A teardrop.

We are praying and hoping and waiting that a dear friend's 18 year-old daughter will get well.Hours passing are critical.
The day was filled with tears like our hearts.

Old toys and dinos.

Today we spent another lovely half day trip at a new museum on the suburbs.It is the Dinosaur Park and Mammoth Museum as well as the Museum of traditional toys and games.
The trip was organised by the Cultural Section of the Primary Teachers' Association for educators to get to know this new museum and take their students there and it was free of charge. The weather was great,too, so we had fun.
First we were welcomed by tables filled with coffee,juice and snacks which we really enjoyed.
 After that we were taken to the Traditional toys and games museum. It is a very new and simple  museum where we were shown toys that come from the ancient Greece era to this day and are not played any more unfortunately.

 There were various pottery reproductions of old toys.

 The Shadow Puppet theatre is always present of course.

 Toys made of pottery discs and ribbon.

 Kotsia made of lamb bones.

 Old type of weaving.

 Plaggones are old pottery dolls.

 Helidona(swallow toy) and gaitanaki.

 Various types of boats.

 Then we tried our hands on making a couple of old type toys like cloth dolls and little boats with nails and yarn.

 I loved this wire cage with pottery birds in it.

 Collected materials to use with the children.

 Masks made with paper or papier mache.

 Masks and dolls made of clay.

 A picture made of paper boats.

 Acorn wreath made of metal.

 Then we played some old traditional games on the grass.

 We were then taken on a guided tour to the dino park,the Homo Sapiens cave and the
mammoth museum.There weren't mammoths in Greece but there were mastodons . We saw all kinds of dinos and animals that lived in our area thousands of years ago and of course vanished.

 These are urchin fossils.

 Tyranosaurus Rex.

 Huge dinos.

 One even tried to eat me up!

 Huge crocodile that could even eat a dino when trying to drink water from the pond.

 We could hear the roaring sounds of dinos all along the guided tour.

 The mammoth.

 The mastodon.

 Mammoth hair from Siberia where mammoth bones are fished from the bottom of the sea.

 I was impressed by this beautiful tree.

Colours.

I have a painter friend in Spain. His name is Pere and we met through livemocha a site where I was learning Spanish and he was helping me with my exercises.His latest painting shows exactly how the weather has been the last couple of days in my city. Although the skies were dark today I had the smile of the day with my friends at a morning coffee at my friend Stella's. She made some quince jello and they all laughed when I said I will take a picture of that and put it on my blog as the colour and transparency of the jello was impressive.

 On the way home I noticed the beautiful shapes and colours of a block of flats in my neighbourhood and the trees in front of it. My neighbourhood has lots of old blocks of flats and unfortunately due to the financial crisis and mostly old age of the residents they are not renovated.So it was a difference in my vision to see the light colours of this block.So I painted it.

The smile of the Gioconda.

It is raining heavily and it is said that we should expect the worse tonight but it is cozy and warm inside.
 I spent the afternoon doing a miscellaneous pack of things. I studied,I did some homework,I prepared my next cross stitch project and I painted. That last one didn't end up well so no pics definitely.As for the two little cross stitch cards I finished last night again I will post photos when they will be received.
Fot the time being I will leave you with a fantastic video I was sent by Tasos,a friend from the Drama Club.
It shows the Orchestra of Colours playing "The smile of the Gioconda" by Manos Hatzidakis on Santorini island which is my favourite island on the last sunset of the 20th century!Enjoy it and have a great weekend!

Sunset at my summer house!

Vinyl stickers and a precious scarf!

30 followers!Wow!I am honoured!I am also very happy that the majority of these people are people I already know,personally as pen friends or blog friends or sea glass site friends!That's so sweet to know that there are people who read me and appreciate what I say and most of all I feel that I am sharing my life with all of you and make you smile from time to time!
Thank you all for taking the time to comment on my blog posts! I haven't really found a way to answer each comment so if I don't please do not think that I don't read thm!
Today I did some interior decorating!
I wish I could make my own vinyl stickers for my walls like Geninne did in her blogpost Bird Decals on her windows but I can't so I chose the easy solution of buying some cheap vinyl ready made wall stickers. They are an excellent choice to decorate one's furniture,windows,walls and mirrors. I have used them in the past.Here are some photos of the ones I already had on my furniture and some of the new ones I put today.I brought some spring in my bedroom just when the weather forecast announced dangerous phenomena for tomorrow and Saturday!I hope they don't include thunder and lightning as I am scared of them so much!

 My son's chest of drawers and wardrobe with some leaves and birds stickers.

 This is my chest of drawers. I had these stickers on the wall above but emptid the space for some future framed art.

 And this is the new sticker of cherry tree blossoms and birds.I should take a better picture to show the real colours of that by sunshine.

Some time ago in November I had taken part in a giveaway by Sarah on her very interesting blog Quince and Quire and I won this lovely handmade silk scarf!It arrived today and it is precious and very very beautiful!Thank you Sarah!Her package was so beautifully wrapped in matching colours and ribbon.

 

Something framed,something painted,someone chosen.

Isn't there a time when you don't really know what to choose to say in a blog?
I have blog friends who write about their painting,others who write about their cross stitch,others who write about their sea glass,others who write about their sewing,others who write about their letter writing,others who write about books they have read or films they have watched,others who recount their meetings with nature.
Well I write about everything!How can that be?What type of blogger am I? Well that's just me. I get bored to do the same thing all the time. Therefore I have lots of interests and hobbies. I do a little of this and a little of that.So you will bear with me I guess,if you are still reading me.
So today you will see two framed cross stitch pieces. One is a very old stamped piece of a black and white DMC design of a swan in a pond with grass. I had stitched this when I was in primary school. I never liked it.Because it had no colours. And it was only half cross stitch. Well after 35 years I decided I want it framed and on my wall!What kind of a decision is that?When I saw it framed I loved it!Unbelievable!

 The other piece was a SAL (=Stitch Along) named My little Heart which was designed by Sylvia in Germany whose blog I follow.I liked her beautiful colours. Lots of followers stitched together the same design.Each added their own little thing or simply made exactly what Sylvia showed. I added the beads.I can't say that 2010 was a remarkable year to remember as lots of bad things happened but still I liked the design and chose a simple offwhite wide frame to frame it in.You can see some close ups of the design also.

 This is January,I made the snowflakes with beads.

 This is February,the beads were little flowers.

 I will show you the rest of the months each in every month.This was supposed to finish by the end of 2010 but it took me a while longer and delayed at the framer's.
This week I am doing my second lesson with Alisa Burke. I am trying to follow a little part of the lesson every day so today I painted in water colour a simple picture of shapes. I chose a handful of the beautiful multis my dear sea glass friend Joanne  had sent me. I really enjoyed painting them!

 Now the giveaway.No I didn't forget about it.
I had only 5 comments(bhermitte,Francoise ,Devonseaglass, Dream on the wave and one comment on facebook from Lisa Williams).Marabeth of course was kind to offer these and she didn't take part in the drawing.
 I asked my son to choose the three pieces and so here are the three names chosen.

 First Ian from Devon,I am sure your wife will appreciate this more than you!

 Then another fellow stitcher Francoise from France who also has a lovely blog and we met through a pin pillow exchange.

 And finally Brigitte from France,my long time pen friend.

 This is what each of you will receive. Please confirm your address on my private e-mail,thank you.

I am sorry the other two readers weren't lucky.Maybe next time.Thank you all for taking part.