Attention! Smoking Is Not Allowed…

The Snake

“The snake kills by squeezing very slowly. This is how the civilized world slowly, slowly pushes into the forest and takes away the world that used to be.” James Cameron

The Girl With the Magnifying Glass

“Our attention is like a magnifying glass: whatever we pay the most attention to becomes the most important to us.”

If You Change Nothing, Nothing Will Change…

Hi everyone!

I even don’t know where to start…I have been away again. This time almost a year. Those of you who have been followed me for longer time, maybe have noticed, that it happens me from time to time. I don’t know if this time I will stay here longer, I hope I will. But life is full of changes and you can never be certain.

And change is the keyword of this year. I made changes in my art (started to use uni pin fineliner) and my personal life as well. But the biggest change happened in my mindset. I understood that if you want to be happy, then you just need to start to be. Forget all this: I’ll be finally happy when…There will never be more perfect time for being happy than now. Life always have it’s obstacles and difficulties. So, like the song says: don’t worry and be happy. 😀

P.S. I made new section in my blog menu called Pen(cil) Art, where you can find some of my new pen drawings amongst some old pencil drawings. I hope you like them. 🙂

Merry (White) Christmas! :)

Kajsa and Kiko wish you all merry and beautiful Christmas. They have decorated their house and now only need to put the star up to the tree and then they are ready for the Santa’s coming. 🙂

I also hope that you have beautiful holiday. We are very happy here in Estonia, because this year we finally have white Christmas. 🙂

DIY Low-Budget Christmas Jar

I don’t remember anymore why and when I came to the idea to make my own Christmas jar. But since I had the idea, I knew I want to try to make it only with the items I have in home. The only exception was the super clue I needed to bought to glue items together.

I remember how I liked crafting in my childhood, but lately I haven’t done it much. Thus, in the beginning it was very difficult, as items were so small and my hands were trembling. But I still really enjoyed it and was surprised how relaxing it was.

 

My (not very original) idea was to make the jar filled with snow and put there little house and the Christmas tree. I also added the snowman and some stars.

 

The first challenge was how to make the snow. There are many options to do it: sugar, salt, baking soda, cotton etc. Because I don’t like to waste food and the only salt I had in home was pink, I used shredded cotton pads.

Next task was how to make the house. I didn’t want to make it from paper, because I wanted something that looked more real. As I searched through my drawers, I discovered matches which were perfect for it. My boyfriend have this little quirk to put used matches back to the matchbox, so I even didn’t need to use new ones. I am happy when I don’t need to waste. 🙂

I cut the matches half with the scissors. And I must admit, glueing these little pieces together was really difficult at first. I got help from my tweezers, but still glued my fingers together many times.

“”I shall build a stronger house than yours,” said the second little pig.”

Somehow I managed to build a quite decent house. While the glue was drying, I made roof from the cardboard and painted it with dark brown watercolour. When the watercolour was still wet, I sprinkled little baking soda over the roof to imitate the snow. At first I had planned to use some cotton here too, but luckily I discovered this webpage, where I got the idea of using baking soda. It seems more authentic. When the clue was dry, I painted the house also with the watercolour and made door, windows and chimney from the coloured paper.

 

No, blue windows doesn’t work.

Much better. 🙂

Making the chimney was quite difficult. And as I drew the pattern (using the felt-tip pen) before the glue was completely dry, it turned out little sloppy. 😀

Ready to move in?

 

While the glue was drying, I also made the Christmas tree. I don’t remember why I had two pine cones in home, but the smaller one was exactly the right size. I thought I must buy green paint, but luckily I tried watercolour. At first I was little skeptical that it’ll work. But it did. I applied three layers and when it was still wet, I also sprinkled little baking soda.

I have small packet of plastic stars at home (got them for free few years ago) and used one to decorate the tree.

 

Then I had idea to make the snowman. I made it also of cotton. And I’m quite proud of how I made the carrot. As you can see in the picture below, I used the toothpick. 😀

Later I made hands also to the snowman, but I didn’t make the picture before it was already in the jar. Isn’t it a lovely little snowman? 😀

Smallest snowman in the world?

Carefully I placed items in the jar.

Almost finished.

 

But I felt that the jar was still too empty. So, I decided to hang some stars to fill the upper part of the jar. To do this, I glued white threads to the stars and sewed them to the little piece of cloth which I later glued to bottom of the lid of the jar.

 

And this is it! My first DIY Christmas jar. I am quite positive that it’ll not remain the last one, as I enjoyed the process too much. 🙂

 

As Christmas is already too much about consumption, I encourage all of you, who have little extra time and who enjoy making things with their hands, to use more what you already have in home to make unique Christmas decorations. 🙂

 

Hope you enjoyed my post. And I wish all of you beautiful and peaceful Advent. 🙂

Trick or Treat: Little Change in the Background

This picture isn’t appropriate anymore, because the Halloween is over for this year, but I didn’t want to wait til next year. 😀

I didn’t like the previous background of this picture. You can see why. There were just some silly-looking bushes (now there are silly-looking bushes and some lights :D). I wanted the background look simple, but not that simple. I posted the picture too soon, when it was not ready. I did it, because I was in a rush and had so little time to finish it. But I so badly wanted to post it in the Halloween.

My main issue with the previous background, though, was that it was too green. Halloween takes place in the autumn. And in Estonia, where Kajsa and Kiko live, the nature changes in autumn. The leaves turn orange and yellow and brown, until on the Halloween, the nature suddenly looks like it’s a big pumpkin itself.

 

But, even if Halloween is over, then there’s no need to be sad. Because soon it’s Christmas! 😀 And if you didn’t know, then today it’s All Souls’ Day. Thus, I hope you have a beautiful and peaceful day (or evening, as in Estonia). 🙂

Trick or Treat!?

Kajsa and Kiko went trick-or-treating. What about you? 🙂

Pancake Day

“Let’s make pancakes, Kiko!”

 

I want to thank everyone who said nice things about my first Kajsa and Kiko picture. I really appreciate your opinion, so it made me very happy that you liked it. Hope you like the new one, too. 🙂

 

* Unfortunately I didn’t came up with that cool apron design myself. I found this dress or vest with these cute pockets one day, when I searched cat-themed clothes, and it looked like something Kajsa (and me too) would love to wear, so I just stole the idea >D

Kajsa and the Two-Faced Cat

Please meet Kajsa and her best friend Kiko, the so-called two-faced cat.

Though I drew it to look little bit like a book cover, I actually don’t write/illustrate a book. These characters just wanted to become alive. 🙂

Hope you like them!