Having Fun

Wish you were here. Really!

Hoo boy, what a day! We had sunshine and mild temperatures, which was fabulous. Of course, I only enjoyed the sunshine from *inside* the house.

First, I decided Meital needed a better place to keep her cash (she's got more than the rest of us put together!). I got an idea, and went searching for a suitable container. Found an empty baby formula can from back when Meital was a baby. Remember, she's ten now. Have I mentioned that I never throw anything away? I measured, and made a wrapper for the can with glossy paper. Then I decorated it.


Here it is, flat. All of the images are by Posh Impressions.


And here are a couple of shots of the cover once it was attached to the can.


I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I used ink pads called Blending Blox (you can find them here) to make the background. I have eight of these pads (there are more, and of course I want them all!), and I used all of them to do the background. I just rubbed the ink pad directly onto the paper. Each pad has four colors, so it made for a colorful background. You know how much I love color. I still need to practice this technique (it's called "direct to paper" for some strange reason), but I do think I'm getting better at it.

Shhh! Don't disturb my illusions, please!

Anyway, then I stamped all the animals on a separate piece of glossy paper. I cut them out and arranged them the way I wanted them, then glued them down. Meital was delighted, and rushed off to stuff the can full of filthy lucre. I mean money.

I also worked a bit here and there on my other craft projects. They are progressing, but so slowly that you would need time-elapse photography to see any change taking place. Or something like that.

In the afternoon, I dug out my next cross stitch project. I started Mother's Arms by Mirabilia during the summer of 1998. Now, two important things happened at about the same time that led to my not giving this piece my full attention. The first, of course, was that I had an adorable baby named Meital who was nearly one year old and who needed lots of attention, and the second was that I discovered scrapbooking. It's not a subject I care to discuss at present. Let's just say that scrapbooking was a real passion at one time and I am convinced that one day I will get back to it. I think. Maybe.


Anyway, here is what Mother's Arms looked like when I dug it out of the bottom of my cross stitching WIPs (Works In Progress) drawer today.


This shows the upper half in more detail.


I spent a delightful 2+ hours stitching on this today, and as far as I'm concerned you can barely tell the difference! Sigh. I decided to save the beading until the end of my stitching session, as a kind of reward for working so much grey green. It's a lovely color (DMC 926 and 927 for you stitching cognoscenti) but after awhile I started developing an unhealthy longing for fire engine red. The beads helped calm me down, however. It's kind of hard to see them, but they're there, along the right side near her hair and starting on her dress below the shoulder. One of these days I'll take a nice close up so you can get an idea of how gorgeous they are.

Warning: Sock Spoiler Ahead! Christine, if you want to be surprised by your socks, it's time to stop reading.

As I told you, I started a new pair of socks last night for my niece. I am using the pink Opal yarn I showed you a while back.


Here is the nascent sock posing with the book in which its pattern appears. In fact, it is the design featured on the cover, the Waving Lace socks. I even woke up - and got out of bed - a full half an hour earlier than usual today, just so I'd have more sock time before I needed to rouse my family. It's a fun, easy pattern. Okay, I say this though I made a mistake (several times) on the second round! It's my first time relying solely on a chart for a pattern, rather than written instructions. But I think (hope) I've got the hang of it now.


The lovely pink yarn keeps calling out to me, telling me to forsake all other, more boring, projects. After all, how can a plain black hat in stockinette stitch (as plain as they get, for those who don't knit) compare with the innocent charm of this pink yarn?

I have no clue.