Origami flowers and bunnies

Since Christmas I jut feel compelled to fold paper. Problem is, I end up with quite a collection of useless paper stuff.

First here is a ball of flowers. The good thing is that it takes time to make, so it's good for my folding itch. I finally bought a glue gun for the ocasion.

And... here are bunnies !  And just like real bunnies, they tend to multiply.... So you have bunnies in special papers, bunnies with eyes, and white bunnies made out of school paper (note for our American friends, French school paper is white, with special lines).

I'm glad I managed to make each white bunny different, as if they had their own personality somehow...

Indoor garden

This year I feel like going green in the flat. First we brought back DBF's ficus that went to my grandma's when we moved. Fresh air turned it into a little tree. I wanted it back because they say plants deplute the atmosphere. You will see the ficus and how big it is in a future post about Easter decoration.

But recently I wanted to grow things I can eat. With spring approaching and ecology being in fashion, they sell kits for cress, tomatoes, strawberries. The latest two are quite slow growing, but I have sprouts. Cress is easy to grow, and so good to eat !

I saw some projects on Pinterest and decided to put those aromatic pots on the kitchen walls. Here you see mint (haven't used it for anything yet) and chives (I tend to put it in everything). I also have parsley and coriander, but they are at the end of their lives...

A little bit of stitching

I didn't craft much since the beginning of the year, but it's mostly the "January effect". Nice little depression every year. But I managed to get into the Easter/Spring/Stitching mood and made these mini projects.

First a little Flower fairy. It was an old freebie from a UK stitching magazine. Stitched in one thread on 16 count aida, with a few fractionals. The backstitch is quite intricate and gives the whole dimension to the picture.

Then I made a little chicken for Easter, I still need to turn it into a cushion.

Finally an Elisabeth Design for a pin cushion. The pattern calls for a 40 count evenweave (or linen), but I used 28 count by mistake. Well, I thought the fabric colour (cloudy brown) was perfect for it. So it's just a little bigger than expected, and the leaves look a bit sprse, but never mind.

Now and then when I feel like stitching, I'm doing yet another freebie from an old magazine, a hedgehog with flowers from DMC. 16 colours and tweaking, freebie kits weren't for the newbie faint hearted in those times !

Valentine cookies

It's a bit late, but I wanted to share the cookies I made for Valentine's day. I made them pink with food colouring, added some chocolate, but the specific thing is the letters embossed in the cookies. I got a "print your cookies" kit for Christmas. It's just like stamping, and it makes very personal cookies....

A Christmas Catch Up

I can't believe it's mid March already. Once again, I'm wondering if blogging is still worth it, what with all the new places on the web and the new technologies, such as Instagram, Facebook and other social thingies. But as always, I use my blog as an archiving journal. What did I make when, and what mood was I in....

So here is a bit of a Christmas summary. In the end the stitching craze was quite short lived. I didn't make anything after the Christmas mice. I went into origami instead. Here are two of the best exemples :

And of course Christmas is the time of cookie making. This year I made a lot, and spread the yummy joy around. I made the Hello Kitty ones for a friends birthday, and DBF was the star at work for bringing colourful treats.

Weirdly enough, I got loads of cookie making gifts for Christmas this year, do you think it's a message in disguise? Anyway, it's Easter soon, time to make some different kinds of cookies...

A family of mice

We are already preparing for the family Christmas eve party, when my brother and I, plus significant others will come to my parents. I'm already planning of making cookies, and the log cake. And I also made these cute ABC mice on plastic canvas for the table decorations. As you can guess, it took me quite a while !

Surprisingly, we end up with 2 Ms, 2 Ns, and 2 Ss...

Santa Archie bag

I thought  long and hard about what to do with this little stitching, and rumaging through my stuff I came across this gift bag I bought a long time ago in Hobyycraft. A bit of double sided tape, and voilà ! Archie Bag !

Winter Fairy Progress 4

Looks like every year I add a few stitches to this project. It's big, it's long, but I don't have to produce a lot of projects, so... Never mind. I worked on this before stitching Archie Santa, but didn't take a picture, and it's too big for the scanner.

Now we will have a hiatus for Christmas projects; but I wanted to document where I was with this.

Previous update and history of project here.

Stitching ?

Apparently I didn't post since last June.... I blame it on new technology, where you can  share your pictures and progresses on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with one button. So what about Blogspot? Apparently it got lost on the way. Who still read blogs these days? Not me, I'm an Instagram enthousiast.

So this post is for whoever remains, and also serves as a journal entry.

From 2001 to 2008, I was an avid cross stitcher. Then life changed, and I also wanted to make stuff I could use, and not just pretty pictures. And here came crochet. Then knitting, tatting, and other things. Last December I made an attempt to go back to cross stitch, but then I opened the folder where I had stached all the finished pièces and got depressed. So many beautiful pictures with no use at all....

But here comes Christmas. Early this year as DBF decided to make the Christmas tree last Sunday. So I stitched little Archie here. I think I will make a mini cushion.

About the project itself.... It's a Margaret Sherry design from an old CrossStitcher magazine, from a time they had one Archie design per month. I used DMC threads. And I was glad to stitch it on 14 count aida when came the moment to do the backstitch. Very challenging as non go through the holes, but I love the sketchy final result, so it was worth it.

Next: more Christmas stitching.

Tatted blue phone pouch progress

Remember I tatted a little square motif, then started to make more and join them as I go?

I finally made 14 squares, and I hope that, folded in two, it will cover an iphone 6. Otherwise I will have to make an extra edging.

I still need to find a way to close the sides, with a row of rings, or a sort of rope ?

Now I wish I simply joind the squares before, just like I did for my first phone pouch ! Oh well, can't think of everything all the time...