Pattern: Emerald Green Angel

This is the pattern for the second of the Christmas Ornaments that I'm working up into kits - the Emerald Green Angel. The smaller diamond acylics work really well to make up the angel's body and wings.


Visit my Etsy shop to purchase a kit for this ornament with all the materials you need.

Pattern: Lime Green Diamond Christmas Ornament

Visit my Etsy shop to purchase a kit for this ornament with all the materials you need.

This is the pattern I've written out for the Lime Green Diamond Christmas Ornament which I'm putting together with all the materials you need as a craft kit, but if you don't get the kit you can of course use any variations of your own ideas.

Little Tube of Happiness

Little things make me happy. This little thing, for instance, made me really happy indeed. Recently I was very excited to discover these tubes of "Sparkling Gems". While green wouldn't have been my first choice of colour, it was the only choice available and I knew I had to have them to work into something magical. I'm still scoping for more colour choices.

Well, I think these are a 'big find' indeed, because after adding some other beads from my collection, I was able to come up with a variety of styes of Christmas ornament. They're very light - which is great for a tree ornament - and they'll sparkle like mad with the tree lights on.

We have these Marie Antoinette inspired large lime green diamonds. Can't you just picture Marie having a huge tree glowing green with diamonds? And they go perfectly with the opaque lime green seed beads which are among my many favourite things.

The next style is a very yellow green which I've capitalized on with cream coloured accents. They remind me of the 12 Days of Christmas - specifically "a partridge in a pear tree".

And the last of the little bits in the tube worked up perfectly to make these sweet little emerald green angels. A gold pony bead acts as the halo. When they're hanging - as opposed to laying flat in the photo - they look even more like little angels.

I've tied them together with a pretty matching bow to make sets of 3 - as that's the way I like things - but I am planning to make these up into individual Christmas Ornament kits that you can make yourself. Seems like a good starter project to experiment with ... stay tuned as it's well underway!

More fun ideas to consider:

• I want a Green Snowman with a Glittery Hat! (teresacjohnson.wordpress.com)

And now we have hats & scarves

Another mission on the great crafting "to do list" (which isn't actually written down, as that would be too overwhelming) is to work up some hats to turn the myriad scarves I have made into "Hat & Scarf sets". The scarves are crocheted and the hats are knit.

I actually prefer the 'co-ordinating' approach to a matchy-matchy set, and these first few versions have worked out pretty well. I love the softness of the Charisma wool in this hat, and think there will be many more of these to come.

Another job done today, the first batch of these sets is now available in the new 'Hats & Scarves' section of my Etsy site. Many more to come ....

Pretty Little Butterflies

Another item 'catalogued' today were these pretty little butterfly earrings. Being a natural subject, I thought I'd keep them in soft and neutral shades.