Uh baby, it’s cold outside,and we spend more and more time inside. We have picked out two books for some early December reading – or should I say, cosy inspiration, crafting and making with the kids :
Danish designer and stylist Sabine Lemire’s Den Store Pigebog – sy, tegn, strik, design [The Big Girl Book – sew, draw, knit, design],
and Swedish artist and designer Elisabeth Dunker’s Fine Little Day – Idéer, återbruk och meningsfullt nonsense [Fine Little Day – Ideas, recycling and meaningful nonsense].
Both books are perfect for good time spent indoors in company with scissors, painting and lots of projects with both big and small hands. Maybe some homemade Christmas presents…?
Sabine Lemire’s Den Store Pigebog, published by Carlsen, is written for big girls, who are able to handle DIY project from scratch to finished product by themselves. But as a mother to smaller girls I also find the book useful and full of sweet ideas to projects we can do together.
The ideas are girly but at the same time something you would love to fill your home with – and they have a strong appeal to the girls in this house: Frida Viola (5 years) has completely filled the book with fluorescent post it notes – “can we do this and this and this, mommy?”
The book is designed in such a lovely way with inspiring photos and easy step-by-step descriptions of the projects. And most of the materials needed to make the projects are things you already have in the drawers or can find in the nature – like muffin paper cups, cardboard, beads, seashells and flowers.
Sabine Lemire has created several books on crafting with kids. She has a fine sense for details, colours and materials – but also a great understanding of what actually inspires and amuses kids.
Elisabeth Dunker’s Fine Little Day book, published by Swedish Natur & Kultur, is also packed with inspiration from start to finish.
It’s a very personal project, and you really sense the author and her universe behind it.
Throughout short text and lots of lots of photos she shows us her eclectic and almost compulsive collections – vintage books, potholders, ceramics, folk art, embroidery books, textiles – supplemented with peeks into inspiring homes of friends as well as her own home and country house in Sweden; bits and pieces from her entire creative life.
She shares with us inspiration and ideas on how to reuse finds from the thrift store and the flea market – wooden spoons are painted with cute faces, doilies are stitched together to a gauzy curtain, potholders are made into colourful garlands for the backyard party.
How can you not fall in love with the way she plays with everything? Most of us are already familiar with Elizabeth Dunker’s wonderful blog fine little day – in the book she tells us honestly about her childhood and about the coming into being of her blog – and what it brought her.
It’s touching, simple and beautiful.
Den Store Pigebog – sy, tegn, strik, design, Sabine Lemire, Forlaget Carlsen, 2014, ISBN 9788711331033
Fine Little Day – Idéer, återbruk och meningsfullt nonsense, Elizabeth Dunker, Natur & Kultur, 2014, ISBN 9789127140059
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