Cross Stitched Vintage Rose

Hi all. Today's post is all about roses :) 

This is my recent make - a cross stitched vintage rose designed by a Dutch designer Eline Pellinkhof. Again, it was a freebie kit for Mollie makes magazine. Eline has got a very romantic feminine style of expressing herself and this shows in her books and projects. A bit similar to Tonne Finanger and her Tilda world. Check out Eline's blog for more info and inspiration.

I have recently taken to those lovely vintage rose designs one can see in magazines and I was very happy stitching it. They have sort of folky feel you often can see in Polish folk paintings and fabric patterns and embroidery. 

And now, what my source of inspiration was... Just have a look at those gorgeous florals in the photos (source: internet)

Coming back to Eline again, I envy her this fabulous cross stitch wall painting:

How do you like it? :)))

I loved this cross stitch from the beginning. For a change I stitched it with 3 strands of cotton for a denser and fuller cross effect. I think the ribbon + lace feature is a nice thing too.

Eline's project involves winding strips of fabric around the embroidery hoop. To make it simpler and faster, I painted mine with acrylics mixing red, raspberry and white :) I still have plenty of cotton left, I may stitch it again as a motif for a card sometime. 

Very pleased and enjoy looking at it. It will be a decoration in my bedroom.

*  *  *

Welcome my new followers and visitiors. Thanks for your visits and kind comments you leave behind. Pleasure to read :)

* * *

Would love to share this cross stitched rose with a lovely bunch of crafty people at Hand-made Monday. Do join in this interesting highly social blog hop :)

Shopping for goodies :)))))

When I check my blog statistics I very often see that my blog comes up in search results when some key words like Nordic, Scandinavian, Nordic cross stitch, julekuler, etc are typed in the search machines. So I'm writing this thinking of some of my blog visitors coming here looking for various Scandinavian stuff available online. I know they are out there and perhaps they would like to know what craft resources with the Nordic theme have been recently on the market. 

Thursday was an extra special day for us. We went out to visit some local shops which are our favourite shopping places. Coffee at Costa (It's always a nice treat. I just love it there!) WHSmith's for craft magazines, HomeSense for some American Crafts products (Goodness me! The bargains they've got there!) and finally one of my favourite craft shops - The Purple Butterfly in Daleside Garden Centre. Just imagine the bags I brought home. Definitely the best moment was an unexpected discovery at that shop - some newly launched Scandinavian craft products on the market from DoCrafts Papermania. The collection is called Christmas in the country and features cross stitched and knitted themes - something I can never get enough of. I was overjoyed! 

The Christmas in the country line includes among others:
cross stitch kits - I got myself two Scandinavian hearts to cross stitch, stuff and hang. Naturally, I can't wait to start on these.

Next, my new stamps with a trendy knitted jumper pattern (<3 I love them! Love'em! Love'em!) I'm particularly happy about the borders - they will be great for building backgrounds. I also love the big knitted heart stamp and stocking.

No Nordic product line will be complete without a reindeer!

Ribbons and bows to complete your craft work. Notice how everything is nicely colour and style coordinated :) This line of products actually combines a few motifs: knitted pattern, cross stitch, Nordic theme and tartans/ginghams. 

 Paper pad:

Add ons: Tags and stickers:
Front:

Back:

I got myself some extra bits like self-adhesive fabric papers from Papermania, a gorgeous product line from last year: Home for Christmas

These are really interesting. They have sorta fabric texture and I'm dying to try them on my cards :)

and my last thing: another two washi tapes in my collection plus some gorge ribbons <3

And the cherry on the Nordic cake for me has been this:

when one of my Polish friends has presented me with the pattern for this ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS cross stitch ornaments. I'm sooo in love with these little Nordic characters. The cross stitch is from Prairie Schooler and is called "Nordic Holiday". You can find it at 1-2-3 Stitch shop. (by the way, they have an amazing choice of samplers and quakers there). It's a MUST-DO project for me and I shall be ordering the threads tomorrow. 

Well what can I say? I'm so pleased that these days the craft manufacturers have a good sense of what's trendy and they are really meeting our, crafters', needs and I'm also excited and dire to sit down and craft, craft, craft...

3 x ladybird card

Hi all.

Hope you everyone is doing well and you're keeping yourselves warm. The cold weather has returned (again!) and we have just had massive sleet over here in North Wales but...Nothing like sitting comfortably at home with a cuppa and blogging about it! :)

More card making news. This time it's the 3 cards with a ladybird theme I made them for a card challenge on one of the Polish scrapbooking blogs. I've never made a card with a ladybird so this challenge was particularly tempting for me. And anyway, they are such posititive and cheery tiny little insects that they surely deserved to be featured on a card.

I had a go at this challenge 3 times. Each time with a different effect.

This was the 1st card I'd made.

 I decided I didn't like it very much after all so I had another go:

A bit better this time :) Making a ladybird out of scraps of paper proved to be easier than I thought but finding a lady bird stamp in my vast stamping resources turned out to be more challenging. Finally, I managed to dig out this only one little mini-ladybird stamp that ended up on a card as an embellishing frame.

My 3rd go at the card:

I think the 3rd card came out the best. Most pleased with this one. All ladybirds have been die-cut, embossed or embossed with ink (Lori, thank you for the idea and inspiration!x).
All 3 cards together:

Just one more get-up to my half term break! It's going to be a very crafty one!

Crafty Storage Jars

Hi all. Hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was very crafty, busy, full of craft shopping and I really enjoyed it - I've got a lot projects running on at the moment and many are unfinished so they will have to wait for the future blog posts. However my craft creation stars of the week have been for me my two crafty jars :) A while ago I showed you the two little cross stitch designs and here is what I've done with them:

2 storage jars (I used the kilner brand) for some of my craft stash - ribbons, in this case. The cross stitch I made forms a nice padded pin cushion and needless to say is the central attraction of the jar lid :)

 A close-up of the stitches :)

I loved both designs and I kind of regret the Cross Stitcher magazine didn't have a design for a pink/purple option either! I may alter one of these designs in the future and adjust the chart for the purplish colours, if I find some time to do it, naturally :)

Here, the jars have been filled up with colour-coordinated ribbons :)

Since I love combining craft techniques I couldn't resist glass painting the jars too! More "vitrail" pics of the jars below:

In my (still imaginary) craft room these two will find their place somewhere on a shelf among the other crafty boxes :) Such is the vision, at least ;P I shall be making more of this type of storage jars in the future :)

Now with the jars being finished, I moved on to glass painting some acetate fronts for my "vitrail" cards. These are both Scandinavian motifs and some occasional patterns. I haven't made this technique for cards for ages and I missed it. I thought it would be nice to have a set of festive cards like these for Christmas. 

The photo shows them being outlined with a relief paste and drying up. Now the fun part lying ahead - filling the outlines up with colours, putting the pieces together and embellishing! Can't wait! 

In the meantime I also knit. My 35th knitted ball :) currently finished and waiting to be stuffed.

If you ever wondered what glass painting looks like, here is a reality behind it :))) Well, stuff scattered all over the table - half painted drying glass, printed patterns, cutouts, paint pots, brushes... and only 15 cm of free space to paint! Dear me! Is it just me or do other crafters practise that too?

Glass painting isn't only about painting with paints, it involves a great deal of squeezing the tubes and dabbing with the relief paste too! In fact the beauty of the painted vitrail glass depends largely on a professional artistic relief application. The more precise, neat and artful, the better!

It's time to join up the blog linking party Hand-made Monday at Hand-made Harbour. Head over there to see some other fabulous crafty creations. I missed my last Hand-made Monday blog hop which is a shame cause I had had quite a lot to show. Thought I could link up on Tuesday morning but it turned out we had to be cut off the electricity for most of the day. So no laptop, no telly, no even a cup of tea! How dependent we are on electricity these days!!!

If you wanna have a peek what I had for show last week, here is the post ;)

Thanks everyone for their visit and comments left behind. x x x

Warm Glow - Dotted Tealight Candleholders

A pair of dotted tealight candleholders I have recently created for the fair :) This time my choice was: warm vitrail colours - red, orange and yellow embraced by the golden relief outliner. The colours are graded, from red, through orange to yellow then back to orange and red at the bottom again. Simple design but pretty effective. Notice how the sun shines through them! :) They give nice glow and shades with the tealight put inside :)

So what do you think?

And now topic change! :) I've been awarded a Blogger award!

Picto  (Jan) from Handcrafted by Picto, thank you very much! So pleased my blog has been noticed and awarded by my lovely visitor! :)
I guess, I'll keep up the award chain play and stitck to the rules:

1. Make a post linking back to the person who gave you the award....  (tick!)

2. Share seven random things about yourself (tick! look below!)

3. Award seven recently discovered bloggers with this award and contact them to let them know they have won..... (tick! also look below)


7 random things about me:

1. I'm a real tea freak. I love drinking teas, buying them, having them, storing them, trying them!
2. I have phobia of caterpillars and spiders.
3. I love collecting language dictionaries.
4. I can't live without crafting. I'm addicted to everything homemade and handmade. For me it's an essential way of relaxing after work and regaining balance between my work life and after-hours private life
5. I could live without tv but not without the internet.
6. I love my milky coffee and a toast with jam on Saturday mornings.
7. I like the frost and chilly crispy air on sunny winter days.


7 blogs with 7 talented versatile crafters I'd like to nominate:


1. The Joy of Creating - Kathryn - for being the most fertile and versatile crafter I've ever known!
2 Carroll Crafty Creations - Robin - for supa cute owls!
3. Adaliza - Adaliza - for interesting blog and lovely sewing projects
4. Carolee Crafts - for so many lovely and different hand made creations
5. Audrey Eclectic -  Heather, for lovely and stylish old vintage paintings and great shots on her blog
6. Puppy Fly Boutique - my fellow glass painter
7. Maria's Blog - Maria, for so many lovely creations she can show off

Tonight I'm linking Handmade Tuesday at Ladybug Blessings blog and Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife. Have a wander around the blogs and enjoy browsing through so many wonderful creations!

Dots again

And back to dots again :) This time 3 big cards - two for birthdays and a retirement card for the boss.

A paper doily is the main element of the background here. I thought it would introduce a nice texture to the card. I also used Lilly of the Valley circular badge stamps and Core'dinations Chocolate Box Papers. The dotted paper has been machine sewn.

And the three cards together:

In case someone wondered what this huge shadow of a buttefly is doing here in the picture - no, don't worry, I don't have any giant butterflies around my place :) it's just a shadow of a big acetate butterfly suncatcher I've got on my window that comes out when the sun shines straight through my windows.

So glad it's Friday evening now :) Time to  relax by doing some crafts - something I always wait for the whole week to do and enjoy.  A very busy and crafty weekend lies ahead of me. I'm planning to sew some more Cheeky Chickens to sell on the oncoming summer fair! :) Wish me luck! :)