Problem up until now was that he doesn’t particularly like my cook books and tends to not even want to look at them. So I decided to go a different route on this gloomy, cold Friday evening; I made 2 cards for him, one containing pictures of all the ingredients we needed and the other with pictures of what we needed to do. We took the list of ingredients with us to the supermarket, picked up the ingredients we needed and headed home. Phase 1 complete.

Next, we needed to try out these cards. I wasn’t sure my drawing skills were adequate but it seemed to work alright. I was amazed to see how well he could follow a procedure on paper and how he enjoyed using the drawings. To make a long story short, because it worked so incredibly well I created a printable graphic out of the recipe for anyone to download.

I love hearing how you’ve done with them, so be sure to leave a message here.

Designing blogs, websites and logos is not my day job but I do work with the occasional client if I have some time. Recently I was lucky enough to work with Cindy from Confetti & Sparkle party shop. Cindy is going to open a webshop very soon, but check out her facebook page in the meantime.

I worked with Cindy to create first a logo based on her specifications. She was super helpful and created a Pinterest page on which she displayed all the colours and styles she likes. I generally like doing this with anyone I work with, but Cindy picked some very specific and telling images that helped me a lot in designing the look and feel.

I have really enjoyed working with Cindy and can’t wait to see where she takes her party shop. I’ve already seen some beautiful spotty straws and washi tape editions that would for sure be my first order from her shop.

Interested in working with me? Send me a message and let’s chat.
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After Germany comes a series of photos on one of my random days in Amsterdam.

Sam came across this wonderful new playground area with a pirate ship (not real- don’t worry , a huge beachy sandy area, and a massive slide.

The park close to our house is called a ‘culture park’. They house all sorts of events there like the Amsterdam Fashion Week, food tastings, retro amusement park activities, etc. There are also a number of artsy and different cafes there, one of which is Bakker Baard (literally means ‘bearded baker’).

In the same park there are some really lovely little areas with flowers to spruce the whole thing up. Can you tell I love living next to the park? It’s the perfect combination of city center living combined with enough green to run and play.

And finally, here are my 2 beauties. My little sister Nel and my little boy Eli. Nel is the most beautiful and funny girl. I’m so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

What do you love most about your neighbourhood?

Design work included creation of header, navbar, sidebar with social icons, about me, slogan, topic buttons, teacher logo, friends/sponsors space, signature box, background.

Coding work included creation of a custom blogger template, changes to the css and adding changeable settings.

I really enjoyed working on Sondra’s blog because her style is exactly like mine. I realise that when you look at the layout of my own blog you wouldn’t say that I am a modern-vintage lover, but I am. I just love the colours that Sondra picked -inspired by a vintage kitchen, I believe.
The funniest thing about this project was that at a certain point I had stared at the design so often, I had become incapable of judging whether anything new I did on it looked good at all. I just couldn’t distinguish anymore. Thankfully it was only a phase and snapped out of it pretty quickly

Has that ever happened to you on any of your designs/artwork/etc?

All you need to do is:

1. Download the free resource by clicking on the button below
2. Load the pattern into photoshop (click here if you need a more specific tutorial on this).
3. Create a shape and double-click on the layer
4. Go to the ‘ Colour Overlay’ tick box, tick the box and pick a bright colour
5. Set the mode to Colour Burn (very important!)

I hope you enjoy these. Please don’t forget to use the terms of use (basically: personal use is ok, commercial is normally ok as long as you don’t redistribute, contact me if you have any questions.)

These straws are absolutely non-sensicle but nonetheless fun to make. It’s incredibly easy to do, all you need to do is download the pack from below, print it out and start cutting. My son rather enjoyed this activity too!

You will need to unzip the file by using a free and safe programme for windows or mac - contact me if you would like me to email you the file if unzipping doesn’t work. The file comes as a PDF, meaning that you will need the free programme Adobe Reader to open it. It’s available on a lot of computers, but if you don’t have the programme click here.

If you enjoyed these resources, please consider to (but by no means feel obliged to)

We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. - John Newton

This set contains 3 different, printable cubes that can be used as cupcake boxes. There’s a black and white diagnoal striped one, a confetti one, and one with pastel dots in different sizes. All you need to do is download (from bottom of the page) the box templates and print them out. Fold the dotted lines and stick the outside labels together. Remember to leave one side unstuck so you can use it as a lid.

If you need more help on folding the cube, I suggest to check out  Papercraft’s excellent tutorial.

Please read the TOU before downloading. Download them using the button below. The file comes as a zip file for compression purposes, so you will need to use a free ‘unzip’ programme like Winzip for PC or Winzip for Mac. They are very easy to use, but if you need help with them feel free to contact me. Enjoy these free resources!

The first thing to do is to create your basic shape.

Next, we are going to create a jagged edge.

You can go for a zig-zag shape or a more torn effect.

Finally, we can add a pattern to the tape using your existing pattern library.

If you would like to create some new patterns to use on your tape, I strongly recommend the following resources to create the patterns:

• Fashionable Geometrical Shapes
• Colour lovers
• Stripe Generator
• Tartan Generator

If you enjoyed this tutorial, perhaps you might consider to

Washi tape is one of the most colourful ways of wrapping up presents and creating art work. It’s also great for using for introductions to blog posts or spicing up a photo.

Below you will find a link to download a set of 7 washi tape with different patterns:

1. Green and pink flowers
2. Green dots
3. Black/white diagonal stripes
4. Light yellow and black polka dots
5. Pink/white horizontal stripes
6. Blue gingham
7. Colourful confetti

Each tape is a 438 px x 71 pixels PNG.

Feel like creating your own digital washi tape? Click here for the super easy tutorial.

Before downloading, please read the TOU. You can download the resources by using the button below. The file comes as a zip file for compression purposes, so you will a free ‘unzip’ programme like Winzip for PC or Winzip for Mac. Enjoy these free resources!

Now, for a little image decomposition, here are the resources and inspiration I used for the intro image.

• Photo: tree outside of my house (taken by me)
• Background: stripes created using the Stripe Generator. I applied several half-tone and sketch filters and a low opacity level. 
• Font: Gaunt by Thrift and Thistle. Discovery made with help to Little Pink Strawberries. 

Here is a design I did for a nursery ‘graduation’ ceremony print invitation.

Along with the invitation I also made diplomas for all of the kids “graduating” (and even one for the head-mistress).

If you would like your own customized set of diplomas, click here to order them.

My wonderful mum is a kindergarten teacher, so when I showed her the post about the geometrical patterns she immediately thought, “borders for kiddie artwork”. Unfortunately, she is not a Photoshop wizard so instead I made her some bunting that can also be used for printable cut-outs or to liven up your blog posts or digital artwork.

There are 11 different buntings in 2 different styles. The first style is with a pattern and a stripey line, the second series comes in different colours without a line.

To download the whole pack in one zip file, click on the ‘download’ text at the very bottom of this page. I hope you enjoy them.

If you are in for an image dissection, here goes:

• Butterflies, bird and donuts by Joseph Cornell
• Speech box, cloud textures, and grass image by Pugly Pixel
• Font is Coolvetica by Ray Larabie

If you reaaaaally enjoyed this, why not

Step 1: Download your header of choice

All the different headers that I made, are available for download in one zip file. Go to the bottom of this page and click on the download link. Then, pick the header you like best and move to step 2. For your reference, the table below shows the options and file names.

Step 2: Download the header pack

You will find a download link at the bottom of this page. Click on it and you will get a file with all the headers. You will only need the folder of the header of your choice. Use the reference image to find out the file name for your header of choice.

Step 3: Edit the text

You will see that each folder contains 7 images. Image 1 is the top image on which you will write your blog/site name, images 2 – 7 are the menu items.

Open up your favourite image editing programme, add the text to the image and save under the same name. Click here if you need help with that in a free tool like Picasa.

Step 4: Save images online

Save your images online to Dropbox (this is a referral code) and get ready to collect the links for each image OR use Photobucket and get ready to collect the links for each code from there for the next step.

Step 5: Paste code into widget

Next step is to copy the code below in the download pack into an HTML widget in Blogger or WordPress.

<table id="Table_01" width="1000" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="6"><A HREF="LINK TO PAGE 1 HERE"><img src="IMAGE URL 1 HERE" alt="" width="1000" height="204" /></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><A HREF="LINK TO PAGE 1 HERE"><img src="IMAGE URL 2 HERE" alt="" width="167" height="46" /></td>

<td><A HREF="LINK TO PAGE 1 HERE"><img src="IMAGE URL 3 HERE" alt="" width="166" height="46" /></a></td>

<td><A HREF="LINK TO PAGE 1 HERE"><img src="IMAGE URL 4 HERE" alt="" width="167" height="46" /></a></td>

<td><A HREF="LINK TO PAGE 1 HERE"><img src="IMAGE URL 5 HERE" alt="" width="167" height="46" /></a></td>

<td><A HREF="LINK TO PAGE 1 HERE"><img src="IMAGE URL 6 HERE" alt="" width="166" height="46" /></a></td>

<td><A HREF="LINK TO PAGE 1 HERE"><img src="IMAGE URL 7 HERE" alt="" width="167" height="46" /></a></td>

</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Replace  the link in the IMG tag (the bit in between brackets – leave the brackets up) with a link to your image. Replace the A HREF code with the link you want the image to point to when you click on it.

And that’s all there is to it!

Step 1: Set up a file host
First thing to do is to set up an environment where you can host your files and offer them to others. I use Dropbox (up to 2GB of free hosted storage). If you want to sign-up through me click here (we’ll both get extra space if you click through that link). If that idea offends you, you can also go to Dropbox here.

Step 2: Create a terms of use document
Use a text file to add your terms of use (for an example click on any of my downloads). This document goes into every download you offer.

Step 3: Download a ZIP file
You want to create one file to download and you want to make the download time as short as possible by creating a file that is as small as possible. Make sure you have the possibility to zip your folder.

Step 4: Create a public Dropbox folder

In Dropbox you have the option to add files to a public folder. Create a new folder here, insert a copy of your terms of use and zip it. Then right-click on the zipped folder and choose ‘Copy public link‘. This will create a link to the file.

Step 5: Add a download image and link it to your file 
Create an image that you want to use for your download (you could also use some text). Go to the HTML and add the following code just before the image code:

<a href=”your dropbox link here“><img src=”your image is here“></a>

And the image and link below is what you will get. You can click on it to see the download sample for this page.

1. Intro image font: Blackout
2. Intro image background: free leather textures download