Watercolours, decoupage and pyrography!

After so many weekends of entertaining guests at home and going out a lot, last weekend I decided to relax, read a book and do some crafts.
On Friday I went to Ikea. I needed some frames to put in my triptych of jelly fish my friend Ian sent me from England.

I loved them on his blog and wanted one but he sent me all three as he is such a kind and generous person!

Look how beautiful they look in the frames which will decorate the beach house of course.

Another reason I went to Ikea for was because I had booked the Decoupage Workshop organized by Ikea and the ladies from Ftiaxto Elina and Valia.
I have done very little decoupage so far and really wanted to try.
Here is what we made under the instructions and supervision of Valia and Elina.

Ikea offered the items we decoupaged and the napkins.

All in all it was an interesting workshop. I plan to go to more in future if they organize some.

You can see how to make the clock here.

 And then on Saturday I decided to put in use a lovely tool we had bought in a very reasonable price from Lidl months ago. The pyrography tool was great and I loved what I made.
I used some leftovers pieces of wood from the new shadow puppet stage hubby made.
I sanded them a bit to have an even surface and then using the pyrography tool with all the different edges I burnt out the patterns.
I really loved the results and plan to make more.
I have always been inspired by Geninne's and Alisa Burke's pyrography beauties. So here are mine.
Empire State Building

 The little wooden huts in Turku Finland at the Craft Village.

The Dandelion

Greece in summer.

Feathers

The owl

If you don't feel like making any pyrography pieces I have a friend Dimitra who makes really beautiful ones on her Decorasylum etsy shop. Have a look!

(photo taken from Decorasylum etsy shop)
( I have in no way been compensated by the shops, firms, blogs mentioned in this blogpost.This is not an advertising blogpost.)

Bird

This week's prompt for Our Beautiful World is Bird, a word chosen by Kirsty  of  Handmade Little Things.
To tell you the truth I hadn't recently taken any photos of birds and we hadn't been some place to see birds. So what did I do?
I simply took some photos of the birds that come down into our school playground just after the children's break to eat their leftovers.
It's amazing how many types of birds come every day.Usually they are pigeons, doves,seagulls and sparrows.

Then I took some photos of some birds I saw one morning during my sea front walk with Barca!

 And then I just looked around me in my flat and realised how many beautiful birds I have!
This swan painting by my sea glass friend Ian in England,

and this swan cross stitch I had made as a kid. (sorry it's blurred)

And all those Geninne Zlatkis birds in my bedroom!

And another stitched piece!

And the ducks for February for the Joyful World of the Snowflower Diaries SAL that I am taking part in!

And more birds around!

 I love birds!
Ever since I was a kid and a neighbour painted birds for me with just one line with her pencil! I just wish I had some of those now! It looked a bit like this but the bird was looking straight ahead. (found here)

Link your blog with a a blogpost about birds or anything that has to do with them in Our Beautiful World.

May 1st

Have a great month everyone!

May before and after. A black and white photo found on facebook by my friend SeliniXrysoula and a sweet lady photographed by hubby at our seafront collecting flowers.

 Thousands of people on the seafront!

 I just picked a couple of flowers for my lovely Atelierstella vase.

And if you like a new wallpaper calendar Geninne has a lovely new one for May on her blog. Go here.

Some purchases and a gift!

I have little money to spend on purchases but some things just beg you to come back home with you at times, don't they?
So here they are in random order....
Three little tables from IKEA bought at very good prices during the sales.
First the IKEA PS 2012 side table. It comes in three different styles. Flat, fruit bowl top, or four bowls top.
You can see them here.

(This photo is from houzz site)
I bought the fruit bowl top one for 15 euros. I put my felted stones inside and covered it with glass. It looks great as a display and I can take great photos of my stones too.Barca seems to agree.

Then two small side tables made only of wood and glass for 10 euros each. I put some of my grandma's crochet on top. All three tables are in the living room as we didn't have any side tables there.

Those lovely colourful socks, one for each day of the week I bought at Lidl.

 Then this online purchase from a favourite shop Dutchsisters. They make amazing bags from vintage embroidery. They even added this lovely heart on the parcel.

The embroidery is all around the bag, so I can hold it on both sides.

When I went to buy a book for my Godson, I just happened to see this notebook and all of a sudden I realised that I could buy Geninne's notebook-journal here at home. I bought it at Public. You can find it online here.

 There are empty pages to draw or write.

 Pages to colour.

 Pages to paint in watercolours.

 And lovely colourful pages.

 I tried to videotape the pages as I have seen being done on online bookstores but Barca didn't really allow that. Still you can have fun with her here.

Finally a gift I recently received from a very generous lady. Zina of EfZin Creations chose me among her other blogland friends to gift me with one of her lovely jewelry pieces. She even managed to choose the proper colour for me, blue.

(Photographed on an otchipotchi stone)
You can find her shop on etsy and read her blog too. Thank you Zina.