Dom's new painting

Hiya peeps!

So rarely writing in here...

Making cards (different blog for this), back to jewellery making (different blog for that too)... and possibly for that I'm not writing in here as much as before...

So...

My newest card here :)

Newest jewellery pieces here :)

And for you here newest painting of my 7 years old boy :)

He paint it 2 days ago (Thursday) after school.

Sorry for blurry pic!!!

He used canvas board, rest of acrylic paints and sponge brush.

I like colors on it :)

Not only Halloween :)

Hiya!

Oh yes, I know Halloween is gone, but..

Over a week before Halloween Dom decided he wants to have carved pumpkin, sooo... he choose one in the shop and ...

My first carved pumpkin :) Hard job!!! And he wasn't happy cause he wanted bat on it... so I carved bat on back of this pumpkin later :)

On Halloween day I baked pumpkin muffins, I used Mary Berry's recipe for carrot cake which you can find here: Mary Berry's Carrot and Walnut Cake, just changed carrot for pumpkin and didn't add walnuts.

Result: very yummy!!!

Meantime Dom was working on Birthday card for his friend Grace.

He's going for her Birthday party this Saturday.

He's also waiting for his school trip to Druridge Bay next week.

That's all for now :)

Dom and canvas

Hello, hello!!!

Another long break with writing here...

And another post about my little boy :)

He's definitely artistic soul :)

Here the story:

Last week we were in Works shop and I decided to buy little art easel (with canvas) to use it for my cards pics. After back home Dom decided he wants to use it. I told him canvas are good with paints, so he smiled and said: Where's my brush? :)

I placed canva on piece of paper, gave him paints, brush and water to clean brush and...

waited what he do with it :)

Result:

He called it: Circlesies from circle :) Inspiration taken from children's book: Three Little Ghosties.

I asked him if he wants to try paint on bigger canvas and he said: yes.

So...

I bought few bigger :)

And definitely he prefers the smallest canvas :)

That's all for today :)

What happened... since May

So busy with my cardmaking blog, but...

This cannot be an explanation for total absence in here! I'm making cards - fact, but not only this!

So... what happened since May? Quite a bit I can say :)

We started dealing with our garden:

I found rather big amount of sea glass on our beach, when we decided one day we need some nice walk :)

Won this beauty on Instagram:

We were in Newcastle and found great place called Greek Grill in Heaton :) Very yummy food plus nice chat with cook and owner of the place - we recommend this place to all Greek food lovers!

This little piece I won on Twitter during #CupcakeHour one Thusday :) It is creation of Joanna Pearce.

You can find and buy her pieces here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MaisyPlum.

Below my first ever ATC (Artist Trading Card) card - I love how its turned out :)

Next - my son's card for his friend (next door neighbour's son)

Dom loves cardmaking :)

And last but not least...

Courgettes and limes cupcakes I made using this recipe: http://www.womanandhome.com/recipes/535633/courgette-and-lime-cake.

Yummy!!! My man wants more of them:)

That's all for today peeps!

Will try my hardest to write more here in coming days :)

Bit busy Tobisia :)

Bad me... again didn't wrote much here for a bit!

Whole month gone!

So.... What happened since my last writing?

Here you go:

I'm a member of Designing Team for Conie Fong Art & Design, you can find her beautiful digis here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ConieFongArt.

Some of my creations with her images:

New release from April: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/511461358/digital-stamp-digi-stamp-digistamp-conie?ref=shop_home_active_7

New release from May: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/528119929/digital-stamp-digi-stamp-digistamp-conie?ref=shop_home_active_5

Card I made for my Mum's birthday and also as my inspiration/challenge for May at Conie's FB group. I used image called: Moonflower Lullaby: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/289136333/digital-stamp-digi-stamp-digistamp?ref=shop_home_active_40

I decided to create new coupon code for my Etsy shop, so if anyone interested, check my current offer: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TobisiasLilThing?ref=hdr_shop_menu and use 40OFFSALE for 40% off on every purchase.

As my son will be 5 soon (tomorrow) and we decided to organize a little party for him, we were bit busy to find good place, make invitation, buy gifts, make card, bake a cake... lots to do :)

Here card for him:

We have some Lego for him :) I spent lots of time to figured out the best cream for his cake cause I didn't want buttercream (to heavy and sugary for my taste) and I found solution :)

Here my first ever fondant decoration for cake :)

I know my Stegosaurus looks bit funny and possibly is bit too big, but... as my old friend said: Bake big birthday cake!

Hmmm... I think that's all I wanted to write today... 

Till next time friends!

Meet Lynn

Today I want you to meet Lynn - owner of etsy shop 'Lynn Hanousek Designs'.

Lynn is member of HandmadeMovement Team - Home of Sneak Attacks ( if you want to know more about this team, check:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/teams/7565/handmademovement and http://handmademovement.blogspot.co.uk/).

Lynn lives in Astoria, Long Island City, Queens, NY in USA.

Tell us more about Astoria - place where you live.

'Astoria is a short train ride into mid-town Manhattan and right next to LaGuardia Airport. So its a handy place to live. Like the rest of Queens County, our neighborhood is ethnically diverse, resulting in a great variety of restaurants and yummy food'.

Above photo of Astoria Park I found through Google search - nice place isn't it? 

My next question to Lynn was: Are you born New Yorker?

She said: 'I was born in nearby New Jersey but have lived more then 2/3 of my life in various parts of NYC so I consider myself a New Yorker. My Mom was born in NY state and 2 of my Grandparents were born in NYC so I suppose its in my genes.'

Lynn has her etsy shop running on etsy since 2007. In early days she was selling vintage pieces and handmade jewellery, also from sea glass.

Are you still making jewellery with sea glass?

'I haven't made sea glass jewelry for awhile but I have jars of glass lining my window sill gleaned from our travels. A great local source is in Astoria Park along the East River. When I walk there, I sigh and think, 'Gotta get back to making sea glass jewelry'.

You can read about sea glass in Astoria Park and Lynn's jewelry here: https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/making-jewelry-from-east-river-glass/.

Currently Lynn is selling her own paintings, here my faves:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/211694568/black-cats-and-birds-blue-horizontal?ref=shop_home_active_2

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/492502640/nyc-new-york-city-skyline-acrylic?ref=shop_home_active_1

Are you self-taught painter or you have school degree in art?

I've been painting since I was in jr. high school (age 12/13). the art teacher told my parents to buy me a painting kit and just let me go to it. Throughout high school and college I received some instruction but I majored in Art Education and teaching was the main emphasis not becoming a professional artist. I guess you could say I am self taught with some help from my teachers.

Lynn is proper cat lover, so I just couldn't not ask about her kitten's muses and had this answer:

'... I get home and I'm greeted by 3 kitties. They are all very sociable and like lots of attention. They hang out with us all day and have a hand (paw) in everything we do. I love cats' eyes. I find them very expressive and that is reflected in my paintings.'

Below Lynn's kitties:

This handsome boy had his birthday on Fool's Day (April 1st) - no kidding!

She's beautiful!

Look at these eyes!

My last question to Lynn was: Is any place in the world you want to see? Why?

I've been blessed to visit many places in the world. One place I would like to see that I haven't is the eastern part of Germany where some of my ancestors came from.

I met Lynn on etsy almost 3 years ago when my shop was Sneak Attacked, but now I can say I know her little bit better :).

If you want to check Lynn's paintings go: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LynnHanousekDesigns.

Hope you enjoyed reading.

Till next post friends!

Tula, baking and watercolour pencils

Shame on me!!!

Wasn't writing for so long here. Dealing with 4 yo boy, puppy, house works, crafting etc is not easy - I can tell it for sure :).
Tula is 12.5 weeks old now and had her 2 jabs done. On pic below our little cutie in her new coat ready for her first walk :)

Isn't she look cute in it?

I have some watercolour pencils from my friend plus received bigger box of them from my man for Christmas... I thought why not learn something new... 

Just one think - I am not good with drawing things ( maybe trees :) ). 

Below pic of my first try with these pencils on Digi stamp from Poolkadoodles.

More about my practicing you can read here: http://tobicards.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/watercolour-pencils-in-card-making.html

Last Sunday I decided to try something new - scones :) Savory scones... Actually

Bacon and cheese scones!

Before landing in oven

Cooling down!

To make these scrumptious beauties you need (in my version):

First preheat your oven to 200 C.

Fry 200 g bacon lardons, put them aside to cool down a bit, in bowl mix together 275 g self-raising flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt, then add 100 g butter and rub it until form breadcrumbs. in other bowl mix together 150 ml milk, 50 ml oil and 1 egg. Then add milk mixture to the dry ingredients, add 2-3 nicely chopped spring onions (can be more if you wish) and fried lardons and mix it together. 

Divide dough between 12 muffin cases and bake for about 20 minutes, until golden/brown and then...

depends from you :) wait for little cool down or just eat them hot ;)

To be honest with you I was very surprised to see my 4yo fussy eater munching on it and asking for 'cupcakes' next day!

Enjoy!!!

December, December...

Winter started... I should say 'raining season' started :)

Luckily for us not everyday is cold and wet, just bit of drizzling from time to time, some chilly mornings... But sometimes we have chance for day like this:

Or sky like this:

We can still enjoy nice walks during weekend :)

From other life fronts... I'm reading book 5 of Dark Tower by Stephen King.

Colouring new digi images

Making new cards

Dom is creating new masterpieces :)

And we all are waiting for new member of our little family - Tula :)

She's a chipin and Dom recognize her every time we see her with no problems :)

That's all for today friends :)

Midterm, autumn and my time with Dom.

Whole this week we are spending together with Dom, midterm break at school.

I was doing my best to keep my son occupied :).

We were in Newcastle on Monday - Hancock Museum and dinosaurs, nice walk around city centre with finding Snowdog on Central Station (train station) plus yummy lunch in Chinatown.

On Tuesday we went to library of pick up some books for Dom and pop in to theatre to buy tickets for pantomime - details here: http://www.thephoenixtheatre.org.uk/whats-on/dick-whittington.

We had lazy Wednesday with little shopping and then some reading and listing the music athat home.

Yesterday I decided we need some nice walk doesn't matter is cold or warm. Sky in the morning was beautiful :)

We went to park 

Was really small chance not to finished in Ridley Park Caffè :). Yes we are guilty, we spent some time there too :) with nice piece of this yummy lemon cake

Then we had some nice time on park's playground area and after that Dom decided he wants to go to the beach :). After coming back home we where colouring digi stamps.

Dom and his markers :)

Me with my new pencils :)

And today we spent few hours in Whitley Bay - we found some hidden treasures there :). First was: Re-create Today - nice craft and workshop place on 35 Park View run by Alison. Dom fell in love with wooden ducks :).

Only few here - we saw lots more :)

Christmas stuff :)

If you want to know more about this place check: http://www.recreatetoday.co.uk/ or follow: https://www.facebook.com/recreatetoday.

Other place we found was little restaurant/cafe called: The Vintage Powder Room & Tea Shop. Nice interior, friendly stuff and great food :) You can find them on 164-166 Park View.

My Earl Grey :) 

Dom's chocolate - fruity cake :)

Definitely we had great week :) Hmmm I need to think about his next school break and plan something nice, cause I don't want to keep my son bored at home.

Bathroom, cards and high-protein snacks

What a relief!

Bathroom redecoration is finished!!!
Whole thing took about 1.5 week, but was worth it :) Everything new :) Tiles, spotlights, shower, bath, etc! I love our new bathroom :)

I supposed to update my cv - still not done :). I lost my wirewrapping mojo - hope will have it back soon..

During week I checked new stamp - free gift from crafty magazine.

Image by Helz Cuppleditch for Trimcraft - received with Dear Santa paper pack.

I was colouring 6 images in one go :)

1 from 3 cards - set 1

1 from 3 cards - set 2

At the moment waiting for rubber stamps goodie bag my man bought me from http://www.kraftinkimmiestamps.com/ from Canada - very cute stamps, just cannot wait to have them :)

From 'cooking' point of view I was making high-protein snack rolls today, result below:

My man said they are brill, checked them too :) They tastes like halvah. Recipe I found on pinterest :) If you want to try, check: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/202450945727237973/

Enjoy!!!