1 down, 25 more to go...

This week I finally managed to do one of the animals from the animal A-Z I'm attempting to do. It's a Toucan!
I drew it roughly into Photoshop first and then using paths drew out the different areas and filled them with block colour. I don't really like using gradients on my images but the only other way to add the shading to the beak would be to use a lot of different layers of colour and I didn't want the image to be too detailed, so I felt the gradient worked well...

I had originally planned to create all the animals in different media but I think now I might continue to create them all in Photoshop in the same style so that when they are all completed I can tile them all in one image.

This morning I made pancakes for breakfast! with the help of my assistant of course! I think we've finally managed to crack it; light fluffy pancakes which aren't burned on the outside and stodgy in the middle... we added a generous amount of cinnamon too so they were DE-LIC-IOUS!

Pancake Perfection...

Whoops...

When I posted the other day I forgot to post the photo of the February papercraft zombie from my calendar! I didn't manage to make it on the first of the month, I actually did it on the 6th, but ho hum...

Cross stitch progress is going rather slowly! and tonight I haven't managed to pick it up at all! One of the girls at work brought in her crafty-scrap book today and was nice enough to let me borrow it to bring home and take photos of some of the awesome clippings in it, so I've been busy doing that! Makes me want to buy a house and decorate it with awesome stuff though! 

I recently decided that it's going to be my mission to scope out markets for small vintage deer figurines, the super cute kitsch type! Don't ask me why, I just like them...

Also at work today the lovely Meg bought me a little blind packaged toy from Forbidden Planet! She's been named Mini-Meg and sat on my desk all day over-seeing my work...

Not the greatest photo because I took it on my phone...

Have been thinking about the 365 project some more too and thought it might be nice to start on my birthday (which is in March) as a way of documenting the year! 

Whoops...

Ok, ok, ok! So I haven't managed to stick to my "two posts a week" rule this last fortnight, but work has been CRAZY busy! Honestly! So I haven't had the time or energy to finish things off/ start new things so I haven't had anything upload! So, shame on me *slaps on wrist*

I finally had a weekend off this weekend so I decided to have a lazy weekend and try and get a few bits and pieces done... though I maybe did a quarter of the things off my "to do" list!

I finally started my new cross stitch pattern!...

I'm doing the 'Hug' cushion first, just cause there's less letters, although the 'Kiss' cushion works out pretty much the same size anyway. I'm going to do it a letter at a time rather than working all in one colour/doing all the line work then filling in etc. I thought completing small sections might make me feel like I'm making more progress!

Oh and here is a photo of the Swallow cross stitch I was doing now that it's completely finished...

I quite enjoyed doing this little one as it didn't take long. 

Hopefully I'll manage to catch up on the animal alphabet I'm doing this week and make one or two using cross stitch and my own patterns. I now have 4 animals to do this month! eeek! BUT, I got my sewing machine this weekend! (HURRAH) so I might have to make a plushie animal or something using it so that I can figure out how it works!

This weekend I also managed to FINALLY sew the eyes onto the alligator mittens I made months ago! I'm still tempted to make another pair as (despite following the pattern) the inner mouth piece (red) was a lot wider than the green part so they look a bit weird 'cause it sticks out a bit. They could do with some teeth, this might make them look a bit better, but I have white wool back at home in Newcastle so I'm reluctant to go buy a ball when I only need to use such a small amount. For now they'll just have to look like snakes with massive gums...

So hopefully this week I'll manage to cross a few things off the "To Do" list! I want to get at least 2 animals from the alphabet done (I've said this every week, I know), one of which will probably just be a drawing to make it a little easier, and I'm still yet to start on the next piece of my jumper!

I'm also toying with the idea of that 365 thing folk are doing on flickr. I thought I'd missed the boat what with it being February already, but after mentioning it to The Crafty Currant who also started it in February I figure why not. It might force me to use my camera a bit more. Though I'm wondering when I'll ever find time to take photos through the day or how I'll find something interesting to take, particularly on a weekday as by the time I leave work it's dark and there's not much at work that I can take photos of... We'll see...

Ok so now that I've managed to update on a Monday I should be able to keep up better and get back on track! If I want to make up for the lack of posts and catch up properly then I'll need to update 4 more times this week... hmmmm... I'd best get creating...