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!

Let the people choose-March-Freebies

This month's Let the people choose by Jo of Serendipitous Stitching has to do with Freebies.

Freebies (the little free gift kits that accompany magazines) were at first what got me hooked with cross stitch when I was pregnant with my son. I bought the magazines (mainly Cross Stitcher and Needlecraft) to get the free kits to stitch. I loved them. I collected so many with every magazine I bought that I couldn't stitch all of them at some point. Every January I make a New Year's Resolution to finish my huge pile of free kits from magazines ( I have many gifted to me too by friends) and every year I stitch some but I still have many. At times I give away some as gifts to make other people want to learn how to do cross stitch. I also stitch and give them as gifts.
Here you can see how many I still have.That's a shoe box.(again I say many of them are gifts not bought by me)

Want to see them all?

Now that I see them I think most of my older ones were stitched or gifted. The most of what you see in this photo are gifts.
Anyway freebies are not only free kits from magazines.
Freebies can also be free patterns one can find on various sites to stitch for free.
Be careful here. If you simply look for free cross stitch patterns on various sites they might lead you to illegally shown patterns and not real free patterns from designers. You can read a bit about copyright in cross stitch patterns in this blog post of Minizdiary.
Here I will give you a couple of pages that have some free patterns along with some to buy. I have stitched some of the free ones from these sites and really enjoyed them
First it is The Little Stitcher. She also has a beautiful etsy shop here.
And then it the Snowflower Diaries. She too has an etsy shop here.
You can find lots of free patterns in gazette94 too.
Finally there are some freebies on AjisaiPress and they also have some amazing things on the eshop too.
I hope I have made you want to stitch a bit more now! Till next month!

January 2018

It is unbelievable how time flies and I admit blogging is not a priority for me anymore. Therefore although I tried to blog at least once a month in 2017 I stopped in July and didn't manage to go on. I don't think it is very important to blog about the rest of 2017 anymore so I will begin the 2018 months and see how far I go.
So here is January 2018.
It started with a bad cold that took 15 days to get off me. Hubby was also sick so I had to walk Barca one morning out in the cold. The view of the full moon was magic!

Talking about Barca, oh she is such a sweet girl. Look at her how she is watching a dolphin on TV.

And how she follows grandma everywhere begging for a snack from her food.

And she loves flowers.

 January included some pie cutting.I was lucky to win the lucky coin in our pie and

in our ladies' company of friends. That included a watch too and I loved it.

What the mail brought in January. A heavy month due to the Christmas holidays and of course because it is my birthday month. So lots of Christmas cards from Anastasia of
Creations with Fantasy, Tua, Ian, Lynne, Melissa and Gaby. Melissa painted on her card and Ian painted the card himself.And Gaby sent me a Scottish thistle coaster and a lovely beaded snowflake she made herself.Isn't it gorgeous?

I also received lovely gifts from Angeliki pocoloco

and from Theodora and Nikoletta.

From Kim

From Marabeth

From Margrit

From Craftpod, that's a seasonly or yearly subscription and you receive a kit to make during the season or the year.

From Sophie and Aykut, who also painted his own card.

My win from inmycloset giveaway from VelonakaiKlosti

From Marabeth for my birthday

I love what it said inside.

She even sent me the Times about the women's march of last year and it arrived the same day as this year's march.

From Melissa came the book Flat Stanley which I will read to my pupils and Ian painted me a Paddington birthday card

which was followed with Paddington's suitcase full of goodies.

Thank you to all my friends who sent me gifts for the Christmas holidays and my birthday.

In January I took out some fabric bags to use with my shopping as bags are to be paid now every time you go shopping. I always loved using fabric bags so I have a lot in my collection.

 In January I started stitching on my WIPs and started a rotation programme that includes one Xmas ornament, one freebie kit, finishing of old wips, a monthly bookmark and more.So in January I stitched this Greek Santa ornament.

I finished this runner.

I stitched my dolls face features.

I made the Little Mermaid from The Little Stitcher and made it into a bag.

A Valentine's card (an old freebie),a heart brooch and a floral sachet,

Then I decided to stitch in the fabric book that Katerina had gifted me with some time ago.So I stamped on it with some old transfer floral alphabet.And decided to use up all my leftover threads.

In January I made A

B

C

D

E

F

G

and H

I also started on a Halloween piece.

And made the craftpod embroidery hoop which looks lovely and was even included in the craftpod instagram post.

In January I went to Koumpi coffee and crafts cafe to meet with my crafty group and we also cut our pie.

 and I again although I didn't find the coin in my piece I was so lucky to receive some beautiful gifts  from Lena, Kikitsa, Anna, Elsa and Evangelia of Happy Deck

 I also got some books from a friend's destashing that look very interesting!

 At another meeting with other friends Maria gifted us all with this amazing tomato jam from
Family Jar.

My friend Gia also gave me some gifts for me and Barca and the whole family.

I also recieved this amazing painting by Nikos Kryonidis the artist himself.

My sweet son gifted me with this lovely bouquet and guess what I was again sick on my birthday.

I had a birthday cake though at the Drama club as we had some rehearsals too. Me and Ioanna, another member of the team have our birthdays close together so we had a common birthday cake.

And here are the gifts I got from my friends at the Drama club.

The books I read this month Without Family by Hector Malot.

With Family by Hector Malot.

I had read the former as a kid and had really liked it so when I found them at the school library I had to borrow and read them. I also read half of this.

I even arranged my bookcase to see what I have unread and they are many.The top shelf are the books in Greek, and the bottom in English.

In January I made these ornaments with the slices of wood I was sent in the srcret crafter exchange and that won me the in my closet giveaway win.

In January I bought some bulbs too that bloomed really quickly.

And on the last day of the month I acted in the children's play "Game Over" with my Drama club Dithyramvos ex amaxis. The play is written by the teachers Ioanna Katsarou and Afroditi Ioannou and it is directed by Ioanna Katsarou. I play the Assassin from Assassin's Creed in the play and the play talks about the addiction to games and how bad it is for children.

So that was all about my January.Hope you enjoyed reading this and looking at all the photos.