As I mentioned before, Christmas comes early in Holland, and it's actually not Christmas, but Sinterklaas and despite the crazy and probably true things you've about it, it's actually an awesome tradition.

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© Anna Denise Floor

This year, we celebrated Sinterklaas a day late, as Mr. Floor was traveling for work, but actually that was fine as I think holidays should always just be on Friday evening, so the elderly amongst us (including myself these days) have at least two days to recover. 

Overwhelmed by all the awesome shoe action, I felt like I had to do better than just buy a book and be done with it, so I bought two books, a wintery sweater, and made a date night out of it. Snacks included. I drew a 'map' with numbers on the floor with washi tape, indicating the order of the gifts. It was awesome, and yes I am aware that I'm bragging so I'll stop now. I think the man enjoyed it. 

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© Anna Denise Floor

Sinterklaas is here! And what a perfect night it is. Dark and stormy. I can just picture all kids all around the country are hopped up on adrenaline and sugar, tearing open their hard earned gifts as we speak.

Even though Sinterklaas was kind enough to move our share in the festivities to the weekend (he's such a flexible old man), my shoes have been doing some serious overtime these past few weeks. And by that, I mean, my mysterious Sinterklaas has been filling my shoes with the most amazing gifts, as illustrated above.

Hope you're all enjoying your Sinterklaas, Dutchies! I know I sure had enough speculaas for the year, already. Bweurgh. 

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 © Anna Denise Floor

Am a bit behind on posting my journal pages as you can see. These past two weeks have been absolutely nuts. I travelled to London and Dublin for work (yes, my life is actually that awesome, hate me), threw a big wedding celebration with the Fantastic Mr. Floor, somehow messed up my big toe, making it ever harder to walk normally, and generally spent a lot of time feeling Very Responsible for Everything (which is a great way to spend your time. Squiggly mouth smiley face). 

Anyhow - here's a drawing. Tadah! 
Now go away and ignore the fact that it's almost freaking November. 

The final Pieke eehm, Pieter sign. 
 © Anna Denise Floor

Just a little while ago, one of my good friends gave birth to a beautiful little baby boy named Pieter. Of course, I'm one of those dorks who can't NOT make people something they don't need (and have to act all grateful about) instead of just going to the store like a normal person and picking out something they'll actually use like... pacifiers, and socks, or like, earplugs. 

Seriously, when I got my first real apartment, my parents were like "Great! Here's four boxes of useless drawings and clay art projects you've brought home the last 20 years! You can have 'em back! Tadaa!*" - and I totally get it. I'm like the sultan in Aladdin, stuffing birds with crackers they don't want (and we all know what happened to him). It's out of love, folks. All love.

Anyhow. I decided to make one of those little door signs for the little dude and here's what I did and how it happened. It's not a tutorial, as I didn't take any decent pictures or actually included any useful information on how to do it (Pet peeve: tutorials that go like "step 1: get some wood, step 2: pick out some colors, step 3: do the entire thing and make it superawesome" which I am not saying happened here, but you catch my drift. If I knew how to do the entire thing, I'd go do it and instead of wasting my time reading your so-called tutorial, but hey, that's just my personal opinion). But anyhows. I took pictures with my cell phone. Here they are. And yes, I know you can't actually read his name, which is really the only thing it needed to do, right. #Signfail

* Actually, my mom sifted through all of the drawings and turned a selection of the best/most memorable ones into a book, and then gave me the box of drawings that didn't make the cut because she didn't want to throw them out. Seriously, my parents are pretty awesome, and I had a very happy childhood, but where's the fun in that, right? ;-)