Lyra's World: May 2011

My treasure

Posted in Labels: Books, Hobbies, info, Thoughts 11:06 PM

Another post, another giveaway!
Thanks to Marina from CraftzeeFactory blog and her generosity, who gave us this great task of posting about craft books we own, I am finally proudly presenting my not so big library of "creative" books. Most of them are origami-related, which is my first and biggest love as I always like to say, but lately I've acquired several other craft books that I enjoy very much. Three of them that are in the picture (some others are not because they are being read elsewhere ;) ) are: Simple glass painting by Cheryl Owen, Stencil source book by Lucinda Ganderton and The polymer clay techniques book by Sue Heaser.
I am a huge book lover and each book in my library is special to me in its special way and has its own story. It is great to live in this modern age and be able to find so many information on the Internet, but nothing can replace her majesty THE BOOK and the joys it brings to one who is reading it!
This is my treasure:

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Art Drops: GIVEAWAY

Posted in Labels: info 10:17 PM

Art Drops is organizing a giveaway and it is FABULOUS! A set of three beautiful artworks. Lucky will the winner be!

Visit: Art Drops blog HERE.

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Love cards

Posted in Labels: Hobbies 9:36 PM

Happy, happy events this weekend: an engagement party and a wedding. Two lovely pairs who love each other and a great opportunity to do something creative. These are the cards that I've made for them.

I have used a nice pearly cardboard as a base, origami washi paper, corrugated cardboard, ribbons, lace, regular and zigzag scissors, a heart shaped puncher and a corner "empuncher".

It took a couple of very late nights to finish these projects in time, but I am happy with the results, same as the recipients of these cards, which I'm grateful for!

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Decoupage - a nice web site

Posted in Labels: Hobbies, info 5:50 PM

Today is the day when I'm trying crackle with decoupage for the first time. I didn't want to do any particular project, but to experiment a little. I'm using the information that my dear creative aunt Marina gave me as well as some knowledge gathered online. We'll see what the results will be.

***

But this post is actually inspired by a web site that I've stumbled upon while searching for crackling tutorials. It is a web site by an Italian artist, who not only displays her own work but also offers invaluable advice and guidelines for a variety of art techniques, and all that in English!

I find the articles very clear and very helpful and that is why I want to share it.

Furthermore, there are original decoupage papers that can be seen on the web site and bought online that are just fabulous!

I also recommend looking at the fabulous art works. I know little about art, but I know when I see something that I like and that looks amazing to me.

Arte Kjara

(web site of Chiara Stevanella)

Artists' Guide

(home page of the tutorials)

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Flowers in the rain

Posted in Labels: Hobbies, Plants 5:00 PM

Freshly photographed! These are one of my favourite flowers. I've loved them since I was a child. I love these bunches of little flowers in all varieties of pretty colours, the shape of their petals and the way they look perfect both in a garden and in a vase. We call it "turski karanfil" (which translates into "Turkish carnation"), but their name in English is actually "Sweet William" (which is rather unexpected to me and a bit funny and brings to mind, naturally, the Duke of Cambridge, although he's really not my type - giggle), or in Latin: Dianthus barbatus. There are also few peony (božur, lat. paeonia) in the back of the bunch.
The flowers in my garden are really doing great this year. Lilacs (jorgovan, lat. Syringa vulgaris L.) and lilies (lily of the valley, djurdjevak, lat. Convallaria majalis) were especially pretty and abundant, but for one reason or the other I didn't catch them on camera. So now I'm making my amends and posting here these purple beauties.

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Photographing flowers, apart from obvious

reasons, can be great also because they are such a great material for making custom graphics if one has some spare time to play and be creative with a photo editor. Results will always surely be worthwhile: it is fun but it can also be useful. For example, you could use such patterns to enhance you web site or a blog. I think I'll try one of my new patterns as a background here, and hopefully it will look as good as I expect.Thankfully, it is Sunday today, a gloomy and rainy day, so I had some time on my hands and so these pictures and patterns came to be.

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A late Easter post

Posted in Labels: Food 1:45 PM

Although it's been two weeks since Easter, it would be a shame not to share these few Easter photos.

First the Easter eggs - because there's no Easter without them. This year the colours were great and there were lots of happy bunnies hopping from one egg to another!

And then two of my "handiwork": Jaffa bun cake (recipe by Karlovacki kuglof, as usual), and a heart shaped cake which is my own recipe (hurray!) and will appear here on the blog soon. :)