travelled to her pretty home in 'Brabant' a different

province than I live in, yet only 40 minutes travelling :).

Besides chatting about lot's of stuff she gave me wonderful

marketing advice, and I helped her out with some photoshop

difficulties :). I had such a great time :D!

a few swaps have been completed again,

I received a lot of cute goodies which I will

show you pictures of later. Do you know Cheburashka

(also known as Topple in earlier English translations)?

It's a funny little children's literature cartoon creature

with a really cute face!

My bookmark swap partner 'Minke' adores him so I

transformed him in to a felt bookmark :).

This is the result:

And last but not least...

My hair is really red again ^_^ !

Love,

Nikki

Happy Father's Day

♥ ♥ ♥

♥ ♥ ♥

Minitoko

Kitschy Digitals

Jade green & Turquoise

I love this colour combination :)!

I adore the deer ring...

Remember the package I was following

through UPS tracking?

Tadaaa! It's the deer ring!

Love,

Nikki

Deer girl is home

She's here! My customized ADG Aztek Arrival!

Unrecognisable, and so gorgeous! Thank you

for making her so pretty Jodie!

Her antlers are made by Renee, also many thanks :)!

I'm still practising making my own dresses,

but for the 'photoshoot' I wanted a prefect one :)

made by Heavenly Blythe who makes such cute dresses!

These eye chips are handpainted by Jodie herself!

As are these:

Pretty gold ones!

I'm really happy with the way she turned out!

Now all she needs is a name, I can't keep calling

her deer girl right? I do think her name should have

something to do with a deer...I'm going to have to

think about it :).

Love,

Nikki

Weekly blogposts?

I would really love to do weekly blogposts like

'flickr favourites' or 'my day in pictures'.

It would be nice to create some structure in my

blog and it's a bit of a challenge for myself to

keep it up. I just don't know yet what kind of

weekly posts fit me...

Do you guys have tips and ideas?

Personally, I really like what Mamutopia does;

'weekly happy stats' a short post on things that

made her happy during the week.

It makes you respect the little happy moments

in life don't you think?

This week I gave it a try to write it down when

something made me happy;

~ My dad waking me by phone

~ A fresh Flow magazine in my mailbox

~ A sudden rain shower on a warm day

~ Eating a delicious sauerkraut - pineapple casserole

I even took a picture of it :)

~ Reading all my favourite blogs

~ Music from Jenny Lane:

~ Following a package with UPS tracking, seriously

it went from Pittsburgh to New Stanton to Columbus

to Louisville and now it's in Cologne waiting to

get on a plain the Netherlands I guess :).

I'm not going to tell what it is yet ;).

~ And last but not least, having my balcony

made kitty-proof :).

Tips and ideas about weekly blog post are welcome :D!

Love,

Nikki

Happy Kitties vs Retro Camera

So, my kitties have their kitty proof balcony!

They almost spend the entire day outside :),

catching bugs, eating them, rubbing their stinky

paws through my just seeded earth. But I'm happy

to see them so happy :D!

I found a retro camera app for my pink htc hero phone!

It's quite cute don't you think?

I embellished the pictures with some kitschy digitals

goodies.

But the frame on the pictures belongs to the application.

The app was also free by the way, so if you have android

on your phone, just seek 'retro camera' in the market section :)!

My shy kitty, Moby, hasn't gone out much yet, only

to take a little peek before hurrying inside again.

Poor thing. She'll come around I guess :).

On that note, enjoy your saturday night and

sunday!

Love,

Nikki

Here kitty kitty!

I spend last evening/night filling the shop

with new items :)!

Not everything is on it yet, it takes a lot of

work taking all the pictures, editing and

putting them online...:)

But I'll keep on working on it today, so it

should be all filled up soon \(^.^)/

I hope you like it :)!

I also need to clean out my balcony today,

hubby and his dad are going to put wire/gauze

(don't know the exact term in English) in the

open areas so that our kitties don't jump down :),

and believe me, they will!

With the weather becoming warmer and warmer it

would be nice to just be able to leave the balcony

door open without watching/rescuing the cats every

second :)! Especially Frutsel, she is such a rebel

looking for adventure.

I hope you all have a nice day :D!

Love,

Nikki

Pincushion Swap

Another cute swap is completed :)!

The pincushion swap!

I made my first pincushion, for Kim, who

also happens to have a really cute blog.

This is what I made for her:

And of course I was richly spoiled too!

Because will you look at what I received:

Amazing right? It fits so well in my craftroom!

It was made by Bouwiena from 'zo mooi zo hip'.

Thank you so much ;)!

Yesterday was Chelsea Ann's birthday. You may know

her from Ittybittybirdy? Anyway, she is so sweet and

inspiring, and the one who got me digital scrapping :)!

So I made a lil scrap page for her:

Made of course with her own digikits, wich are so cute!

Well I guess that's all for this late night post ;)!

Love,

Nikki

How was Crafty Gardens?

It was...Okay!

I have mixed feelings about it, because

overall I had a fun day together with Pām

from feito com amor {we shared a stand}.

But the sales weren't really superb :(.

I'm always aiming for young and trendy folk,

but they were no where to be found. Instead there

were lot's of old people, who were cute, but not

really my target! I did sell a little bit to their

grandchildren though, but not nearly enough to cover

the stand and travel money. But as I said, I still

had fun!

Picture by Pāmela.

The good news is, that I can now start filling my

webshop again, and surprisingly I didn't sell a single

Kate Garey softie, so they'll all be online soon :D!

How was your weekend?

Love,

Nikki

Crafty Gardens

And, plans for the weekend already?

If not, and if you live in the Netherlands, or

are currently visiting; I know what you should do!

You should come to Eindhoven, to 'Crafty Gardens'!

Why? Well, for one of course because I will be there :D!

But also because of all the other cute stands, there

will be loooooooads of crafty girls!

Here is the flyer with the details:

I would be delighted to see you there :)!

Love,

Nikki

Be Sweet

I love the dress I'm wearing here,

I think it was my birthday; turning 3 years old.

I used:

~ Minitoko

~ Ittybittybirdy

~ Pugly Pixel

~ Gunhild Storeide

Caroline van Pelt

Hi Everyone!

It's June already! And you know what?

This is my 100th post! Whoopee!

Here in the Netherlands the sun has finally

came through, so we are all enjoying the lovely

weather. I found out a big pro about my crafty

basement; it stays deliciously cool during these

hot days!

I want to show you an illustrator I found while

browsing the web. Her name is Caroline van Pelt, she's

Dutch like me and I adore her style! She gave me permission

to show you some of her work on my blog, and if you'd like

to know more about her, you can visit her website.

Remember there is major copyright on her work so

keep your little clickity fingers off those images ;)!

So, this gal designed the most adorable deer!

{And y'all know how much I love deer right ;)?}

Soooo cute ^^

And look at this adorable version of lil' Red:

Even the big bad wolf looks like a sweet moppet ;)!

She also designs custom birth cards:

And she just finished a series of birth cards to give:

I want them all :D!

Well, I think you all get my point now,

so I'm going to end this post. Lot's of

swap presents to finish and Blythe dresses

to be made ;). If you are interested in

Caroline's work, you can contact her through

her website!

Love!

Nikki

Roller Love ♥

♥♥♥

♥♥♥

♥♥♥

♥♥♥

♥♥♥

♥♥♥

♥♥♥

♥♥♥

{Picture sources we♥it}

''With a special HEY to the Amsterdam Derby Ladies''

♥