Category Archives: Handmade

Happy New Year and Ojo de Dios Mandala

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Yuli| Leave a comment

Hey hey and Happy New Year!!!

I hope you having a great time with people you love and New Year will bring you luck, light and hapiness!

2013 Moto

~ Live Now ~ Be Kind ~ Share ~ Enjoy ~ Create ~ Smile ~ Laugh ~ Help People ~ Love ~


Its summer here and my boys on school holiday!!! LOVE IT… we having such a great family time… We trying to stay at home, especially this time of the year…people everywhere and its gets a little too crazy for us. Thankfully we live in small holiday village and beach closest to us is huge and it’s doesn’t get over crowded, enough space for every one.

For a last 3 weeks most of our days been in this order:

Sleeping in! Well mostly me, I’m not a fan of early morning and I have to wake up at 6 am most of the year… so this is what my body needs and its getting it))) My boys are early birds… they up and busy from 6 am, but they so good and independent…always keeping themselves busy, making breakfast and letting mama sleep a bit;) Lucky me!!

Beach twice a day…salty hair and lots of vitamin D. We make our way to the beach at about 9ish…before its gets cooking hot; and second session at about 4ish… warm water and gentle sun. Our house only few blocks away from the beach, so we only bring our towels and water to drink…simple. Times of big beach bags with kids goodies, snacks and other things that we mite need (and hardly ever use) is over! Yay!

Mid day siestas! Its too hot outside… we keep ourselves busy around our house  playing, reading, drawing, baking, watch movies or just taking easy and enjoying lazy time!

In the evening we make braai, South African word for BBQ; yummy meal around the fire with sound of waves and night sky.

Life is Good and I feel hugely grateful and blessed! So nice to know that it’s still another 2 week of holidays…Yay!

My creative side also been on holiday, I hardly touched my crochet and my head and hands deserved a little brake ;) I have whole New Year ahead.

But there is something that I made with yarn and would love to show you.

I love mandalas and was searching for crochet mandala patterns on the web…instead I found this – Ojo de Dios or God’s eye Mandala!

Love it! That afternoon I got my colorful yarn and kebab sticks (love to work with what I have at home, no need to go and buy stuff). It was very easy to follow tutorial and I found it very meditative & calming, which is always NICE! So here is my Mandalas:

 

 

Our friends invited us for braai/BBQ on New Years day and it was perfect little gift to give as thank you and Happy New Year!

I’m looking forward to make more Mandalas with deferent colour and patterns!

If you wish to make one or more…here is a links to Ojo de Dios tutorials

Tutorial in English:

http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/how-tuesday-weaving-a-complex-ojo-de-dios/

Tutotial in Russian / Мастер Класс на русском:

http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/3909035/post132913811

http://bestia-wm.ru/handmade/50-santimetrovaya-12-luchevaya-mandala-master-klass.htm

http://oberegi.blogspot.com/2009/09/ojo-de-dios.html

Big Thanks to amazing people that made & shared Ojo de Dios tutorial with us!

And Big Thanks to you for visiting my blog and reading my post;)

Happy New Year!!!

Love, Yuli xxx

 

Posted in Handmade, Life..., Tutorials

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Needle felt… exploring new creative grounds

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Yuli| Leave a comment

Few months ago on one of my numerous Internet surfing for new creative inspirations I stumbled upon beautiful work made with needle felt technique. Most amazing thing you can do with this technique…life like flowers, toys, 3D sculptures, accessories and I can go on and on. So of course I decide that I’ll give it a try at any given opportunity.

Here is a little description about needle felting from Wikipedia:

“Needle felting is a popular fibre arts craft created without the use of water. Special needles that are used in industrial felting machines are used by the artist as a sculpting tool. While erroneously referred to as “barbed” needles, they in fact have notches along the shaft of the needle that grab the top layer of fibers and tangle them with the inner layers of fibers as the needle enters the wool. Since these notches face down towards the tip of the needle, they do not pull the fibers out as the needle exits the wool. Once tangled and compressed using the needle, the felt can be strong and used for creating jewelry or sculpture. Using a single needle or a small group of needles (2-5) in a hand-held tool, fine details can be achieved using this technique, and it is popular for 2D and 3D felted work.”

I hope it gave you an idea and if you still not sure what I’m talking about – well Google is your oyster;)

Unfortunately I couldn’t buy stuff I needed in our local wool shops (don’t forget I live in small coastal town ) and I could’t find much on SA online shops either…unless I wasn’t looking in right places. If you know were I could get it locally (SA)…please, please, please let me know, I’ll really appreciated!

My search for wool and felting needles brought me home, my first home – Kiev. Wow…there are so many online shops that supply with everything you need for needle felting…Paradise!!

With help of my parents, thank you mama and papa xxx  I did some shopping over there and luckily for me… Russian friend of mine was visiting Kiev and she brought for me my parcel with wool and needles.

feltting wool

my wool treasure xx

I did more “Googling” and researching on this new craft that I “felt” in love with…so much to learn!!! And made me think that we are so lucky to have all this knowledge at our fingertips… thanks to Internet!

my first needle felt - Orchid

And here is my first flower… it was fun making it, but need more practice…I poked my fingers few times((. I’m sure I’ll get better at aiming))

Have few other felt thing that I almost finished with…so hopefully will post by the end of this week.

I’m off to bed now… tomorrow is another day to create.

Love, Yuli xxx

 

Posted in Handmade

Its been a while…

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Yuli| Leave a comment

Time flies… busy time of the year… no time for updating ): so horrible that I didn’t post for such a long time.

Here it is New Year 2011 so I better start with my new year resolutions (; : 1st on the list – writing at least once a week!!! 2nd – sort my creative space and stuff – its ciaos in here… I’m all the time looking for something… frustrating ): 3rd – don’t know yet…

Ok, I’m been busy making stock for my friend Xmas Market on the lovely farm. Hehe - stock sounds very serious, let say couple of nice things to sell… So I decide to make things for kids (especially for girls, maybe just because I don’t have one;) Here is some pics:

Wand…crowns…tutu’s…and cupcake T-shirts

 

Crochet flowers hair clips… elastics for pony tails… alicebands… and head bands

  

 And this is only picture I could find of my felt pirate crown and sword ): Also I made cool T-shirts for boys with funky aliens and skull & cross bones …Next time I MUST take pics before my stuff get sold =) 

That it for now, but look out for more pics soon xxx

 And of course Happy New Year!!! May it bring you lots of love, happiness, wealth…and exciting opportunities… Cheers!!! Salut!! Wooh Hooo

Posted in Handmade

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