Happy Easter

Hoping you have the happiest of Easter celebrations however you love to do that. Check out Alisa Burke's gorgeous watercolor eggs. I am sure she has other fab easter projects on her blog if you spend a bit of time looking around there.

And if you are a chocolate egg type, don't forget to save all that foil for future projects -I have friends and family who collect on my behalf now :-)

Check out Angie Hughes gallery - she incorporates lots of Chocolate foil wrappers in her work.

Remember my foiled velvet bagQuilting Arts even has a quilt made with sweet wrappers. And if you have back issues of Quilting Arts magazine, have look in Issue 13/Spring 2004 for a bag black and gold bag made using Ferrero Rocher Chocolate wrappers.

Happy Easter Weekend.

Stitched cards

I really enjoyed having my stockpile of handmade cards that I made last year. I ran out recently so needed to make some more.I can't seem to stay away from the Heart-Butterfly theme. This one is being sent to my sister-in-law for her birthday at Easter.I am still adding words cut from old large-print books once I know what occasion the card is being sent to celebrate. This one is for my niece and her new fiance.

Needlecase

At last my needlecase is finished :-) Fun to make and lovely to use - the felt is so soft. I especially like that the wee turquoise flower button was my nan's. Have been promising myself a nicer place to store my needles for a couple of years! And now it's done And I am happy

Win FREE online classes FOR LIFE!

Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen have an AMAZING opportunity here

If you liked this (click on the pictures to go to the blogpost about the art) or this or this sign up for this class before 8th May AND be in to win....promise you'll love the classes even if you don't get to win the free courses for life :-)

Raumati Weekend memories

Last Friday, 8 girlfriends arrived in Raumati and sat on the deck to toast each other and watch the sun set We shopped on Saturday These purchases of mine from Trade Aid : the handmade paper rather nicely fits my recent Flower Power theme, and the wee album will become an indian-inspired mixed media book I think. We enjoyed wine and good food at a Thai restaurant on Saturday night. Our dishes were decorated with beautifully carved carrots and we were entranced when shown how they were made. On Sunday we walked The weather was kind to us and so were our friends....we shared massages and make-up and stories of our lives that we hadn't heard before. I even managed some stitching. We finished the weekend with more dining and more shopping. I even found some images while browsing some Embroidery magazines that inspire me : Abigail Brown's butterflies here and Louise Saxton's travel bug (check out her gallery of amazing images) I hope you are lucky enough to have good friends in your life...and I hope you tell them how much they mean to you

Calendar challenge : March/April

Late posting this month because of my wonderful girls' weekend in Raumati. Will post about that next time.

First the March pages - as they began March finished. I had started these pages with NZ book month and the newspaper reports of the February Christchurch earthquake in mind, so decided to complete them with hearts since I love books, and I also made hearts for Christchurch this month.

My April pages have been inspired by thinking about holidays beside the beach - the first weekend being spent in Raumati, and during the easter school holidays we will be having a family holiday to Nelson and the West Coast for 10 days. The base was a wash of apricot acrylic paint, and I rubbed turquoise acrylic over that. Then a layer of glitter glue to make it all sparkly - it looks like sun on water, and also golden sands on the beaches we will see in Nelson. I decided tags would be appropriate with the travel theme - they have been sprayed with Starburst Spray : Saxifrage Olive Copper (I got mine from the Thread Studio) It was hard to take photos of the pages so I've included these close-ups to show the sparkle of the page bases and the tags as well. Looking forward to filling in the days when I know we have such happy times ahead.

To see other participants in the 2011 calendar challenge click on The Kathryn Wheel or go to the flickr group

Weekend of fun

Happy April everyone. Today I am packing for my weekend of 3 nights away with 7 other girlfriends in Raumati. Have been looking forward to it for ages. I have known most of these women for 11 years - we met when we had our first babies. We will be eating, drinking, sharing, laughing, walking, shopping, sleeping -- generally having fun together. I am packing this to keep reading - so great when you have a book to take on holiday that you are right in the middle of enjoying. Am also taking some old Quilting Arts magazines to be re-inspired by, and some hand-stitching (and some lovely cheese, spreads, bread & wine!!)

While I'm gone I thought you might like to have some fun too :

Here's lovely April desktop wallpaper from Geninne.
Check out Pam Garrison's video of her house book - very VERY cool.
Talk to you next week