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.)

Promoting friends work-some recent purchases (January to April)

As you can see I cannot cope much with my blog but I am willing to try.
Here are some purchases I made some months ago.
An Icaros porcelain egg cup from the neighbourhood antique store. It is broken on one part so he gave it away to me for 0.5 euro.

A woodburning Iron set from Lidl. I have plans for the summer with my driftwood.

A pair of lovely mask earrings from Efzin creations.

A lovely original from Decoasylum

I framed it in a bigger IKEA frame than the one you see here and is now at the beach house but forgot to take a picture.

I got carried away and ordered this set of sea themed figurines from ebay which is unusual for me.

I found this Karaghiozis shadow puppet print at this Greek etsy shop coocoovaya and loved it.Also got the owl pin and sent it as a gift.

I reordered the Karaghiozis in a bigger sized and framed as I have shown you in another blogpost with our framed art wall.

 And then got it framed and it looks lovely!

 These I had got from the Amymoni bazaar. I am not sure I had shown them.

These lovely spiders I bought from the Dans Le Lakehouse etsy shop. I follow Tanya's blog and love it. And Tanya was so sweet to give me an one for one offer which was so great!

 I got this from a new shop I happened to find from Italy.It's called Vijolcenne. It's painted on a piece of wood and it's gorgeous.

 You can see it on my Easter table here too.

(Yes I know that is quite an old post but I am too busy lately!)

A few purchases.

During the last weeks of 2014 I purchased some items, always in the budget.
From Tiger Stores very reasonably priced ribbons, washi tape and a button making set.

 From IKEA a frame for my woven picture and a set of coasters for future card making.

And again from IKEA wrapping paper, Xmas gift tags, some more coasters, sticker-labels, kitchen utensils and a set of stuffed animals to act out "The Town Musicians of Bremen" at school.

 From PLAISIO colourful quilling ribbons (although I don't make quilling but they are gorgeous paper ribbons you can use at other crafts), eyes for card or felt making and some little stickers.

From LIDL an aromatherapy set. Unfortunately the perfumes inside the bottles are not very strong.

A few threads, beads and vintage buttons from a neighbourhood antique-second hand shop.

And some vintage Greek souvenirs.

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.