Tiny Beaded Creatures

Just before the girls' birthday we were gifted with a bag full of books and crafts. 

This one in particular has gotten a lot of use lately.  I love Klutz Books. 

They are so well designed, including all of the right materials and clear directions. 

When we hung these charming mermaids in the fish bowl, our beta fish wasn't so impressed.  Being territorial, he checked them out closely and we removed them before he started trying to eat them. 

We're not positive what we'll do with them all.  We thought of earrings, but some of the designs are a bit too big.  These dragonflies might work as earrings.
 

The other thought was to include them in the Spring Sale where we've rented a table.  The idea was to attach them to some copper bookmarks. 

I'm not sure I can part with them all.  We may just have to buy some more seed beads and keep creating.  They are so cute!

Thanks for all the well-received baskets of gifts!  I'm not sure who loves them more, me or the girls.

Changing light

I always go into a bit of a slump after the Christmas gift-making.  Only the deadline of Christmas keeps me going through that, because the lack of light in this country kind of gets me down.  I don't necessarily stop creating, but my heart isn't always in it.

The light is increasing and changing and I love it!  And it only gets better as well.  The weather feels like spring too (unseasonably, so I'd better not start looking for tulips) and now I'm jumping into projects with a bit more energy. 

This was a tiny project for a birthday present. 

I found this nice little notebook for a ridiculously cheap price.  I do love paper - recycled paper, notebooks, the feel of good writing paper.  I don't actually write, but I'm attracted to the stationery section of stores. 

This little girl does like to write.  Stories and journals, mostly.  I didn't want to cover the nice cover with a notebook cover though, so I just made a little slipcover for the back of the notebook to carry a few pens.

The big project occupying my mind these days is our master bedroom.  I hesitate to call it that because that brings visions of a much larger space than what I'm talking about.  Our room is a typical 1960 bungalow bedroom with only room for our bedside tables, bed and two dressers, and just enough room to walk around them.  So  without budget for anything new, I am mainly painting a lot of things.  We've been in this house for over 10 years now and our room is the last to have anything done to it.  It's still got a feature wall of lovely dark forest green.  When we moved in, I knew it would have to go, but every room seemed to have priority.

It's finally time.  And I've got a real deadline to help me keep it moving.  By the middle of March, we are having a friend stay in our house for a full days while Yvon and I go on a short holiday.  I can't have her stay in our room as it is. 

Over the years we've managed to find two bedside tables that are identical except in their paint treatments.  And one still has the sewing machine inside.  I've never even tried it to see if it works. 

Goodbye mismatched tables.  And hello two matching white ones.

Yvon won't let me use them for a few days until they are properly cured, but I'm dying to move them back into our space.  Two more pieces need to be painted too. 

The whole room needs to be whitened and brightened.  The forest green is becoming either apple-y green or yellow (we have leftovers of each from other projects and I just have to check on their status.  Dried up and crusty?  Or fresh and ready to use?  How much is there?)   And I have some lighting ideas in mind, but not sure what I'll find that's cheap.  I love going to the Habitat store, so that'll be my first stop on Monday.

And this...

I didn't think this was my year to quilt, but that's what my brain is constantly dreaming of.  I'm starting simply though.  More of a pieced duvet cover.  And I shouldn't have to spend a penny on this.  We've got the duvet, the white that makes up most of the cover, and certainly lots of scrappy bits for color.  I can't wait to see it all come together! 

No quilter will be allowed to ever see it.  It's a mess of mismatched corners, but it makes me happy.

How are your brighter days going?

Gifts on my mind

I think it's a bit unfair that I expect other bloggers to blog every day.  Or every other day, at least.  I love to have new things to read.

I don't always have anything new to write though. 

I've been thinking about Christmas gifts a lot lately.  Last weekend I sat with Rosa at a table at a craft sale selling all sorts of things that we had made.  I had hoped that our first snow would make people think of Christmas, but it didn't.  People were still shopping for themselves.  The vendors seemed to buy the most stuff from each other.  I sold a few necklaces, and a few more on commission, and I spent just as much at the other booths.

We did sign up for one more craft sale though and I've been busy sewing up a few things for it.  I think people will be thinking of gifts by the time December comes. 

Because I try to make most of our gifts (and so do the girls), I've been seriously thinking about the presents I want to make.  Most involve the use of my sewing machine, but I've got a few other skills as well.

I have nothing to show you here because I've started a new blog just for my sale items.  A couple of people suggested that I hand out cards directing them to my blog and sell things from there.  I hope to have it all set up well before the next sale, but you can look at it now. 

         homemade by ev     (there's a new link at the top of my page too)

I've also been dreaming up ideas for the girls at Sew, Mama, Sew.   I rarely visit there during the year, but every November they do a daily gift list with tutorials.  If you haven't been there yet this November you can spend some time catching up.  It's great fun and has a ton of good, easy ideas.

Magic Hat

Rosa and I met a fellow blogger this week. Almost all of my readers are relatives or close friends, but this is someone I've known only through my blogging and her blogging. And she has things and skills that I don't have. There's overlap for sure or we wouldn't read each other's writing, but she has sheep! And sheep have wool! And wool makes hats!

Laura's trial hat turned out awesome. There was an accidental blob that easily became a lovely flower (we still had our tie-dying stuff out) and like magic, it turned from loose fluffy wool into this beautiful felted hat.


And it fits perfectly!


Perhaps it shrunk a bit more than we thought? Actually, we just wanted to see how thick we needed to layer the wool for our own winter hats. This was always intended for a doll.

Wool also makes yarn, but I'll show you one day how my spinning is going. It would be the warmest, thickest sweater you've ever seen, with that special handmade "rustic" feature (massive blobs) that you'd pay big bucks for!

Thanks for the spinning lesson and the exchange of goods. It was great to meet you!