August Gifted Gorgeousness 2018

Hello there! In Greece we say "...from August comes winter..." and I am back in the city.
It was a difficult and tiring summer but I managed some swimming too.
Anyway this is a GG post again. But first I would like to thank everyone who read my previous GG post and left a comment too. Sorry I haven't answered, I yet have to find out how to do it.
So what's GG?Jo of Serendipitous Stitching organizes a link-up party where we blog about what we have stitched in the month that is related to the word "gift". Something we were gifted or we will gift that is.
You can see more about this in Jo's blog.

This month (from July 16th to August 15th) I was at the beach house. As I had to fully take care of my mum myself I didn't have too much free time to stitch as I used most of my free time to go to the sea! Indeed how can one resist such a sea! That is near Potidea in Chalkidiki and as we say in Northern Greece "San ti Chalkidiki den ehi" which means " There is no other place like Chalkidiki".

 So the few things I managed. Just two.
I finished all the Halloween Happiness except for the glow-in-dark white. This pattern was a giveaway win from Jo's blog and the fabric was a giveaway win from Brigitte's ( no blog anymore).

 I tried to stitch as much as I could but I also wanted to read a bit! What a dilemma!

 Finally it looked like that! I have changed some colours as I tried to use thread from my stash!

 And the second piece I managed  to start and continue is Karaghiozis, the Greek Shadow Puppet theatre protagonist. I am stitching this for a collaborative work where lots of stitchers from Greece will work on to produce a huge piece that commemorates the Greek civilization.

Finally I want to show you a corner in my beach house.

There are three framed stitched pieces there. The first which I call "Underwater" was a Round Robin I took part in ages ago, pre computer time, and after I got it back (each stitcher had stitched one fish) I added the background and the details all made free with no pattern. This is dedicated to my dear dad who loved the sea and fish so much.
The second framed piece is half cross stitch on a printed fabric, it is a lighthouse in the U.S.A. my friend Marabeth gifted the print to me and I stitched it. Finally the frame with the three lighthouses are made by me a long time ago when I bought the beach house. I matced them with the lighthouse candles on hubby's bedside table.
That was all for GG this month! Thanks for following. Hope you enjoyed your summer!

The second week of the Easter holidays.

As we were busy with the doctors' appointments all this week, we didn't have time for much else. Apart from doing house chores,
we walked the seafront promenade a lot, us and thousands of others, enjoying the magnificent views,

I made egg salad following a recipe I found in this blog.It is a good way to use up Easter eggs, Add boiled eggs, shredded carrots, red pepper, dill, green onions, mustard, mayonaise, salt and pepper, olive oil and apple vinegar.Delicious!

I prepared some mail to post next week,
I got prepared for school that starts tomorrow,
I put away the Easter decorations and decorated my big table for spring,

we went to IKEA for some frames we needed,one for this oil painting a friend of mine made for me,

 and one for the watercolour I bought from Dimitra of Decorasylum, and her etsy shop,

I made some soap following this recipe by Zina of Efzin Creations here,
I used olive oil soap base, lavender essential oil, lemon essential oil and yellow food colouring as well as a bit of lavender flowers from Portugal.

 I liquidized the soap base in the microwave, added the rest of the ingredients and poured into the soap molds.You have to do the pouring very quickly!

 Here they are, so easy, great looking, smelling wonderful!

We went to the beach house,

and had coffee with the family.

Whoever starts school tomorrow, have a great new start!

In anticipation...

This has been a very tiresome but fulfilling week and lots of things happened but today I will show you some photos from the last open air antique market in December.
We are hoping that the municipality will allow the antique stores and dealers to have more open air market days in the same park near our house. Till then the news is that in the end of March there will be an antique day fair but at a different spot.
So in anticipation for the next open air antique market at Y.M.C.A. grounds on Sunday 31st March here are some photos of the previous one.

 Dishes.

 Old photos and cards.

 Too expenisve for me unfortunately.

 Gorgeous cloisonne vase.

 That transferware attracted my eye at once.

 Vignettes.

 Glassware

 Dolls.

 Marklin trains.

 Amazing embroidery.

 And here are the things that came home with me. Hubby bought me the blue bowl but I put the price down!And all the rest were very cheap.

 I love small porcelain saucers.

 These tiny statues are used in France as tokens in Epiphany day pies.The Dutch lady is with my friend Frieda now.

 vintage beads

 This detailed counted half cross stitch piece is already framed.

See anything you like?