So Happy To Be Blogging!

Sweet, sweet Rose @ Victoria Rose Paper Craft has given me a second award, and has also made me feel so happy to be blogging!

I am so thrilled and excited to know that my blog makes someone out there smile. Because in essence, a blog is very ‘selfish’ – it’s all about me, me, and oh, me and what I did today! It warms my heart to know that this ‘selfish’ island in the Internet ocean makes a person (or many!) happy. And it reminds me why I started a blog in the first place – to trace my baby steps towards a more crafty self and to keep track of my every-day doings and gardening progress. Of course, the blog itself moves out of track from its original intent every once in a while, but that’s the beauty of it! So, thank you so much, dear Rose!

Passing it on to 6 other people that make me smile every day!

1. Kennesha @ Me & My House

2. Design it Chic

3. Melanie @ The Old White Cottage

4. Kate @ Centsational Girl

5. Tim @ A Writer's Haven (hubby’s blog, because the way he sometimes describes our lives makes me giggle)

6. Steph @ Painted Shed

Very difficult choice – every single one of your blogs brings a smile to my face. I love you all – you make this blog-thing meaningful!

What Was All This Noise About?!

Do you remember the mystery project? Well, I think it is time for it to be revealed!

 

Beach-time Wind Chime is here!

I know it took me much longer than anticipated to finish this project, but I had some minor complications, namely the shells on the rim took waaay too long to dry once glued on. I had to do one shell at a time to allow the glue to dry before attempting to put the next one on. Overall, however, I had a blast while working on that one!

I am debating making the raffia bow a bit smaller, as I think it dominates the whole wind chime right now. What do you think?

Enjoy!

One Huge Thank-You & Other Little Notes

I was overwhelmed by the comments you all left on the tea/coffee set for the junk party, and I just want to say a big thank you to all of you, and to Kennesha for hosting such a nice event! This has, by far, been the most fun event I have participated in Blogland, and it really made me feel like starting a blog is a great and rewarding experience. Once again, thank you!

I would have loved to reply to every single comment you guys left, but  unfortunately some of the comments get e-mailed to me without an e-mail address. Some of you asked if I was planning on selling the set, and the answer is yes. I am planning on opening my Etsy store very soon, and I’m currently working on acquiring a nice stash of napkins to do custom orders. Of course, I’m not selling that particular one, because it was more of an exercise, but all sets would look similar to what you saw. So, stay tuned and I will make sure to let you know when the shop opens!

On the home front, my Echinacea is in full bloom and it looks so perfect!

Also, I am now the proud owner of a cute little Ageratum, fondly called Blue Puffy in Bulgaria.

In the background you can see the tiny Rosemary plant I started from seed. I have to say it’s developing very well, and I hope it continues to grow that way. In addition, I now have a baby lavender, too, for which I am extremely excited!

I’m also still working on the mystery project and I am hoping I can have some more time tomorrow to take detailed pictures and finally get it completed. In the meantime, here’s what happens when I’m not looking:

Poor little thing was so terrified when we took the picture. On top of it, I now have blue paw-prints on the carpet that I have no clue how to clean up. Fun, fun!

I hope you’ve all had a great weekend, and wishing you a great week!

A Junk Party!

Yes, that’s right! Sweet Kennesha @ Me & My House is hosting a Junk Party!

Hop on over and pay her a visit! She’s got some lovely lovely transformations, and the ladies that have posted have some sweet ‘junk’!

Me? I’m going with my own little piece of junk which you’ve already read about, but since I was about to throw it out I think it qualifies, hah!

 

So, join us for a fun little party!

Mystery Sneak-Peek

Things have been quite busy around here, and while I’m not as far in my ‘to-do’ list as I’d like to be, I’m slowly creeping forward and crossing things off.

I bought some lovely pink cascade petunias the other day, along with some planters, and planted them yesterday. Now they are happily sitting at my bedroom window creating a lovely patch of color on the otherwise boring facade. Some time this weekend I will find the time to do one more planter, but this time it will be the petunias I started from seed.

I can only hope my bedroom window starts looking something similar to this soon! Ha.

We went shopping last night but got to spend only 5 minutes in the store because they were closing, but I managed to pick a couple of things. And so, I give you a sneak-peek of what I am working on now, and I will hopefully have a tutorial posted in a couple of days!

Can you guess what it is?

Stay tuned!

Wish I Had One Of Those…

One bad thing about living in an apartment (among many other bad things) is that there isn’t enough room to go crazy with decoration ideas and set up special rooms for hobbies, crafts, etc. I have seen pictures of craft rooms, in particular, that really draw my attention and make me really wish I had some space to make one of my own – especially with my stash of materials growing!

Oh well, I guess that’s something to aspire for – getting a house where I can have a room to call my own craft room! In the meantime, here’s some eye-candy:

  

 

 

You should really check the last link, there’s some gorgeous craft room photos there!

Here’s hoping!

[Click on images to go to sources]

Finally, the tea/coffee set!

Well, it’s been a few days since I last posted and promised “before” and “after” pictures of the tea/coffee set! The set has been complete for almost a week now, but in my defense I now get home late in the afternoon when the lighting is bad and I didn’t want to post pictures where you couldn’t really tell the difference. That, and I’ve been dropping like dead as soon as I get home…

Here’s the “before” pictures:

 

As you can see this was a pretty boring and bland little milk glass set that we bought 10 years ago. In fact, I was tempted to throw it out a few weeks ago when I was going through the cupboard. Needless to say, I am glad I didn’t! Even though the set didn’t quite turn out like I would have liked it to, it gave me a nice base of experience.

Here’s the “after”:

Overall I think it turned out nice, but I need to work on the edges and a technique of folding the napkins so that they turn out even. However, the most important thing I learned – the motifs brown slightly after being baked in the oven. Believe it or not, I actually didn’t account for that. Here’s what a cup looked like before baking, and after.

It is difficult to see from the pictures, but the “after” product has a slight brownish tint to it. When I took them out of the oven the pieces looks so brown I was terrified, but once they cooled completely off and after three coats of varnish, things looked better.

This, if nothing else, was a lovely little learning experience! In fact, I’m really looking forward to “upgrading” something else that has been forgotten about for the past 10 years – and there’s plenty of that in my house!

Hope you have all had a great week so far!

Tea/Coffee Set Sneak Peak

Remember me talking about the tea/coffee set transformation? Well, I went out and found some really cute napkins that I thought would do just fine. After spending a couple of hours working on it, here’s what I have so far:

This is one of the cups/plates before baking and before glazing. The cups are currently in the oven, as I had to make some finishing touches on the plates, and the glue is still wet.

What I found out is that it is incredibly difficult to measure the size of the napkin cutout against the size of the cups/plates, not only because they are very angular, but also because once the napkin is wet it stretches beyond my expectations. I’m not very happy with the way the edges of the plates turned out, but I guess I can file them slightly once done.

When the set is fully complete I’ll post before and after pictures.

Hope you’re all having a fabulous day!

Six Things I Love

I was tagged by Design it Chic a few days ago, but with projects and one last final coming up, hadn’t had the time to play along. Today, however, I have plenty of it, so here comes the six things I love!

Rules of the game:

• List six unimportant things that make you happy;
• Mention and link to the person who tagged you;
• Tag six of your favorite bloggers to play along , and comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

1. A cup of fresh home-made coffee early in the morning (paradox, since I don’t like getting up early on my days off – but I still love the whole combination!). This makes me really, really happy, knowing I have the whole day in front of me, and celebrating that fact with a delicious cup of coffee. Yum

2. Blooming flowers – no matter where, no matter when. Blooming flowers always make me so happy I can totally forget all my other thoughts.

3. Crafting – of all kinds, that is. I love being able to take aside a few hours of the day and fully indulge myself. There is nothing quite as spectacular to me as creating things.

4. Chocolate. ‘Nuff said!

5. The sea. I simply love going to the seaside – I adore the smell of the sea, the cry of the seagulls and the view of ships in the distance. I love to see the waves, and laugh at the ducks that swim above and the way they look. I imagine being a pirate sailor thousand of years ago…

6. A good book. Trivial, I know, but oh the way a good book can suck me in! I am capable of not leaving the bedroom when such a book finds its way to my hands. Utter bliss! Especially when combined with the previous five!

And here’s who’s tagged:

Kennesha @ Me & My House

Rose @ Victoria Rose Paper Craft

Karen @ Musings of a (mostly) Self-taught Knitter

Kim @ Heart In The Country

Melanie @ The Old White Cottage

Tim (hubby) @ A Writer's Haven

Now it’s your turn to share!

[Click on images to go to source]

June’s Projects

Sweet Kim @ Heart In The Country had a great idea and posted a monthly ‘to-do’ list. I was so thrilled when I read her list that it inspired me to write one of my own – and maybe that would be an incentive enough to keep to it, ha! Plus, remember me talking about starting a crafter's journal? Well, what is a better place to do that than my blog?

So, here it is, the ‘June to-do list’:

CRAFTS:

1. Go shopping for craft materials:

• Spray paints – various colors
• Wooden picture frame, plus some cheap plastic ones
• Chicken-wire and some hooks
• Mother-of-pearl ornaments and shells
• Twine
• Bamboo piece
• Decoupage paper and some napkins
• Wooden jewelry ornaments
• Wind chime kit
• Felt of various thickness and colors
• Buttons
• Sea salt (fine)
• Glass bottles
• Metal plaques
• Tin wire of various thickness

2. Work on some hand-made jewelry.

3. Figure out what to do with that tin can I salvaged (love being so vague, ha!)

4. Find some old glass jars and use them as hanging planters on the wall.

5. Make the jewelry rack for mom.

6. Make a tag from the metal plaques.

7. Make the chicken-wire ‘hanger’.

GARDENING:

1. Repot the Dracena Marginata in a larger pot.

2. Move the cherry tomato plant in a bigger pot.

3. Move the Pelargoniums outside and prune them.

4. Buy potting mix and more planters to plant the rest of the small petunias.

5. Sow more basil. Also, check the lavender seeds and transfer into a pot.

6. Buy some petunias from the market and plant in pots at the bedroom window.

PERSONAL:

1. Stick to my diet at all costs! ‘Cheating’ only allowed on Saturday/Sunday.

2. Do some exercising.

3. Find a good book to read.

I’m sure I will think of something else to add to the list so I will update it regularly. I so wish I can keep to it – I am excited about everything I want to do, and yet I find myself lacking the motivation sometimes. Hopefully, with the list being now ‘public’ I will feel obliged to follow my list and complete the projects I have set myself to work on.

Alright, now I’m going to work on that tea set!

[Click on images to go to sources]