Holidays' Spirit Created by Yourself :)

Hello my lovely friends! West Christian Christmas is just round the corner so is the New year! I am full of holidays' spirit these days, creating the mood myself for myself and wanting to share with all of you. I will also visit your lovely blogs soon, since I absolutely LOVE all the holiday posts made by you, and I want to finally keep a pace too :)
(Maybe not related to this post, but I started reading the Thirteenth Tale by Diana Setterfield and I love it! Anyone read it too? Perfect read to divert your thoughts).
My holiday spirit started with ... baking! I tried for the first time to bake cookies in our IFB convection oven. First attempt... hmmm, too sugary and buttery and crunchy, but we ate it all :P

Second attempt - much much better! I am going to use the same recipe with different flavours for Christmas treats. In plans, let's see how it realizes itself, to make a traditional winter wine gluhwein! :) Yumm! I will find this eggless recipe among my notes and provide a link here.

Yahoo, I managed to make some tree ornaments! Which cost zero I believe. Here is a Pinterest inspiration  - a Christmas star ornament made of sticks :) I later painted it golden, and also painted pine cones my D got from Manali last year, more photos are yet to come.

 We went to buy a New year tree few days ago, and it was proudly placed in the drawing room :))) Of course I wanted to have it primary for my little A to enjoy all the celebrations related to Christmas and New Year, since we cannot go to Kazakhstan this winter. But.. I am a big child too, therefor it brings loads of joy to me as well. It is not yet fully decorated in this picture.

And at last... My little boy is now a Christmas elf! :) I don't usually post his pictures in my blog, but it's a special occasion now. How do you like his look? D's childhood sweater (more than 30 years old!), and a red hooded shirt along with a hat created an unexpectedly elf-looking costume. Little A loves wearing this Santa hat, especially that it has become really cold at home. Here are his photos to compare how much he grew since last year. I cannot believe this! :)

To conclude my post ;

Happy holidays and happy coming up Christmas, dear friends, from our family! 

С Рождеством Христовым 2015.Merry Christmas!

С Рождеством Христовым!  Merry Christmas! 
Today is the Orthodox Christmas. Wishing you, my friends, love, happiness, peace in
your homes, and may all your dreams
come true!
Not sure whether I meet my friends today to celebrate this day but will definitely do it at home with my family. They say you should cook a special dish called кутья (cutya) made of wheat and raisins.

С Рождеством! 

Winter Holidays - 4 Years in India

Hello, friends! I am here, I am always here :) I found time (and ok, let's be honest, wish) to blog! I got caught up with my new job and other events in life so much that blogging, unfortunately, went on the background.
First, I hope you all had happy and enjoyable winter holidays. I had rather good, with gifts and New year tree, and lights. There is a Santa under the tree which I bought in India, when celebrating my second new year here. Very cute, and I haven't seen such since.

 This year we bought some more tree ornaments, but I didn't make any new myself. Also I wanted to have lights on my tree for a long time, and this year we got it too! I LOVE these lights! Now as the holidays passed by, I put the same lights in our room, my D loves it too :)
This little Santa I bought in Moscow, 4 years ago. I also bought 4-5 more of them in different colors, one travelled with me to India.

 This Santa was purchased in my city, just before I went to India (4 years ago too). So basically I have 3 Santas with me every year, more to come? :)

Sorry, it is just a quick post, I gotta go somewhere, it is Saturday! Yey!

Love you all and wish you a splendid weekend!!!

Merry Christmas 2013!

Have a Merry, Happy, Jolly Christmas and winter holidays! 

I have off from office today, so enjoying my day! I hope to be back to blogging soon as I have things to share with you, my dears!

Christmas and Cats

Well, as you know I live in the of the North India which doesn't have that real change of the seasons. These days we have +25 in day time and around +8+9 in the evening. The house feels more cold than outside. We never get snow here, and hence I cannot FEEL winter. So as I have been doing for the past 3 years, I IMAGINE winter.. :) I imagine the frosty morning air, and looking at the evening sky I expect it'd snow... I also try to create that winter holidays mood around me, preparing little gifts.

This time I couldn't wait more and tried my hands at cross stitching. I used to admire all the beautiful needle work people do: absolutely amazing pictures, made with love and warmth of their hearts. I wanted to start learning this craft. My D took me to the local shop called "Chhotu Motu" in Hindi, means "Big and Small", miscellaneous. There I purchased 10 skeins of Anchor thread and 50 cm of fabric + 2 tapestry needles. All cost me 130 Rs. or 2.09 USD. I think it is damn cheap! 

Here is my first cross stitch picture - a Christmas cat :) I know the stitches are uneven, and as I used 3 strands of thread, the crosses came out too thin. But I am happy with this first try and enjoyed the process a lot! This cross stitch was washed and intended to be made into a card. The pattern is here.  I have started another small picture, and I am using 4 strands of thread, which looks way better.

 One more very quick Christmas themed project was a mini stocking made with this pattern. I didn't make any more stockings so far. It's a good project to engage with as you can use scraps of yarn to hook it up.

Meet Mellow, a toy cat. Mellow - Meow + Yellow and it is soft :) Hehe. It was such a spontaneous thing to make, originally it is a crochet applique. I made two such appliques and stitched them together.  Pattern is here, it is a Russian forum/website. 

 I didn't really like the idea of making so many cat appliques for a blanket, it is too boring, and now a toy makes me smile and meow every day :) I am definitely a cat girl!

Tomorrow I am joining new office, and I am very excited about a new job and a new place to work in. Details later and wish me luck! Thanks for wonderful comments about my blanket, you made my day and days to come!

Have a wonderful second half of the week, my dears! Take care! Meow!

Happy Halloween 2013!

It has finally arrived, one of the most fun holidays in a whole year, and this year also marked by the 13th number :) I was not able to give proper time to Halloween preparations, but still have hope to have a little pumpkin today evening, my D promised to get it for me. Also I planned to crochet cat's ears on a hair rim a long time ago, which is going to be a part of a costume of course. Perhaps and may be I will do this in the evening. For the time being I am combining my love for cats and Halloween in this glittering card and wishing you

Happy Halloween, my dears!

Thanks so much for your praising, kind comments on my previous post, love to all!

Apple Pie, Cutie Pie and Holidays

Sometimes you have to follow your instant wishes. Like I did yesterday. I came from office with a big big urge to make something tasty, homely. It's easy when you have all the ingredients, lying on the shelves and waiting for you to pick them up and start preparing... an apple pie for example :)

This pie is my Mum's favorite recipe, and this is the first bakery I learned from her. Why I give such importance to it is because it was my fourth attempt of making cakes in the electric oven here in India. All the three cakes made before were tasty, ok, but I couldn't make them fluffy and the process used to take me up to an hour and a half! Yesterday was different, and manipulating with the oven temperature, I finally got it right! You know, it was an achievement for me and was the most happy person in the house, after my  husband, who was also happy to have this dessert with evening tea.

Today is 25th of January, Tatyana's Day (Tatyanin den') which is a Christian holiday named after St. Tatyana. She is considered to be a patron of all students. The Moscow State University, my Alma Mater, has a chapel dedicated to this saint, so the tradition has been created that this day is also called a day of our MSU.

Among other small news is that I was awarded...*blushing*, with the Premio Cutie Pie (there was some prophecy in baking yesterday) award this time by Ljubinka from Made By Ljubinka blog :) Thank you so much! It's an interesting award, as it is given to those using nice colors. Actually, all of us use colors, so may better to call this award a Colorful Blog award or something like this. Now I have to nominate 5 more blogs for the same, and this cute child will be on your blog's page :) It's difficult to choose, as everyone has loads of beauty and color in their blogs. But, I nominated these:

Jojo from Tahoma Beadworks and Photography 

Ali from Random Wooliness

The Sage Butterfly

Unn from TinsRose

Jenn from Color'n Cream

Such a cutie pie! :)

The post appeared to be quite informative, isn't it? I had one more thing to share but will tell about it next time.  Tomorrow's is the Day of The Republic of India, and most probably I'll be going with my D to celebrate it at his workplace.

Have a lovely weekend, dear friends, and thank you for your praising comments about my small projects!:) It means a lot to me.

С Рождеством Христовым! Merry Christmas!

Today is Orthodox Christmas. So Merry Christmas once again, my dear friends! :) The only thing I wish is that I was with my parents today. It is a real winter there now: snow, frost, and a snug warm house. I miss all these. 

I still don't have any new projects to show, but I'm already eager to start one big - a blanket. I'm getting one more order at the moment, however experiencing trouble with yarn availability, so not sure if I finally commence for the same or not. Tomorrow I'm waiting for some kind of gift to come and will share with you, my crafty fellows, what it is. That's all for now, and I'm inviting you to experience another bit of Indian culture with me in the next post. 

Have a nice day and keep warm (and cool too;)!

Holiday Mood Crochet Bookmarks and a Rose Brooch

Hello, dear friends! Christmas was successful for all of you, judging by your homely, happy posts about celebrations. May it be like this always:) We also had a nice Christmas, though I'm the only Christian in the family (and also an Orthodox). It was pretty cold, foggy and chilled when we went to the church  in the evening. All our family lit candles to honor Jesus and pray for our health, however I really don't know whether it is enough just to lit a candle... Because my FIL fell ill just 2 days after this. Nevertheless, we believe, that God will make things all right. We need to believe because we need support.

Well, away from philosophical mood to real deals. These are other crochet bookmarks I gifted to my friends. It's so easy and fast to make them - perfect for the last minute gifts.  I think I need one too:). I might post some pics we took on Christmas day as to show you how it's celebrated in India. Hope, it' s not too late for this update.

This is a small ego-crocheting project from that new yarn I bought. I made a rose brooch, which will be attached with a safety pin. It'll add some color to my new grey cardigan. The background is a much bigger ego-crochet project, it's completed and ready to have a photo session any time soon I get good light (the sun seems to be abandoning us these days). 

I found this yarn looking pretty in combination with white one. I literally fell in love with this orange sparkly yarn and want to buy more of it for some good crocheting time. I'll be back soon with some more holiday posts.

Have a great weekend ahead and a happy coming up New Year!