Happy Holidays!

Kassandra wishes you all a very happy Winter Solstice

and nice holidays!

Christmas letters are starting to pile up

Kassandra invited me over today for tea, and she showed me some of the letters that the children had written to Santa.

Letters have been made with templates from Vectoria Designs

"I can see the mailbox is getting full", I said.  "Are they being extra nice now that Santa is coming?"

"They are making an extra effort, but they are good kids all year round.  We hardly ever get fights or arguments.  I am starting to get the packages ready".

"I cannot wait to see them!"

Kassandra is getting ready for the Solstice

I came by Kassandra's place recently, and I found her very busy, putting up her Solstice decorations.

"I see you are getting ready for the Winter fun", I said.  

"Yes", she said.  "I am even putting up a mailbox for the kids to deposit their Santa's letters".  

"Oh, do you have more kids?" - that was something I did not know.  

"They are not mine, but I am "Grandma" to them.  They are lovely, and always so full of joy.  They really enjoy preparing for Santa's visit.  I will invite you over when I have some of their letters.  They are always something special."

"I'm sure they are".

Having fun with Vectoria Designs projects

I have already mentioned Vectoria Designs sometime.  I have used several of their designs to make pretty boxes and other stuff for Kassandra's house.  What I did not know is that it could be so much fun working with paper.

I have become a susbscriber of Tinne's channel in YouTube, and we are updated frequently with new ideas, tutorials, sneak peaks and even freebies!  What's better than that?

I have been busy lately putting in practice some of the ideas she offers for projects.  They are very easy to do, and so rewarding!  Best of all, some of them are even good as little gifts for friends and family.

Here are some of the things that I made:

From this tutorial

From this tutorial

Halloween treats: milk box, Tic Tac box, pockets, and assortment of bags

Alice in Wonderland Tea Box

This is a project I thought of myself: the Chopin Liszt Shopping List (!):

As you can see, I even added a magnet to hang it on the fridge door

And this is what I am working on right now; a lovely industrial style box:

From this tutorial

 And after decorating it:

I still have a lot of work to do on this one; I have to make the metal corners, but give me time... 

I am sure you will find something on Tinne's channel that you may enjoy doing.  Go and have a look at her shop too!

Review: FinFun Mariana's Tidal Teal Mermaid Tail

Now that Summer is over, I can finally review my new tail skin: FinFun Mariana's Tidal Teal tail. 

Yeah, call me childish, but I have been reading the Mermaiden Tales that come up every once in a while at the Finfriends website.  I LOVED Scarlett's story and personality.  As a fan, I wanted to buy a Scarlet Red tail, but I did not really see myself in a red tail, even though it was gorgeous.  When her story took the turn it took, and she became Mariana, I wanted her new tail.

So this Summer I bought it as a gift to myself.  As always, buying at FinFun is easy.  I picked the Adult M size, chose the cheapest international shipping option, paid with Paypal and waited for it to arrive, as I was hoping I could take it with me for my holidays.  I think it took about a week, and it arrived in perfect conditions, in a sealed envelope, inside a plastic bag - no organza blue bag anymore - and with a Mermaidens sticker as gift.

The size is spot on, and let me tell you, it is GORGEOUS!  The tail itself has no front and back - same design on both sides - and it features the Mermaiden logo in the right fin tip (on both sides); I find it cool, it looks like a mermaid tatoo (!).  Now it has a smooth transition between the body of the tail and the fluke - no seam like in my Barracuda tail - and the colors are shades of blue, turquoise, and a bit of green and white.

Transition between tail and fluke - flawless!

Scales detail

As you can see it makes quite an statement!

The one thing that got my attention is the new reinforced tail tips.  I had seen a video on their website where they talk about this.  I was skeptical, until I saw my new tail had the new tips.  Mind you, none of my tails had ever had holes in their tips, but it is because I am totally paranoid over not scratching them anywhere.  That being said, I noticed the new tips are stronger, because they are covered in a kind of hard plastic (I don't really know what it is, but it feels like plastic to the touch).  Even though they stand out on land, they are invisible once in water.  With them, putting on and getting out the monofin is harder, but I would venture to say they really make the tips stronger.  The only bad thing I have to say about them is that they do not have drainage holes (like silicone tails use to have on their flukes), and so the water tends to accumulate in them when hung to dry.

See the white Mermaiden logo and the new reinforced tail tips

One of the good things about this tail is that it is longer, or has a new, different fluke pattern, than my Barracuda tail, and my Magictail monofin now is completely covered by the fabric - no white cover showing in the front or the back (yay!).

Regarding people's reactions, everybody said that it has a more vibrant color than my blue Magictail skin, and that the design is prettier.  It became everyone's favorite, and I find that it is competing hard with my blue Magictail in my heart - I am torn between the two.

Looking forward to using it next Summer!

A shop sign for Kassandra's Magic Shoppe

This is a new adittion that did not come off as a surprise.  Kassandra had been saying she wanted a sign for quite a long time, but she could not find something she really liked it.

But apparently she just found something that was, as she put it, "very appropriate".

She says she finds it "very rustic, but charming".  I quite like it; in fact, the image with the apothecary bottles is very nice and crisp, and it can be seen quite well by potential customers, and so I told her.  She is delighted with her new addition for the shop.

The proud owner with the new shop sign

Kassandra's big renovation is OVER! - Parlor, day two

Yay!  It's finished!!

So it turns out doing the last of the walls was not that difficult.  I made patterns as always, but having the pattern of the hall for the stairs made things easier.  I only had to cut it a couple of times before it was good.

This time I printed the two sheets of paper and attached them together before gluing them to the wall. I was quite nervous because they were my LAST two sheets of paper.   It was not difficult to align the design of the wallpaper, but I began to sweat when it was time for cutting them with the patterns.  If I made a mistake, I could not correct it until I was able to get more paper... Well, thank goodness no mistakes were made, and soon enough I had the patterns all cut up:

One more time, the cornice to the rescue!

And sure enough, everything went up perfectly:

The stairs did not present any problems, and it was not problematic to glue the paper, even though it ended up being quite long.  I think the parlor looks regal now:

I hanged up the curtains for Kassandra.  Last time I saw her she was very busy rearranging the furniture, and she looked delighted with her new home.  Hopefully I will be able to see her later today, and everything will be already in its place.  More pics of that to come!

I wonder what she will be asking for after this...

Kassandra's big renovation part 5 - the hall

So it began!

I started out by cutting a pattern so the sheet would fit the stairs as perfectly as possible; I also made the patterns for the other two walls; obviously, the stairs were the more difficult.  I had to redo the pattern four times:

Patterns waiting to be used

Trying on the pattern in the wall

So, off to print some sheets.  It was very easy with the pattern at hand; and, as always, I had to add a cornice because the paper was a bit short for the wall:

It is not the same cornice as in the parlor, just to give it a different touch, since it is a room less heavily decorated, and the wide one seemed excessive to me.  And then the back wall, which was super easy to affix (probably the easiest of the whole house!):

And the last wall.  Not as difficult as the stairs, but with the pattern peechy keeny!

Cutting

Yay!  Perfect!

The hall looks great now!

And everything back in its place

I learned the hard way that you cannot use Blue Tack with these papers.  I tried to glue the hooks with it, but I made a mistake and had to take it out.  To my dismay, the Blue Tack would not separate from the paper.  Every time I tried with a little ball to pull it out, the rests became bigger.  So I had to tear out the paper, print, cut and glue it again.  Now everything is attached with superglue (hooks and lamp magnet), currently in the process of setting.

It is almost done!  Just one wall to go, and the big renovation will be finished!

Kassandra's big renovation part 4 - Parlor, day one

And here comes the complicated part!

Kassandra's parlor is connected to the hall by two flights of stairs.  Obviously, I cannot take them out to glue the wallpapers, so I had to work my way around that.

I started, as always, by clearing out everything in the walls - this time including the curtains, because I wanted to start with the left wall, as I thought it would be the less difficult one.

For this room, the chosen wallpaper was a lovely damask design with wood accents; of course, created by the talented Ana.  For the left wall I decided to leave the wood panels, but I would remove them for the rest of the room.  There will be two big furniture pieces in front of the back wall, and they would not be really visible.  So once again I took measurements and modified the designs to suit them.  When I printed the sheet I realized I needed a little piece at the top to cover the whole wall, so I added a swirly wood cornice at the top.  At first it measured 1 cm, but it ended up being a bit short, so I made it of 2 cm.

Cornice not big enough

Silly me, I threw out the pattern I made when I did the study, not thinking about saving it; I only would have had to turn it around to cut the parlor sheet.  Alas, I simply took the measurement, drew them in the back of the sheet and cut.  Thankfully, this time I did not make any mistakes!

And then it was good to be glued to the wall.

Yay!  One down, two to go...

After that, I decided to do the back wall.  I supposed it would not be very difficult, but I had to adjust my way around the rail.  It was very easy to trim it to fit the wall size; cutting the holes to adjust it to the staircase rail was another matter.  But since the paper was thick I did not tear it apart, which was my main concern.  And after several tries, it was done.

But I did not glue it yet.  I wanted to do the staircase hole first. so the mounting would be less obvious.  It was like a puzzle game to adjust the pattern so it would align with the design on the newly made wall.  It only took two tries!

First piece glued

You can barely see where they meet

It looks awesome!

Then it came the time to do the third wall.  But since it has the flight of stairs, I decided to try to do the hall first, since it was more accesible for my hands, and maybe I could reuse the pattern.

So onto the hall next!