Let the people choose-June-Mermaids

Hello everyone!
On the first Saturday of each month I take part in Let the people choose, one more of Jo's of Serendipitous Stitching brainchildren!

This month the theme is mermaids, such a great theme as I love summer, the sea, mermaids, sea world and sea glass!
What can I show you to stitch about mermaids?
There are some free patterns that I'd love to stitch one day.
First this mermaid by Alita Designs. You can find it here.

(photo taken from Alita Designs site)

Second this little mermaid by the Snowflower Diaries.

(photo taken from the Snowflower Diaries site)
Third a HAED free pattern.It is called The shell maiden. It would be a dream to stitch this one. Only 24 pages of pattern but I love it!

(photo taken from Heaven and Earth Designs, page)
Now apart from these there are lots more mermaid patterns that I'd love to stitch one day.
I have even bought two second hand ones from a fb destashing page. One is of the Mirabilia mermaids.The enchanted mermaid.

Mirabilia even has a free mermaid pattern on their site.

(photo taken from the Mirabilia page)

 And I also bought a Satsuma Street mermaid. Which if I ever stitch it it will be on white or light blue fabric and not dark blue or black as the original.

 But what I must definitely show you is this pattern which was gifted to me by dear Laura of
 The Little Stitcher.
She creates beautiful patterns so you have to visit her etsy 

I stitched  the pattern and added it on this fabric bag which was a gift from a friend and it had a shop advert on it. Doesn't it look lovely? Thank you Laura!

You can even find a free mermaid pattern on her site. It is called The guardians of the sea. I have stitched this many a time and have given it as a gift to sea glass friends.

(photo taken from The Little Stitcher blog)

Here are mine.

Finally I'd like to show you some mermaids paintings from a recent exhibition I went to. The exhibition was organised by the Northern Greece Painters Association.(SKETBE).

The first mermaid with lots of glitter on it is by Penelope Kapetanoudi.

 The second which maybe is not a mermaid but still very beautiful is by  Mary Keremidou.

 Look at all that detail!

  Finally this one by Pelagia Lehou. I love how the sunlight enters the water on her.

 Hope you enjoyed my Let the people choose post! See you next time!

Paint

Hi everyone!
I know I haven't blogged for some time now but well so many things are happening and I can't find the time or the mood to blog.
Today I decided to do a short blogpost initiated by today's prompt in
                                                              Our Beautiful World.
Although I stepped down from the contributors of OBW blog for lack of time I said I will take part once in a while.
So it was just a coincidence that today hubby and I went to watch a shadow puppet performance by our dear friend, talented young man Odysseas Kanlis at Sofouli Theatre. The performance was excellent!And there is one more today so my local friends can see it too.

But imagine my surprise when while entering the bar of the theatre I saw two of its walls covered in painted frescoes of various famous actors and actresses, both Greek and international, some who have died and some very much alive.
I adored the paintings and took lots of pictures.
The painter is called George Salpigkidis and he is really talented.

 My favourite was definitely Tzeni Karezi, a famous Greek actress.

 Kostas Voutsas was really life like here.

 I found it so funny that Dionysis Papagianopoulos a Greek actor of years past is in between Marilyn Monroe and George Clooney.

 And Rena Vlahopoulou in between Smaragda Karydi and Johnny Depp!

 And George Konstandinou next to Will Smith.

 But I also found why Angelina Jolie divorced Brad Pitt. That's the man she is in love with! His name is Kostas Chatzihristos!

 The painter has brilliantly left an empty space in between George Clooney and Johnny Depp, my two most favourite actors, for me to take a photo with them!

 I really enjoyed looking at all those actors!
Today I am joining Our Beautiful World. Why don't you join in too?

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.)

25th of March-Independence Day

We have a glorious sunny but chilly day.
There is a parade but again the police does not allow the people to reach the parade avenue near the politicians attending. This time we won't go to the parade.
We will spend the day with the family at home eating mum's famous salt cod nuggets.
I will try and take a pic and edit this blogpost later.
Till then I will leave you with the lovely paintings of our school Art teacher that decorated yesterday's school festivities.