Etsy Treasury

You will find this tresure here.

Thank you to Irina from Etsy shop Miracle from Threads, for including my squirrel decorations for wedding invitations in her fun treasury. Crochet is one of those things that I just cannot seem to master. After several attempts I'm not much further than a chain stitch and my crochet needle and I are definitely not friends! That's probably why I always admire anyone who is good with a crochet needle and thread.

Irina makes and sells safe and natural toys and beads for babies. Among her creations are these lovely little crochet hippo rattles, which caught my eye and are currently on sale!

Please visit Irina's shop to see more of her creations! 

Pins for Guests to Wear: Ralph and Rebekka

In my previous post I've shared the hearts that I've made for Ralph and Rebekka. Today I wanted to share a few photographs from their lovely wedding:

It was lovely to work with Rebekka. Ralph and Rebekka did a lot of DIY for their wedding, but their hard work certainly paid off and made their special day even more special. They had an idea to make a little brooch pin for every guest to wear at the wedding and Rebekka approached me to design, cut and engrave the hearts for the pins for them. They then sat down to turn every heart into a brooch for a guest to wear. I just love the end result!

What a beautiful couple! 

All the photographs in this post were taken by professional wedding photographers You Are Beloved, based in Lelystad, here in the Netherlands. "Van harte bedankt" Rebekka and Ralph, and Serah and Ruchama from You Are Beloved, for allowing me to share this amazing wedding day here on my blog!

More photos of the wedding can be seen on the You Are Beloved blog, as well as over here. 

Love is in the (ai)R

Today I thought I'll share some images of some fun wooden heart embellishments that I;ve made for the lovely Rebekka and Ralph. They've designed their wedding invitations themselves, but approached me about making little custom hearts for them.  I made hearts in two sizes: the smaller ones were used as decoration on their handmade invitations, while the slightly bigger hearts were turned into pins that guests could wear on the wedding day!

Source: Rebekka

 Next time I will share some of the lovely images from the beautiful wedding!

New in my Etsy Shop

These little deer heads are now available in my Etsy shop. They are laser-cut from a special FSC approved plywood that does not burn so dark in the cutting process that the burnt edges of the wood will mess up your paper. This makes them perfect for decorating invitations, favour boxes, napkins and so forth.  The dimensions are as follows:

Height: 50 mm

Width: 30 mm

Thickness:  approximately 3 mm

The deer embellishments will add a special touch to any nature-inspired, woodland,vintage, rustic or hipster wedding or event! You can order them here, or by e-mailing me at almostamsterdam{at!}gmail.com.

Love Actually

It's been a while, since I've been here on the blog and it is really great to be back! It's been a tough few months. I had complications during my surgery and needed much more recovery time than I expected. In fact, I am still taking things a bit slow, but I am getting back to normal, which is awesome!

To be honest I am quite sick and tired of being sick and tired, so I don't want to dwell on the last few months too much, but I do want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has been so incredibly supportive during my hospital stay and recovery at home. You guys were amazing! My friends and family made me feel loved by the way they took care of me - even when it had to be done through Skype! There was just always someone available to help me take my mind off things when I felt miserable and needed a bit of distraction from my discomfort and pain. Thank you so much to every single one of you for your patience and encouragement!

But support and encouragement did not only come from the people who know me personally. I was completely overwhelmed by the kind messages from clients and my Etsy followers from around the world. So many people that I've never met before and only know from our online interaction, took the time to write a few words of encouragement and to wish me well. It meant so much to me to know that strangers on the other side of the world cared enough to take a few minutes out of their busy lives to say hello and wish me a speedy recovery. Thank you for that!

The kindness bestowed upon me, reminded me a little of one of my favourite movies of all time: Love Actually. I'll leave you with a quote from the beginning of the movie:

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport. General opinion started to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy but it's always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from people on board were messages of hate or revenge, they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling, you'll find that love actually is all around.

Out of Circulation for a While

Just a short post today to let everyone know that I won't be around for a while, as I will be undergoing surgery in the next few days. I will require quite a bit of recovery time (6 to 8 weeks) and will therefore not be able to take on new orders for the time being. My Etsy shop is in vacation mode for a while, and will only re-open when I am well enough to take care of orders again. I am using the last few days before the scheduled surgery to finalise and ship all orders received up to 14 May 2015 and to prepare for my hospital stay.

Thank you for your understanding!

Wedding Stationery: Wouter & Dorita

Photograph by Eppel Fotografie

I was so thrilled to collaborate with the lovely, and very talented bride-to-be, Dorita, last year. Recently she has sent me a link to her wedding photos and I fell completely in love with every little detail of Wouter and Dorita's wedding. The swoon-worthy wedding was photographed by the amazing Ralf Czogallik from Eppel Photography. You can see more lovely photos and read all about it here.

Dorita was from Canada, but at the time that we met on Etsy, she was already living in the Netherlands and planning her wedding to Wouter.

Dorita wanted to make her own wedding invitations, and she asked me to help out with the paper sleeve (or pouch) that she could not make herself.. She sent me a copy of the wedding logo that she designed for the wedding stationery and I converted the image into a digital design suitable for cutting into paper. The next step was to die-cut the paper sleeves for Dorita's invitations from her paper of choice and to then laser-cut the wedding logo into each die-cut. Once all the sleeves were cut out, they were sent to Dorita for assembly. Dorita took care of the graphic design, printing and assembly of the invitations. Below is a photo of her beautiful invitations!

These are the die-cuts that I've made for Dorita, before they were assembled.

I wasn't involved in the creation of Dorita's menu's, but I wanted to share a photo anyway, as they were really pretty too!

Photographs by Eppel Fotografie

I would like to say a special thank you to Dorita. She was such a lovely person to work with! And Wouter, thank you for patiently making sure that the paper was exactly where Dorita and I needed it to be at any given time! 

Bracelet

Don't you just love this photo? A beautiful, gentle moment between a bride and a doggy ... 

 I'm the mommy of a Miniature Doberman Pincher and I am always amazed at how Jolie's little matchstick legs can carry her weight! Perhaps my appreciation for Jolie's skinny little legs is the reason why I love this photo so much! Just imagine having to carry your weigt on little legs so thin that you can wear a ring as a bracelet! And what a great way to include a close-up of the wedding rings before the wedding!

Source
Photographer

Animals and Weddings

This little fawn was the guest of honour at a beautiful inspirational shoot with a forest wedding as theme. Isn't she just amazing? 

If you are in love with the idea of a forest or woodland wedding, I suggest that you visit the blog of Calie Rose, who was responsible for the beautiful flowers. Kristina Curtis was the photographer. The whole post is worth checking out! You will find it here.

Found these photos here.

An Update

Hubby and I had a bit of a "rocky start" as far as 2015 is concerned. After taking some time off over Christmas and New Year, I was still catching up on orders, when hubby suddenly became very ill and had to undergo emergency surgery. This meant I had to take a little break from Etsy and my online world,  in order to take care of Marc. Pretty much everything came to a standstill while I was spending time with Marc in hospital, and then taking care of him at home.

I've re-opened my Etsy shop earlier this week, but with a warning that things may still take a bit longer than they usually do! After a very tough few days during which we hardly slept at all, things are slowly going better. Although my man still requires care, his health is improving every day, which means that I can dedicate a bit of time to Etsy again! I hope to be up to date with quotations, e-mails and orders by Monday.

In the mean time I would like to say a sincere thank you to everyone for their patience while waiting for me to respond to messages. Your understanding, kind words and support are much appreciated!

2015 is here!