Painting Fun (Making Day part 2)

I started Making Day by getting out my watercolour paints.

 

I started with this idea from Art Projects for Kids.  Coming up with a new colour for each heart was harder then I thought!

 

After the hearts I went on to paint some quotes I've been collecting, this project has been simmering in the back of my mind for months so it was nice to get it done!

Here are some of the quotes up close, so you can read them...

At the end I realized even though I tried not to, I really gravitate to the same colours (blue & green) all the time! 

Making Day!

This Saturday I had a Making Day.  How is Making Day different to Crafternoon? hmm...  Crafternoon involves friends, Making Day is just me.  Crafternoons have specific projects in mind, Making Day was about playing with supplies & getting creative juices flowing.  Crafternoons involve facilitating others' crafts, Making Day is much more selfish!  (And if you come to Crafternoon please realize I really do love them!  But sometimes I need "me time.")  It was great to have a day to play, I highly recommend it!

I cut into my wool fabric bundle...

...to make cute argyle cards; inspired by these.

Had a little FaceTime with friend who is knitting her first pair of socks & was turning her first heel.  (Texting wasn't cutting it, hooray for iPhones!)

Tried a project from this book I got for Christmas...

 

...anyone want an owl picture?

Then I played around with quilting, decorative stitches & scraps of fabric to create this... "art leaf".  Based on something I saw in a magazine but very loosely.

During Making Day I listened to a bunch of episodes of my new favourite podcast, by Joy the Baker.  I can't tell you how much fun this podcast is!  It's like listening to two of your best friends discuss "the totally important unimportant things" of life.  You might want to go listen now!

The best part?  That's not even all of it!  There are some things (including a tutorial!!) I'll be back to share a bit later this week and other things that are gifts so I can't share them just yet.

Pinterest Find!

Did you know you can search Pinterest by where the pictures are sourced from?  So, you can go on and see how many pins there are from your blog!  Like this:

http://pinterest.com/source/betulaloo.blogspot.com/

shows all the pins from this blog!

Very cool!

It was very exciting to see my projects pinned by others!!

Just the sleeves to go!

I finished the knitting the body of my sweater!! Once it was off the needles I was so excited to try it on!  (I would have tried it on while it was on the needles if I could.)  It fits great (phew!) and now I just have to knit the sleeves & it's done!  I'm so happy with how it's going and that it is getting done!

Long weekend

This past weekend was a long one here in Ontario...

Lots of time for baking & cooking.  On Saturday afternoon I had a solo "Cookernoon" and made cinnamon bread & buns, spring rolls, bran flax muffins, chocolate chip salted caramel cookie bars and carrot ginger soup - yum!  Although by the time I got to the spring rolls my sister was home from work so I roped her into helping roll them so it would go faster.  Homemade spring rolls are so yummy but quite labour intensive so I don't make them very often (maybe once a year).

I spent the holiday day at the ski hill.  This was my second time downhill skiing so I was pretty nervous at first but 20+ years of dance training pays off in body awareness!  I was good to go on the green circle hills but couldn't make it down the blue square hill without falling/crashing.  After skidding face first down the hill I decided not to push my luck any longer & went back to the easy hill for the rest of the day.

This picture was taken first thing in the morning - it definitely wasn't that empty by the time we left!  We've had a warm winter here so it was nice to get out & do something wintery before the snow disappears!

(less then a month till spring, who else is excited?!)

Snail Mail

Do you enjoy receiving snail mail as much as I do? There's nothing like opening the mailbox & finding something that doesn't have a typed address on it!  How about finding amazing envelopes made just for you?  I've signed up for the Elevated Envelope exchange and there's still time for you to join!

"The Elevated Envelope is an artistic pen pal project designed to bring back the fun of checking the mail.  You’ll create a work of art in envelope form, execute it about 10 times, and mail them to 10 people." (taken from the EE website)

You don't have to mail your envelopes till May 1 so there's lots of time to let the creative juices simmer. :)

Crafternoon in February

This weekend I hosted a small crafternoon - just one friend; we were using my sewing machine so having just the two of us worked really well.  We made these lovely zippy pouches from this tutorial on Skip to My Lou.  Super simple instructions and going assembly line style we made 5 pouches in about 2 hours!
 

It was lots of fun to match & co-ordinate lining fabric, outer fabric & zippers!  I forgot to get pictures of the linings but you can see some of the zippers in this photo. 

I did remember to get some "action pictures" of me crafting!  I don't think I've seen myself sewing before!  In the other photo,s where my face is more visible, I look like I'm concentrating pretty hard!

Did you get up to anything crafty this weekend?

One Month Sweater-versary!

In this post I alluded to a sweater I am knitting... well, this weekend marked one month of working on it (my one month "sweater-versary") and I am so pleased at how it is coming along!

When I decided to knit this I was hoping it would be done within a year, I'm well on my way to making that goal!

The pattern is Shellseeker by Heidi Kirrmaier, the yarn is Spud & Chloe sweater in Beluga & Moonlight.