Stitching and painting

I have been lazy again! I haven't updated my blog for weeks again. I have done some stitching, but not that much as I re-discovered my love for painting again! I used to draw and paint a lot when I was younger but not for years. Last time I was painting must have been 2004 or 2005. I haven't been drawing much either, little something every now and then.

I accidentally started painting again as I was bored and didn't feel like stitching so I remembered these ATC cards that I made back in 2007/8. So I took my papercraft supplies and made few cards and I did enjoy it. I also found a forum (atcsforall.com) where you can trade your finished pieces. Soon I noticed that lots of people draw/paint their cards and seem to prefer those, too. I was first a bit scared as I wasn't sure if I still know what to do! But I decided to give it a go.

First I used some old watercolours that I found from my craft closet. I painted few animals and one of them got traded within minutes! I got some selfesteem boost from that and went to basement to get my better paints and stuff. Oh, how I missed my paints! :D I have even started buying new stuff too. Pencils by Derwent. I really love their inktense pencils!

If someone is a part of that forum, you can find me there, using the same nickname there, Hely :) Well, here's a link to my gallery. Keep in mind that I am still learning! I am nowhere near perfect or a good painter :)

I have been doing some stitching too. Here's my update on the mermaids.

I haven't been stitching this piece for weeks now as I didn't have a good green for the plants around the mermaids. I have now ordered one and hopefully it will be a good one.

I also got an awesome birthday gift from my fiancé! He bought me a gift voucher to Sew and so! Ooooh happy day! Here's what I bought..

There's a bear kit by RTO, Meerkats (<3) by Heritage and Cupcakes by Bothy Threads. All of those are full kits. Two charts from LHN and big piece of white Jazlyn (28ct) and white and black DMC as those two colours are always missing! yay! Ofcourse I have already started something, hehe..

Here's my start on the Celebration Cupakes. The fabric on the kit was 14ct white aida but as I really, really don't like white aida, I changed it to white Jobelan (28ct) instead.

This is really fun to stitch! :)

He also brought me some stitching magazines that I have asked him to get for me as I can't get them from where I live.

So many nice charts that I wanna start right now! One of my favourites is Jayne Netley Mayhew's wolves of Cross Stitch Collection. I also plan to stitch Joan Elliott's Victorian Lady soon. Soonish..

Now I will make myself a cup of tea and strat reading other people's blogs! I haven't been reading them for ages.. :( Gonna catch up a little now, hopefully!

I'm still here! :)

I am still here and stitching! :) I haven't blogged for a while though, mostly cause I have been busy elsewhere and I think I also didn't have much to blog about until now.

I have couple finishes! Yay for that :)

This one is my part of the RR which's theme was "Newton's Law". I do like NL however this one cause me lots of headache lol. I wasn't happy with the colours as I don't have Anchor but DMC so I had to use DMC and it's really not the same using those.. So I changed the colours and started stitching. Didn't look too good. So I frogged it all. I tried other colours.. I wasn't happy again, so more frogging. Finally I decided to use the DMC colours given on the chart. It looks ok,but I am not completely happy with it. The two browns used on the teddy are too close to each other. Both colours are also a bit too close to the colour of the fabric. Also cause I was already annoyed cause of the problems with the colours, the backstitching caused more headache :P I usually like backstitching a lot, but here the stitches go through the cross stitches, are only half a stitch long etc. Pain, at least now. But I was able to finish it and it looks ok :)

Next one is teacups (RR) and I am really enjoying stitching it.

I also participated an exchange. It was Halloween themed. Even though we Finns really don't celebrate Halloween, I still kinda like all those nice patterns with pumkins and stuff. Also as my fiancé is English, and English do have such a thing as Halloween, there's now a very good reason for me to start stitching those nice patterns! ;)

Here's what I stitched for my partner.

I really love this! I must stitch for myself as well. The pattern is from a magazine (World of Cross Stitching) and it's by Joan Elliott. I love her designs, eps smaller ones, not huge fan of the fairies and such.

I have been stitching a bit of my "laptop"-project too. I have this next to my laptop, so whenever I am having a boring moment on WoW, I can stitch this. As you can see, not many boring moments so far..

I have been able to put few stitches on my UFO too. I joined a group on Facebook, which is dedicated to UFO's. The stitching day is every Wednesday.

Finally, a pic of my shopping! I bought two kits from Dimensions. I love them both and I wish to have them finished before Christmas! Good luck to me :P Both kits have a word "Joy" and I have a thing for kits/patterns which include that word ;)

So as mentioned earlier, at the moment I am stitching a teacup for the next round robin piece. After that it's cows and that will be the last piece! I should get my wild animals home at the end of the month :)

Have a lovely November everyone and hopefully, I will blog again soon :)

Amazing mailday :)

Hello everyone!

It was the last mailday this week, before Midsummer. I was expecting to get something but not all of these!

First, I bought two Little House Needleworks-patterns from a Facebook group where people can sell their unwanted stitching stuff (Finnish group). I got them today and whooo, I really love them both! They are "Bookshelf" and "Little House Neighborhood". I need to buy some nice coloured fabric though (or dye myself!) as I don't seem to have anything that would work with these. Or maybe my "bone" Jobelan could work.. Hmm..

I also got my order from Needlecraft Corner. Again some Little House Needleworks-patterns as well as three patterns by Country Cottage Needleworks and Lizzie Kate. LHN patterns are "Music and books" and "Home of a Needleworker". CCN patterns are: "Party Cakes", "Bee Joyful" and "Sheep in the meadonw". Lizzie Kate patterns are "Live Simply", "A bit of March" and "Welcome baby".

I also got my FOM from Sparklies yesterday. Here's a pic of the two fabrics that I got. The blue one is "Before the storm" and the light grey is "BST". I am not huge fan of the light grey one though.. It's kinda nice as it will work with lots of different patterns as it's light coloured. But then again it looks almost white. The blue one is really nice though :)

I got damn nice mail today (and yesterday too) but I also bought the newest Maxxina today. It didn't have as many must stitch-patterns this time, but some nice ones, still.

Oh and my amazing fiancé sent me two magaznes, too! I didn't expect these as I didn't know he had sent them to me <3 I was really happy to get them as we don't have these magazines here in Finland and I do like the Queen :))

I actually started to stitch some Jubilee stitching but as I have problems with my back every now and then (a lot sometimes) I can't always stitch as much as I want or not at all :/ meh..

I am not gonna buy anything else this month! Cause I also bought this today.. *giggles*

Fitfh season of Bones! I haven't seen it yet so I am really excited. I miss Booth and Brennan already, it's been ages since I saw season 4.

I am gonna watch an episode of Bones now, or maybe even two. After that I need to cook and hopefully, I could do some stitching today too! My back feels a bit better now. I also need to go out to have a walk today, my back loves it :)

Have a lovely day everyone *hugs*