Lazy Tobisia...kinda...

 Hiya peeps!

Again lazy with writing me... I mean here... cause my paper version diary is updated almost daily...

Hmmm...

Fact I made few new wirewrapping pieces like earcuff on pic below

read few books including one below and enjoyed making floral bookmarks you see placed on book's cover :) 

but not much writing really, only few words every other day..

I'll try to write more frequently... in my diary and here too :)

And that's not Fool's Day joke!

Till next post Friends!

Sneaky Santa game

Every year in our Etsy team we are playing Sneaky Santa game...

This year was challenging for me, cause my Sneaky partner did no wish list.

I had to play around - use everything I knew about her to find/made perfect gifts for her.

So...

Leda is bookworm from Sicily, Italy who making beautiful felt accessories and bookmarks. She likes cards, earrings and definitely handmade stuff. I like illustrations she sharing on her FB.

I thought... book! But which one? She has so many and I have no idea which she still not have on her shelf... That was lots of thinking :) Result:

You can see movie made on this book in cinemas now!

One of my first attempts with copper - red semi-precious beads inside cages.

Pendant with stone found by myself on local beach during Summer.

Images from Ching's shop: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/gjzcck?ref=l2-shopheader-name, I coloured for Leda :) I thought she can like them :)

Little Christmas card with stamp from Tiddly Inks.

Leda received her parcel today and looks like she likes her gifts, so I can show you what I found/made for her :)

What do you think about my gifts? Do you like them?

Crafting and family time

Long break with writing again... really bad bad me :)

Last week was very fast, just started and finished in blink of eye.

I was busy making bracelet replacement and that lead back to playing with seed beads again - good thing :). Why? I decided to make another wrapping seed beads bracelet, but in half way I had some funny thought: 'Why not make wire weaved pendant with seed beads and put it on seed beads necklace?'. Result of this thinking? Check below :)

After that I made two more pendants with seed beads :)

Meantime Dom was playing with paints - I gave him watercolour paper, so I'll use his masterpiece as background for cards for his Nanas soon :)

Also catch time to make card for card swap in my FB group - theme: Friendship.

I love Marina Fedotova ilustrations and stamps :) Shame I have just few of them, really want to have more - reason: they are really cute :)

Yesterday had bit of time for colouring, so did this cutie for new Christmas card.

Late afternoon yesterday we decided to have active family time and we went outside to play with Dom's new kite. He received owl kite as a gift from one of our neighbours :)

Beautiful flying :)

Bit dark pic, but was very cloudy and also already after 6pm :)

Our owl is catching mouse on this pic :)

We were outside bit over an hour and even not realized that until we back home - we had great fun :) Dom loves his kite and definitely we will play with it again very soon :)

September already

Oh yeah... September.... Time flies... We just celebrate New Year and it is almost time to celebrate another one... Kids are growing up, we are getting older... Eh... Starting to be nostalgic or something? :)

I wasn't baking lately, so no new recipes unfortunately...

I was busy with preparing Dom and myself for new school year with some crafty moments somewhere between :)

From cardmaking front: yes I made few new cards :)

Autumny :) Browns, oranges and greens.

Purple 1920's :)

Below silver/blue Christmas set with fairy which I made for Marie from Lyon, France.

I was also lucky to be asked about adding matching earrings to one of my wrapping bracelets (with owls) which will be a Christmas gift :) So my completed white/silver/black set is now on its way to USA :)

chainmaille earrings

Bracelet/necklace

Yesterday I decided to add new section into my etsy shop: Up to 50% off, cause I realized that lots of my creations just kind of staying with me and I want other people to enjoy them.

This bracelet is one of the items I placed in this section, link: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TobisiasLilThing?ref=hdr_shop_menu&section_id=19894648

From not nice infos, when school year started yesterday we found out that during Summer holiday someone made lots of damages to school equipment and all repairs have to be paid now from school tight budget, which means money which supposed to be used for school trips and new equipment are lost... One of the parents start new initiative to raise enough money to cover needed repairs and we all hope we raise enough. If you want to know what was damaged and how much money was raised so far or help us, just check this link: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/brian-wardle?utm_id=106&utm_term=9QQgd9Dpy

Transition week

Yeah... Transition week no 1 :)

Funny, specially that this whole transition will take 1.5 week and is connected with my little boy :)

Not so little now anyway - last Friday they had 'bye-bye party' at nursery and on Monday they were all moved to Reception Class, so last 1.5 week at school before Summer holiday for Dom will be not at Nursery class but in Reception.

We were on nice Bparty last Saturday - kids had lots of fun :) Meantime Dom was invited for another Bparty and he decided what he wants on his friend bracelet:

Only Libby can decide now she will wear it as bracelet or as necklace :)

Now Dom and I need to decide what kind of card we will make for her - nice stamp or cute ready made animal image.

I finished:

Great book! Now need to check if can have anything else of Mr Becker from library :)

As you see, I already started next book from 'The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles'. I love Remic's style and I'm not surprised my man loves it too - he's finishing last book from these serie and is eager to find something else written by Andy Remic.

These funny looking pair I made yesterday - ear sweeps - for non pierced girls who love earrings :)

That's all for today ;) Till next post!

Ants, kitty card and other things

Ants - our street nightmare I dare to say... Everybody has problems with them year by year, we aren't even sure from where they are coming from... We're suspecting some big nest somewhere...

Few weeks ago, when we spot first few of them in the house, we just killed them and clean allover with citrus cleaning liquid - peace from them for 2 weeks or so... and they back.. strange not to the kitchen from the garden, but from front street to the living room - citrus thingies in hands again, even not 2 days and Dom spot them on the floor in corridor between kitchen and living room...

I had enough, I can live with ants in the garden, but when they are coming to the house - they have small chances for long living. I bought special ants bait and anti-ants spray.

No signs of them so far! And I really hope we are done with them this year...

From happier news, yesterday I received gift from Quick Card Made Easy magazine - they printed my card in their last issue :)

My kitty/spotlight card in the spotlights :)

Gift I received :)

Card I made today using some pieces from my gift :)

I also tried to make my first ever stud earrings, I still need to cut stud piece to proper length and find this 'butterfly' piece to have them finished.

Stud piece - coiled and lightly hammered :)

Earrings waiting for finishing touches :)

Meet Lynn

Today I want you to meet Lynn, one of our many cat loving members in Handmade Movement Team on Etsy.

Lynn is from Astoria, Long Island City, USA.

She's selling animal themed graphics and part of profit from them is going for animal charities. As she wrote under her shop banner : 'Lynn Hanousek Designs - Art for the cat lover in you'.

All about her art pieces and Lynn herself (between the lines :)) you can read in her shop announcement: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LynnHanousekDesigns?ref=profile_shopname

Lynn is Etsy seller since 2007, so she's very experienced with this selling web. Plus she's great chatter and lovely Lady, simply one of key members of our team :)

Unfortunately her shop is on 'holiday mode' at the moment (fingers crossed she'll reopen it soon).

My faves from her shop:

Simply beautiful!

Sooo cute!

Something for Halloween :)

Sea themed :)

Nice piece of jewellery for cat lover :)

She was also mentioned and interviewed by The New York Times, link to article here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/making-jewelry-from-east-river-glass/?_r=0

I like Lynn for her sense of humour and straight forward character, she's nice, sensible woman and good friend to lots of us :)

Around the house

Good title for post :) Just ... I have no idea what I should write :)

Weather is sooo English theme :)
And weather is.. we can say very hard to predict - forecast was talking about torrential downpour for yesterday - we have none, not even one drop of water, sunny... hmmm not exactly, humid - yes.

Two weeks ago we fought with ants - nasty little creatures - coming to the house without invitation :(
Success! We rid of them :) Cleaning everything possible outside with lemon kick them away :)

We sow dwarf bean seeds in the garden - nothing show up - 2 weeks already... We sow some more with Dom today - fingers crossed will be better this time :)

Our watermelons needed a bit of split up :) so I split them :)

I'm curious where I should plant them - I'm sure they should be in the garden, the problem is they need good soil and full Sun... my garden is south side so if is nice day we have lots of Sun, unfortunately soil in our garden is very poor.... Hmmm... Need to find the solution for it.

From crafty things: I was practicing with aluminium wire I found in my stash and made this:

More about it you can find on my other blog :) http://coppertobi.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/coiling.html

With some chill out time I back to being a bookworm :) and 'eating' books again ;)

What I read since last week:

Agatha Christie:

Halloween Party

Taken at the flood

Donna Leon:

Death at La Fenice

Ewa Bialolecka:

Tkacz Iluzji

 - in English title will be 'Weaver of Illusion' if I'm not wrong, but I didn't found English translation of this book.

At the moment I'm reading 'A Venetian Reckoning' by Donna Leon - I like her books a lot :)

I also checked few new cooking recipes and looks like some of them stay with us for longer. Will add them to my blog next time I'll be cooking them :)

Week with Dom

Whole week at home with 4yo with chickenpox can be tricky, you cannot go with him for walk to town or for shopping, keeping him inside finishing with 'moods'.

We are lucky to have a garden, but how to play there when is windy, drizzly and cold? Try to explain that to your toddler...

Dom is Lego mad, but also crafty kid, so I decided to deal with his homework ;) Took out some paper, pencils and paints.

Dom's worm

and butterfly

We had lots of fun with these ladybirds :)

Nice spiders don't you think? You should saw my arms - Dom decided also paint on me, cause that funny :)

The other day Dom wanted to play with stamps, he was choosing which stamp I should use and where - we coloured it later, I think I use it for nice card :)

The weather changed a bit during the week so Dom had some time in the garden, riding his scooter and looking for bugs :) He also build lots from Lego:

Firefighters boat?

One of the castles we build together in living room - just before it was destroyed by Dom with huge laugh :)

I catch a bit of time and play creative too :)

Practising basics of wire wrapping :)

Lapis lazuli and seed beads :) Nice, short statement necklace :)

We also watched bit of teli - Mr Maker program - thanks to that I have idea for our next crafty time :)

That's all for today peeps ;) Have a great weekend!

Meet Karine

Today I want you to meet Karine, owner of https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaJoieEnRose, captain of Artisans Canada team on Etsy.

Karine is originally from Quebec, living now in British Columbia - beautiful western Canadian province. She's jewellery maker.

What she wrote about herself on her Etsy profile? Here you go:

'Young woman in the early thirties (...) La Joie En Rose was born of the desire to take my professional life in my hands after many moving and share my passion for art and beauty through the joy of creating. (...)'

Want to know more? Go: https://www.etsy.com/uk/people/RoseetBum

You can find lots of different items in Karine's shop, eg. creams, jewellery or children teethers and other accessories for parents.

My faves:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/265633631/secretary-sucksclip-toy-teether-star?ref=shop_home_active_6

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/278483932/fused-navy-blue-glass-pendantwire-wrap?ref=shop_home_active_4

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/267246560/earrings-love-lovecabochon-glass?ref=shop_home_active_13

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/264430903/bracelets-cabochon-feminine-bracelet?ref=shop_home_active_2

Karine is Etsy seller since 2015, she's very active team captain and friendly person who trying her best to help team members with their sales :) 

If you want to know what else you can find in her shop, just pop in there and check, maybe you'll find something you'll love to have :)