Spring Sampler (1)

Hi. Hope you all had a good weekend. It was quiet and quite cosy here. The dreariness and the coldness of the February days have made me long for something warmer, cheery, full of life. Now that Christmas season is gone, I am looking forward to spring. So alongside with my crochet, I've started cross stitching a spring sampler from Riverdrift House.

What I like about this kit is the compilation of various springy elements in cheery colours, the stitches are only full and there's no backstitch so the sampler should be pretty quick to stitch. 

A close-up of how it should turn out.

With a glass of wine next to me, I was stitching all Saturday and Sunday evening and this is what it looks like right now:

I love working on the fonts in this sampler and stitching every little character featured in the sampler is a single little joy too :) The finished piece should measure about 25 cm x 25 cm.

The rainy Saturday was all about being cosy and warm. We had a long lie-in in bed and my little furry buddy, Cookie, was enjoying that lazy morning with me :))) He's such a lovely fella (Oh, by the way, have I mentioned that initially SHE turned out eventually to be HE? A real tomcat boy! The name - Cookie -  remained.)

"He is soooo your cat", my bf often says. He hangs around me most of the time. He always seeks for me to play with him, he waits for me on the stairs when I get back in from work and he is my personal morning wake-up call assistant hovering over me when it's time to get up for work. He talks to me, he meows back and absolutely adores being in the centre of attention. He is always full of beans.

So we both enjoyed that morning together. Purring kitty on your lap is such a calming moment of the day. I always treasure it.

Currently on my reading shelf is this novel: Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell. I just started reading it and already I'm finding it whimsical, even sensuous as the author is good at creating moods through the description of the simple everyday things. There's some sort of illusive peace and serenity in this book alongside with a scorching heatwave that makes people behave a little bit strangely...

I don't know how the book will develop. I'm dying to find out soon! :) Now back to my cross stitch sampler.

Joining up Hand-made Monday no.154 tonight. Do join in!

Sun stamped cards

Hi all! A bit celestial today :)

Nula from Noolibird.com has recently sent me a lovely stamp with the sun as a thank-you for the photos and a testimonial I wrote for her blog/website. I loved the stamp and immediately sat down to card making to make some fresh cards using different techniques and colour combos. What a perfect timing with this stamp! We are short of sun and natural sunlight right now, in December, longing for some dryness and warmth. So it was good fun to make some cards with sunny warm hues. 

I stamped the image a few times with the black ink on yellow card or on a watercolour pad and then coloured it with my watecolour pencils or gold Twinkling H2os. The more sparkle the better. Cutting out the paper from in between the sun rays can be a hell of a job and a good test for decoupage skills though :)

I tried different backgrounds too, even the grassy green :) - it makes a good contrast with the orangey sun rays. The stamp is quite sizeable so it can be used as a card topper on its own, decorative and ornamental as it is. I wanted it to be in the focus of attention.

Now, the cards individually...

Day and Night duo ;)

Folksy stripes and a doily texture...

Metallic crepe paper in juicy green colour... The sun has been watercoloured with pencils.

With an orange background. Twinkling H2os in action.

And the last card I made in this set - a card with an acetate front onto which the image had been stamped first, then covered with glue and glitter :) - a new technique I wanted to try out for this image and acetate cards. Quite pleased with the results although it's virtually impossible to keep the acetate free from micro-bits of the very fine glitter.

and all together :)

Actually I  fancy making more "Splendid Suns" so there may be more cards with this design coming soon!

In the meantime I'm sending my cards to the Hand-made Monday no. 94 blog hop fun. Do join in! 

Bookmark with 3 bird houses

My latest creation - a cross stitched bookmark with the 3 cute bird houses :) The bookmark was a blog gift swap with Ewelina from Niekiedy blog. I love bird houses in all sorts of shapes and forms so I enjoyed this design a lot! Hope she will like it :)