Christmas cards 2023 edition

This year I was/am short on time, so the cards are quite simple.

 

But shiny :-)

 

I got glittery shimmery shiny watercolours and painted baubles. Not two are the same.

 

But they all have the same hidden message :-)

In Morse code.

But of course.

More drawing

I finally received my new brush pens in the mail and obviously tested them right away.

Here is another go at Idefix.

Me very happy ;-)

What to do Nr. 16

You can draw cartoons!

There are many tutorials in the internet, I started with Drawdoo.

And obviously I started with the simple ones :-)

:-)

Another 'adult' book

It's quite difficult to get English books in Portugal. As my Portugese is ... not even bad, it's non-existent, and yet I wanted to buy a book, I got one without words.

Just numbers :-)

I love it!

A great book when you have to spend long hours at the airports.

Finished Christmas cards

And this is how this year's Christmas cards looks like.

Celtic knots.

Lots of them.

Christmas cards

For the first time in years I needed to change the design of Christmas cards because I didn't have the time to execute them as well as I would want them to be.

So I'm back to the drawing board.

Blank cards, a pen, two coloured pencils, and a steady hand.

And a rather scientific approach:

Drawing is just pure relaxation.

Or should I say pure mindfulness :-)

Secret garden

While I do spend a lot of time in my own garden, I still find some time to disappear into my secret garden ...

I just noticed the really bad white balance. Oh well ...

And another "monochrome" one:

Digital Detox - Secret Garden

I really needed some distractions, a"digital detox" so I bought myself a colouring book!

It's the bestseller among the coloring books, the Secret Garden.

No need to say I love it.

This is the first picture, with many more to come.

Harry Potter costume

MiniMojcek Nr.1 loves Harry potter books (and films) so this year he wanted to be Harry Potter. Since his wish is my command, Harry Potter he was.

I got a white shirt for a few Euros from H&M, but he still needed the cape and the tie. I made a very simplified tie from the burgundy fabric and painted gold stripes onto it.

 

The cape was done without a pattern and I just improvised with the hood. It does not lie completely flat on the shoulders but good enough for a costume. I of course lined the black cape with the burgundy Gryffindor fabric.

Oh, the white balance on this photo is a bit off balance :-)

Add a grey vest, glasses, an owl and the magic wand, a scar on the forehead and voila!

Angry Birds gym bag

Mini Mojcek Nr.1 has been practicing Judo since September and all this time he was carrying his kimono in an old plastic bag. It has now fallen apart and it was time to make him a new one.

I used the off-white canvas that was left over from the Luke Skywalker costume. First I wanted to make a plain simple bag but it was just so ... plain. I decided to liven it up a bit. Luckily I had all the necessary paints at home...

to paint an Angry bird!

I just needed to buy some rope ...

And voila!

Proud mum!

Life is extremely hectic at the moment - we are renovating the house, I'm writing two (not one, two!) books at a time, MiniMojcek Nr.2 started kindergarden way worse than we expected and MiniMojcek Nr.1 started school. The proper school. While the first two hours were terrible, the rest of the week was superb! He's got the most wonderful teacher and this is what he made on his second day at school: a self-portrait.

The inscription says "That's me" and you can surely recognise the Union Jack on the T-shirt he wore that day. That's my boy!

Ninjago Zane T-shirt

With Ninjago-mania of course came the request to make Ninjago T-shirt. MiniMojcek Nr.1's favourite ninja is Kai and he already has a Kai sweatshirt. So this time the request came to make a Zane costume. The white one. And what can a mother do than fulfill the request.

Zane's emblem is a golden lion. This is a just a rough sketch I made to check the size of lion's head.

 And the finished lion:

 The T-shirt has a fake belt (stitched on the T-shirt, but not all the way so that one can still tie a knot) and a stitched-on thingy at the neck.

 

I'm not quite happy with how the ropes turned out ... hmpf ... Let's just hope that MiniMojcek Nr. 1 likes the shirt.

But perhaps I can correct this the next time: I already have a request for the green ninja.

Curious cat

I'm slowly running out of my customised Tux penguin stamps, so it was time to order some new ones. As I don't have much spare time recently, I purchased a picture from Shutterstock and altered it a bit. Here it is - a peeking cat:


A whole lot of peeking cats:


Now that I have stamps, it's time to move on to the Christmas cards, right?

Bob the Builder Costume - Part 1

Carnival is rapidly approaching so it's time to make a costume for MiniMojcek. As he is Ben10 or a cowboy pretty much every day, we decided to make a Bob the Builder costume:

(photo borrowed from the Internet)

First task was to find a red and orange long-sleeved T-shirt. But I failed. So I bought a plain white T-shirt and Deka Batik and Textile Dye Series L, Orange (39110).


I've never dyed fabrics before and although the process is a bit ... devilish... it turned out superb!



With a little help of the painter's tape:


and after a lot of dying and drying I'm very happy with the final result!


Not all edges are perfect but good enough, I'd say.

Continue to Part 2. I'm warning you, there is no part 3!

Christmas is just around the corner

So it's time to present this year's collection of Christmas cards!
First the materials:


Some trees from the back yard and dried flowers.


Derwent watercolour pencils. Wonderful stuff!

And the finished product:


They are pretty simple but I honestly did not have much time to create something more elaborate. Then again, I do think they are pretty. And something special :-)

Dancing the night away

I've already written about the vector drawings I did for a 'client'. Now I had to do some more:


One day, I'll be one of the dancers. Again.

Vector drawing

For quite some time I've been drawing for a friend of mine so it's about time I share some of my drawings with you... I know they're not perfect mainly because I don't have enough time to finish them properly - but they are not bad. I think ;-)

Arabic writing

Well, Faux Arabic writing. I've spent quite some time figuring out how to write something that would look like Arabic without being Arabic. I think I managed it quite successfully.





I definitely fooled my cousin, who started reading the text from right to left (-:

Penguin attack

More occasional penguins. Plenty of them.

Our Postal service now issues customised stamps, one only has to submit jpg files and a couple of days later, the printed stamps arrive by mail. I ordered two different values B and D (for national and international mail).


People usually print babies, wedding photos etc. I printed penguins.


Tux is the official Linux penguin.