one down, two to go

it took me most of the day to figure this out. i combined two ikea fabrics from my stash and made a reversible pillow for the new lounge area in the covered terrace that husband has built this summer. i bought a pallet cushion as the base and so this is basically a cover, though i have sewn the buttons on, so i'll have to clip them off if i want to remove it. 

i spent quite a long time fiddling with the zipper. i was pleased with myself for finding a long zipper for only 10kr. in the local secondhand shop. maybe i won't bother with the zippers in the next ones since i'm sewing the buttons on. it makes quite a difference to have them there - it keeps its shape much more nicely.

i really love how the buttons look. i don't love the sawdust that i got on the brand new cushion because i couldn't resist trying it out in position and husband was still sanding the bench in preparation for painting it. 

prepped the buttons for the next two. i'm really pleased with how they turned out. and they look cool and i think they'll be quite flat and not uncomfortable to sit on them. at least these rainy weather is good for such activities. 

perlemagi!

after years of making "perleplader" with the child and never having them really hang together, i spent yesterday playing with hama beads. i saw someone doing very creative things with them a few months ago at upcomers in vejle and bought a couple of her how-to books. she calls her technique perlemagi.

her technique involves melting them much more than we ever melted them back in the day. luckily, i saved my old iron that was spitting chalky residue on all of our clothes. turns out if you turn off the steam, it's perfect for melting little plastic beads.

i went a little nuts. and couldn't stop making them. i even made husband eat smørrebrød for dinner, because i couldn't be bothered to stop and make dinner. it's kind of magical how these geometric shapes just melt like that. and how melting them this much makes them actually stick together. 

i made these as buttons for the cushions i'm making for our new outdoor lounge area. i needed 36 of them. it was fun. i could have kept going, but i restrained myself. ok, i did make a few extra, as i have to figure out how to make holes in them so i can sew them on. it was a great activity for a rainy day. 

 

when we create things and release them into the world

it was not even two months ago that the idea of blog camp was born. and already, we've held the first one, planned the second and organized an emergency we-simply-must-get-together-again blog camp 1.5 in the UK in between the first two and we have 50 followers (!!) on the blog camp blog. on top of it, sara is planning a spin-off blog camp (note: this link is just to sara's blog, not a specific post on blog camp 2.1) in the US, to be held over labor day weekend, at the same time as blog camp 2.0 in denmark. there really is a snowball effect happening.

i think it's pretty amazing to see these small bits and pieces of the thoughts and ideas which we throw out into the blogosphere being caught and made into beautiful things all around us. and the fact that there are real people behind it all, making things happen, makes me realize that we are quite far from husband's theory that the internet will take on a life of its own (he's still waiting for the internet to do that first post on his blog).

and what's interesting to me is how organic it is (hmm, maybe this proves that husband is right)...with things growing and changing in a dynamic process all the time. i had an idea about how blog camp 1.0 would be and while it was, in some ways, how i imagined it, it was also very different. because you have to factor in the people involved. and now, we're having blog camp 1.5 with five of the same people from BC1.0 plus two more and i'm really excited to see how that changes the dynamic and perhaps even the concept. because it's difficult to predict anything when there are people involved. i'm certain only that it will be fantastic, but i can't foresee in what ways.

i saw a list yesterday of potential things to do at BC 2.1 (as we've dubbed it) in reno. and it struck me that a list of activities--none of which involved pajamas or blogging--was a new incarnation of the concept. although we did see the mermaid, for those of us at BC 1.0, it was really about meeting the people behind the blogs and doing some of the things--e.g. taking pictures and drinking lots of coffee and wine--that we love to do in the blogosphere together in person.

and after my initial confusion and a bit of wondering whether i hadn't been clear on the concept (i reread and i, in fact, had been pretty clear), i took a deep breath and realized that it was all ok. because we can't really know what will happen with the things we create and we have to be prepared to release them and let them become whatever they become to others who embrace those ideas. and i realized that was actually a pretty powerful thing.

and speaking of blog camp 2.0 - there are still a couple of spots, so please do let me know if you'd like to come! it'll be a blast and well worth the trip, i promise.