Yup we woke up to snow this morning, big fat fluffy snowflakes that settled quickly. The kids wanted to go straight out in it but we though 7.30 in the morning was a bit early, not sure the neighbours would have appreciated it. By 10 it was thick enough for a snowman! Hope everyone is having a good easter!
Please meet the new additions to our family, Charlie and Echo, 5 month old kittens we adopted from the Blue Cross Center
Little monkeys have already escaped the kitchen and found my office and I have a funny feeling they are going to spending a lot of time in here, lots of cubby holes and fun things to play with.
Was amazed to discover the nestbox that hangs outside our dining room window was busy being emptied by a blue tit - no idea if he has a mate inside it yet but hopefully it would be long before we find out!
www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=34811
adorapop.etsy.com
eclecticeccentricity.etsy.com
PaisleyChainsaw.etsy.com
allthosethrees.etsy.com
Champignons.etsy.com
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hoolala.etsy.com
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Jackdaw.etsy.com
TheUrbanObjects.etsy.com
MrsGibson.etsy.com
HedgelandsGlassLass.etsy.com
Yeah, I know you need a microscope to see them but we have two teeny tiny carrot seedlings...
Had another go at the head and was only one stitch out this time so carried on with the body and 2 arms. Easy peasy this time. Already have an idea rattling round my head for my own designs but I will get this little ted finished first before it ends up in the 'to be finished later' box.
Bought another moleskine from the Devil's Wallpaper in her new incarnation as Champignons to add to my collection. I shall probably never use it but I don't care. I love books, reading them looking at them, making them, owning them. Old new, whatever. Talking of which I have a few ordered to finish stitching, better get on with it...
After spending the best part of 3 days doing computer related work I decided to take a break to tidy up my beads. I've got lots of odd packets lying around that needed to go away and I'm one of those odd people that like things ordered. If I had the time to not be messy I would have everything ordered; there is something immensly satisfying about the mere act of filing everything away according to size or colour or letter of the alphabet. I'm not compulsive about it, just find the process theraputic. A way of controling the chaos.
Of course I can't get beads out without help; my little artist in resident was there to 'assist' but of course she ended up getting distracted making her own creation and chucking the rest on the floor, but who am I to stop creativity in progress?
We went to check on our new little seeds in the greehouse this morning, which Anya lovingly gave a generous amount of water (I really hope they germinate!!)
The strawberries are thankfully loving the attention they are getting, will be ready for bigger pots soon, and the other seedlings are doing well. We are just waiting for the first little shoot from one of the seed trays!
Thought I'd use this weeks IF theme of garden to finish this painting to add to the kids section in my shop that will hopefully translate on to cards as well as canvases.
My daughter has already claimed this as her own so will have to paint another, but it is good to do something completely different for a change. Let's hope our own garden will look as bright and pretty after we have finshed with it!
Well so much for the instructions being in english, this didn't turn out to be as simple as it first looked! Unfortunately the instructions assumed that you already knew how to crochet in a round and didn't explain how to get started, so after a few failed attempts and a fair bit of swearing I had to look in another book to see what to do. So once I got going I thought it was fine until I realised I had misread something somewhere and was doing a rib stitch not single crochet - bah! So what you see in the picture is attempt number.... er actually I've lost count, plus I gained 10 stitches somewhere so although the stitch is right the shape is wrong. Oh well. Might just leave it as it is and give it Anya to use as a hat for her dolls.
Took a trip to the garden centre Saturday to buy seeds for our little greenhouse. Anya decided we needed strawberry plants (always thinking of her stomach that one) so we got two baby strawberry plants, chilli, mini cucumber and aubergine and packets and packets of veggie and herb seeds
Then came the fun bit of planting them. Really have no idea whether we did it right or not but the kids had fun getting their hands mucky and we had fun afterwards cleaning the mud out of the carpet! (It was a bit too cold and windy to do it outside.)
These little baby cacti are mine for the kitchen windowsill, guaranteed not to die in a hurry!
Last year I was given a copy of Adobe's Illustrator CS3 for my birthday and it has taken me nearly a year to find time to even look at it properly let alone how to figure out how to use it. But a couple of weeks ago I stayed up extra late after the kidlets had gone to bed to tackle it. The first attempt was the little birdy above - looks simple enough but it took the best part of two hours and I wasn't sure I knew how I did it!
Next I tried the cake. These, by the way, are card ideas I scanned straight out of my sketchbook, used the trace feature in Illustrator to redraw the lines (I love that bit) then filled with patterns I imported as jpegs. Hence the complication - too many steps to learn in one go!
The drawing for this last one was too broken and sketchy (as I found out after playing around with it for over an hour) so I redrew it by hand and tried again. I actually think I prefer the sketchier look of the first two pics but at least I am working out how the program works and what it'll do for me. The next step is to learn how to create my own patterns in Ilustrator, very exciting!
This super chunky little A6 book was made at the request of the fabulous Moopf. A full one and a half inches thick handstitched watercolour paper are adorned by Moopf's own printed fabric covers. I am in the process of making more, in the meantime this one is available in his etsy shop!
I think I must be the luckiest mum in the world, cards, breakfast in bed and daffodils plucked from the garden :D
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