Let the people choose-September-Bees

Hi everyone!
I never managed to do the August issue of Let the people choose as I was not in town and also didn't have anything monochromatic to show.
But September's theme is bees and I should have something ready but I haven't.
Still I am showing it to you as its theme is bees.
It is the summer kit by Craftpod .
I loved it although I haven't stitched it yet as I seem to be out of stitching mood. It will come back eventually as long as we will be entering cold, rain and winter, I guess.
Anyway Craftpod is a kit that comes out every four months. It is a surprise so you don't know what there will be in it. It usually has two things to make.
Here's the bees themed kit. There was a hoop embroidery  and a recipe.

 Let the people choose is the brainchild of Jo of Serendipitous Stitching and you can visit her blog and see more blogs participating in it.See you soon in the next GG.

Gifted Gorgeousness February 2018

Jo of Serendipitous Stitching organizes a link-up party where we show stitch gifts we made to give or items that were gifted to us and are related to stitching and sewing.So on the 15th of each month we can link up to her blog. This is my first year taking part in this. Thanks Jo for the chance and the inspiration.

So from January 15th till February 14th I stitched this Valentine's card, an old freebie from a magazine, a heart brooch and a floral sachet also freebies from magazines. The brooch was gifted to me along with the magazines from dear Juliana some time ago and although I don't stitch Valentine things I decided to stitch them for the  Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog hop that Jo also hosted.The flower sachet was gifted to me by Jaquie. You can visit the blogs that took part in it here. And this was the photo I sent to my secret stitching sweetheart!

I also stitched the Craftpod Winter hoop.Now that shouldn't be here as the subscription to Craftpod was a gift to me but I really love to show this.

In January I also put all the threads of my next project in bobbins. The next big project is a framed series of monthly bookmarks showing flowers. Marabeth my dear friend in the States sent me this kit.

I plan to stitch one bookmark each month.So here is January and half of February.We are in the middle of February anyway!

In January I received a stitched giveaway win. This is a good luck pin cushion made by 

Velona and Klosti (which means Needle and thread) and I won it at the Secret Crafter 2017 exchange organised by Anna of In My Closet.

In January I started stitching in my fabric book. This fabric book was gifted to me by my friend Katerina of Mindspinfabrica and I decided to stitch a flower alphabet in it. First I iron transfered the alphabet on the fabric pages.

I decided to use leftover threads from previous projects.

I thought this would be a yearlong project and all of a sudden I realised that I love embroidery!So I started stitching one letter every day, in fact every evening!
A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

 Q

R

S

I even started adding Flower Fairies stickers and colouring pages I colour myself on the paper pages of the fabric book.

In February I stitched one more freebie from an old magazine and gave away the pattern and leftover threads afterwards.

This was so old that the price on the magazine was in drachmas.

I also stitched one Xmas ornament from a freebie from a magazine that again my friend Juliana had given me.

I started the Halloween pattern I had won in Jo's giveaway too. It is Halloween Happiness.The fabric I am stitching on is another giveaway win from Brigitte of the blog At Brigitte's Place. I started like this

and I am here so far.

 The mail brought some more stitchy things among other gifts at this time of year due to my birthday on January 28th as well. From dear Juliana I got this lovely parcel that included a stitching magazine with a lovely freebie, a little Xmas kit and some aida.

And I also got the giveaway win from Melanie of the blog Melanie The WIP slayer which is a lovely pattern and leftover threads and beads to stitch hopefully till Xmas.

So as you can see there is a lot of Gifted Gorgeousness in this post as well!
I'd love to thank all of my friends for sending me so many lovely gifts and Jo for organizing the GG.

Something with buttons.

My friend Anna, the creative imaginative person behind in my closet blog and inmyc etsy shop invited us all to take part in a competition on her page on facebook.
The subject of the competition was "Make something with buttons".
So I thought about it, and remembered I had seen something a long time ago on pinterest. I really wanted to make something like that.Or like that. It looked simple enough!
As the deadline is the end of October I had to rush!
Phew!Pals that was hard. Although you can see tutorials on pinterest and people show off what they made successfully, for me it was very hard. I used ModPodge for the first time. I recently found it being sold at Xeirotxnika at Ftiaxto.gr and really wanted to see why people in the States are crazy about using this glue in their crafts so I bought some.
I started with a balloon that I put standing on a jar. I put some Pod Podge and let it dry. Then I added more glue and the buttons.

 I had to use almost half the jar to finish this project and although I did exactly what the tutorial said the buttons kept sliding down no matter how I turned the balloon. And till the glue got totally dry I missed some of them!LOL!It was maddening!

 It took me four days to finish this,oh yes! And I used up all of my little buttons!

 So I had to buy some new ones and the cheapest solution was a little box of buttons from Jumbo!LOL! Going there I felt like a kid. I had to buy all kinds of little cheap things to make more handicrafts with buttons. Here is what I bought.

More ballooons, just in case I am crazy enough to make more bowls with Mod Podge, some felt motifs I couldn't pass and the aforesaid buttons of course.
So I continued with my effort to finish the button bowl.

 My little assistant Barca wanted to play when I let it dry in the cold air faster.

 And I added more buttons that kept falling and more glue.

 In the end and when completely dry I made a small hole to the balloon and let the air come out slowly.

 And with dread I found out that the bowl was not ready yet because it was wet with glue from the inside.

 So I had to allow it more hours to dry.

 And in the end....ta-dah!

 See that jello thing in between the buttons? Well I put that much glue that it became a thick layer of diaphanous material that keeps the buttons together, at last!

 I could trim it all around but decided to keep it as is. Doesn't it look delicious? Almost ready to eat?

 You can put anything light inside, here some candy, or just more buttons but not something heavy as it is fragile!

Of course I also had to make something out of aida and threads and felt and beads and add some buttons too, otherwise it wouldn't be me. There wasn't time for cross stitch (as I am in the middle of decluttering, reorganising my desk and bookcase but that's for another blogpost) so I chose some evenweave fabric, added some felt flowers, buttons, beads and did some ribbon ebroidery and ...ta dah!

And the colours so match my bedroom colours! I loved this one!
Finally I made a ring out of some buttons! But as I am an amateur in ring making I don't think it went that well. But still it is with a button!

So that concludes my "Something with a button" competition entries!
Bytheway Anna mentioned me recently in her blog about the workshop she organized back in June just a day before we left for the States. You can read all about it here. Thank you Anna!
But speaking about buttons I must tell you about a new cafe that opened in the city centre and it is called Button (=Κουμπί) Koumbi Coffee and Crafts I saw the advertising brochure in the Xeirotexnika welcoming bag but Anna told us about it in her blog so we had to go too. We met there for some coffee and to look around! It was fun seeing so many little details, so many craft opportunities and we enjoyed a good coffee and good company. We will certainly go again to craft too!
The beautiful shop sign!

Lots of things to use to make things with a small fee.

Anna looking at the little bags one can buy at very reasonable prices and make something on the spot!

 Buttons and beads of course!

 Even the WC doors have very clever crafty little dolls on them.

 There is a small exhibition of handcrafted items too that a person can buy.

 We will soon attend a workshop there, which I am sure will be fun!