Ruby Wedding Anniversary

My parents have been married for 40 years today!  I don't make a big deal of their anniversaries usually but this is a big one so I tried to make something special :-)

So here it is-

As well as-

The pictures aren't great unfortunately but they really liked them and I'm very pleased with how the4y turned out!  Wood burning is a lot of fun-and for me, it does mean I have to work on my patience as you have to take your time with it but it's a lovely way to decorate any wood pieces.  Myf's also been having a go (we bought some cheap wooden spoons to practice with) so I may post some pics of her work soon :-)
Congratulations Mum and Dad! <3

Sisters Gift Exchange!

I meant to post about this last week but it has been a little busy here so instead here's a huge post with lots of pictures!  The sisters gift exchange was so lovely-it really showcased some of our diverse talents as well as being such a treat to get happy post :-)
So from Thea I got:

She made a GORGEOUS book cover and teabags with beautiful cheer-you-up tags on, two sweet heart buttons, a chocolate biscuit and a mug-hug!  Which fits my favourite mug perfectly by the way :-)  Thanks Thea, I love them!

From Jessica there was :

She made a stunning bookmark with lace crochet and a card with lace crochet hearts, a cute biscuit box (complete with biscuits!) and a lovely night light hand glass-painted with hearts :-)  She also sent some seed for the growing season! Thanks Jess, they're really beautiful <3

My offerings look like this-
Thea:

Jess:

I've been getting into wood burning of late so I 'embellished' a couple of photo frames and I used my wire jewellery book to create the necklaces.  I crocheted a little bag for the necklaces with a few little crochet hearts to decorate and a couple of pretty flowers :-)  My offerings turned up a day late but hopefully I'll be more organised next time!  It was a lot of fun and hopefully my sisters liked them <3

I had a few friends over this weekend and J, who likes to tinker with computers, saw what my monitor screen was doing and announced that it appeared to be a video card problem.  He literally spent 4 hours playing with the guts of my computer and managed to get the graphics (?) card inside the computer working and took out the busted video card and behold!  You're all in wonderful colour again :-)

I've been playing with the 'Creepy and Cute' book that one of my sisters got for me-a friend of mine is very into the 'Spartacus' TV series on Sky1 and there was a pattern in this book for a Spartan (that I decided looked more like a gladiator) so I have made her one (it was pretty tough to make-I'm not used to making lots of little bits and then trying to stitch them all together!) and a Ninja for her husband who's into his martial arts..
Myf has been trying very hard to eat all her school dinners so as a reward I told her I'd make one of the creatures for her-she chose the Skeleton Bride which I think takes irony to a new level!
 Anyway, here are the cutest creatures ever!

Adorable yes?

Winnie the Pooh blanket

My monitor has gone all weird-I've tried changing the cables to the monitor, I've even tried swapping the monitor for my spare but the screen is still very stripy so it's hard to see what the pictures look like :-(  Hopefully, they look better on your screen...

Anyway, a while back, I posted about a baby blanket I'd been asked to make by a friend who works in the other branch of the charity I volunteer with for her expecting daughter who really loves Winnie the Pooh.  Trouble was, I couldn't figure out how to make a Winnie the Pooh out of squares so I learned how to do afghan stitch and made a few squares with that to cross stitch on to.  I've been procrastinating for a while about getting it finished as my cross stitch skills are frankly rubbish.
Last week was the first week I'd been back at volunteering as they closed over Christmas and since the New Year, Myf's been home sick with a chest infection.  She was finally better after a week of antibiotics so when I went in, I spoke to S on the phone and she told me her Grandson had been born on Christmas Eve :-)  So once I'd finished my blanket, I spent Saturday getting the cross stitch done as well as I could and yesterday stitching it together and putting a border around it.  And I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out.  However, I'm quite nervous, really hope S and her daughter like it!  What do you think?

In other news, I spoke to one of my sisters a couple of weeks ago and she's suggested a really lovely idea.  The three of us don't get to see each other very often at all and we live all over the place but now that I've finally joined the crafty ranks, she's suggested making things to send to each other monthly as a kind of 'Sisters Gift Exchange'.  As we're coming up on Valentines Day, we're starting off with 'Hearts' for the first theme :-)  Now that I have my blanket projects out of the way, I'm playing with ideas and can't wait to get stuck in!

(Last year, I did 7 posts.  This year I've done 7 and January hasn't even finished yet!  This makes me happy...)

My blanket! (photo heavy, sorry)

I finally finished my blanket yesterday-after staying up until 3.30am to get the border done as I refused to go to bed without it!  Myf was at her dad's so at least I could stay in bed a bit longer :-)  And it was totally worth it as my blanket is beautifully snug.
So, I have pictures to bore you with...

The concept is based around the elements-and the layout is inspired by a tarot spread a friend and I designed together a few years back called the 'Elemental Compass Spread'

I took this before I started stitching the squares together and as it turns out, this pic showed the layout better

 You can't really see the border but it's a shell stitch in dark, sparkly blue :-)

So that's done!  It's nice to have finally made myself something XD

Wire Jewellery

I had some vouchers for the local craft shop for my birthday so I decided to treat myself to this book.  My first craft-y love has always been making pendants and I've wanted for a while to learn more skills.  I'm really enjoying this book-I think it's not amazing in how it explains the techniques but I quite like improvising and the ideas in the book are beautiful :-)  So here are some of my first attempts...

The one on the left is crocheted with a fine gauge beading wire with little black beads-

Once I got the knack of trying to crochet with wire, this was a lot of fun to make!
The other bracelet is a handmade chain with some charm ideas-it'll probably never be worn as it's just for practice-

 

Lastly, I was asked recently to make a Fluorite Pendant for a friend so I used some of the ideas in the book for inspiration-

Sadly, my local Pagan shop has closed down so getting crystals is a little tricky now but I may be going to Glastonbury this weekend with some friends so I may find some more then :-)

Brid's Crosses

The Moot was not exactly as planned-I'd gotten confused over the arrangements with Myf's father and as he doesn't do compromise (unless it benefits himself), Myf had to miss out on the Moot and was very upset.  We had a couple of new faces there though which was lovely but one of the little boys (who has cerebral palsy) was unwell and ended up having a seizure.  I called an ambulance, one of our other ladies stayed outside to direct the paramedics in and thankfully he came out of it (although he did stop breathing for a minute or two which was quite terrifying) and they went into hospital to have him checked over.  He's fine, they don't know what caused the seizure but he's alright which is the main thing!
So I didn't really get much opportunity to do some of the activities planned but when Myf got home, we did a couple of Brid's Crosses ourselves-

Sparkly!