Drawstring backpacks, one for a girl and one for a boy

For Hungary and Croatia today was the last day of the first week of school. I don't have school kids yet, which is why I can still be enjoying my summer vacation in September, but before I left to spend my 3 weeks in Croatia, I made two drawstring backpacks for two kids (my friend's kids) who were making a big step in their lives this week, while were somewhere on the beach doing nothing.

Girl drawstring backpack, for a girl who naturally loves pink, but loves blue more...and most of all likes horses!

 

Fabric is a night gown I salvaged from my friends trunk. It features colours 6 years old Eszter  likes.

White horse is and iron on, I googled images of horses and picked the one I liked, printed it on an iron on sheet. Iron on sheets for dark fabrics work completely differently than the ones for light fabrics. These don't need to be mirrored, they basically work like a sticker, but sticker becomes sticky only when you iron it. It is ironed over paper. Interestingly enough, while ironing, the pink grid from the fabric came out over the horse image too, so it looks as if it was printed on. I love it!

Boys drawstring backpack is made from my old cargo pants, thus featuring 2 pockets, 1 on each side of the pack. B is also ironed on and stands for Barnabas, the owner of the sack.

What do you think?

Pear compote

Summer and early autumn, the time to preserve fruits and veggies for the colder days to come. Making compote is one way to do it. I don't preserve, I am too lazy and I don't grow garden big enough to have fruits in such quantities. But compote is not just a preserve, it is apparently a french dessert, and my mom makes it quite often, from any fruit she happens to have in quantity they won't be able to consume before it goes bad. Except for the prep work, which can be a bit tedious if you want to use seeded fruit cut in bite size pieces, making compote is very simple. My mom just pours water to cover the fruit and adds sugar to it (I think quantity of sugar is totally up to you and the type of fruit you are using, our pears here were sweet on their own, so sugar added was not much) and maybe a little lemon juice, and she cooks it for a while.
The French say it can be eaten warm or cold. We eat it warm right after it is taken off the stove, because we can't wait for it to cool down, later on we eat it cold, and usually it does not last long:)

Playground Season: retro climbing structure

Just look at this retro playground complex! This climbing structure was designed by Ruth Clark Radakovich and Svetozar (Toza) Radakovich in 1960's in an effort to keep their children off the furniture. It was made of galvanized irrigation pipes and it is FANTASTIC:)