Spring Crafts

It is officially Spring! It has been cold recently, so to while away the time I've been keeping my hands busy with all sorts of little crafts. I started a nature art journal. Whenever I go out for a walk I bring back a little something that catches my eye. It has been fun to collect these odd bits and examine them closer at home and then paint them in my book. Watercolor is a new experience. I haven't always loved it but I have found that good paper makes for good painting. The "book" that I have was a gift from Ben many years ago. It has very good quality watercolor paper and for a long time I've saved it for something special and never used it. Well, I got over that. It will just have to hold all my foibles and stunning successes equally.

It was Pi Day recently. It's not a day we normally celebrate, much less pay any mind to. However the day fell on the same day that I went to do the shopping for the week and I noticed the grocery store was selling apple pies for $3.14. Very cute. And what more excuse do you need for pie? Instead of buying one though I made one from scratch and even cut a pi symbol in the dough. This was also the day that our furnace was getting it's yearly check up so it was in the oven baking when the furnace guy showed up. Of course, the pie decided it might as well spill over and burn on the bottom of the oven since there was someone new over. The guy was nice enough to remark that it smelled very good but I could only smell the scent of burnt cinnamon-apple sugar hanging in the air like a thick cloud. The kids were happily surprised to see apple Pi waiting for them when they got home from school. Despite the smoking oven, the pie turned out very delicious without a hint of smokiness to the flavor.

Our deacon's wife gave the kids and I some of her mother's old embroidery projects, thread, and embroidery hoops. Evelyn and I have enjoyed sitting in the evening, whittling away at our new obsession. I love the feel of the needle popping through the fabric and the thread pulling through the hole after the needle. I am hoping to make an Easter basket cover out of my piece of fabric in time for Pascha. Most of it involves coming up with my own design for it, so I don't know how quickly it will come along.

I made a Spring wreath for the front door. And do you know, as soon as I hung it up the weather must have taken that as a personal challenge and threw nothing but cold temperatures, snow and hail our way. The wreath was rather fun to make because it involved wandering through the woods looking for wild grapevines. I picked a day after it had been raining so that the vines would be more pliable. I found some and twisted them into a shape they would accept, which was more egg-shaped than round like a commercial wreath. I was perfectly happy with that. I used some flowers from an old decoration to add some color and interest to the grapevine wreath. I like how it turned out.

What kinds of spring projects are you working on?