Tessssssa

Hi everyone,

My name is Tessa, a Ravenclaw, and I live in a small town in the south of the Netherlands, just below Eindhoven.
I live there with my cat. She is all white, with black ears and a black tail. She is 8 years old and a bit crazy. Her name is Poes, wich is the dutch word for cat. Her favorite toys are the simple little grey mice, she turns her back on all the fancy stuff I've got her.

She also likes balls of yarn... so I have to keep a close eye on her when I'm crocheting or knitting.

I used to work at a theme park called De Efteling. The park is all about fairytales, everything has something to do with it.
It was really fun working there. Especially because I operated rides in the rollercoaster section of the park. If you ever plan to come to The Netherlands, you really should go there a day or two.

In my free time I like to be creative in many ways. I enjoy many crafts.
I crochet, knit and sew a lot of stuffed animals. it's so fun to see them come to live, adding arms and legs.
Most of the time I crochet animals from designers like: Stip en haak and My Krissie Dolls. I like my animals stripey and with bold colors.
I also enjoy stamping, coloring the images with my polychromos pencils or alcohol markers, making cards, journal pages and mail art with them.

I started sewing my own clothes. I love it!
Just knowing the garment will fit me when I'm done. I do not have an 'off the rack/ready to wear' body. So making my own clothes and grading between sizes is easier than try and find someting in a store.
I just bought a serger, so now I'm getting used to my new machine. Any tips and tricks are welcome!

I like to watch movies/netflix/Prime, going to the zoo or the Efteling, and reading (audiobooks most of the time).
I like to be with my family.

Please leave a comment when raiting.

I promise that I won't flake! Please contact me before rating me a 1 or 3!

For all Dutch swappers:
Ben je op zoek naar een actieve nederlandse groep op swapbot?
Een waar verschillende soorten swaps georganiseerd worden?

Kom dan naar de groep: Nederlandse swappers!
Want, hoe meer zielen hoe meer vreugd!

In the summer months (june - september) I'm active in a group for the local flower parade.
14 groups build a big float and on the second sunday in september we have a parade.
The building proces takes 3 months (bending iron, welding it together, stick cardboard on it, glue newspapers on it, and painting) after that we only have 2 days to put al the flowers on it (200.000 in total per float).
We use dahlia's they are so pretty and have many colors and forms.

Documentary about the flowerparade in Zundert by Gil Bruvel
The flower parade in Zundert is always on the first sunday in september, 1 week before ours.

This year (2019) the theme is 'Proud of Brabant'.
Brabant is the province I live in.
We chose the fair in Tilburg. This is kind of a famous one, really big with lots of rides and other attractions. It lasts more than a week.
What also is special about this fair is the Monday.
It's called, Pink Monday, to celebrate the LGBTQ community. There is a pride walk and everything turns pink.
In our design we make carousel horses that are normal colors on one side, and pink on the other side. I'm really looking forward to the building process!
We got 10th place. A little dissapointing... We thought we would get 5th or 6th. Now we are waiting for the judges comments (always takes a few weeks) to see why.

The theme last year (2018) was all about making an old float-design new again. We all had to choose a winner from years ago (1953-1991), and make it 'new'. Our design is about the world famous circus from the Ringling Brothers.
The parade was yesterday.
WE WON 4TH PLACE AGAIN. It's the 3rd time in 4 years we got 4th. It's really good because most years we end up in the middle, somewhere around 8 or 9.
Our elephant was so cool! She even moved her head, ears and trunk like a real one. Youtube video of our float Watch this!
And remember it's al iron, cardboard and flowers.

For Pictures of the floats our group made you have to look by Wilhelmina (at the bottom, under 'wagenoverzicht'). You can look by year (jaargangen) or by group (buurtschappen).
Our group is named after Queen Wilhelmina, she was the Queen when The Netherlands was liberated after the 2nd world war. The flower parade started out as a little celebration of freedom with decorated bicycles and carts, it has become much bigger than that.

I do a lot of things, and will try almost everything.

I like to crochet stuffed animals, make envelopes, boxes and gift pouches, mixed media, mini albums, knitting, stamping, drawing, sewing my own clothes, flipbooks, facepainting, coloring, pocket letters, working on my art/junk journal, helping out with the flower parade and much more.

A few weeks back I made my first ragdoll. I used the patters of the book, my ragdoll, it's so fun seeing it come to live and make clothes and accessories.

I started collecting enamel pins.
And I would love to swap some. So if you want to trade some pins with me, please message me and we can set up a private swap!

Random things
* botanical illustrations
* lace fabric, lace trimmings, and lace flowers etc
* springtime, feeling the sun on my face, summertime, go to themeparks
* pastel colours, old vintage colours
* hearts, chevron, polkadots, stripes
* woodland animals, peacocks, flamingos
* cacti and succulents
* flipbooks, mail art
* (board)games
* my family and friends
* mermaids, fairies, old school fairytales (not a big disneyfan).
* Alice in wonderland, Little Red Ridinghood
* Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood, nifflers and bowtruckels

Crafting/Wishlist (in random order)
* watercolour images
* zippers, all colours and lenghts. even used ones (ripped out of old thing) are ok, as long as they still work.
* fat quarters of any kind of fabric
* Lawn Fawn! I love their stampsets! And I don't mind if they are used, as long as they stil work wel. I even love some stamped (and die cut) images. (preferably with permanent ink)
* stampers anonymous, hello bluebird, mama elephant stamps, (or stamped an die cut images with permanent ink) etc
* plastic stencils
* texture paste, or a good home made recipe for it.
* foam squares any size
* interesting (clear) stamps, background stamps
* I collect enamel pin badges!, animals, flowers, world famous things, fun food (please no pins of things I never heard of, like a local business or advertising pins)
* project life cards
* maggie holmes, tim holtz, heidi swapp
* black permanent fineliners like mircron
* white pens
* a funny tea egg / tea infuser
* sealing wax, and stamps
* bookpages and sheetmusic
* lace, cheesecloth, trims etc, even tiny pieces are welcome
* fat quarters, cotton fabric, to make clothes gor my rag dolls.
* Interesting embelishments, buttons etc to use on clothes for my ragdolls
* things for my junk journal, I prefer the following styles / themes: botanical, steampunk, vintage, tickets and tags, flowers, feathers, postal theme, old sewing pattersn, birds, vintage office papers, library cards, washi tape and washi stickers in these themes. I prefer the 'old' looking things over bold 'new' colours.
* mail art, I love decorated envelopes!
* Wide washi tape, washi stickers
* washi tapes in plain colours or with patterns like, grid, polkadots, chevron, stripes, and other plainish patterns
* fun shaped paperclips
* burt's bees with pomegranate lipbalm
* your favorite craft tool/item

Favorite colour combo's
* mint green
* teal
* purple
* peacock colours
* coral pink
* rose gold
* vintage colours
* pastel colours
* rich jewel tones

Food
* anything Haribo or Maoam
* chocolate
* licorice
* all kinds of candy and cookies
* something typical from you country

Tea
I just started drinking tea again and love some new flavours to try!
* fruits (but no citrus fruits)
* tea wit mint
* tea with cinnamon

I also enjoy loose tea (to be put in a tea egg) or tea flowers. Please put a ingredient list on the packaging, I like to know what I'm drinking :p

• Religious stuff
• zentangle as the main focal point
• tiny punched out shapes, I have no use for them
• please don't send me sticky notes.
• little pieces of patterned paper
• Unwritten postcards of places where I`ve never been
• rain, to much snow, to much heat
• jewelry, I do wear some, but I don't need more
• diddl, hello kitty, other kids characters
• plain blue or black writing pens, gell pens
• reward or kiddie stickers, stickers in the themes in the like section above are ok.
• the smell of nicotine, it makes me sick
• marzipain
• sand between my toes
• papercuts in my finger
• sticker slapping
• and flakers.

For swaps that requires more than one gift to be send.
I'm very pleased to get 1 gift worth the total amount you have to spend instead of several small gifts.
It's your choice what to do.

As for my etsy wishlist.
This is a list of things I would like to recieve (obviously) but I don't mind if you order it from another shop or website, as long as it is the same item. Maybe you find it cheaper else were or with less shippingcosts.

Please don't cover your mail art with clear packaging tape. Or send in a clear envelope. I like how the postcards look when they went through a sorting machine, (bended, ripped etc) I think it adds to it.