Getting Ready for Christmas!

Been quite busy these past few weeks, crocheting as if in a race, readying my Christmas gifts for all the lovely girls in my life. Giving you a glimpse with the pictures below of the ongoing project.

Now, if I could only find a crochet project that could be a Christmas gift for the guys :)

A fine mess: some of the crochet projects am working on for Christmas gifts

More crochet flowers to become earrings

A crochet necklace in the works

Read more

For Amara

Whew, haven't blogged in awhile! Had to take a hiatus from crocheting and blogging to organize our household. Had to get rid of bulky furniture and everything old and useless (and that included our lazy maid!) so now Marti and I happily run our own home without any worries!

So now that we're getting used to our new routines and everything else is settling down, I started with a few projects in time for Christmas, the first of which is a 3-set accessory for the daughter of my CG mate Aby whose name is as pretty as she is: Amara.

As the set was inspired by Amara, I'm naming these accessories after her:

Amara Necklace:
Floral Medallion with Gold Ribbon Necklace

Sunburst Medallion for Amara's necklace

Amara Cuff

Amara Cuff, side view

Really hope she liked it!

Read more

Christmas Vacation in the City of Flowers

from l-r: my brother-in-law Clarence, his sister Mae, Asti my nephew, Cha, 

Clarence's mom Tita Lily, moi and my son Marti

My sister Cha and her hubby Clarence invited us to spend Christmas in Baguio City, known here in the Philippines as the City of Pines and City of Flowers!

Haven't been to Baguio for 6 years which was quite long considering that our parents would bring us there on most of our summer vacations. A lot has changed and the City seemed to resemble downtown Manila with all the vehicular and pedestrian congestion. Nevertheless Baguio City has not lost it's natural beauty with its tall and sweet-smelling pine trees and vibrantly colored flowers!

Here are some of the pictures of flowers I took there:

My all-time favorite flower, Hydrangeas! In the Philippines
they're called Milflores

More Hydrangeas....Martha Stewart got me hooked on them

In a different but still lovely color

Marigolds
Never thought these were mosquito-repellent flowers until
the seller told us so. Would be handy in mosquito-land Manila but
these plants would not survive the humid weather there.

Haven't seen butterflies in awhile, probably due to Manila's pollution
but it was awesome how this one just happened to land on the
yellow Daisy I was taking a picture of!

I'm not sure if these are called Violets...how i wish they'd label
the flowers here...

More beautifully colored blooms

Via the internet I found out that these are called
Dahlias

Nameless yet lovely :)

Pardon the blurred photo but just had to take one of these
hanging flowers...

Closer view shows the lively yellow color of these flowers

It's true that the grass (in this case moss) is greener here!

"I declare this as Marti Land!"

Was so delighted to have visited Baguio. Got so much color inspiration that I started several crochet projects already!

Watch out for my new creations, coming out here soon...

Read more

My Sister bought me the Crochet Adorned book!

Having revived my crochet hobby, I signed up to Craftstylish.com  and found there a very interesting book with a modern take on crocheting: Crochet Adorned by Linda Permann. It was the lovely crochet necklace on the book cover that really caught my attention:

Cover of Crochet Adorned by Linda Permann (Potter Craft, 2009).
Photo: Nicole Smith
taken from Craftstylish.com

One time while browsing at National Bookstore, I found that the book was available here! I didn't have enough money at the time but was really worried somebody might buy it since the store only had one copy. My sister Cha came to the rescue! She bought me the book and it's the best gift I've received this year! 

So far here are the projects I've made using the easy-to-follow patterns of the book:

The 3 Buttercup Bracelets I made for my nieces, from top to bottom:
Dani, Mikaela and Teresse

Terya Crochet Neckpiece
named after my Mom

Still making several floral earring which will be posted here soon. Check out our multiply store too at http://millicentmelissa.multiply.com

Read more

Inspiration: Romantic Flowers

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55948751@N00/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rufino_uribe/

Was looking for some inspiration when I came across these lovely pictures of roses and I just had to make them into crochet! After searching, I found this easy to follow crochet rose pattern from Anjie's blog http://www.pompomemporium.com/ 

The roses were originally set with earclips but then my ears got pinched so hard by the clips that I remade them with earposts instead. 

I think I'm gonna make more earrings in more radiant colors :-)

Read more