Branch Of Snowflakes

I was pretty much excited to show you this project. I understand that it is very simple at the same time, but I was very happy to make it. So here is my winter holidays (праздники – pra'zdniki) decoration. It's important to note that it is cheap and quick to make. Perhaps I needed to add some other ornaments to it, or ribbon bows, or make smaller snowflakes, nevertheless I like it the way it is. 

To tell the truth, that was my husband's idea to keep this wine bottle for "something"... This something has now obtained a holiday look and serves as a vase for a branch of snowflakes. I picked up the branch near by our house, painted it gold and added some glitter on the tips. 

I was inspired by Matilda's wonderful photography of her handmade items and decided to take pictures in a similar way. It looks cozy and mystic, doesn't it? 

First such attempt of DIY decor went fine. We can enjoy its coziness and dream of such winter (зима - zima') which, for example, Diana has in her city now :) Thanks to all for lovely, inspiring comments and for taking interest in my sunny/cloudy/cold days.

P.S. Following few suggestions/requests of my dear blogger friends, I will starts teaching some Russian words and expressions in my posts. Today's are holidays related. Hope you enjoy!

                               праздник/праздники – pra'zdnik/pra'zdniki - holiday/holidays

                                                                зима - zima' - winter

                                                                 снег - sne'k - snow

Новый Год – No'vii got. – New Year

Рождество - Rajdestvo' - Christmas 

С Новым Годом! – S No'vim go'dam! – Happy New Year!

С Рождеством! – S Razhdestvo'm! – Merry Christmas! 

Notes:   '  - stress marker

           some sounds was difficult to convey through signs, but I tried to :)

Welcoming December with Crochet

Finally we have stepped into winter months, and I must say that the air has a tiny bit of snow coolness in it coming from Himalayas... Heaters out, we - inside the blankets! :) To tell the truth I do enjoy this time of the year - it brings homely mood, snug under the soft blanket, and cuddles. What can be better? Inspired by all these thoughts, I couldn't wait and crocheted two things, both pretty new to me. I have a wonderful pattern of Doily coaster by Bren G in my collection (click here to see it). I turned it into a Snowflake Doily by using white and cyan yarn.

Just have a look at this shiny cyan thread - so lovely and really easy to work with! I bought it from the usual yarn shop, and it didn't have any marking on it

Second crochet thing I made was something new and unusual to me. I must say thanks to Tammy from

 T's Daily Treasures blog for this unique idea of crochet rocks. She makes many of such with thinner thread, and they look amazing, you can see them on her blog title's picture. When I saw Tammy's Crochet Rocks post, this idea wasn't leaving me for the past few weeks. Fortunately I stumbled upon the gorgeous round stone on the way from office. First I ignored it, but then imagined how it would look in some lacy, "net-y" crochet kind of cozy ... So it ended up in my hand and obtained its cozy wrap today. I considered that the doily and rock looked quiet like a home decor set together. 

Hope your Saturday is as much homely and easygoing as mine. I saw all the lovely things you prepare for coming up holidays, feels good to see all those! :) Have a nice Sunday, my friends!

Red Christmas Star Decoration

Life seems to be turning to its quiet side again. After all those festivals, which indeed create a lot of buzz around and at home, I shall admit I feel relaxed finally... and excited at the same time. The first half of November has passed by what means that all the winter holidays are not far away and I am trying to charge myself by creating some Christmas and New Year goodies for home decoration. I have come up with the Red Christmas Star decor piece. The pattern was improvised by me. But what I like the most is this yarn with sequences I purchased from the yarn market last weekend. Isn't it gorgeous? You just don't actually need anymore sparkles to add. 

 I was thinking of making a tutorial or write a pattern for the same, but can't find time for this, unfortunately. May be tomorrow :) I made some more stars using simple acrylic yarn. Looks good, but no shimmer is there of course. 

The stars are hanging on my room's wall, I like them. However they look a little lonely, I might think of some bunting to hang on the same wall.

We are having out personal "friendship day" today as happened so we are meeting many of our fellows tonight, while another friend of ours came from Delhi and wants to meet us too!

Have a great weekend, don't forget to enjoy it :)

Last Minute Halloween Bats Decor - DIY

Only 4 days to go till Halloween, and I am hurrying to make as much decor as I can. I recollected my old bat decoration, which  I used to make for my home. Those were... the bats! They were much more cheerful than the one below... times changed :)

   These bats is easy and fast to make! Supplies required: 

white paper, thicker than the usual A4 sheets (recycle some, like I did)

black acrylic paint

brush

bat shape

pencil

scissors (oops! I didn't include them in the pic)

 I found the bat shape in the Internet and printed it out in a big size.(You can skip this if you know how to draw a simple bat shape). Copy the shape and vary it from big to small - whatever size you want your bats to be.

Now fill up the shape with black paint and let it dry. 

Alter the bat's shape while cutting, make the edges neat.

Here comes my craft tape: cut a square piece from it and cut this piece diagonally. You will get 2 triangles.

   Paste the triangles as to make bat's angry shining eyes! Enjoy your spooky Halloween decoration, which you can stick to the wall or attach to the curtains.

The ghost hanging in my room...where from?!! Boo!

P.S. idea of the ghost is taken from Do It Yourself Divas... and modified of course!

Jar Lantern to Create Cozy Winter

  May be it's a little early, especially during still sunny Indian days, to think about the winter. Though I do. My native country has real winter, you know what I mean, snow, frost, necessity to wear warm fur clothes and a good central heating system, which allows you to feel so comfortable at home... :) Indian winter is something opposite. The temperature in December, January can be  +23 and more, but the nights... oh it is so cold at home! Our heaters warm the room up only till they are on. So I was thinking that I'd like to have some tiny source of light and warmth in our room to make it a snug place during the winter. Inspired by the numerous ideas of DIY jar lanterns, I came up with this one. It was quick and spontaneous crafting.

                                                    

                                          

The area wasn't covered evenly though, but still the light effect is quiet what I was hoping for. I should think of another way of the background coating for other lanterns, and perhaps try to decoupage tissue or thin paper. Let's see where my craving for cozy winter leads me. How do you create coziness in your house?

***Have a nice weekend!***

Cheerful Halloween Decoration

   I was planning to make this Halloween post initially, when found out that I got an award. I made a post about it instead. So sorry for two posts today, but I really want to share with you some Halloween decorations I made last Sunday while waiting for my husband's return. We used to celebrate Halloween with my parents before. Though it was never among Orthodox christian holidays, we were enjoying its' spirit and involved our friends in celebration too. Now I am reviving this tradition in India.  

  These little pumpkins is a great idea of Petals to Picots. However the pattern for the pumpkin's "body", offered on the blog, didn't really come to me, and I chose a classic amigurumi pattern, which I had previously used to make my white cat. I added a face to an orange pumpkin and then made a smaller yellow one. It was so much fun to crochet these cuties!

 The Halloween kind of  bunting came up with the pumpkins and the stars cut from the orange craft paper. Further I found the shapes  looking too flatly and added glitters.

  Here is the witch on the broom. I attached it to my cupboard door. She slightly moves under the fan's blow, so seems she is flying :) Just curious, whether you are making any decorations for coming up Halloween or this holiday is not in your calendar.

Granny Doily featured on CraftGossip

  Blogging has made me more adventurous and decisive. A little bit more than one week back I submitted a tiny form on the site called CraftGossip. The site features crafty ideas, tutorials from around the world from different bloggers and designers. I decided to try it out and sent the idea of my granny square doily with red flower decoration. Was I happy to receive a positive response from the crochet editor of the site JD Wolfe that my project would be featured on the 12th of September! 

  I made the doily while being at my parents' dacha last month.  The doily stayed with parents, but who knew its adventure would continue! If you are interested you can go and check how it looks like following the link Granny Doily. The editor wrote a nice brief article about it. Well, it is not that grand project I think and the deal is not in being popular by showing  it to everyone. The joy comes more from participation and I hope that someone would find this idea of home decor useful. I was advised by my fellow blogger Bonitabonbons to make a whole granny square blanket out of such doilies ;) Let's see. I am ready for new projects!

Decorating tables - granny square doily and an oval mat

    September is not a productive month for me in sense of blogging. It is more productive on the crafty side. Last Saturday I went to our 42 market stationery shop to purchase some crafty things like acrylic paints, paper cutter, craft paper, pencils... It looked like no one else  was buying all that stuff from there for long time, because the acrylic paints were manufactured in 2011 and the sheet of craft paper was looking a little old... but I liked the things I bought anyway. I couldn't wait to use at least some of them. I did a painting in the evening of the same day and was doing it like a mad! My husband must have been worried indeed :) Kidding. Besides the painting I finally accomplished two of the crochet projects: a long-time-ago-started table mat and another granny square doily. 

     Here is my granny square doily. The yarn is some old Indian thread, I am not sure whether it's acrylic or mixed. So you can say I re-purposed this yarn and made a new crochet decor piece from it:). Principe of making was the same as for my first granny square doily. The granny square pattern has a unique quality - it can be of any wished size and it is so easy to make.Yup, the granny square is twisted again.

                             

  

    I truly like the granny square stitches - all double crochet (treble crochet). The chess like arrangement of the stitches makes the whole piece look so snug ( that's why it is called "granny", isn't it?).

   I played with the doily choosing some interesting variants of its folding and usage. I think that this could become a pretty baby blanket or a nice pillow cover. Keeping it in mind ;)

      I am not very used to make crochet tutorials, I have only two so far, but I am thinking to make one more on how to make a simple crochet flower like the one in the picture below. 

  Ta-dah! Or did it take too long since the last post about my table mat? Whatever, the crochet table mat is ready to be used for placing a cup of coffee on it in the morning (for example):)

  Please, refer to the oval motif pattern below. However, I'd like to make few notes: the pattern is going on good until the 5th row as in the picture, then you have to adjust it counting the number of increased stitches from all four sides. It's the toughest in this pattern. I think I kind of changed the pattern and made it more square rather than oval.

  Overall  I am very content about my craftiness these days and I have some MORE crochet projects in my mind.

 ***Have a crafty week and take care!***

Dreamy Monsoon

          It is a monsoon season over here. Finally. Yea, we've been waiting for the rain for the whole May and June and hopefully it will be staying with us till August. I love the rain. I wrote about it in this post last year and how it reminded me about dacha...

        The rain makes me feel good and dreamy a little. I feel like reading fairy tales these days. I really do and I have read! By the way, while scrolling the Blogbuzz I have noticed that many blog posts' titles have the word "Fairy tale" in them! Everyone seems to be dreaming :) I am also feeling cozy while monsoon and I like eating such breakfast: roti with butter and jam and tea! It's yumm, you should try it.

     The monsoon sky looked like this today evening, but it started raining only 2 hours later. Aren't you feeling dreamy looking at these clouds clubbing there so high?  I am.

    What am I dreaming of?  ... Of the forest and I have continued my crochet picture project "The Russian forest". This is going to be canvas for the picture. I thought orange and brown would look good as a background for a forest theme as these colors are natural. I am again using acrylic yarn, it is great for making crochet home decor pieces.

                This is the half of the canvas, however I have continued further yesterday.

        Oh yea... I am also dreaming of meadow flowers with bright petals and nice flavor. I made this floral nail art yesterday and I am quiet happy how it came out.  I had difficulties with making nail art on the right hand with my left hand, so the flowers didn't appear to be very neat. I preferred the better looking nail art to be posted in the blog :)

              *** Have a nice weather wherever you are and keep on dreaming!***