Have: a beret

I made this beret myself, and just to add a bit of colour to this boring pale yellow, I clipped in a red rose into it. It looks quite cute on my head. Graham likes it and dogs fancy eating it.
The best thing about this little beret is that I made it in a day, that means it didn't take me long enough to make it, to get fed up with it.
I love making things, but I rarely commit to large products as I know that I am very likely to quit or get bored before it's done. That is the reason why I never knitted a jumper for my husband, I'd be so sick of it, I couldn't bare the sight of him wearing it...
You see it's not about following the fashion it's about making yourself fashionable by being YOU!

Making a new cover for a notebook/ring binder whatever you call it!

I had this awfully ugly old writing pad or whatever you call them, maybe it's a ring binder, well that would make sense... Anyway I wanted to make it nice-ish again so that it can be used...So, I grabbed my almost finished pink paper I used to wrap my books and some glue, scissors, pencil and got to work.

As I was a bit short on pink paper, I added so other paper that was once used to bring flowers home, and used that little bit extra to cover the last edge...

The final result was quite pleasing considering that I am absolutely useless at scrapbooking, and the best thing I gave this refurbished ring binder, to someone who absolutely loved it and she (further information will not be disclosed) is going to write all her poetry in it. How pleasant is that. She was so happy with it!

My own little project

Graham and I have styled our bedroom very Japanese kind of way, the whole thing started of a wardrobe that looked like those Japanese walls and we couldn't make ourselves stop!
A few days ago, my long awaited photos in custom made frames arrived and they look fantastic! I know my white walls may be boring for some, but for me it is nice and clean, also white in my opinion sets a perfect background to play with, where you don't have to worry about adding a bit of colour as it won't clash.
We are still collecting bits and pieces for the bedroom, but it will be completely finished next month and then we can just move on to the kitchen!

Making Food Labels

I did an awful thing. I wanted to make nice labels for my storage jars, so I stole this label design of the internet, played with it and finally achieved the result I wanted...




I loved making these and the final result is better than I could have wanted, the print outs actually worked out to be darker than on the screen but it livens my kitchen up. I will be making lots of things now, as I am really enjoying it these days! It is something about the completion of a project, that makes you feel good about yourself...

Sorrel soup

It is today, that I was sitting at my desk, with loads to do and now will power to commit to doing anything at all, that I decided to make some sorrel soup. The thing was I did not know what sorrel was in English, but thank goodness there are modern technologies that can help. So after I worked out what sorrel is in English I committed myself to not only making the soup but also to writing down the process complete with the photographs!

So here we go.
For 4 portions, you will need:
1. 5 to 7 small potatoes



chop them nicely into small cubes:



then add them into salted boiling water, once they are cooked, drain them and rinse them and place them into clean water.

2. Garlic



slice it into thin slices



then add it to the yet again boiling potatoes.

3. Finally either chop the sorrel or get a jar of already prepared sorrel (no dangerous additives just water and salt) like I did.



Add it to the pot and let it boil for a while. Add salt and pepper according to your tastes. It is a very healthy dish, you can also compliment it with low fat sour cream (or yogurt) and croutons.

Final result:



Bon apetit!

So, I finally got round to printing the book cover labels that I needed, it was actually quite fun!
It started like this:Then of course I resized it and put some titles on it, I had a problem with Lithuanian letters so I did not use any, I will add the extra needed symbols if I feel the need... This is the final result, all the four labels I needed:

I am not million percent sure about them yet, but I have them printed out, I will sleep on it and decide tomorrow.

Making book covers

I have told you, that I like making things, and now having been inspired by Richard on his thing a day thingie I wanted to do something too. So I had these really good, old and disgustingly dirty books. I wanted to cover them for ages but never got quite round to it. So anyway, on Friday, after I came back from school I grabbed my books, that were disgustingly dirty:Then took some of the pink paper (double the size of A4 I think that makes it A3, I never could quite understand why the size increases and the number decreases) that I purchased a week before, a pencil, a ruler, scissors, a rubber and some celotape that can not be found in the picture bellow.
Then with my husband watching me in awe, like some kindergarden kid, I covered four books with that lovely pale pink paper. I have a few more books, but I only had one sheet of paper so I suppose on Monday I'll have to go out and buy some more.

In the end I was really pleased with myself. Only one thing though, my handwriting is not pretty enough to write on those covers, so now I am trying to work out a great way to print out beautiful labels. Any suggestions?

Knitting

As I have mentioned the past weekend in my previous post, today I thought I ought to mention one of my completed works. I spent three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) knitting. Only an hour each day, but it was enough to complete a scarf that I wanted to make for ages. This weekend I will yet again knit a scarf but this time for my husband, and as it needs to be slightly bigger I think it will take about 4 hours to make it instead of three.

I have always enjoyed making things, and I would love to sew things for myself, but as I do not own a sewing machine and have no space to have one anyway, I have to just focus on knitting on crocheting. Even though the end result might be just as pleasing, I desire to make myself a few skirts and now I am scraping my head, how can I get my friend to share her sewing machine with me for one day. Obviously nothing is impossible.

The amazing power of knitting is that it relaxes you. You can knit in all your anger, fears, agression and at the end of the job you will not only feel relieved of all your troubles, but also pleased with what that has achieved. I still have some wool lying around so I might use knitting as therapy to relax during weekends, surely it is better than just being idle... and it gives me a break from the usual routine... Have a lovely weekend!