Meet Blue

I've been away from this site for a while, again. I keep promising to myself that I will post at least weekly, but it's so easy to break a promise you make to yourself. I haven't been doing much crafts anyway, only some clay things and few greeting cards. Guess I was not in a very creative mood lately.

A little more than a month ago we got a new member of our household - her name is Blue (with full name Assaya Blue Velvet), she is a white/blue Shih-tzu and, no doubt about that, she is the cutest dog ever. Nina was so excited when we brought her home for the first time that she was holding her in her lap and crying for quite some time. Now our life is a bit different and luckily more active as we have to go out more often. She's smart and learning things fast, very friendly and always ready to lick everyone who is willing to cuddle her a bit. And of course, we already love this little fur ball to death!

At the moment, I am home alone with Blue as Nina is on vacation with her dad. I've always thought it was very weird that people talk to their dogs like they are kids, but now I'm doing exactly the same - not just giving her praise and orders, but... you know, talking, like she understands everything I say. Strange! :) I guess I joined the I talk to my dog club :).

Weekend Sketch Challenge #76

This is my first time participating in a challenge. Laurie (Just Give Me Stamps) is hosting Weekend Sketch Challenge and I love the layout she made. Since I had to make a birthday card and had no ideas what to do, I used her layout. I am quite sure the receiver will like the worn out style of it.
As a small gift, I included two bookmarks in the same style.

Have a wonderful day!

Easter Eggs Paper Basket

I'm home alone again. Nina went to the seaside with her father on Friday and won't be back till late evening. I cooked a ham but we haven't made any eggs yet. I'm waiting for her as I am not in the mood for making Easter eggs alone... and she was really looking forward to do special ones this year. We are going to have lunch with my parents and my brother (and maybe his girlfirend - have I mentioned I am going to become an aunt in a few months???) tomorrow and since we always exchange some eggs on that day, I made some small paper baskets. They are big enough to hold one egg. I used K&Company and BasicGrey paper and embelished them with paper flowers, buttons, rhinestones and ribbon.

Happy Easter, everyone! Hope you are having a wonderful day.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

Time for some poetry :). Spring with warm temperatures and buds and flowers all around inspired me to make this file box. And while I was gluing the flowers on it I remembered the poem we had to learn by heart in English class in school... years ago. I tried to recite it while I was gluing but I forgot few lines, so I just had to find it and read it again. Here it is - to refresh my memory and perhaps yours as well :).



DAFFODILS
by William Wordsworth
(1770-1850)

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.


Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.


The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:


For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.


WELCOME SPRING!

Scrap Paper Holder - Tutorial

I made similar scrap paper holder few days ago. I just love it because it's nice and practical and you can put it anywhere you want. When I do cards or scrapbooking, there are always some pieces of paper left... with this holder I can have them all in one place instead of having them all over my working table. Since I promised a friend who visited me the other day that I will put a quick tutorial on my blog, here it is.










You can make it in different sizes - my basic cardboard sizes are:
14 x 10 cm for the back,
14 x 3 cm for the bottom and
14 x 7 cm for the front.
Cut the cardboard pieces and glue them to the back of the desired pattern paper - make sure you leave some space between them. Trim the paper about 2 cm around and trim the corners. Fold the edges and glue them down.























Cut the piece of coordinating paper that is a few millimeters smaller than the "core" you have in front of you and glue it down so you cover the edges. With you scoring tool, gently rub in the space you left between cardboard and try to put it into the final shape.























Now cut the paper for the side parts. I wanted the upper part of the holder to be wider than the bottom, so I first cut 6.5 cm long strip of pattern paper, cut it in half and marked 3 cm for the bottom (as that is the size of my bottom cardboard part as well), and 5 cm for the top. You want to get an isosceles trapezoid. On the sides with equeal lenght (in my case the 6.5 cm side) leave 1 cm for fold which you will glue down. (See the pics bellow, I can't tell that better). I distressed the back side of the trapezoids before I glued them as they were just too white for my quite dark background paper.

































And that's about it. Of course you can embelish it as you want.


















And finally, put some scrap papers in it. I'm going to make a bigger one and fix it on the wall to keep the bills that need to be payed in it. You can use it for other things as well, it's up to you.








Now I dare you to make your own and show it to me! :)

Few Pendants + Magnolia Card

My days are still so busy but I have finally put together some of the pendants. Still have few more to make, but they will have to wait until next week.






















Last night I was in the mood for some stamping, gluing and paper cutting - while I was chatting on the phone for quite some time, this card came to life. I like it and at least that hour and half was well spent in more than one way.




























(Front and inside page of the card)
Paper: Basic Grey - Sultry; Stamp: Magnolia; Prima flowers; buttons; Ribbon: Rayher; Nestabilities Big Square Die used with Cuttlebug; Sakura Glaze Pen,...

On My Working Table...

Past week or two were quite busy for me. I can't really tell what I was doing, but everyday there was something to do and somewhere to go.
I took some time for myself this weekend while Nina was away with school and I played with clay again. That's what's on my table at the moment and what I'm working on (the other part of the table, which you can't see on the pic, is of course a total mess!) :)

When I am done, I should have quite few pendants that will look like this one - except for the shape, color, pattern on it and ribbon :))

Blog Awards

I got few blog awards recently. One is from Phoenix/MagDesign - check out her blog, her latest polymer clay creations are just lovely! Thanks a lot for this one, Phoenix.
The same one was awarded to me by Hali. She is a super mum who finds the time (I believe there must be some kind of magic involved ;) ) to create a lot of beautiful stuff of all kinds.

Another one is from Moi/ChezMoi - check out her blog, too, it's worth it. Her paperwork is wonderful and she is good with polymer clay and other things as well. Plus, she is a great friend. Thanks a lot for this one, too!

Now I should nominate few people to pass awards on. I'll do this the easiest way and nominate all of you who are on my link list on the right on my blog. So, that's done. Put them on your blog and pass them on, if you like.

Have a nice day and thanks again for the awards!

Stamp Carving Again

I needed a flower stamp and although I have quite a few it came to my mind I could carve one. It has been a while since I carved stamps... after carving the first one, I did the second and the third... After quite few hours I run out of rubber and ended up with a pile of new stamps! :)

Cookie Like PC Bracelets & Some Computer Stuff

In my previous two posts I tried something new with blogger (at least new for me!) - that's scheduled post publishing. And guess what? It works just great! :)

All you have to do is get your post ready and then change the date and hour at the bottom of the post editor, tab "Post Options" (Možnosti objave). When you click the "Publish" (Javno Objavi) button, your post becomes "Scheduled" (Načrtovano). And when the scheduled time arrives, your post will be published - while you are sleeping or shopping or jogging or watching tv or making love or having coffee with your friends or writing your next scheduled post or whatever it is that you are doing at that time.

The other thing I tried is called Gimp, great software for quick (or not so quick) image manipulation. Usually I use Photoshop for editing my photos and other things, but my computer has some troubles with it lately (Photoshop burns A LOT of memory and my computer is rather old, that's why I had to find replacement for it). I discovered that Gimp is better as far as memory consumption is concerned - while it can do most of the things Photoshop does. Anyway, I downloaded Gimp and started using it and although it is very similar to Photoshop I had quite some troubles using it. Well, I still have some problems - I can't find things I am looking for and I still feel quite lost in there. The reason for that is really simple, I believe - not intentionally, I downloaded the Slovene version of this program! It is a good translation, well done, but it seems so funny and strange... and it's soooooo annoying! And it's sad that I don't feel comfortable using a program that is translated into the language I hear, speak and write daily.

Rounded corners on the photos in the past few posts are done in Gimp. I love them better that way. What do you use for editing your photos, if anything?

Altered PC & Wire Necklace (2)

Altered PC & Wire Necklace (1)

What Will You Bake Today?

Fimo Color Mixing...

... all afternoon and now my hands really hurt from all that clay conditioning!

Makaroni - Makroni - Macaroons... Whatever

Obljuba dela dolg, zato danes objavljam dokumentirano ustvarjanje makaronov, makronov. Ali macaroonov... ali kakorkoli bi me že temu rekli.

Osnovni recept za testo:
110 g beljakov (približno 4 jajca)
30 g kristalnega sladkorja
125 g fino mletih madnljev
225 g sladkorja v prahu

Dan ali dva pred nameravano peko ločimo beljake od rumenjakov - če so večja jajca, vzamemo 4, drugače pa za vsak slučaj 5. Rumenjake poljubno porabimo, beljake pa pustimo v odkriti skodelici v hladilniku (menda zato, da čimveč vode izhlapi, ali nekaj takega). Dan prej lahko pripravimo tudi poljubno kremo, s katero bomo napolnili makarončke.

Ko nastopi dan X, začnemo:






















1. Skozi drobno cedilo presejte mlete mandlje (če so olupljeni, bodo makrončki brez tistih temnih pikic; jaz sem kupila že mlete, z lupino). Če so preveč grobo mleti, jih lahko zmeljte v moko v kavnem mlinčku. Odmerite 125 g.
2. Prav tako posebej presejete sladkor v prahu in odmerite 225 g.
3. Zmešajte skupaj mandlje in sladkor. Uradno naj bi jih sicer še enkrat presejali, ampak jaz sem ta del kar preskočila.
4. Odmerite 110 g beljakov.






















5. Beljake mešajte z metlicami ročnega mešalnika pri srednji hitrosti, da masa naraste in postane mehurčkasta.
6. Med mešanjem postopoma dodajajte 30 g kristalnega sladkorja, hitrost prestavite na največjo, dokler beljakova masa ne postane čvrsta. Če v maso potegnete z metlico mešalnika, se morajo rezi poznati.
7. Metlice mešalnika odstranite (po možnosti še splaknite, ker se lahko grdo zasušijo) :).
8. V beljakovo maso dodajte del sladkorno mandljeve mešanice in rahlo vmešajte. Če želite dodati barvo, je to pravi trenutek, da se bo do konca mešanja lepo porazdelila. Ker zeleni makroni večini niso bili všeč, sem tokrat dodala oranžno.
9. Nadaljujte z mešanjem, vsake toliko dodajte del sladkorja in mandljev. Na koncu mora biti masa svetleča in gosta "kot magma".












10. Prst globoko pomočite v pripravljeno maso in ga obliznite. V tej fazi še ne priporočam otrok v bližini! :)
11. Sledi meni osebno najbolj zoprn del - polnitev dresirne vrečke. Če je nimate, seveda lahko uporabite kar navadno prozorno vrečko za živila, ki ji prirežete konico. Če jo imate, uporabite nastavek z odprtino približno 1 cm (jaz sem na eni plastični odrezala zobčke, da je lepo okrogla).
12. Na s peki papirjem obložen pekač iztisnite približno 3 cm širok kupček. Ker ni bilo pri hiši dodatnega para rok, žal tega nisem mogla poslikat. Se pa vidi tule, kakšni kupčki naj bi to bili. Kupčki se razlezejo (in znižajo, zato brez panike!), zato naj bodo primerno oddaljeni en od drugega. Količina iz tega recepta zadostuje za ravno dva velika pekača in še malce ostane za pojest kar tako.
13. Zdaj je čas, da pokličete otroke in vsakemu stisnete kupček mase v usta. Če poližejo še skledo, boste imeli manj dela s pomivanjem.
14. Vse skupaj pustite stati na pultu (ali mizi) približno eno uro. V tem času se bo zgornja plast makronov lepo zasušila, vi pa medtem lahko pomijete posodo, preberete kakšno poglavje tistega romana, napišete post na blog... ali pa, če nimate pametnejšega dela, iz primerne razdalje in na primernem mestu spustite iz rok posodico z ostanki sladkorja v prahu in si daste v tem času opravka s pospravljanjem nastalega razdejanja.























15. Pečico segrejete in makrone pecite približno 15-20 minut na 160 stopinj. Med vratca pečice zataknite kuhalnico. Če imate srečo in ste kuharski genij, tako kot jaz :), bo na spodnjem delu makronov nastal obroček. Zgornja plast mora biti svetleča in trdna, da ob ugirzu poči, sredica pa mehka - zdi se, kot da ni čisto do konca pečeno, ampak tako mora biti :).
16. Pečene makrone vzemite iz pečice in jih s peki papirjem vred dvignite iz pekača. Dali naj bi jih sicer na rešetko, ampak ker jaz tako velike rešetke nimam, sem jih dala kar na pult.
17. Ko so ohlajeni, jih previdno obrnite in vsakega drugega premažete s poljubno kremo. Lahko je tudi marmelada, menda so originalni ravno z marmelado. (Moja krema je takale: 2 žlici masla, 2 žlici Philadelphia sira za mazanje, 3 velike žlice nutele in malo sladkorja v prahu)
18. Makrončke sestavite, zložite na krožnik in... na veliko žalost... pokrijte s folijo in postavite za čez noč v hladilnik. Ja, saj vem, grozno, ampak naslednji dan so veliiiiiiko boljši. Prisežem!

Pa dober tek!

Vir: kakšnih 100 različnih spletnih strani in video posnetkov na to temo.

*****

For all of you who don't understand Slovenian and would like to make macaroons as well, try this page, it has step by step instructions.

Art Journal Page (1)

Art Journal

Started in January... some details added today (and I guess it's not completely done yet)... since the book has about 50 pages, it will be done by the end of 2031! :)

My 6th file in the 6th folder

I was tagged by K to show you my 6th picture in the 6th folder on my computer. A week or so ago I burned thousands of pictures to dvds, so the 6th folder is quite recent... until last week the content of the 6th folder would be a year or two older, but at the moment it holds pics from November 2008. It starts with Halloween pics; I know it's celebrated in October but we finished our party in November :)).













So, here is the 6th pic - kids posing, in this particular photo the girls are showing their crazy fake nails. Usually they pose a bit longer so I can make more pictures but they were in the middle of the game and they were not really in the mood for posing more.





















This photo is also a part of my freshly printed 2008 photo book which I got few days ago (printed in BingBang store). It is my first photo book, it has 98 pages in A4 format and I love it!! When I have time, I will make one for 2007, 2006, and so on... I mean back :). Here are the photos of my book page where the same photo is printed, and also first and last page. As I said, I love it!







































I have to tag 6 more people to show us their photos. Let me see... ummmm...

PolonaP
Lisa Gatz
Tina Holden
Fimolandija
Mayhem
McCrafty

What you have to do is:
- post a 6th photo which is in your 6th photo folder on your computer
- tell a little bit about it
- pass this on to 6 bloggers

Če je treba napisati še po slovensko, pa kar povejte. Sem se nekako navadila, da tule pišem angleško, ker sem tako pač začela... pa že kar precej časa razmišljam o dvojezičnih objavah oziroma o še enem slovenskem blogu - ha, pa še za tega nimam časa... slike pa itak razume vsak, a ne? :)

Btw, today is Friday, the 13th! Be careful! :)

Thank You Card

A pull-up pop-up thank you card made for my parents for taking care of my sweet Nina for the past few days.

OWOH giveaway results

So, that's it. Winners are drawn, although not from the hat, it was just a big tin can. Nicely decorated, though :).

Since I am ill, Nina is in the "foster" care with my parents for a few days. She came home today for a few minutes to get her things for school and I asked her to draw the names from the can. Pictures are not really good, but I didn't have time to do them better. Anyway, here are the results:

1st: daytoncat (February 8, 2009 6:16 PM)
2nd: Stephanie (February 5, 2009 9:26 PM)
3rd: Kimberly Hellams (February 4, 2009 9:13 PM)

Congratulations!

Since Daytoncat whishes to get the hidden magic pendant, I am going to change the order of my giveaway, so:
Daytoncat gets hidden magic pendant
Stephanie gets necklace and earrings and
Kimberly gets stamped pendant.
Hope that is fair enough.

I'm going to pack the things during the weekend if I get all the addresses from my winners and send them off on Monday. Thanks to all for participating! Hope to see you around sometimes :).

Scrapbook Album For Nina

I'm going to make a scrapbook album for Nina with some of my favorite photos of her. I bought blank Maya Road 20x20 cm album with 8 pages which is going to be just perfect. I finished the first page today... guess it's done for now...

GIVEAWAY - CLOSED!

This giveaway is now closed, comments will not be accepted any longer. When Nina comes from school, she will announce 3 lucky winners, who will be conntacted through email. (Since I am on a sick leave because of virosis, I think I will not be able to send the items before Monday, but I will try to send them sooner.)

Thanks to all of you who took the time to enter. I hope that at least few will be back from time to time. And thanks to Lisa for hosting this great event. It was fun participating.

ONE WORLD - ONE HEART

---

Lisa is hosting third in a row annual project, One World One Heart. The idea is that bloggers host their own giveaways on their blogs, all at the same time. That sounds like a great project and I want to be a part of it as well.

To be considered a contestant for my giveaway you need to leave a comment here, on this post! It doesn't matter where you are from. Only one comment per person, please! You need to have an active blog (or write your email address in your comment) where I can leave a comment to notify you of winning. When I let you know of your winning I will then need an email address so that we can communicate to get your snail mail addy! THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON FEB 12th or 13th! You have time until February 11th at 11:59pm PST to leave a comment!

Good luck!!!!

Since the number of comments is constantly increasing, I'm offering more than just one thing. Here they are:

1. Polymer clay necklace with handmade beads and earrings (flower cane work)

2. Polymerclay pendant (made with stamping)

3. Polymer clay stone pendant (hidden magic)

P.S. How am I going to pick up the winners? Hmmm... on12th, I am going to print all the comments, cut and fold them and my lovely daughter Nina will pick 3 of them. Fair enough?

Few Cards (Cuttlebug + Nestabilities)

Hi there,

It was snowing again this weekend, weather was horrible and just perfect for creating - beside being lazy and cuddling with Nina in front of TV, of course. It was about time I properly try my cuttlebug (which I got almost two months ago) and nestabilities dies (which I got almost two months ago as well). I love it! It saves a lot of time, it's easy to work with and the cuts are perfect every time...

Few of the cards I made in the past few days (click on the pic to enlarge):

Paper: K&Company, BasicGrey
Stamps: HeroArts, AudDesign

Macarons / Macaroons

I've never heard about French macarons until few weeks ago. I saw some pics of cute and colorful cookies before, but somehow I was sure they are just lovely fake decoration of some kind. I mean, you can't bake cookies in so many different colors with different fillings and make them look so perfect, can you? But obviously you can (well, not me and probably not even you, but some can). When I realized I was wrong, I had to make them to learn how they taste and what's the feeling when they fill your mouth. I read a gazillion of pages, trying to learn exact procedure of making macarons and the more I read the more I was convinced that I shouldn't really try that at all. But I did. And the result was... hmmm, probably not perfect, but close enough... and if you ever wondered, how they taste like - perfectly yummy!

My first green macarons. I have always suspected that I am a cooking genius and that all my cooking failures are just the result of not practicing enough. Now those lovely macarons proved that that's almost certainly true! Maybe I should open a pastry shop, huh? :))

P.S. Recipe follows :).

Some Leftover Beads Turned Into Simple Necklaces

Blog awards

That's sooo sweet, all those blog awards. Even I got a few! One is from my talanted crafting friend Kitty:

The other one(s) is from a lovely talanted Romanian crafter Squash:





































I am not really sure what the lasr two awards mean, but somehow I know it's something really cool! :)

My rewards go to few crafters who blog:
Moi
Kitty
Hali
McCrafty
Squash
Zabica-Fimolandija
Phoenix
Boheme/Flo
Isa
Lunes

If you are listed and read this, pick up the award you like, post it on your blog and pass it on.

Take a look at their blogs, I am sure you will love their work and find some insipiration! Thanks girls!

P.S. The cane from the previous post didn't really turn out that well - it looks like a crossbreed of butterfly, moth and dragon-fly. I'll have to put together another one, which will hopefully look like a real butterfly! :) More pics when I find the cable for my camera...

Butterfly cane

Sorting blocks of clay & a quick cane

Some Polymer Clay

Nuno Felting

For quite some time I have been fascinated by felted scarves and bags. Somehow, I didn't even dare to think I could do something like that. When I did some "research" with Mr. Google's help, I learned how to do it. It was quite a short, but also a messy, bubbly and wet way from learning visually to making my first nuno felt piece.

In short, nuno felting is a way of wet felting where wool roving is felted into silk or some other sheer fabric. In wet felting, soapy water is used to bind the wool fibers together - you put down layers of wool, dump them with soapy water and then roll and/or rub until wool fibers lock together and make a soft cloth. Nuno felting is the same thing, except that you use a silk or some other sheer fabric as a base on which you put wool. After fiber are locked together, you start throwing your piece (to the floor, sink is even better), which causes wool fibers to shrink for about 1/3, while the size of your base fabric remains the same - hence the wrinkles on the silk parts.

I bought merino wool and used silk... since it was just a try, I didn't buy whole rainbow of colors (yet!), just a few. Here are the results (on the last pic are needle felted embelishments):