Sunburst Granny Square Tutorial

Just a quick reminder that this blog is now closed and I have started a new blog called Nittybits. I dedicated one of my first posts to the very beloved Sunburst Granny Square Blanket I made a while back. You can find information about the pattern and joining of the squares here.

You can follow Nittybits through blogger, bloglovin' and facebook!

The Big Goodbye: Making a new start

First of all: happy new year everyone!!! 2013 is going to bring a wedding, and hopefully more wisdom, more love, more colour and more joy. And with that, it is time for some change...

One of the things I gave a lot of thought to this past year was this blog. For seven years I've been writing about my life, and oh how it has changed. When I started this blog I was a student, still living with her parents, dreaming of writing short stories and books. 'The Writing Tree' was meant to be a writing diary, containing inspiration for stories and funny anecdotes about my life. Then I graduated, got a job, lost the energy and time to write, and eventually got a new hobby: crafting. I started to write in English so I would be able to communicate with more people in Blogland, I taught myself to crochet, knit, sew and carving out stamps, photography became a big part of my life and graphic, interior and product design became new passions.

New year, new start, new blog
I've been wanting to make a fresh start for some time now, which is exciting, refreshing, exhilarating... and scary as hell!!! This blog contains seven years of stories, videos, photographs, comments, followers. Seven years of my life!!

But the time is right, and I am starting a new blog. To all of you who have been visiting this blog over the years: thank you for all the sweet comments and e-mails!!! And to all 98 of you (!) who are following this blog: from now on you can find me here:

http://nittybits.blogspot.com

Hope to see you there!! I'd love to hear what you think about my new blog :)

Love,
Jenny

Goodbye 2012!!

Oh 2012!! What a year you were :)

After happily leaving 2011 behind (it was not the greatest year of my life...) 2012 brought joy, pain, heartache, laughter and love. We had to say goodbye to the last of our little pet rats Polleke (the end of an era!!), there was crafting, followed by lots of pain from crafting, campfires, soaking up sunshine, redecorating parts of our home and holidays with friends.

But most of all, 2012 was the year where I learned a lot about myself and about life. I'm not done yet - who ever is? - but I'm sooooo ready for 2013!!

New year.
New start.
New adventures.

Bring it on!!! :)

Four simple goals: challenge completed!

Hey Blogland! I hope everyone had a great, cozy Christmas with lots of friends and family? I sure did! :) And with Christmas gone, I can't believe this year is almost over! Time to see if I've achieved my goals ;)

Last September I set four simple goals to achieve before the end of the year, and I am very pleased to report that I achieved them all :) These were my goals:

1. Practice my Photoshop skills

Check! :) I learned about layers, adjusting brightness, contrast and colour balance, I played around with different fonts and I even made my own actions. It was so much fun, and there is SO MUCH MORE to learn!!! I'm definitely going to keep working with Photoshop in 2013.

2. Sign up for a web design course

Again: check! ;) I signed up for a web design course where we learned to work with Adobe Dreamweaver. And although it was fun to built a website, I realized I was much more interested in the graphic and creative side of things. Colours, fonts, layout: it's all so much more fun and inspiring to me than the technical aspect of building a website. So even though actual technical web design isn't something I'm likely to pursue, this course did teach what I should invest more time in. Which is a good thing :)

3. Paint our kitchen

It took me a few full days, but our kitchen is now partly yellow. And yellow is ALWAYS good ;)

4. Finish my crochet pillow case!

This is probably the one I'm happiest with: I actually finished another crochet project :D And I am soooo very happy with the result!!

So that's it for my four simple goals of 2012! I really like the concept though, and am planning to do the same thing for 2013 :)

I wouldn't necessarily describe myself as a gloomy person or a pessimist, but I do tend to over-think things. And especially in the darkness of winter it's sometimes hard to focus on the good stuff.

So in a very 'when life gives you lemons' kind of way I try to make the best of these colds, rainy months. Like, when it just keeps raining, and raining, and raining? I buy the best rain boots EVER :)

I'm soooo happy with my brand new Hunter boots :) They look amazing, plus I forgot how much fun it is to jump in rain puddles! :D

And, of course, it can't rain forever. So when it stops...

... there's always a chance of rainbows :)

A perfect way...

... to spend a cold and wintery day :)

Next tuesday J & I will go to a midnight viewing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which of course means I have to re-read the book so I can compare book and movie every step of the way :) So Middle Earth & coffee it is for this very cold friday!!!

Winter Blues

I don't know if it's the short grey days or the crappy weather, but I have been suffering from a little Winter Blues lately. (...) And with Winter Blues I mean I've been CRANKY AS HELL!!! ;)

This is the blanket I was working on a few weeks ago. And of course, I was SOOOOO excited about the result, and about the fact that I was crafting again, I took it too far (once again...). So (once again....) no more crafting for me :( 

(This is beginning to be a lot like Groundhog Day... -_- )

Meanwhile, our home is a mess while we wait for a new sofa and chairs, the holidays are around the corner for which I am neither prepared nor in the mood, and the weather is absolutely horrible with loads of rain, rain, rain.

In short: I want to go to bed with a good book and a hot cup of tea and stay there 'till April ;)

So... I'll check back soon when I've found my happy mood, and am sitting on a brand new sofa admiring a very merry christmas tree. 

And if not: see you in April ;)