12 Days of Christmas WIP

Hello dear blogger friends. I just finished up reading the blogs I've missed for almost a week! And now I have also been hooked on watching flosstube which I have been reading about from blogs. I first came across it from Tama's and then Kate's blog, that got me really curious... and now instead of stitching, I've been watching, haha.
But I did finish up the red numbers on Frosted Pumpkin's 12 Days of Christmas:

 Next, I will be doing the Title situated between the music notes. I'm already thinking of stitching this project by block instead of by color. I already have this idea of blogging each finished block (-making it look like I've accomplished a small finish 12 times over, lol.) I will be starting from the 12th day til I reach the 1st, then the whole piece for the finale. Now that really got me excited to start a block!
Before I close, here's some pictures from our trip going back:

After we picked up big niece, we drove down to Orlando and stayed for the night. As you can see it's been pouring pretty much every afternoon in Central Florida.

After dinner, little niece wanted to dip in the pool, it closes at 11 so she had almost an hour of fun before she went to bed.

The next day, we headed to Seaworld's Waterpark "Aquatica"

 Dolphins, but I didn't get the chance to get a picture, lol.

 This area is for the little ones:

 

 

 For lunch, sis and brother-in-law went for the all-day buffet, it costs $20. My nieces and I were not really hungry so we went to Grab n Go, where a hotdog sandwich costs $8 (should have gone for the buffet, right?)

 

 There's a lot of great slides, only thing though you have to climb up and wait in line, but that's okay for the adventurous, haha. Unlike in Disney's Blizzard Beach there's a chairlift going to the highest point.

 

Then it happened, at around 4pm the dark clouds came hovering over us. The park had to close some of the attractions until they finally closed everything down (they close at 5pm).

 Overall, it was a successful trip. Still gotta love Disney's Blizzard Beach over this one though, bigger and better attractions. First when we got to Aquatica, they could not scan the barcode from the printed tickets from Tickets at Work, so we had to lineup at guest relations to get the actual cards to scan at the entrance. Then for the cabana, they gave us this map (below), upon locating it, there was only one attendant who politely said "wait here" and was assisting a family for more than fifteen minutes before we were lead to our cabana. I think they should hire more people the way Disney does. Poor guy had to go back and forth the bridge gate (I don't know what they call it) and attend to all these families by himself, and mind you it's a long area to cover. And the wave pool was not working at first until they had it working. Minor things, still enjoyed the whole day, sand, sunburn and all, haha.

That's it for now. Back to stitching.
Thanks for visiting. Happy Stitching!

Back and catching up

Hello dear blogging friends. I'm back from the preview trip, arrived safely very late Thursday night despite the heavy downpour. Yesterday was spent doing all the laundry and going to the grocery. So now I'm free to catch up on some reading (which I'll do after my sleep :)
Brace yourself for a lot of pictures... I saved the best ones for last;) 

 

 

 

This is where the event was held. 

 

 

 

 Tour around campus. Niece summarized it as "brick buildings in a forest." I think she's having freshman jitters, knowing this is where she will live a couple of months from now.

 

 

 Look at those trees. There's an area here you can't pass by at night because they don't want to disturb the bats, and there's a lake where they keep the alligators.

 

 

The Gators' football stadium. Niece said they were taught how to do the cheer during the preview.

The freebie bag, loaded with school goodies - water bottle, fan, poncho, etc. You can tell what the weather is by these items, hah. Official gear were being sold after the 2-day event. Niece bought a magnet and a cap.
So now we come to how little niece and I spent our day while they were away. First day, we planned to go to the Butterfly Rainforest but the weather did not cooperate (thunderstorm and lightning everywhere) so little niece spent the morning til lunch at the indoor swimming pool, after that, she watched tv and slept the afternoon away. Ooooh, lucky me got a lot of stitching done!
Second day, we went and explored...the mall, still it was a rainy day. I got some good deals on clothes.

 And look at what I saw along the way:

This is the biggest Joann store I've been in so far. Unfortunately, there were no good xstitch sale items and I have no coupons on hand. Next time, I will be prepared! There's also a Michael's and we just found out Hobby Lobby is also in the area.

And now here's my travel stitching:

I finished the border (yipee!), then have gone on to do the red numbers which I'm almost done with:) I'll be posting that next with the best part of this trip. It's getting late. I'll catch up on reading those blogs tomorrow.

Thanks for visiting. Happy Stitching!

12 Days of Christmas WIP

Hello dear friends, I hope everyone had a busy stitching weekend... as I did!
Actually, I tried to have as much done on 12 Days of Christmas before I "might" have to set it aside for this week. I'm on a roadtrip (6 hour drive) with sis' family for big niece' university orientation.  It's a two-day school affair (beginning tomorrow, where big niece has to stay overnight at the campus). After dropping her off comes the fun! We'll see how we're going to spend the time waiting for her and then traveling back, we don't want to bore little niece now do we? But just so you know, I packed my cross stitch too, lol. Brother-in-law is doing all the driving, with my sis doing all that scheduling thing while yours truly slaves on nanny duties, hah! So far, I think we're scheduled to return home late Thursday night.
Okay, enough said, we're here for the stitching! I'm thrilled to show you how much I managed since the last post, take a look:

I like how this border looks, I didn't get bored at all (unlike the border on Summer Breeze). Apologies for the bad photo taken so early this morning. 

I tried to finish the border but couldn't. These eyes begged off but the fingers were still willing, you know that twitching-eyelid kinda thing? Wish I can squeeze in some time tomorrow to finish it off... let's hope little niece quits bugging me by midnight (tough luck), hahaha.

Thanks for visiting. Happy Stitching.

Just Human

Hello dear friends. 
This is no end of the week update on Petal Fairy or Summer Fragrance. Instead, it's a confession... Yup, I've been tempted again to start a new one from the birthday stash.

 12 Days of Christmas 

by Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery

I'm doing it on 15 x 18 cut of 14 ct. silver-dusted aida (Stardust by Charles Craft). I had to put in thread gridlines because the pen is no match for the shiny silver threads on the fabric. I started with the dark green (though not finished with this color), I wanted to add in those musical notes to cheer me up.

Oh, before I close this, let me say "thank you" to all who left comments or viewed my previous post, you don't know just how much it means to me. Again, thank you... Now, I'm going to be on the lookout for frames!:)

Thanks for visiting. Happy Stitching!

The Great Frame Challenge

Hello dear friends. 
I have been busy finding ways to frame Summer Breeze, you know how we get all obsessive compulsive when it comes to something we've made. Thanks to all your encouraging words and tips on my last post... so I made sure this is worth posting for your viewing pleasure, hah!

First, I wanted to see how it would look inside. I cut the mounting board just a tad smaller than the opening.

 Okay, cut to the chase--

TA-DA!!!

Boy oh boy, it is not that easy to center  xstitch. I was sweating! Good thing the mounting board was sturdy enough to withstand all that pulling/tugging to keep the fabric taut and center. The ends of the fabric were held together by sewing from one side to the other end. Then, when I finished sewing, I cut another piece of board, this time measured to fit snugly at the back to hide all that sewing. I did not glue it to the wood. Just in case I want to change the xstitch (Hint: Houses of Love) I can just push it out. 

What do you think? I'm way satisfied with the results, I felt like I just passed the framers license exams , lol.

Thanks for visiting. Happy Stitching!

Summer Breeze is Here

Hello dear blogger friends.
I'm finally done with Summer Breeze! Take a look;)

Some close-ups:

 My favorite part is that quiet swan right there.

The inset looks ok, but this swan looks kinda tired to me, lol.

This is the ort jar. I'm going to continue using the same ort jar for next project to make it full.
Now here is what I was so giddy about last time, I took out the frame I bought from Jeremiah Junction eons ago, cleaned and measured it. Fits the Houses of Love (finished earlier this year) but since Christmas is still half a year away... Why not try it on... Summer Breeze! Voila, like magic, fits perfectly!

 This is Scratched Paint style (8x12 in size), dark green in color. It doesn't have a glass and doesn't have anything on the back, just four pieces of wood glued together.

Ooh I'm so excited to try my hands on framing. Let's just hope this experiment won't be a disaster -_-

Thanks for visiting. Happy Stitching!