Here’s again a selection from bikecap.nl , and you can visit the website for even more bike fashion items :-)
When planning to accessorize your bike in Holland you’re give the choice what to do with the rear end of your bike. One option were the biker’s bags I wrote above last month, but in case you’d rather transport people than shopping on your bike, you can equip your bike with a special cushion ;-) Once in Delft I’ve seen bride and groom cycling to their wedding, and the bride was indeed sitting on a white cushion like that! Here’s again a selection from bikecap.nl , and you can visit the website for even more bike fashion items :-)
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Meet the long-tailed tit, the smallest bird I’ve managed to catch with my camera so far. And it’s a miracle that I did! It may not qualify as the smallest European bird due to the tail, but it surely must be one of the fastest ones – when it’s flying, it looks like a big fly circling chaotically around a source of light, it’s so fast you cannot really catch its looks with your eye. The only chance to get a shot at it is when it actually sits down, but it does it rarely and usually in the middle of a dense bush… Here are the few lucky shots I got. I love the one when the tit is sitting on that single bough, one cute ball of delicate, fluffy feathers. I read somewhere that in winter they huddle together in feathery balls like this to keep warm – mega-cute! I think everyone has heard at some stage in their lives that babies are brought by a stork. The story itself might not be very creative, but the Dutch took it further than the others and created a 3D stork window decoration ;-) When I moved to the Hague, I noticed that some of the windows in the city had a "bird butt" sticking out of them, with some artificial break lines made from black tape around it. Initially, I thought it's a joke, a fun gadget of sorts - a bird landing which has gone wrong. But then it finally hit me - it was the baby-delivery stork! A window decoration people put out when a baby is born, and it turned out that it consists of two parts. The back one you put on the outside and the other which you paste to the inside of your window (as shown on photos below). Cute, fun and creative way to say to the world that your family has expanded ;-) In Dutch it's called a "3D Ooievaar," and you can buy it e.g. here. And they also come in pink and blue , for girls and boys respectively, and of course they're waterproof ;-) So yes, I am officially in the process of moving. It’s not the first time I do, and yet I always seem to forget how exhausting, exasperating, frustrating and both mentally and physically wrenching it is. I’m still not even halfway through the apartment change, and I already cannot look at piles of stuff waiting to be boxed. Fortunately yesterday was a major pivoting point – majority of our stuff got loaded on the truck and went off to the new place, all furniture included… Can you move “ creatively”? God knows… it’s difficult enough without trying to make it more complicated. But what I find helpful is looking for design ideas for the new place. And yes, I know that there’s still a lot of time between now and the moment when I can finally have a go at making the new place more homey (not to mention that this time will be spent packing, sorting, cleaning etc…), but who cares? ;-) I say, whatever works! So this time I found a great Italian designer of – among others – clocks. They are simple and modern in design, without any embellishments, and yet each and every one is based on an original design idea. I found them at diamantinidomeniconi.it. Enjoy! I am a woman, therefore I love flowers.... That’s a paradigm, I think. And the fact that in the Netherlands you can buy beautiful, fresh flowers practically all year round, choose from a vast range of creative arrangements, go for the biggest bouquet you’ve ever seen and still do not spend more than 10 EUR, is one of the biggest advantages of living in this country ;-) But the Dutch not only love their flowers, they also love all kinds of design. The flower vases come in an astounding number of shapes and sizes, often allowing to make an impressive arrangement with just a few blooms. Inspired by this I browsed the web to see what creative vases I can find out there, and this is the result of my quest. The first one is for tulips – a modern-looking, glass-and-steel vase which I think is elegant, simple and yet eye-catching. I’ve found it on this website: www.philippi.com The next one, called Bikini Vase, is a great example of how easy it is to design something fun and interesting with a slight alteration of a traditional design – if you have the right idea. This one comes from this website:www.artgallery18.com . And here are a few equally simple-yet-creative vase ideas found here. Enjoy!
Meet the “Bad Hair Day” duck – a new photo trophy in my bird photo collection. Officially it’s called the Tufted duck, but I think my name fits better ;-) It has this one tuft of feathers at the top of its head that tends to stand up when it wakes up – substitute feathers by hair, and you get a problem well known to at least 90% of the human female population ;-) While the other ducks tend to have an ADHD syndrome and keep moving around too much for a good photo, this one seems to be more stationary by inclination – but it tends to fall asleep exactly in the middle of every lake, thus without a good zoom lens, you won’t get much... An interesting challenge it is :-) A few weeks ago the Darling Market in Rijswijk held the CreaWeekend event – the fairs for all creative hobbies such as scrap booking, card making, memory boxes, decoupage, jewellery making or patchwork. For those who have a passion for one or more of these, the fairs are a fantastic place to be and even a more fantastic place to do major shopping for craft materials. Since I do enjoy the creative tinkering and the weather that weekend was (what a surprise…) not very inviting for outdoor adventures, I visited the fairs. The sheer number of gizmos which exist only for the sake of all these crafts is amazing, and the hundreds of stalls selling thousands of papers, cut-outs, flowers, rub-ons, stickers, stamps, boxes, materials, beads etc was enough to make you dizzy. Nevertheless, I did manage to enjoy it, did some sporadic shopping (always good) and took part in a very interesting workshop. There was this one stall which was slightly different than the others – the Natural (Natuurlijk) one. It was selling a range of natural materials – such as a variety of tree boughs, dry flowers and grasses – to be used to make canvas arrangements. It looked quite original, so I signed up for the workshop, and an hour later, after some very creative and pleasant tinkering, I ended up with a lovely arrangement of my own – see the result on the photos! Definitely a creative way to decorate a wall, or a great idea for a gift. Check out the shop’s website at www.natuurrlijk.nl for more inspiration. I've already showed you what you can attach to the front of your bikes - crates, baskets, etc - but this is not the end of the story for a Dutch bike. Once you have a crate fastened securely, you have to make sure that its contents stay in safely and do not get wet – it does rain quite a lot in Holland, after all. For this very purpose you need a bike crate cover – take a look below at a selection from the wide range offered by www.bikecap.nl.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me present you the newest addition to my bird photo collection – the abstract looking duck-relative called the Smew ( in Dutch it goes by a cute name of Nonnetje, and in Polish by equally cute name of Bielaczak). Small, agile, with a flamboyant tuft on its head and a black patch around the eyes, it looks a bit like a tiny dressed-up super hero! ;-) Enjoy the photos. Even creativity sometimes has limitations, I'm afraid. One year ago - exactly one year ago - was one of the most magical days of my life: my wedding day. I may have never been the kind of girl who starts planning her wedding at the age of 5, but I did get a truly perfect one. So today is the day to celebrate our first anniversary, BUT my husband is app. 1000km away from me :-( And regardless of how much you try, and how creative you are, if there's no way to be together on a day like this, it's very, very sad. I got those beautiful, huge bunch of flowers, and sent my gift too, but it's just not the same as being together - there's no creative way around it, I'm afraid. I can just say - from the bottom of my creative heart - happy anniversary, Honey, I miss you like crazy. |
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August 2012
AuthorA fiery red head, a writer and a photographer in love with beautiful design and all things creative |