Month: December 2012

snowflakes in the air…

Posted on by trish

Lots of snow over the past week of the hol­i­days. A love­ly win­ter won­der­land here in the neighbourhood…

image

Beau­ti­ful snow­fall on Christ­mas day! :D

image

Some snowflake Christ­mas cards I made in addi­tion to the Christ­mas tree ones. They’re made by scrib­bling on cof­fee fil­ters with wash­able mark­ers and then spray­ing water on them. Super fun, and the effect is quite magical-looking.

image

Will post more hol­i­day craft pho­tos in 2013, which will be here in just a few days :D Wish­ing every­one a hap­py new year!

O fir tree

Posted on by trish

O Christmas tree

 

 

A snap­shot from our Christ­mas card pro­duc­tion this year. It’s one of the few (some­times the only) art projects that Mike and I col­lab­o­rate on every year. Mike set the O’s using a design pro­gram and I print­ed the Christ­mas trees and the stars with this fun foam stamp­ing method :D

This made me curi­ous about the ori­gin of the car­ol, O Christ­mas Tree. So I looked it up, and want­ed to share with you an excerpt of it on this Christ­mas day, trans­lat­ed from the orig­i­nal Ger­man song, O Tannenbaum.

O Fir Tree, O Fir Tree,
How stead­fast are your branch­es!
Your boughs are green in sum­mer’s clime
And through the snows of win­ter­time.
O Fir Tree, O Fir Tree,
How stead­fast are your branches!

O Fir Tree, O Fir Tree,
Your boughs can teach a les­son
That con­stant faith and hope sub­lime
Lend strength and com­fort through all time.
O Fir Tree, O Fir Tree,
Your boughs can teach a lesson.

 

I like using the words Fir Tree instead.

May good will, faith, hope, strength, com­fort, and peace fill our hearts not only dur­ing Christ­mas but through­out every sea­son this year.

Mer­ry Christ­mas, friends!

 

 

 

Christmas market :D

Posted on by trish

IMAG0753

 

 

Last week we went to the annu­al Christ­mas Mar­ket at the Dis­tillery Dis­trict :D It was such a fes­tive place, with car­ol­ers singing and lights every­where and a mag­nif­i­cent Christ­mas tree.

What real­ly made my day though was this extra­or­di­nary instal­la­tion in the build­ing where all the artist stu­dios are. 

IMAG0751

 

 

It’s built upon what I believe to be a con­vey­or mech­a­nism (for send­ing down bot­tles and box­es when the build­ing func­tioned as a dis­tillery, per­haps). There were spools of thread in the mid­dle, con­nect­ed to felt nests with cro­chet-cov­ered rocks inside!

IMG_20121216_145305

 

 They were just precious.

IMG_20121216_144926

 

 

And cheer­ful buntings made of dif­fer­ent kinds of fab­ric too!

IMG_20121216_145344

 

 

I think I will attempt the cro­chet-cov­ered rocks in the new year (here’s a free pat­tern from the Purl Bee if you’d like to give it a try too!).

Wish­ing you a love­ly Sun­day :D

 

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Posted on by trish

Just a few quick gifts — for oth­ers and self :D

 

 Pho­to snow­globe orna­ments! From Pho­to­jo­jo.

 

 Snow globe soap dis­pensers! One could total­ly use small plas­tic dinosaurs instead of Christ­mas vil­lage peo­ple! From Mad in Crafts. 

 

 Cot­ton can­dy plush! From Twinkie Chan.

 

 Dinosaur planter, made from plas­tic dinosaur from the dol­lar store. From Car­rieelis­sa.

 

 Such love­ly top, with but­tons on the back. From C & C.

 

 Sim­ple head­wrap, via Smile and Wave (scroll down for down­load­able pattern).

 

Hope you’re hav­ing a love­ly week­end! :D

 

 

long week

Posted on by trish

It was a real­ly long and busy week last week, in the process of get­ting every­thing done before the hol­i­day season.

I got home after a very long day, and I made something.

coral necklace 2

 

Corals! Here’s a clos­er look.

coral necklace 1

 

 

Actu­al­ly, this idea came to me when I was trav­el­ling home on the bus and I felt that I would feel much bet­ter and more ener­gized if I can just make it. I basi­cal­ly cro­cheted a tube, and cro­cheted corals on the tube all around. I then thread­ed the chain through the tube to make a necklace.

There’s some­thing very med­i­ta­tive about cro­chet­ing corals.

I’ve had a good week­end after the long week, enjoy­ing some Christ­mas fes­tiv­i­ties (pho­tos to come!). Every­thing is wind­ing down this week, get­ting ready for the hol­i­days :D

Hope your week is filled with things that nour­ish you.

 

 

 

 

be the change

Posted on by trish

be the change

 

 

I was watch­ing the news last night while mak­ing this for a teacher/colleague. 

Amongst the many things about this teacher that I admire and want to emu­late is her abil­i­ty to see the good­ness and strength in every per­son she meets, and to see pos­si­bil­i­ties for resis­tance, change and growth even in the most dire situations.

It is not only that she sees strengths and good­ness and pos­si­bil­i­ties. More impor­tant­ly, she reflects it back to the per­son, lov­ing­ly point­ing out what she sees and cheer­ing every­one on, which makes every­one feel good about their abil­i­ties and wants to do good in the world.

While watch­ing the news last night, like many across the world, I felt incred­i­bly sad and angry. Angry at the sense­less­ness of it all. So angry that I thought if the world real­ly does end on Decem­ber 21 it would­n’t be half bad.

But actu­al­ly I don’t believe that the world will end on Decem­ber 21. 

Instead, I believe that we can all be agents of change, encour­ag­ing the good in one another.

 

“My friends, love is bet­ter than anger. Hope is bet­ter than fear. Opti­mism is bet­ter than despair. So let us be lov­ing, hope­ful and opti­mistic. And we’ll change the world.”
― Jack Layton

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Posted on by trish

Haven’t post­ed for a while! Does­n’t mean that I haven’t been mak­ing things though… I just can’t show you what I’ve been mak­ing until after Decem­ber, because they’re Christ­mas gifts :D But here are a few awe­some ideas that I’ve come across late­ly, gifts for oth­ers and for our­selves, per­haps :D

Paper punched shapes from leaves — such awe­some colours! From Grow Cre­ative.

 

Snowflake orna­ments made with dusty miller leaves. I kept notic­ing that a house down the street has a large bush of dusty miller. Hmm… From Michele Made Me.

 

This makes me grin :D Spot­ted on The Dap­per Toad, where you will find the link to the pat­tern for sale on Ravelry.

 

I just imag­ine mak­ing this out of soft fleece and wrap­ping myself in it while watch­ing TV. That’d be hilar­i­ous. From Etsy.

 

I espe­cial­ly love the ones with the scarves! :D By Rav­el­er Stripespolka­dots.

 

Real­ly intrigued by this wispy lace pat­tern. I think I might be able to tack­le this, real­ized that knit­ting lace is not as dif­fi­cult as it looks. Also from Rav­el­ry — a free pat­tern by Saman­tha Edger­ly.

 

Pret­ty self-explana­to­ry. Pret­ty result. Think I’m going to give this a try soon. Spot­ted on Pin­ter­est.

 

Also looks like a bird, does­n’t it? From Crafts for Lily.

 

Made from those fleece blan­kets from the dol­lar store! :D From Dol­lar Store Crafts.

 

And final­ly — a cro­cheted Mar­cel the Shell with Shoes on! :D If you haven’t seen the video (part 1, part 2), I high­ly rec­om­mend it! Cro­chet pat­tern from The Hook Brings You Back.

 

Hap­py craft­ing! :D

 

 

this cthulhu, it has a soft side

Posted on by trish

I made this for my good friend (and tal­ent­ed artist!) Kityan, because it was her birth­day. I could­n’t help but made myself one too.

 

It came from this pat­tern on Rav­el­ry. I made mine a bit short­er, with vel­cro to keep the ends togeth­er, and also lined the back of it with fab­ric. The one for my friend has pol­ka dots. Mine’s from an old shirt that got paint on it, with tiny pur­ple flow­ers. I real­ly liked that shirt, so I’m glad to be able wear it again in an oth­er form. Per­haps tiny pur­ple flow­ers are not some­thing that we think a cthul­hu would like — but one nev­er knows! :D

 

Have a great Monday!