Coconut Shell Candle

The perfect way to reuse your empty coconut shells: make a candle out of them. A lovely decoration to bring a homely and comfortable atmosphere.

The only things you need are: a candle in the color of your choice, a piece of string, an empty coconut shell o of course and something to give it stability. I uses two oblong wooden buttons which I glued to the bottom of the shell.

And just to be sure: be careful with these homemade candles, never leave them unattended.

Enjoy!

Girl Meditating

Here you see a painted meditating girl which I made to try out a new brand of oil color. I kept the color usage simple to create a mystique effect.

A Book Full Of Secrets

 

From childhood I've always been fascinated with clever hiding places for precious and valuable belongings. One of these fascinations was with "hollow books" because they are very hard to recognize as they are standing in a bookcase. Now I don't think mine will be very hard to notice since I've given the books a new fantasy-style cover. But these books are just for fun of course.

I removed the innermost of the pages with a box cutter. The pages are held together with a layer of glue that I applied on the inner square using a brush.

A book full of secrets, do you need one in your bookcase?

Abstract Sculpting

 

On a rainy afternoon a friend and I explored the art of sculpting. On the photo you see two gypsum blocks that I molded a few days before. They measure about 18 x 6 x 10 cm.

 

My result of this first trial is an abstract looking figure made out of organic forms.

Warm Winter Gloves

A couple of weeks ago I crocheted a nice warm hat. Now that it's really getting cold outside, just a hat isn't enough. So, I made some warm winter gloves to with my hat.

 

I'm ready for the winter now, are you?

Joint Landscape

This is a quick painting done jointly. Jacqueline held a brush in her right hand and Jacques held one in his left. Hunched over the small canvas, it was tricky, but very fun.

Paper Making

A while ago I got interested in the making of paper by hand to achieve a "parchment look" I really like. As I learned more about the art of paper making figured out I could do this myself!

In this photo you can see the tools I used. It's all just regular kitchen supplies, except for the frames. These I made by spanning lace fabric across a stapled, wooden border.

 Blend the types and colors of paper that you'd like to use to create your new paper, with water into a mush.

This blended paper is poured into a tub we can scoop from with the frames.

Here, you can see wet paper that has been scooped up in the frame. The drying usually takes up to a day or two depending on the thickness of your paper.

The result is a unique page that looks and feels rustic.

Forged Ankh

Starting with a piece of excess I cut off earlier and had lying around, I decided to make a two-pronged skewer. Just before finishing it up, however, I changed my mind and made this, rather less functional, purely decorative ankh.

Non-flat Chessboard

 A while back, I made this chessboard. The height in the terrain adds a bit of fun, I thought. Only thing that's still missing to this day is matching homemade chess pieces.

 

Warm Winter Hat

There's no time like summer to prepare for the winter.

Today, I was crocheting a nice warm hat.

And a good looking hat is incomplete without a frizzy ball on top.

Making the frizzy ball...

Frizzy ball completed.

I'm prepared, are you?

Fire Iron, Poker & Blower

This is a handy fire iron I made on request a while back.

Individual parts were forged in the smithy and later torch welded.

Its base is made of a hollow tube, making it possible to blow into the fire at a distance through the poker.

It keeps the ashes and sparks out of your beard, sure enough.

Panel Improvisation

Today, Jacques and Jacqueline, pencil in hand, were bored. This resulted in the following idea:

Divide up a sheet into blank panels.

One starts off and draws the first panel of what will become a comic.

Either by extrapolating or interjecting, the other hilariously does the next panel.

Repeat.

  

We're telling you, it's hilarious to do.

The end result:

 

In fact, it was so hilarious, we did another one: