Rose Garden Mary Janes

I've been very busy lately crocheting a number of my kimono flower baby shoes for a customer from New York...but made time today to design some new baby shoes. I just love how these turned out! I plan to make a pair for Holland with fabric soles added so she can wear them outside.

Maybe next time I do a give-away on Etsy (to celebrate my 1,500th sale perhaps!?), it may just be a pair or two of these shoes... :)

Update...here's Holland in her new shoes. She's reading a Dutch book given to her by Opa & Oma van Klaveren.

The South Island

Here are a few photos from our recent tour of New Zealand's south island. We met many other tourists along the way, most from overseas...the Netherlands, Germany and England, mainly.
The photos don't do justice to the beauty of seeing it with your own eyes. You feel like you're walking/driving through the pages of the most beautiful scenic calendar ever!
We visited Mt. Cook, the highest point in New Zealand, which is just starting to be covered with snow this time of year.

Pictures of Picton

We've just returned home from a beautiful week-long tour of New Zealand's south island. We had gorgeous autumn weather and used the word "stunning" way too much! It was so nice to get away for a week!
Holland made new friends everywhere she went. This photo is of her and a friendly little girl she met after we arrived in Picton. We took the ferry from Wellington across the Cook Strait to the south island. You can see the ferry in the back ground on the photo of me and Holland.
We took many more photos and I will post the best of them here once I get them edited. :)

Away on Holiday

Holland Designs is about to go into vacation mode again...
We are leaving in the morning for a week-long trip to tour the south island of New Zealand. I've never been there before and all the "north island kiwis" have told me it is the most beautiful and amazing place. One lady told me she will never go there because she's seen pictures and knows if she went that she'd never come back to the north island! So, I'm expecting to be impressed. :)
I've been to the Austrian Alps and remember being quite impressed by them, so it'll be interesting to see how this compares. :) I'll post some photos and details of our trip when we get back...around April 19th.

Coming Soon...

I'm currently developing some new patterns which will be part of my "Crochet Princess Collection." Patterns will include several hat & scarf sets, plus other accessories for little girls age newborn to 10 years.
The patterns will be named after the little girls to whom I'll be gifting my designer samples.
Here is my "Sydnee Rose Hat" - modeled by my own little Holland.

New Artsy Etsian!

This has absolutely nothing to do with crochet (other than the fact that I made the little green sweater Holland is wearing in this photo)... :)
I wanted to tell you about a my young friend, Keesha. She is 16...going on 17...and is a high school student here in New Zealand with a gift for painting and drawing. She has just opened her Etsy shop so check her work out at http://www.kjarina.etsy.com.

She is great at custom portraits too. She did the above painting for me as a gift for my husband's very 1st father's day. The photo is of him holding our daughter, Holland, when she was 1 day old. I managed to keep it a secret and he was so "wowed" by it when he saw it! :)