My swap gifts arrived in a funny cat-themed package, and inside there were a lot of carefully wrapped goodies, polka dots and ribbons included:

I was especially thrilled about one of the gifts: the Velo calendar Andreea illustrates in ccoperation with SimCute. I found out about this project while reading Andreea’s blog after we were paired for the swap, and I was thinking of buying one for myself…so this was the perfect swap item!

The calendar is perfect for my desk and every month is illustrated with a seasonal bike drawing. I love it so much! If you’re thinking of getting one for yourself or a biking friend, you can still order it here.

But that was not all! Since Andreea’s métier is illustration, I also got a hand-painted illustration with a french speaking birdie. At the moment, I am searching for the perfect frame for it and then it will go on my wall! The swap package also contained a home sweet home key charm and a very sweet & colorful matrioshka brooch that will for sure pimp my outfits:

Thank you so much Andreea for the great swap experience! If you want to see the swap goodies I made for Andreea, check out this blog post.

I love swaps! What about you?

Step one: gather your supplies. You can use oilcloth for waterproofing or regular cotton if you only want to cover an old bike seat.

Now trace the outline of your bike seat on your fabrics. You can use the bike seat as template or an old bike seat cover.

You will need 2x the bike seat outline and 2x a fabric strip long enough to fit around your bike seat of aprox. 14 cm width. I chose the polka dots oilcloth for the exterior and the blue cotton for the inside of the seat cover.

Pin the two fabric strips wrong sides together and fold them like in the picture below – leave enough room for your elastic to fit through the tunnel.

Sew closed the tunnel and wriggle the elastic through. Don’t worry about the ends for now. Now pin the two bike seats fabrics wrong sides together.

It’s time to assemble all the pieces together. Take the bike seat pieces and pin the elastic strip around the edge – starting at the back of the soon-to-be seat cover. When you’re done, it should look like in the pics below. You’ll notice that unfortunately my strap was a bit too short so it doesen’t go all the way round the “seat piece”:

All you have to do now is stitching them all together. If you’re using oilcloth it might be a good idea to do a basting stitch by hand first, since oilcloth is sometimes tricky. Afterwards you’ll just have to adjust the elastic within the strap to your needs and sew the fabric strip containing the elastic shot if needed.

Now your bike seat cover is ready to be put into action! Enjoy riding your bike and stay safe!

Last winter I joined the (almost traditional) swap of Revista Atelierul. The swap is organized and supervised by my dear friend Anca from Bo3mia and must be a lot of work, since there are always over 100 participants who all have to be coordinated. This time I was paired with Cristina (formerly behind the k i t t n brand) and got to send a package to sunny Portugal. And Crisitna remembered how I loved the “Will work for hugs”- k i t t n T-shirt, so now I have my very own – awesome polka dots included:

Thank you so much Cri! Now I can’t wait for summer to come!

The second swap was organized by Nadine (Dreierlei Liebe). I signed up very last-minute and got to send my Wichtelpaket to Linda. Linda is not a crafter, but a journalism student and also a poetry writer. You can read more about her work here. Linda’s swap gift contained – very fittingly for a writer – a lovely nostalgic notebook. But the most awesome thing in the package was the music compilation. Without knowing anything about my music taste, Linda put together a mixtape-ish CD for me and really nailed it. I knew only one of the artists featured (Carla Bruni), but the compilation is perfectly balanced and really gets to me.

And did I mention how much I like the homemade greeting card I recieved? Thank you Linda for a very unique swap  - the chocolate was delicious too

I hope you enjoy reading about swaps, because there will be another swap post in the near future: I’ve signed up for Revista Atelierul’s spring swap and am really excited to see who’s going to be my partner this time!

What about you, do you enjoy swapping or gift exchanges? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

For one of my friends I bought a set of hand-painted earrings with a matching brooch from Zuzulicea: a cat lover with a love for painting and big eyes:

Bohemian Sin Jewelry was on my gifts list this year too:

And I discovered my love for plexi with Attessoires. I loved their products so much I bought half of the items for myself :

BWE had a wonderful copper ring in the shop which was perfect for one of my friends. I loved it even more when I held it in my hand:

And last but not least, some felt brooches by Dushky. She does wonderful fekt art and I’ve been wanting some brooches by her for ever. The cute bunny was a gift, but I kept the freebie buttons and the foxy lady for myself. Dushky also has some seriously awesome gift wrapping going on:

These were my last handmade buys. Do you usually buy handmade holiday gifts (or maybe you DIY some gifts?) or do you prefer store bought items? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

If you’re not convinced yet, let me show you the content of the last two kits. The fist thing you notice when you get it in the mail is the lovely printed box:

The autumn kit was Supercraft’s second kit and all about knits & wool:

Every Supercraft kit contains detailed intructions on how to create the projects inside. Even through I learned how to knit a very long time ago, I still found the basic knitting tutorial very useful. Instructions come both in German and English:

Since the kits contain virtually all supplies needed, you don’t need to worry about anything and can start creating right away:

The winter kit was centered around embroidery: embroidered pillowcases, embroidered paper ornaments, stitches on paper for Christmas cards:

The winter kit also included some season’s cheerful printed postcards – perfect for the postcard addict that I am:

The february kit arrived already and has a lot to do with paper crafts! I’ll show you the detailed contents and also the first results in a post here soon! In the meantime, you can order your own Supercraftlab kit here (yes, you can also order past kits!) Have fun with DIY!

In this workshop we’ve been printing shapes on fabric using stencils and sponges. You can also use this technique at home, becuse it doesn’t involve any advanced tools:

You need a block medium to prevent paint leaking on the back side of your shirt or tote – a think newspaper or cardboard will do. Then you pin or tape your stencil to the fabric, soak your  sponge in paint and begin dabbing color onto the stencil. The only thing that is somewhat tricky is to keep the color from leaking under the stencil and stainign whre it shouldn’t. Since it can get a bit messy we all wore aprons and rubber gloves.

Actually the most time-consuming part was leaving the printed stuff to dry on a washing line. As you can see, most people embellished tote bags, but there were also some aprons and even underwear who got stenciled! You can stencil-paint on any fabric that is light-colored. Organic fabrics such as cottons or linen work best.

And these are the two totes I made for my colleagues Nadine & Jasmin. For the teapot, cup and the fruits I used pre-made stencils. Because I wanted some customization I cut up a plastic sheet into my own stencil with the two names. I think they turned out pretty cute & functional .

You can see more Etsy Handmade Labs I’ve been to here. As soon as they’ll start with the new concept for the labs, I’ll post more about the Labs I attend!