Monicas Creative Room

I have to confess. I’m addicted to this new hobby. It is so restful to sit and put all the tiny resin diamonds on the canvas. Especially now that my mind always seems to go to the memory of my Mother.

It take a lot of time but it’s all worth it. The best of all is that contrary to what I thought, my shoulders doesn’t complain at all even though I sometimes work with this for hours.

These are the three paintings I finished before summer and just recently made frames for so I could hang them on the wall.

Now I’m working on another big painting, 60×80 cm. Right now I have it up side down because it’s easier to reach. I have also bought a light pad to put beneath the canvas to lighten up the pattern. What a big difference! So much easier to see now, especially when working in the darker areas on the painting. The next diamond painting will be one with a Christmas scene. I so much want to start with it right now because it’s so beautiful, but I have to finish this first.

Diamond painting is a quite new hobby. You place tiny resin diamonds on a adhesive canvas with a printed design on. Each colour has it’s own symbol printed so it’s easy to see where to put the diamonds. The diamonds are just 2,5 mm in square. The paintings can be bought from Aliexpress, eBay, Wish and many other places. I prefer to buy from Aliexpress because it’s easier to filter the search there to find the designs I want.

There are two types of paintings and two types of diamonds.

The painting can either be filled totally with diamonds or partial. For the partial ones the whole design is printed but the glue and the grid is only where the diamonds are to be put. I have never tried a partial one because I think the full ones looks better.

The diamonds can be either round or squared. The round ones doesn’t cover the design totally because they are just round. The squared fills the design totally and you can’t see anything from the canvas when finished. Some people likes the round ones more because they are easier to work with, but I like the squared ones better. The partial designs are mostly made using round diamonds. The full ones can be either round or squared.

Everything you need is included when you buy a kit. You get a printed canvas, all the diamonds needed, a picking pen, a tweezers, a tray and some wax to fill the tip on the picking pen. Often you also get a list on the colours and how many bags of each colour there should be in the kit. It’s important to check so no bag is missing when you have got your kit. Sometimes bags are missing, but if you contact the seller they usually send the missing bags. This has happened to me several times but I have always got the missing bags in the end. The only thing is that you have to wait several weeks extra for them to arrive.

/Monica

It has been a long time since I updated my website. I usually take a summer break because I have so much other things to do during summer. This summer the break became extra long because sometimes things happens in life that you never can prepare for. My dear mother passed away in beginning of August. We knew that she soon wouldn’t be with us because of her illness, but we where completely unprepared that she would pass away so suddenly. Life goes on, but it is hard to get used to the fact that she is not with us anymore.

Because my father soon will move to a flat, we are fully occupied to clean out all the buildings on the family estate. We want to finish the clean out before snow comes because the property will be sold somewhere during next spring. It is so sad, the property has been in the family for over a hundred years.

Later on I will make a memorial page about my mother. There I will show most of all the paintings (more than 350) she made during her life and also some of the huge amount of embroideries she created. It will take a lot of time and work to prepare this because she was so productive. I have already taken photos of all her paintings, but I have to find time to put all this together.

I know you will understand that I will not do so many new cut files for a while!

Monica

Now we are only waiting for the trees to turn green. Spring is so late this year! Only some early spring flowers have started to bloom, but not yet the daffodils. Today has been quite warm and I have cleaned the pond and put down the pump and the filter. I love to hear the water splashing again, it’s so peaceful. Tomorrow I will rest in the sun reading a book and listening for the birds singing and the water splashing. Maybe I also will plant the seven dwarf lilac bushes that I bought a week ago. First I have to check that the ground frost is gone in the place where I plan to plant them.

 

 

All my plants are growing well in the greenhouse. Today I brought out my cucumber plants that I have been growing indoors. Hopefully it’s not too cold for them in the greenhouse now.

 

Our last remaining snow is on the north side of our house. I hope it will melt tomorrow so I can clean up the flower bed there.

/Monica

Spring is late this year. The first of May we usually have just smaller piles of snow left in the more shadow areas. Yesterday we got about 3 inches more of this white fluff that seems never to disappear. Today the sun is shining and almost all of the snow that came yesterday has melted. The only thing is that we still have loads of the old snow left!

Today I will spend most of the time in the greenhouse. I just brought all my small plants there and they need bigger pots now. This year I will not grow as many plants as I use to do. I always grow too many but now I’m afraid I will get too few, we will see. 🙂

/Monica

  

This time of year the winter days are really lovely when the sun is shining. We have lots of snow and it’s quite cold at nights. This morning when I woke up, I stayed in bed for a minute and just listened for the traffic noise from the high way that are not far from our house. I could hear that it was quite cold outside! When I looked at the thermometer it said -18 degrees C. The noise from the traffic gets much higher and sharper when it is cold outside!

I have started to sow a lot of flower seeds but this year I will try to not grow as many plants as I’m used to. Every summer after planting out all the flowers I need, I always have loads of plants left over. I usually give them away to family and friends but this year I will try to just grow what I need and not so much more. Wish me luck with that task! 😉

 

A new hobby

One day some weeks ago, when I was surfing on the net I found something that really caught my eye, diamond embroidery!

You place tiny resin diamonds on a adhesive canvas with a printed design on. The diamonds are just 2,5 mm in square. I bought one from Aliexpress, just to try. The design is a picture of a fractal. Of course I had to choose a large one, 60x60cm. This means about 57 000 tiny diamonds to put in the right place on the canvas. Ha-ha!

When I got the package and opened it, I started wondering what I got myself into. This will take for ever, I thought. I started to work with it and it’s so fun!

Now I have spent less than a week, a couple of hours a day and almost a quarter of it is already finished. I will certainly buy another one when I have finished this!

Monica