CAL Wednesday: Pick 'n' Mix part 4

Oooh, lacy.  This is part 4 of the Simply Crochet Pick 'n' Mix CAL (crochet-a-long).  The colours I chose are different to the suggested palette because I adore cool colours.  I am also using Paintbox Yarns in Aran, from lovecrochet.com instead of the recommended Cascade 220.

Have I said all this before?  I probably have.

I have got two CALs on the go and I am falling ever so slightly behind... well, if there is a such thing.  I like to get the squares done when they are released, but it just isn't playing out that way at the moment.  I got these squares done quite a while ago, so not only am I behind on the actual crochet but I am also behind on blogging them!

I'm getting back into it, I promise... and no more new CALs until I get these two done and dusted!!!

Mandala Monday #10

Happy Mandala Monday, everyone!

Ok, smarty-pants,  I know it's Tuesday, but I kinda fell asleep and forces are telling me to go with the flow lately.  So sleep I did!!!  Now that I'm awake, here's a Mandala to brighten your week.

This one is another one from my bargain book from The Range.  I do love them and they are such good value.  The cardstock is great quality too.  One swipe on a scoring board turns your creation into a simple card that will bring cheer into someone's life!  All you need to do is go buy some envelopes to fit.

I coloured this an the previous Mandala with my handy-dandy Chameleon pens.  You may have seen them advertised all over social media and magazines.  That's because they are good.  This design was made with four markers:  an olive green, two purples and a blue.  The variety of tints came from using the marker according to the instructions for creating a gradient.  Do search for Chameleon Pens on YouTube or indeed anywhere to see videos of this process, I highly recommend it.

I'm thinking next week's Mandala may be a Featured Artist one instead of just my own... I shall ask about it and report back next week!  Have a Marvellous Mandala Monday.  Even if it's Tuesday.  Or Wednesday... or indeed any day you may be reading this.

Citrus crochet day

Nothing like seeing a new follower pop up on Bloglovin' to remind a gal she hasn't been blogging!!  Hello new follower!

What shall I share?  It's not Monday... so the mandala will have to wait... wednesday is for CAL updates... I had planned something for Fridays but I can't remember, so let's find a pic to share...

I guess I should catch you all up... I seem to have started selling essential oils.  I just took delivery of a lovely citrus trio of oils and so I was inspired to make this little orange crocheted car diffuser.  It has a loop on the top and bottom and I clip it to one of the vents in my car with mini clothespegs.  Then I just drop some essential oil on and presto, citrusy freshness.

Just in case you're curious and would like a look at what I've got myself into, check out my page:

http://mydoterra.com/sycares

Any questions, message me across my social media channels... Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram @hapaxstudios if you please.

Happy Friday!

CAL Wednesday: Pick 'n' Mix Part 3

I haven't been posting my Pick 'n' Mix CAL squares in a while, but I assure you, I have been making them!!  I did get a little bit behind on them as the other CAL I'm doing, the Secret Garden CAL, has been taking up a lot of my crochet time too!  I love them both!

This pair of squares, at first glance, appeared to be standard grannies, but they're not!  Instead of three treble crochets in each chain space, they in fact are 3 treble clusters!  So they make little points instead of little rectangles.  I love this small difference.  It adds character.

You'll notice the lighting conditions and background are different... this is because I was far far away in a country cottage in Herefordshire with several other mad birds this weekend just gone.  I used the time to catch up on a lot of CAL squares but I'm not quite there yet!!!

I thought I'd pace myself posting it all though, so Wednesdays will be for posting CAL squares until I run out... although I have discovered that I do love a CAL so the two I'm doing will not likely be my last.

So, Mondays are for Mandalas, Wednesdays are for CALs... What's coming up on Friday?

Watch this space!

Mandala Monday #9

This week's Mandala is a quite simple one.  I picked up an absolute bargain- two books of 50 mandala cards for 1.99 each at The Range.  These are quicker than the ones in the book if you need a colouring fix, plus you can use them later as cards!  I plan on adding a few details to them so that they aren't just mandalas on their own.  I may add jewels, glitter, a sentiment on a raised panel or tag, something... but this is the base.

How about you?  Have you had a Marvellous Mandala Monday?  Share a link to your mandala entry here, whether or not it is on Monday. :)

See you next week for another Mandala!

Mandala Monday #8 - late!

Hello folks, I hope you had a Marvellous Mandala Monday!  I wasn't feeling particularly Marvellous and I forgot to post. So sorry, but here it is, a day late.

This Mandala was so fine in detail that I moved onto fineliner marker pens for it.  I love it, it made for some great moments of concentration and now it's amazing to look at.  For now, it is staying in the book with all the rest of them, but maybe someday I'll come up with a great way to use them in something bigger.

Feel free to share links to your mandalas in the comments, or any Instagram accounts with great mandalas in them!

I look forward to sharing more Mandalas with you soon!  Keep it Marvellous!  x

Mandala Monday #7

...and a Marvellous Mandala Monday to you again!

This week's mandala is another limited colour palette with plenty of uncoloured parts again!  This one is a bit patchy because I was using water-based markers this time.  I'm not the biggest fan of water-based markers, but I am a fan of using what you have to make art, so I thought I'd have a bash.  They are misbehaving miscreants!  Back to alcohol markers, methinks!

How about you?  Any mandalas to share?  Link in the comments.  Even if the link doesn't click, I will copy and paste and go see your lovely work!

Mandala Monday #6

A Majestic Mandala Monday to you!

This one was a first for me- using a limited colour palette and leaving some parts of the mandala uncoloured!  I really love to look at this one.  I can get lost in it.  I particularly like the gradient details in the largest petal shape in the close-up.  Some of the pencils I used were metallic ones, and I just adore the effect.

Have you a Mandala to share?  Please do link to it in the comments.  Share the Mandala love!

Mandala Monday #5

Here's another Mandala Monday, a little late again, sorry!  Another one from my fantastic Mandala colouring book, this one goes round in a rainbow circle of sorts.  I really enjoyed leaving parts of this un-coloured.  It's like having another colour in my palette!

I have been drawing Mandalas too, but I'm going to get through the coloured ones for now, so tune in next week for another page in my Mandala book!

Got a Mandala Monday post too?  Link it in the comments section.  I'd love to go have a peek!

Have a Marvellous Mandala Monday!

Mandala Monday #4

Mandala Monday again!  Sorry it's a little bit late.  This Mandala is from a fantastic colouring book that I found at The Works.  Here's what I love about it:

1. The book is round.  How cool is that?  No wasted corners.
2. The pages are 'one sided.' no hard choices to make if you're facing bleed-through.
3. Variety of small and larger spaces to colour in.

I used a set of six ball-point shiny gel pens for this design... some metallic, some sparkly.  They were smaller than the average pen and some colours got nearly run down doing this design!  It was worth it though.  I do love to look at it.

Want to join in with Mandala Monday?  Just link back to my blog in your own Mandala Monday entry, and don't forget to link your entry into the comments below!

Mandala Monday #3

Magnificent Mandala Monday to you all!  Here's a double- mandala entry today, and not in a form that you are expecting:

This started out as one complete Mandala, and it was very important to select one for this that can be quartered.  This one could.  I used a teabag folding technique on the mandala that I took from a colouring book.  After folding it, I worked out what needed to be coloured and then adhered the sections together into this fan shape.  I cut around the mandala shape because there was a lot of extra paper hanging off that was plain white and I didn't like it.

Here's another one that I made the same way.  I enjoyed making them and I may continue in this way as I complete the designs in the book.  I like to use my colouring in projects rather than just doing it and shutting it away or trying to display everything I've made.

My plan for these is to adhere them to notebook covers and then cover the cover with acetate, so that the finished fan shape can keep its form without snagging on things and damaging the design.

Of course, I will post the finished article when it's done.

And now it's over to you- share your Mandala blog posts in the comments section and I will try to visit and comment on all of them!!

Daisies on the Steering Wheel...

Yep, here I go again, crafting in the car.  The car is where I spend a great deal of my dedicated crafting time these days.  It's down to parking up early at the school in order to secure a legal parking place during the afternoon school run.  There just isn't enough room there to park legally and I seem to have that magic ju-ju that means that if I slip up just once, I will get caught and fined.  The ones who always do it seem to slip through the cracks, but all eyes are on me.  So I give up the possibility of doing anything useful in the house or wherever else and I get to the school an entire hour early.

I had to leave my volunteering session at Unravel & Unwind CIC early today due to an appointment with the nurse.  That appointment ran a little over, which is expected, and I ended up with too much time on my hands but not enough to do anything with, so I showed up at the school an hour and a half early!!

There were still cars there.  I am not even lying for effect.

So I just enjoyed some crochet.  This is the start of what is going to be a fantastically challenging two weeks.  The first four squares of the Secret Garden CAL (crochet-a-long) have been released and I started work on it.

This CAL is beautiful!  Please do search Facebook for Rainbow Valley Crochet to get involved in this beautiful CAL.

Mandala Monday #2

How has your week been?  I hope it's been full of creative loveliness as mine has.

This is Week 2 of Mandala Monday, and here is this week's Mandala:

This is the first ever Mandala that I have drawn.  I started out using a compass to draw the original circle.  Then I put the compass point at 4 equidistant points around the circle and drew semi-circles.  Honestly, I can't remember where I went from there but I ended up with a flower shape, and that flower shape dictated an inner circle which I drew freehand which you can probably see here.

Once the main shape was drawn and subsequently outlined with an 08 pigment pen, I proceeded to mark out small areas and fill them with patterns, working from the inside out, first on each petal and then around the outside, wihch led me to try making the arch shapes.  I was thrilled with how these shapes came to look!

All in all, I'm very surprised that I was able to do this, and it felt good to start with an initial framework and fill it in without too much forethought, but just concentrating in the moment and enjoying the process!

Did you blog a Mandala this Monday?  If so, please do join in and leave a comment below linking us to your Mandala Monday entry for this week.  I'd really love to see what you've done too!

Back on the Tatty-Wagon!

This is a photo of my footrest that I took during a "butt-rot" weekend.  That's when I just sit on the sofa, catch up on TV and do crafts.  This time it was tatting and pinning out other tatting to block it.  I got an Amazon delivery, hence the packing tape in the photo too... this is descriptive of many of my weekends at home.  I just happened to photograph it this time.  Thought I'd share.   On a Tuesday.  Random.

I have been tatting quite a lot lately, because I decided to teach myself needle tatting.  In the photo below, the items were shuttle tatted and the blue and pink plastic pieces on the bottom are shuttles.  You  wind the thread around the shuttles and then make your design.  I had been doing cro-tat ornaments over the holidays and that is yet another form of tatting which incorporates crochet to make the designs more flexible.  Shuttle tatting, Needle tatting, and Cro-tat.  Three different ways and I know them all now!

I must say that I am enjoying all types but needle tatting is the easiest one to fix if it goes wrong.

For a great needle tatting tutorial in three parts, try making Ruby Lockwood's Mug Rug.  It's on YouTube.  Warning- she has a bird!  In the third part, Miku is getting a bit cheeky... caw!!!  She's a normal human being as well, so she does make a few mistakes and undoes them.  This is great because there's too many perfectionists out there.  Watch it through before you join in.  If you  make anything from it, please don't forget to like the video, and send me a little note too to let me know if you've tried it!

Mandala Monday #1!

Seems that this is The Year of The Mandala.  So declares Simply Crochet, and as I have recently received a 'How to draw Mandalas' book and a crochet Mandalas book, I thought, why not start a little theme for this year, Mandala Monday?

So here we are, the first Mandala Monday.  And I would like to start out by inviting people to join in!

Here's what you do:

1. Blog a Mandala that you have made- this could be crocheted, embroidered, knitted, drawn, painted, done in sand... any method at all, and I will include 'adult colouring' too- if you have a book of mandala patterns and you've added colour, you're in it too!  I would like it if you would include my blog address on there so people can come and join in too!

2. View your blog entry like a regular viewer would, and copy the entire URL (web address).   You may need to click on the title of the entry to get the full URL of the entry itself.

3. Comment on the current week's Mandala Monday entry here, and paste the URL of your entry for the week (not the blog front page) in the comments section.

That's it!

Mandalas are great fun, for pattern lovers and spiritualists and everyone in between!

My first Mandala was made on Christmas Day, when I finally allowed myself to open the Mandala Book that Wendy got me!  Here it is, and have a Majestic Mandala Monday!!

Until next week!