useless but funny: The WoW "Char Dice 2008"

Today I suddenly had this complete useless but funny idea...

As I mentioned in my last post, I play World of Warcraft. I play this god forsaken game since the open beta, before it was released. I never played it consequently, so that I cannot tell you about my lvl 80 char(s) with their "imba" equipment. But I play it consistently ;).

So, today while I was checking something at work suddenly a very tiny particle of complete useless creativity hit me and I thaught: "Whom do I play tonight?" With "whom" I meam one of my many characteres, counted 17, I could play.

And thats, what now is the result of thoughts like this: a paper dice, with 10 sides to dice, if I cannot commit myself on playing one specific charactere. I choosed 10 of the most played characteres (difficult enough ;) ) , took ingame screenshots of each of them and put them into a 10sided dice template I had found here.

Together with "Morpheus" as the font, that seemed to be usedt in WoW I finally got a template that looked like this:
I just had to print, fold and glue it. And after this it looked like this:


here is another view of the dice:


complete useless for daily life, but a funny Idea, I think ;)
btw: needless to say: I didn´t play any WoW tonight, because I was busy making this dice ;)...

Read you, nan

Im so weekend

There is still nothing new to tell about the AC, I´m still waiting for our works council to confirm the "winner", from who we don´t know, who it will be or was. This is not an easy situation, because rumours are running wild in the company and I have a hard time not to listen and believe in them.

Meanwhile I took some pictures from my new decorated and completely changed room and finally decided to buy a new camera next year, because my nearly 6 years old Sony Cybershot definitively has seen her last days. Therefor I work for a big company which produces fine digital cameras I should know that a 3 times digital zoom, none optical zoom and the choice between only 3 scenemodes, without any opportunity to save any own modes does not make, what we today think is a good picture. but see yourself below ;). I tried my best to rescue some "quality" using Photoshop. The warm light comes from my lamps and candles, because these days it´s allways dark outside, when I come home from work.

The last days I was busy making some Jul decoration (yes, I still prefer to name it this way ;) ). First I made some cute paper houses after I had found the cute templates for them at flickr.


They are that much adorable, that I even made the pink coloured ones, although I don´t like pink thnings *g*.

Yesterday before playing a little WoW I decided, that I need to make a paper snowflake, which is based on a how to on cut out + keep.


This year I try to decorate the house without spending amounts of money, because buying that stuff ends in getting what everyone else who bought their decorations, have too. So I collected some pictures on Flickr and made some mosaics to fit in picture frames, revarnished some old stuff new in an antique looking white and hung baubles and lightchains on soon everything possible. (I even tried out on the cat, but she didn´t seem to like wearing little glittering stars)


But, before I forget, the most important: I had a fantastic weekend in Nuernberg, visiting some friends of the adorable WoW guild "Chaos", which I´m glad to be a (rare seen) member of. As I don´t know, how the other guys feel about posting pictures of them here, I just show an "after dinner" pic of me first:
Lygia, one of our hosts and by the way a really nice and cute witch and me (a not even less cute witch I hope) made a legendary meal inclouding franconian dumplings, mellow pork roast, one of the best sauces I ever tasted and salad. After dinner all of us were stunned, and this was the first time of my life I recognized that a meal can be a debuff (damned WoW slang ;) ).
We visited the famous "Christkindelsmarkt" as well and a restaurant called "Bratwurst Roeslein" where I had a marinated pot roast for the first time ever. The best thing was the sauce: a ginger bread sauce, from which I tried to guess the recipe by taste. I have to try it cooking myself!
We also visited the Nuernberg Castle and the historic town; Lygia and Babarus were fantastic and lovely hosts, I learnd a lot about myths and history of Nuernberg and, really, I had a great time! Thanx for that, my 2 sweethearts *hug*!

But now, let´s see, what my new room looks like at the moment.

It´s Thursday, the in many blogs I read the so called "Thankful Thursday" and the chance to live, like I can live my life now, after all the hard times, even without something to eat sometimes, definitively is some big thing, I´m really thankful for each day:

Here I sometimes sit and read, but most times my hubby or the cat sit there.

New locker, some space to store all the fabric and DIY books finally.

If you are a fan of IKEA, you might have noticed it: I love LIATORP

My Jul tree ;) formerly known as a black member of Ikea´s "Statist" family

I love white funiture and white, green, purple and grey as colour for decorations, so a white Amaryllis became a kind of consistent for the season. The heart was a finding in a local florist shop and was so cute (and cheap) that I bought 2 of them.

Working desk, sewing place and the place where the magic happens, if it´s happening ;)

Same desk, the other end: the PC´s place, if you´re talking to me via skype/ teamspeak or ICQ, when I´m writing for the blog or homepage or when we´re playing WoW together; thats exactly where I am. I choose a self arranged solution of Ikea´s "Galant" series in white for my room: my desk now is soon as long as my room and even goes round the corner, it also has a rounded cornor on one and a rack for the PC on the other end; plenty of space, that´s what I wanted and needed. ( btw remeber the heart?)

... and if we don´t talk or play, he takes care of the headset. It´s not ment in a blasphemic way, I´m not into Buddhism either. But I liked him, because he looks so peacefull and relaxed.


Just have to show you these cute mini- orchids, a really surprising present by the lovely Wudonia. I love them, allways wanted to have some; I just cant wait untill they reflorish! The cute rabbit-missy I found at Flickr, it´s drawn by the amazing talented leontine. The flying witch is a picture I drew some years ago.

Did I mention I play World of Warcraft? ;) That´s all that left of WoW related decoration, except the gameboxes itself and a wow mousepad; all maps are stored at the attic ;)

Thats all for today, lets see, what tomorrow will bring.

take care and merry meet again :)

wish me luck

oh my... tomorrow I´ll have to go to the first part of an, to my so damned much important assessment center at the company I work for. Ok, I know I´m ready to do the job, if I look on my competitors, maybe I should be more relaxed, because all colleagues I talked with about tomorrow told me, I´m the one with the greater experience and knowlegde in this sector. But I know, they are good ones, love their work that much as I do, are trained well. The only thing they don´t have, is experience, but is experience alone decisive for getting a new job? I don´t think so, so I hope...

But I´m nervous and not sure at all, even about what to wear tomorrow. Oh I hate situations like this, where you have to sell yourself for the highest price. BUT, and thats a fact, I´ll do it the best way I can and hope, that I´ll get the job. *breathing*

But, keeping it professional and positive: I can get this job, I can show, that I´m the one they want for it and I will show it! Yes... I can! (ups... coincidence?)

Meanwhile I clean up the mess called my room (thats what I allways do when I become anxious) and start with the Jul decorations here. Maybe tomorrow I´ll take&upload some pics of it and, of course a preliminary result, because tomorrow is only the fist day of this AC... Let´s hope, I´ll see the second one too ;)...

So long, wish me luck guys!

soap opera

While another soap base is melting and becoming a good soap in the oven, I´ve got a little space to write about the weekend.

I held my first soap making workshop ever. Some workmates and my mom in law joined me on Saturday afternoon to make soap together. And for the first time ever I was the "teacher". I think it worked good and our soaps feel, look and smell fantastic:
We made 2 different soaps. a uncolored one with the warm and spicy scent of christmas: Chinese anise, cinnamon, cloves, orange and ginger, which is made on a base of cocoa butter, coconut oil and sunflower oil.

The second one I colored slightly green with green clay and scented it with lavender. It is an one - fat soap, based only on olive oil.

With this soaps we tried out some different molds, the celtic knot soaps are made in a milky way tray, the cute, but a little slender soaps below were made with silicon molds my workmade had made. We also used simple margarine jars and mini cake forms for the soaps.

Todays soap is a brown-black one, scented with ambra, sandlewood, vanilla and sweet nagh champa. I wanted an oriental styled, warm and wooden scent. The first load is cooling down outside in the snow right now and I´m confident, that this soap will be fine as well. For this soap I used the celtic knot tray again, because I like this look.

But, before I forget: I found a great site while surfing on cut out & keep: Craftynest, a blog with amazing how to´s round about the house. I just checked my cupbord, if I could make some cakestands myself :P. Just added the page to my favorite blogs, because Monica, the head and crafty hands behind Craftynet must not be forgotten. I´m curious about what could come to her mind next :).

Ireland - revision

Just to show you guys some pictures from my trip to Shannon, where I visited (and worked for) the irish/english devision of the company I work for:


Sundays off, so you can spent 15 Euros for a view like this at Bunratty Castle, another 10 Euros for the bus...


find some real rare and nostalgic items like this cutter...


learn something about native irish achitecture, farming and history in general...

be stunned by the beauty of fuchsia trees, plants that don´t grow that big at home...

... and have a fantastic evening in Bunrattys Dirty Nelly´s (they say, it´s the oldest pub in Ireland) with the fantastic Irish Folk Band Trazz and their german mom :). (yes, these adorable young men are brothers... exept the right Sir, he´s the father) ... priceless!

We lived here:

at the "Oakwood Arms Hotel" in Shannon, a hotel with fantastic funiture, decoration and lovely staff. I love the details they put into it:


Mainentrance...

... the pub...


... right wing with the suite...

... a cute garden in the right corner...

... stairs to our rooms in the right wing...



That´s it for now, next time I´ll show some pictures of my new room. But at first, I have to wait for the postman tomorrow: amazon just confirmed the shipping of my World of Warcraft "Wrath of the Lichking" collectors edition... It´s play time again, I´m afraid ;). That reminds me: I wanted to make a picture of my "family": all my Twinks and mains I play in WoW... could be a nice picture, all together and me between them...

I´m back

After a long while in ireland, in Shannon to be exact, and another while of sickness and weakness I´m back. Unfortunatelly my unplanned absence also messed up my dawanda account. At the moment I´m in negotiation with dawanda to re-open the shop. We´ll see, how the outcome will be. I just hope, that they are nice enough to reactivate my account, because I contacted everybody who was waiting for an answer.

Meanwhile I´m working on new stuff right now, maybe I´ll check out etsy once more, if a membership there would be worth doing and if the community is as great as the guys at dawanda.

I will stop packing my rare time with swaps and journal-rounds, organize it much better and find a way to don´t struggle with way too many projects at the same time.

But, most important right now: I finally want to get my driving licence. It´s hard after 10 hours in the office to stay focussed and even awake while the theory lessons you have to visit for the licence here. The worst thing is, that a cute little, silver coloured Opel Cosa ist waiting outside my house since my birthday for be driven by me. So, let´s hope I pass the 2 tests and get this damned licence soon.

the box bag

Remember those?:

Although I´m getting a flue, should sew things for 2 current swaps and getting insane from waiting for invitation to an Accenssment Center, I finally managed to sew something using the purple fabric with the tiny golden stars and the striped one you see in the picture above.

I wanted to use both together but didn´t know for what kind of project. On the other hand I wanted to try out the tutorial, Kelly from dragon[knit]fly wrote for her box bag, in awhile too. I thought over it the last days and finally decided it would be fun and the fabrics could work for this project.

This morning I started, because our weekend trip starts on friday and I realized that I don´t have any bag to put my tootbrush into *sigh*. Buying a new toilet bag was not to be at issue, cause my pride as a DIY freak doesn´t allow me to buy things you can make yourself. And the toilet bags you can find in the ragular german shops are boring, ugly or made for visits at the hospital. nothing colorful and not ugly at the same time :(. So I used Kellys tutorial, added an inside pocket to it and worked up my left over xmas fabrics, black cotton fabric for the bottom, red ribbon and a bag named DIMPA.
OK, I used only a part of her, but for a good reason: Dimpa is made of some kind of canvas cover, which makes the bag leakproof inside.
Oh my, I don´t want to bore you ;), here are some pictures of my first selfmade toilet bag:

I think, I like it and, cause it was my first time (another ;) ) I´m a little proud of the result, too. What do you think? Should I sew more bags like this? While planing and sewing I realized, that Kellys pattern also is perfect to make a huge travel bag. I just would have to add some strap handles and perhaps a divided pocket inside. Guess what else is missing for our trip ... *grin*
So long, nanshee

I wasn´t that lazy...

The last week was full of new ideas and musings, finding new great blogs and sites about crafting and, of course, making new stuff. For an order at my DaWanda shop I made a new herbal oil, with Provençal herbs and a new designed label for it. Sadly in the picture you only see the bottle and the new label, not the oil itself, cause the order was about 200ml of oil and the bottle I used was a little oversized:





Then I made new antique-styled paper for new labels, cause I have to design and print new ones for the soaps, which will be ready and dryed the next days. For this I used sheets of plain printing paper, stron black tea, some cold coffee and a sponge. With the sponge I patchy spread the tea (the leaves inclouded) an the cold coffee all over each sheet and let it dry:







After drying I took the sheets, joggled the leaves of, held them under running water and then scrunched them up. After this I ironed each sheet. Now they look like something between old laid paper and vellum. Looks great and is an chaep and easy way to get a stock of good and sylish paper for your labels. The finished paper was used for my old labels too, so her is an older picture that shows you the effect:





I think, I´ll write a little more exact tuotrial about it over the weekend and publish it here for you.

I also tried out a new recipe for a solid body butter bar , made of coconut oil, shea butter and scented with jasmine and orchid. It smells awesome, classy and maidenly at the same time and my very dry skin seems to be deeply gratefull for this extra of fat and moisture.
Yesterday I made another herbal oil, asian styled this time, with an exotic and spicy taste of chilly, black pepper, ginger, coriander and garlic, tinted with curcuma for a dainty yellow-orange colour. Today I´ll drain it, I´m very curious, how it will taste at the end.

Next week we´ll have our first wedding aniversary, so hubby and me make plans for a little trip. I´d love to visit Amsterdam, I never was there before and it´s not so far away from here. We´d like to go by car, so my main activity at the moment is, to find a cute, not to expensive b&b or appartement, where we can stay over the weekend and park our vehicle nearby for less than 30 euros parking fee per day. Does anyone of you have a suggestion or commendation for me? We´d like to stay over the weekend, arrival is planned for friday night and check out on sunday. Your tips are very wellcome :)

You can see, I am and was quite bussy, and there´s still more to come...

so long, have a nice weekend :)

The Gothic&Lolita Swap: my reward

...for waiting :)

What I couldn´t know was, that my present was made in Budapest and sent from there, too, so of course it took a little while to travel all the way to northern Germany. And here it is, my new favorite blouse, the best I have in my closet.
Made by the lovely Trevian, who managed to create such a sweet blouse, just like the one, I was dreaming of. In fact, my biggest wish was to get a blouse with puffy sleeves and a rounded collar. I was squealing, when I opened the envelope, and continued squealing when I first tried this one on, I admit. It´s just so perfect. Thanx again, Trevian!






There are heart-shaped seams on all hems and the collar is decorated with black lace, the same that was used for the button tape.


That´s all I have to report right now, tomorrow my weekend will start after only 6 hours of work, so I guess there will be more news about what I did on Sunday. I allready started to make some vintage signs, but my acrylic paint is overage, so I have to buy new on Saturday. But thats only one of the current ideas and projects - of course ;).

so long, nan

finally: The Gothic&Lolita swap

You might remember, I was doing some little sewings &crafty stuff for the Gothic&Lolita swap at the german Natron&Soda forum.
This morning Miaka, who was my "Wichtel" got my swap bounties. And now I finally can show you, what I made for her:

1. a big sized tote bag with lots auf ribbons, lace and a tiny selfmade cameo:

2. matching to this bag a little purse with a keychain on it and a readymade cameo pin:

... and the other side of the purse:

I´m very proud and happy to tell of Miaka that she loves the bag and the rest of the bunch. *phew!* Now I wait eagerly to get my swap surprise from whomsoever ;)...

That´s it for now, hugs - nan

pure suggar...

another job for me, the next measured mobile bag.
made for DaWanda, a lilac bunch of cotton candy, decorated with purple pearls, ribbons and flashy flowers. I think it looks cute in the literal sense. And I hope the new owner likes it too. the pics are not that good, cause I took them straight after finishing sewing, so the front pocket looks a little leaning, but it isn´t!

What else happened this week? I made this mosaic for Valentines Day with Flickr toys and ordered a copy in 50x60 cm. It now decorates our hallway and I love it :) So I hope your V-Day was ful of love, like mine was:

I ordered this book on tuesday and hope that it arrives today:

It´s not, that I don´t have "enough" books about sewing, but this one is special, cause it contains many declarations and tips for the different stiches on my sewing machine, some realy great ideas for new stuff and good step by step workshops for each piece... I had no choice, I had to buy it, and hubby said, it´s ok to do so... so I did ;)

So, my week was about spending some money and earning some, too. Next week my hubby will be on a business trip and this will be the first time, I have to stay alone in our house... We´ll see, how that feels like. The bad thing will be: I´ll miss him badly, the good thing beyond: I´ll have enough time to make all the DIY-stuff I planned, like some gifts for our wedding aniversary.
For now, I wish you a fantastic weekend :)

daily soaps...

We will have a little soap-party in march, for making some new soaps together. But I couldn´t take it, I had to make another new soap yesterday. I made a total amount of 2 kg fat base, so I decided to create 2 different soaps.

The first one is a spearmint-chocolate soap, very soft and creamy at the moment. it will get a little harder while drying the next weeks, I guess. For now, it smells and looks very yummy, I somehow now get an appetite for vanilla and chocolate icecream!

It´s made of best whole milk chocolate coating, cacao, dried and self hand-picked peppermint leaves, scented witht spearmint, vanilla, bitter almon and rum.

The second one is a spin-off of my research for the romantic steampunk project: I read a book about victorian householding and on chapter was about popular fragrances back then. So I made this soap, scented with rose, petitgrain, lavender, narcissus and freesia, rounded of with a few drops of sandalwodd and patchouly. I tried to colorize this soap with a brew of logwood, but that didn´t work that well, I´m afraid. I dare hope, that the color will change a little over the time of drying:

I think, the color is ok, the dark points in the middle of the pieces allready startet to brighten up.