Nayu's Project Progress #38 Sparkly Minnie Mouse

It wasn't easy to photograph this, it is super sparkly!

I'm sorry it's been a while! Just been resting as the weather hasn't agreed with me. It has mostly been too cold, plus the rain = unhappy body. My cat has sometimes joined me, when she felt like it, and I've been having lots of hot water bottles and using my heated blanket in the evenings.

My winter essentials: cute hot water bottles and blankets

Admittedly I've mostly been gaming because it's very distracting and fun, I managed some reading and....I have done some craft! Feels like it's been ages since I've done any, but when I finally caught up with my craft friend (I'd had to reschedule our original meet in November to December because I wasn't well when I was due to see her). I knew from the previous session where I did less than 40 stitches in a cross stitch project due to focusing on talking that I needed something simpler. So I did this cool little project! 

This is when I was partway through. I'd done the black gems, the pink were the second colour.

I got it a few years ago (I'm slow in doing stuff, ok?), and it's not an official Disney Minnie Mouse, but since I love Minnie that's who this is! I didn't take many pictures of each stage, but basically it's a piece of card, with the stone area being sticky. I was amazed it still was sticky enough to put the gems on. There weren't many instructions, and I don't understand how the included white pencil was supposed to pick up each gem. I ended up using my fingers, which after a while did hurt but it was fun so I didn't mind much. They provided more than enough gems of each colour, so if/when any fall off I can replace them.

This is really bright!

I did it in 2 days, finishing the top half with my friend and the rest the following day. I like the cute flowers on the card which are done in ink. For some reason they made the easel to stand it on bright green....yeah, not the most stylish! It works for now, I may just stand it up on it's own or put it in a frame (I may have a suitable frame somewhere). Until then the easel will do just fine! 

Sorry for the quality, this is what the main puzzle looks like.

I am having my mega meds tomorrow, which is why I'm scheduling blog posts today. After that I plan to fit doing jigsaw puzzles in my schedule (I want to do them & have more than a few...) I would like to finish my Tsum Tsum puzzle by the end of the year but will wait and see how that pans out. 

Nayu's Craft Time #281 Mermaids and gaming

Sloths have the right attitude to life-take it slowly, it's not a race.

This is a catch up post on what I've been up to recently. The answer is not a lot, just lots of rest as I've had something that my body's been battling against. My family currently have a cold so it's probably a cold virus, but my body tends to react weirdly, make me feel not right for ages. I've played a lot of games, especially Pokemon: finished Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and now on Pokemon Sun (the normal one, not Ultra Sun). Due to the new game start I've been reading up on Pokemon Sun too.

Currently trying to level up the adorable Buneary! So cute and fluffy!

Disney's Stitch has great taste!

I've had my cat sleep by me while I game, I've also read a bit and even done some crochet - nothing significant enough to show you yet. I've watched a lot of BBC dramas and dvds, my favourite fluffy teen series featuring mermaids in Australia, H2O Just Add Water - the girls transform whenever they touch water, making more than just taking a bath or having a swim problematic.  I bet you didn't know that if you dye a hair in mermaid form then your natural hair colour will return when you change back to a human! 

From the left are the original mermaids Rikki, Emma (not her natural hair colour) and Cleo. 

As soon as I've shaken off this whatever my body is making a fuss about, I will be continuing my Tsum Tsum jigsaw puzzle which is cute, so will be able to show you some progress pictures. I'm having to reschedule my week's activities around how I feel, but that's entirely normal for me, if a little frustrating. I hope you are staying well during germ season - drink lots of hot lemon and honey! I like cold lemon with water, which I guess is fine too. 

Everyone needs mermaids and unicorns in their life!

Nayu's Jigsaw Puzzling #2

What's in my jigsaw case this week?

November saw the start of a new post series all about my experiences doing jigsaw puzzles. You can catch up with the first post here. I'll try and put the previous jigsaw post's link in each post, and it can be found by searching on the tag Nayu's Jigsaw Puzzling.

Today is all about a speedy (maybe?) puzzle I did the other day, and my current big one. The other day I took 1 hour and 20 minutes from start to finish to complete this super cute owl jigsaw:

It made me smile while I had a headache (which made me feel bad, I wasn't able to read, do anything with a screen). Small puzzles are easy-ish to do lying down. It's the first puzzle that I've done from Scmidt, and I was rather impressed. 

 It may 'only' be a 200 piece puzzle, but it's not a quick finish when my mind is slow. I like the bright colours: owls have gained in popularity over the last few years and there are lots of cute designs for all kinds of products. 

One really cool puzzle that I couldn't show you until know because a family member had similar items for their birthday is this Tsum Tsum 1000 piece jigsaw!

I know it says impossible, and it looks hard, but it's not. I've completed the edge and now sorting the pieces into categories: scary tsum tsums, Disney tsum tsums, Pixar tsum tsums, unknown pieces where the image isn't clear or I have no idea where it's from.

This was when I was sorting the edge pieces: the piles are for the top/bottom/left/right sides. Please excuse the image quality - it was taken on my tablet.

Once I've done that I'm going ot sub categorize into male/female, Disney collections (Mickey & friends, Winnie the Pooh & friends etc), and possibly by colour which should make it much easier to put together, with all the tsum tsums in pre-sorted (by me) piles. I can't imagine doing the puzzle any other way, including just picking up unsorted pieces and spending ages trying to figure out where they would go - that would take forever!

I'd love to hear if you're doing a puzzle at the moment - do you like ones with lots of different colours? Or ones which are harder because a lot of puzzle pieces are the same colour? 

A good & true saying

Nayu's Craft Time #263 Condensed Milk With A Pea

Passing time can be marked by a sundial  I love this elaborate one! It's so colourful.

I hadn't realised it was that long since my last post (maybe 2 weeks...sorry!). I know I had a week being away with the fairies thanks to my strong meds, then it was mega cold so I wasn't up to much. I did visit my craft friend on Tuesday, but didn't do much crochet! Well, I sort of did, but for once I couldn't talk and crochet at the same time which led to mistakes, undoing, and redoing of a few squares.

The cold weather is here to stay, unfortunately, so will be unwell a lot until Februry - my body hates it being under 10C, and under 5C I don't really function. I have a handy weather app to look ahead on when there might be a rise in temperature. It uses a term called RealFeel which calculates how we perceive the temperature according to wind/sun/other factors. So sometimes it may be 7C but it feels like 3C (or in the minus figures). Feeling like I'm fighting a virus all winter isn't fun, but all I can do is rest lots and pray for an early Spring.

My current passion

When it's cold I like curling up and gaming, occasionally reading, but often watching dvds or listening to audiobooks with simple handheld gaming rather than console gaming. If you follow me on Twitter you'll know I've been busy jigsaw puzzling - I'll be doing an update in the next post which will be in 2 days time (I've pre-scheduled it!!!).

You are probably trying to get your head around this post's title. It's an amusing incident that happened the other day. Me and my family freeze mostly any food. They'd put a partially used can of condensed milk upright in the freezer. They were getting something else and saw the tin of condensed milk had tipped over and there was a sticker mess in the freezer drawer-apparently it doesn't freeze solid! There wasn't a lot of it left in the tin so I took it, had it with frozen berries and even made delicious hot chocolate.

Not this guy...

...one of these!

It was doing the latter that I made the startling discovery of a green blob. Initially I wondered if it was mouldy, but it didn't smell and it tasted fine. My family took a look and instantly knew it was a pea - it must have got in accidentally when it was set upright after it's fall. So no, I don't eat peas with condensed milk - or, as the famous nursery rhyme goes, with honey. That doesn't sound at all appetising to me!

Have you heard this poem before? It was common when I was young here in England.

Today's food issue is to do with the brand of tonic water I use changing it's recipe to have sweetner instead of sugar, which shouldn't affect the bitter taste but it has so I need to investigate another brand that tastes like it should instead of like the same brand's lemonade (without the lemons). 

Nayu's Jigsaw Puzzling #1

My snazzy jigsaw case outside...

This is going to be an open-ended series of posts, but used the parts so it could be identified (& I'll try to remember to include previous posts in future posts (that does make sense if you read it carefully!). 

While I was ill last week I didn't feel up for gaming a lot of the time, so dived into my jigsaw puzzles. I finally finished the super hard one I'd borrowed from family. 

If you enlarge this picture you may be able to see the different types of puzzle pieces which made it difficult.

This one was evil because as well as using the standard type of jigsaw pieces 

Like these

it used unusual shaped ones. 

Like these but with more radical shapes - some had no holes!

Because of that I found it took a lot longer because my brain had to process the different shapes, and I won't be doing another in a hurry, at least not until I've improved with 'normal' shaped jigsaws. I was rather frustrated by the end, and was determined to finish the monstrosity. I'm happy now back to normal pieces, which if you follow me on Twitter you may have seen me post updates as I made progress. In case you missed it here's the progress of my current 500 piece Country Companions puzzle: 

Super cute! I love the little ladybirds helping the hedgehogs and mice out.

I've loved Country Companions ever since I was little, there's something utterly charming about the hedgehogs and mice. Sadly years ago I threw out all the cross stitch pictures I'd done of them, but one day I'll make some more! (Tip: Keep an eye in sales for cross stitch kits which generally are expensive outside of sales...my favourite online store Sew & Sew (no it's not a promoted post: I genuinely predominantly use them for my embroidery needs) 

Current progress on 14th November 2017 - I'm over half way!

500 pieces and under jigsaw puzzles are easier for me to do in bed, the 1000 piece was impossible to do at my roughest. Just because there are fewer peices doesn't always mean that the puzzle will be easier - it took me ages to sort out the flower sections in my current puzzle. I got there, and managed most of the hedgehog pieces too! I'd love to hear what type of jigsaw puzzles you've tried! 

Nayu's Craft Time #262 Postal Competition (That isn't an NCD competition)

Still dreaming of an American style post box!

Sorry if the title is misleading - this isn't a competition to do with the postal service! It's basically because yesterday I saw 1 postman with shorts on. I asked if he was cold and he said no, and that he can't lose against our other postman. I saw the other one today and yes, he was wearing shorts too! I guess if they are moving around a lot they will stay warm, and since they keep wrapped up with scarf and gloves they may not feel the cold so much, though I still feel a bit sorry for them, even though it's self-inflicted. 

I'm staying nice and toasty inside! The colder weather has begun in earnest, so lots of rest is happening while my body goes on strike. I managed to bake a super yummy vegetable dish yesterday: peas + sweetcorn + baked potato + broccoli + beansprouts + bechemal (white) sauce = winter warmer meal! I haven't got a picture yet - will add one in the next post, but it's delicious (included stock cube & grated mild chedder cheese), and I'm having it for lunch today! (I eat my main meal at lunch)

Too perfect to be my picture! Plus I didn't add herbs.

 Will post my recipe when I do get a picture, but you can put whatever veg you like in (& I guess add meat if you want). I simply Googled a white sauce recipe as I haven't made one for yonks, cut up the potato and broccoli super small, (not quite as small as the peas and sweetcorn), cooked everything in the microwave for speed (separately but only takes a few minutes unlike the many more minutes if I'd cooked it on the hob. My kind of cooking is super fast!), made the sauce then mixed it together! Simple! 

I've been busy working on jigsaw puzzles, something I'll discuss in the next post. Until then...

Nayu's Project Progress #13 Alphabet fun and playing with cats

Tea time! Mine's herbal, usually pepperment and nettle, chamomile and spearmint, or a fruit tea if I want something sweet.

I can't show you details, but yesterday's secret crochet work gave this blanket the pizazz (made up word) it needed to make it shine. It's going to be a while yet as it's fiddly, but I you'll love how cute it looks! 

What I can show you is the alphabet baby sampler I'm working on. First here's an earlier progress pic: 

I'd thought I'd need to wait sew a few creatures before finishing some of the letters, but as you can see in the next pic I'm close to finishing them all without a creature in sight! (yet)

I've done M and started R since this pic got taken, and hope to have done the entire alphabet for when I update you on this project.

I've also been creative in the relaxation department - here's a super cute cat jigsaw puzzle a friend gave me. 

Part way through the puzzle - it's on a shawl to reduce the noise of the jigsaw pieces as I sorted and fitted them together - family were watching TV while I worked on it.

All complete!

It's hand crafted, and as you can see has what are called 'whimsey' pieces which are the usual shape, but specific ones. 

So cute!

In this case I have 2 cats, a snowflake, and an xmas tree! I hope to be able to get more of these types of jigsaws in the future as they are fun. 

I hope whatever hobbies you enjoy that you've fitted them in over the festive season! Relaxation is important for our wellbeing ^o^

Nayu's Craft Time #43 Expect the unexpected

This is kind of craft related...

So my week hasn't gone to plan at all. Had major pain issues Sunday night, so had my super strong pain treatment of ketamine a few days earlier than planned. It meant I was shattered on Monday, unable to do much except watch anime and listen to audio books. Yesterday I was super hyper, worked on the above puzzle and made a lot of progress sewing wise. 

I've done some more since this picture was taken

Today I was super tired so only did a bit of crochet. I promise that barring any more unexpected medical hiccups you'll have a full project catch up post tomorrow, with lots of pretty pictures to see what I've been doing! 2 weeks since leaving work and haven't had time to establish a 'normal' routine since my body had other plans. I'm hoping that will change from tomorrow!