Finished presents!

After lots of work I finally managed to finish the cross stitch I was working on for my grandmother in the nick of time. Phew! Here is the finished piece:

My original plan was to make a picture with nine butterflies but I quickly realised that it was going to be impossible in the time I had given myself so I had to settle for six butterflies instead. I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't plan better so I had more time but other than that I am actually really pleased with how this picture turned out.

My grandmother seemed super pleased with the pressie and was obviously really touched that I had made the effort to make something so that is the most important thing!

It was also my aunt's birthday celebration but luckily I had been a bit more organised for her present and started working on it a few weeks ago in my fused glass class.

I decided to make a dish made up with squares of some of my favourite glass colours - mainly blues and pinks (as usual!!). This was slumped over a mould to give a slightly curved dish shape.

I really like making these dishes and I always make things using lots of squares and in these colours - it seems to be becoming my signature style!! I love the way the glass shines like boiled sweets!

I'm still finding it really hard to take decent pictures of my glass pieces - hopefully you can kind of see the shape of the dish in this one.

This dish is roughly 20cm square. I also decided to make a smaller one to match too which is about 10cm square. Here they both are together:

I think my aunt was pretty pleased with these too - but it was more difficult to tell from her reaction! I hope so!

I really like making homemade presents but I find it so much more stressful giving them than bought ones! Does anyone else find this? I think the reaction feels so much more important when you have put so much time and effort into making something.

I definitely need to start planning my Christmas presents now. Working on that cross stitch last week has made me realise that I will need to be a lot more organised if I am going to give homemade presents - I don't want to be frantically finishing all my Christmas presents with one week to spare!

Better get to work.....!

xxx