Last Queensday

On April 30th we celebrated our last Queensday. Next year it'll be Kingsday, which will be celebrated on a different date..
Kinda weird, since I've celebrated Queensdag since I was a little girl, actually: Since I was born...

Because of the coronation of our King, there were some extra festivities on the days prior.

Joshua's daycare invited all the kinds and parents/grandparents for a High-tea.

We decorated a pictureframe, had our picture taken and ate lots of sweets...
Joshua even played with the big boys...
I got lots of compliments on Joshua's crown, which I crocheted using this tutorial I found on Pinterest.

Tradition on Queensday are thriftmarkets. In Almere these start the evening before, so I went thriftshopping with Elisabeth and Rebekka. I only went for about an hour and a half, and haven't seen 3/4 of the market, but I scored BIGtime...!

Queensday itself was spent in Harderwijk, more thirifting, with my mom and cousin this time...

Love, Caroline

Thrift Store Finds

We've been making (bi-)weekly visits to several thrift stores in the area for a while now and I have found sooooo many gems...
Half of them are already in use or put away, without taking photo's of them, but I do have some pictures from our last thrift store run...

I found a couple of Dick Bruna books, 3 in this picture, but I found more on previous visits. The book that says GROOT is a cardbord book with BIG animals. I love the whale that's in there...
I also found Sisters! by Mylo Freeman, I love her illustrations! I once followed a workshop by her...

A touch and feel book, Joshua is really into those at the moment.
A Bambino Loco pack with 2 booklets for just €1,50! In a normal store you would pay at least €25,-!
A book with fingerpaint idea's and  a tambourine.
And we also found a coat-rack for Joshua's coats and a National Geographic for Andries to read.

But the list goes on: Andries bought a marble run he saw last time. It didn't come with marbles, so he is currently in search of something that will fit...
A cute bird plate Joshua grabbed of the shelve and would let go of, Bob the Builder's Scoop and some Fisher Price toys.


Scoop is a gift for Sietse, if he doesn't have it already and activity blocks are a story in itself.
We bought one at a thriftstore near the bungalowpark we went on holidays at. We found another one at the triftstore in Almere. And ofcourse we wanted the third one too. We found a complete (damaged) set in Naarden. So we kept the non-damaged ones and the rest are on Marktplaats.
The same goes for the mini-bus...
Last but not least I found a Lego Duplo car an 2 vintage Fisher Price cars...
I've bought a lot of vintage  Fisher Price toys lately, I like them a lot better than all the newer FP stuff and they're also childhood memories for me...

I'll do a separate post on the FP soon...!

More of what I've bought lately:
- A canister for my Senseo-coffeepads
- More Dick Bruna books
- Lego Duplo Primo (figures, a caterpillar, train and building blocks)
- Wooden cars (dump truck, fire truck)
- Plant sprayer
- Ikea treasure chest
- FP boat and figure
- number puzzle I used to have when I was a kid
- Stockmar crayons
- shoes for Joshua
- sandbox figures and a watering can
- FP farm with Schleich farm animals
- a bunch of other books
- probably more, but I can't really remember

I seem to have a shopping-addiction (LOL ;-P)

Love, Caroline

Out with the old, in with the... old?

If you've read my previous post, this one might seem strange...

Yesterday was Queensday here in Holland. A national holiday with all kinds of festivities. Sort of a tradition for me, is to scour the "Vrijmarkten" (thriftmarkets) for all kinds of secondhand goodies.
Since we moved to Almere, the scouring starts the evening before Queensday, because the thriftmarkets start at 6PM here.
Queensday itself was spent in Harderwijk, where I grew up and my mom still lives.

Hubby went to Amsterdam with a friend and I hung Joshua in the ringsling for my shopping trip. He fell asleep after about an hour of looking at everything. So many new impressions...



















This is what I scored:


Almere

Harderwijk

As you can probably guess, I am veeeery happy... Especially with the storehouse in the first picture and the vintage Acitivity Centre. They were such great finds!
(Most of the books (except for the Dick Bruna ones) are for the bookcrate at work)

Now I'm of to the couch for some crocheting-time...!

Love,

Caroline

ThriftStore Finds

Last week I payed a visit to the thiftstore.
Finally I had a satisfied feeling when I left.
I'm always complaining that others find the cool stuff and when I'm there, there's nothing good...
Well, not this time!

A sugarshaker and a cafetiere for a friend.

A new suitcase for the class sleep-over bear.

A fleece vest for Joshua. Maybe add a whale on the back?

I also bought 5 kids magazines to copy from for school and a "Berenboot"-comic.


Love, Caroline

ThriftStore Finds

As I mentioned a while ago, I stille have some thriftstore finds to show...
I'm always complaining to Rebekka how I'm jealous of her finds and how I can never find anything good at the thriftstore in Almere.
But Harderwijk, where my mom lives, also has a thriftstore.
It's not as big as the one in Almere, but it's soooooo much cooler. Here everything donated ends up in the store and doesn't get sold to merchants (don't know if this is the right translation, but you probably get the idea).

But on to my finds!
I bought three vintage (?) Heineken glasses Andries didn't have, and a lot of childrens clothes. And that's where I got my gems! ! !

The had a really big table with a huge pile of summer clothes, 35cts (eurocents) a piece. It didn't look like much, but when I started rummaging around, I discovered lots of clothes with the pricetags still on them... Really expensive brandclothes, with the pricetags still on them ! ! !

I took pictures of what I bought for Joshua, but I also bought a big pile of girlsclothes, since Rebekka is having a girl... I think I got her about 15 -20 (is that right Rebekka?) items...

This is what I got Joshua:

A pair of Brubaker shoes with the tags still on.

A pair of Oilily socks and Oilily pants (With the arrows, storeprice €54,- (!!!!)), a summercoat in a horrible colour but extra is always good, and a summer short and summershorts (still waaaaaay to big, but who cares at 35cts?) Everything in this picture had the tags still on.


















These items didn't have the tags on anymore, and some of them weren't new, but I don't care, I really like them!
A sleeveless animal shirt from H&M, a striped Mexx shirt, a longsleeve with cars on them and a big city traffic Shirt (which looked like it's new).

I didn't take any pictures of the pile I got Rebekka... Sorry...
But a few of the items I bought, included:

- Villa Happ knitted vest

- Hema summerdress
- striped H&M longsleeveshirt
- Feetje dress with hearts

- shirt with tiny orange stars (don't remember the brand)
- loads more, but I can't really remember...

Sunday Recap later today...

Love,

Caroline

Busy week

I had a really busy week, with lots of crafts...First I tought myself how to crochet, but more on that tomorrow!

Wednesday I showed you I was going to see Rihanna...  Well that turned out to be a huge bummer...

Grandma came to babysit Joshua, so Andries and I could go to Arnhem.
It was really busy on the roads, with loads of small traffic jams, which was annoying, but not really a big deal, since Rihanna wouldn't start until 9PM.
We were in Arnhem quite on time, but all the parking spaces around the Gelredome were full, so we had te park elsewere, which meant a 20 minute walk to the stadium (but no parking fees).
When we finally got inside, the opening act (Calvin Harris) was just ending his performance. That was at 8.30PM, so we were on time to see Rihanna...

Well, 9 PM came... And went... 9.30 PM came.... And went... And the diva didn't start until 9.58PM.
And about the first half an hour she didn't sing much herself, but left most of the singing up to her backgroundsingers and the audience...
After those 30 minutes her voice seemed warmed up and that's when she showed what an amazing singer she really is... Eventhough she still turned the mic to the audience waaaaaaay too much....
I wasn't really too enthousiastic about the whole show, so I didn't take any pictures...
(When we came home, I read loads of rumours on Twitter that Rihanna was drunk and stoned, which would explain a lot, but makes it even worse... You're not really a serious artist of you drink and smoke weed before a concert...! The next day, these rumours were also all over the news....)

Before Andries and I went to Arnhem, my mom and I went to the thriftstores in Almere to see if they had anything good. I bought a shirt and a pair of pants at Tante Pollewop and a shirt, a Sinterklaasbook and two Heinekenglasses, at the big thriftstore. My mom also brought a vest I saw at the thriftstore in Harderwijk and didn't buy then and a really cool LiefLifestyle Wintercoat, which I bought of Marktplaats and was delivered to her house (the seller lives in the same street).

The day after the concert, my mom helped me to finish the bedspread I started on last December and picked up again in May/June.
The thing is kind of big and I don't have that big a piece of free floorspace in my house, so I couldn't lay it out completely. I sewed half of it together last week, on my own, but that took me just about the whole day. So because my mom was here anyway, I figured she could help me out...

The gorgeous pink and blue(ish), flowery, polkadotted bedspread in laying proudly on our bed now, and it's already keeping my feet nice and warm.
I can't wait for the nights to get reaaaaally cold, so we can use it over the whole bed...! Pictures of the beadspread tomorrow also...! I'm a bit lazy today and have lots to do... :-(

Love, Caroline

WW: Thriftstore Finds and Babyshopping

I went to the thriftstore in Harderwijk with my mom and found:

a (I think) HEMA Bathcape and a Boatshirt for Joshua

and a Memorygame, same as I had when I was a kid.

And I bought a scarf and a wintercap for Joshua at the Wibra

Tools and Thriftstore finds...

When I was working on my quilt, I discovered some of my sewing-tools magically disappeared... Not that thats really a bad thing, since the stuff that's missing came from a crappy, cheap box with sewing supplies.
So I thought I'd treat myself to some new tools:

I bought some patternpaper, so I could start tracing patterns from the Ottobres I borrowed from Becced. There's some really cute boy's stuff in there I really want try my hand at...

I also went to the thriftstore yesterday, looking for some baby's clothes and some other garments I could pull apart and make something else out of.

But no such luck...

I did buy these:

A book about kids-parties.

A crafting book I can use for crafting ideas for my schoolkids. And a really old and corny sewingbook from Burda... Could come in handy with the sewing basics...

Really happy with these finds...

Love,

Caroline