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.)

Our trip to the U.S.A.(20)- Mystic Aquarium

After The Book Barn we went to Mystic and visited the Mystic Aquarium.
There are a lot of photos. Hope you like them.
A sand sculpture.

 Beautiful posters everywhere.

 A mosaic whale.

 For days when people asked me what impressed me the most in the States I answered " The belugas".
I have visited lots of Aquariums around the world and now it is hard any to impress me as I have seen a lot. The same went with the Mystic Aquarium. The only thing that impressed me were the beluga whales.

 The seals and the sea lions were beautiful too.

 I didn't see any butterflies.

But the lily pond was gorgeous and I saw a dragonfly.

 The penguins were gorgeous.

 There were little boats to drive.

 I loved seeing that little seal being washed.

 Isn't it cute?

 Of course taking photos in the inside tanks was very difficult to photograph.

 But those glass ornaments made by Jeffrey P'an are gorgeous and I am fortunate to have one of his glass ornaments sent to me by dear Marabeth years ago.

 Jellyfish are the most difficult to photograph.

Fish are also very difficult to take a photo of.

 I loved seeing the moray eels.

And the barracudas.

 There were so many strange fish.

And other strange creatures.

 Sharks too.

 And sting rays.

 We touched a little alligator.

We attended a seal performance too.

We touched crabs too.

 And met with Nemo!

 And touched stingrays. That was quite a feeling at the touch.

 A squid almost ate up my hubby!

 I loved seeing Alvin, the little submarine that explored the Titanic.

 I enjoyed visiting the Titanic exhibition gallery.

 Of course we had to take the photo!

 On the way out we had to look at the belugas again.

 And they said goodbye!

 This was the view outside the Aquarium It was funny!

And this is a souvenir I bought at the shop.It's a glass starfish.

 It matches the painted stone I had bought years ago.