Lunar New Year & New starts

With the passing of Lent and the Lunar New Year, the emphasis for me has definitely on new routines and fresh beginnings.

I have been squirreled away most of the year however I am spending a lot of time reading peoples blogs and on social media which may have been too much of a substitute for real life interaction however sometimes we all need that hibernation time

.

For now though it is obviously time to start stretching and planning things.

One of the twitter peeps @atanae posted a link which got me thinking :

Lent health challenges

Since then I have been flitting between the 2-5 range which means at least my blogs are seeing a bit of a refresh.

So after some google+ inspiration and in the spirit of 'learn a new thing' I thought I would share my first messy attempt at some crochet stitches.

 Myinspiration - Yvonne Mabbott who has been creating a 365 day blanket and the update pictures are so lovely and colourful.

Crochet - Beginner stitch

Crochet - Single crochet

First attempt

Unravelled and 2nd attempt

I am glad to see my friend and fellow blogger is already embracing the 'New start' idea too so I am looking forward to hearing her new findings from a new course. Here is the link if you want to check it out too

Hel's Creative Chaos

Now as for my own goals for the month, I need to squeeze in a visit or 2 to some art galleries for an essay and would like to time to catch up on some craft bits.

Theme challenges that are incoming are:

Love - Any media

Love magic -Clay

Although if I want to get them included i had better get my skates on!

One Boomkin & a Money Tree

The New Year has started or just about to restart dependent upon your calendar,  and I thought it high time I updated the blog with some crafty gifts which can now be shown.

For my geeky side of things I had wanted to try my hand at another plushie since the previous fire spirit was fun to make. So keeping the same Warcraft theme and using some felt again I set to work trying to create a gift for a friend who had a moonkin (aka boomkin) character.

For those of you not total geeks then this is what a moonkin should look like:

Moonkin with baby moonkin

Mine however was created using a bit of artistic license, and is more based on the baby than the adult :D

I only actually took photos of the finished article however the felt was pretty much cut freehand and hand stitched so it was a definite one off.

Hangin with me Owlie

The other project I had was to find a gift for a friend's wedding. I had wanted to get them something special but at the same time I knew that some money would probably be the best gift for them: but money in a card just looks a bit like no effort put in. So I started to look for ways to present money better.

Then I stumbled upon this video:

Origami Butterfly video

I had some practice with paper and once I could do that, I used the notes instead. Then for the flowers I curled the corners of some folded notes with a tooth pick , but they needed a base. Which lead me to the idea of creating a money tree.

 

So one plastic tree, some wire and hot glue later and I had created my own version of a money tree.

 I was happy it was well received. They even thought it was something I had bought  :)