Finished the burnt lady!.

I finished the burnt lady. If you remember I had over baked her and she was looking rather  burnt earlier. You wouldn't know her now after she has been painted and dressed. Her name is Azure. I decided to antique her because I realised after baking that I had actually forgotton to smooth her face so there were lots of bumps and crevices on her face which should not have been. Well that is what happens when one is trying to multi task lol!  Although I am pleased with the results I actually don't like her face very much. I think her expression is horrible. She looks as though she is going to give one of her set downs to someone lol!

Neither here nor there cake!

Yesterday I decided to do something different. I decided to bake a chocolate cake. After mixing the ingredients when I came to mix the chocolate, I realised I didn't have enough for my cake. It would have helped to have checked before I started on this venture. Anyway I used what I had in the end and this is the colour it came out as. It tasted fine but it neither tasted of chocolate or a plain cake so I have named it 'neither here nor there cake' lol! And if you want to know the recipe for this just add one bar of chocolate to your plain cake mix made out of 5 eggs and you will get this wonderful tasting cake lol!!

blog back grounds

I have still not found a good background for my blog. I didn't like the previous one as it seemed to be a bit too harsh to the eyes. I will settle for this one for the moment until I can find one that goes with my title I think. Or something that is pleasing. So bear with me if you find that I have changed the background again and again.

She is done at last!!

Whew at last she is done. She took me so long to make that I almost gave up on her but now she is done. She is called Nightingale. She is a lover of music and if you are very very quiet you can hear her sweet music. She works her magic on the flowers which she picks from the meadows and the gardens and plays her sweet music with them. 

Choc of course insisted that I take a picture of her with him as he has been through thick and thin while making her.

Ha ha Judi

Lol Judi thanks for the link but I was ahead of you. I do have one as you can see but everything else gets chucked into it but the beads lol!

A little bit of fluff

Today I have been doing some felting. A little bit of wet felting and a little bit of dry felting and beading again. In the process I have been tipping my  little containers of seed beads again and again and again on the floor and spent time on my hands and knees again lol! No matter how careful I am I seem to be doing this so often. Any way I finally finished the flowers. I am quite pleased with them as I have never tried this shape before. I had tried making them with polymer clay but was not pleased with the results so decided to try felting. Amazing what a little bit of fluff can be turned into.

Sicily

Last week I was away in Sicily. Sadly we took the weather with us, however we had a great time. Here are some photos for you to enjoy.

Below are the wall paintings in the ballroom of the hotel and it also had a 20 foot gorgeous chandalier. Unfortunately all the lights were switched off. We just sneaked in to take some pictures hence the pictures are not bright enough.

 The churches are all beautifully decorated

 Inspite of the weather the scenary was stunning!

 A local food and veg market.

 The Greek temples were imposing and beautiful.

 Some of the mountains had still snow on them.

 Toarmina was a beautiful place and this is the Greek theatre. It was absolutely stunning. If you ever go there don't miss it.

 There were lots of cactuses and one of them was in full bloom.

 We had planned to go up Mt Etna. We drove half way up but were defeated by the weather.  As you can see there was a lot of snow on the mountain and the fog was coming down thick and fast so we decided to return back and not risk going up further. It was rather disappointing as I wanted to see the crater but I guess this time of the year was not the right time to visit it anyway.

 Packed snow on the roadside. Look at the bluish glow. That is the first time I have seen that .

 There were evidences of the lava flow everywhere. It looked like such a desolate place. Yet there are villages on the foot hills of the mountain and on the southern slopes as the ground is so fertile. I don't know how people live there with the constant threat of the mountain errupting. The most recent erruption was in 2009

 On our way back we saw some beautiful sunset.

 This was on the way up to Erice which is a small medivel town on top of a mountain. The view down below from half way up.

 We did not spend much  time here as it was foggy cold and started sleeting heavily. Walking down to our car was a nightmare as it became like an ice rink when it started sleeting and snowing. On a warm summer's day it must be a delightful place to walk around and explore the narrow streets.

 Someone's  delightful courtyard from outside. I could have taken a shot of the inner garden but did not want to intrude



Two steps forward one step back

I made some progress with this doll of mine. I think she will be ok once I paint her. I made her arms and legs as well but I think I will have to make them again as I feel they are rather short. I like long limbs for my dolls so I have got to do that and then look for a nice fabric for her body.

 I the meantime I cannot believe that I spent so much of time beading this skirt and the beading is not even nice. Although I like the fabric a lot, I decided enough is enough and off with the skirt lol! She looks a bit decent now. Shall finish her soon I hope. 

Head burnt

Yesterday I was trying to make a flower and some other bits and bobs out of polymer clay to embellish my brown cloth doll. While I was at it my fingers started sculpting a head as I thought of killing 2 birds with one stone as it were. But unfortunately I burnt the head as you can see. My oven obviously doesn't maintain the temperature that it is supposed to on the dial. I had to keep fiddling with the dial to keep it up to the right temperature and the result was I burnt it from the top. So the lesson learnt is cheap ovens are no good for this sort of thing. However since I don't do that much of polymer clay work I think I shall manage with the oven I have. Just have to find the right no. on the dial to get the right temp. Next time I shall try covering the sculpt with baking paper on top so that it doesn't get burnt. As for the flower that I sculpted it looks rather weird so I am not going to use it or show it. I have another idea in my head so shall see if that will work out.

I would like to thank all of you for all the colour combination suggestions you have given to me and I have gone with purple/magenta which picks out the colour from the green fabric.

I would also like to say this to you all that I am finding Google reader rather tiresome to use, and I found out that bloglines is still operating under a different name. I tried to transfer all my feeds to the new site but unfortunately it only transferred a handful so now I have to go and do it one by one. I shall get it all up to date so until then please bear with me for not commenting or visiting you blogs. I shall get there eventually.

Look what I won!

Just before Christmas Natalie Hamade had a free give away in her blog. When I wrote a comment I didn't even know she was doing a draw so I was blissfully unaware of it and that I had won a give away until Natalie wrote to me. It was such a wonderful surprise and that too to have won an art piece of Natalie was so awesome. I had to ask Natalie not to send it to me until I got back from my vacation. I was not prepared to lose it amongst the Christmas post. Today I got her little parcel and I was just so thrilled to have won this beautiful pin. I have always admired her art and to have won something of hers is just too awesome. Natalie thank you so much I love this pin and will treasure it always.