Back in September, I went to a workshop that Jamie aka Mr X-Stitch  (pronounced X, and not cross, as I found out at the Handmade Fair) was running, which was hosted by Alanna of RubyxRedxHeart.
I’ve been cross stitching for a while, but I wanted to go and see if I learnt anything new, and meet up with other people who loved crafting!
It was a fun evening of stitching different things, and yes, I did learn a couple of new things!
That on the finger thread cutters are pretty nifty!

And I learnt how to start a piece of thread without leaving a knot behind, which was pretty useful!  Not that I’ve started doing that, but when I want the back of a piece of work to look very neat, I have new ideas!

Here’s what I made on the night!  Jamie has made some sheets that he takes to events like this – he’s got various Mario characters, which you can tell I liked!  Space Invaders, and just words were the other options, but I like the ones I’ve made, even if the colouring is a little unusual – spending ages to find the right thread didn’t seem to be that important!
It was a good workshop, and I think it’s always good to try to learn new things… even if you decide not to use them (oops!)!
I’m hoping to do a lot more crafting this year – I’ve promised my other half that I will stitch some silly bits onto hankerchiefs for him, and I want to learn more croquet, and there’s my list of cross stitch that I want to do!  It’s going to be a busy year!

My hair was getting less blue, and more green, with lots of roots, so I decided to do something about it.  I wanted less dryad and more mermaid!
I tried to bleach my hair on my own, to begin with.  Not the best move!  My fringe and parting were bleached well, but the back…. not so much!
My attempt didn’t go so well!

And so I roped in my other half to help me!

It went much better with someone else doing it!

As you can see – he did a pretty good job with the bleaching, considering that’s the first time he’s every done anything like this!

And then I went over it again with blue!

I’ve realised that I quite like it when my hair is teal covered – the blue is now feeling a little too strong (hurrah for bleached roots, though!)  I found teal easy to wear with different colours, whereas the mish-mash of colours that my hair is currently is a little harder!

But I’m not ready to go back to brunette yet!  The next colour adventure might be a dark blue… or green, since that seems to be where my hair wants to go!

I finished the year with something new for me.  I wanted to try chocolate covered chillies, and so I bought the chocolate, melted it down, and dunked the chillies… and wow did that make a mess!

There’s a lovely mix of about 6 varieties, which include jalepnos, scotch bonnets and naga chillies.
Whilst I’ve made these, I will be avoiding eating any of the smaller ones!  I don’t handle chillies very well!  I’ve managed to put my hand to my eyes on more than one occasion after cutting them, so I’m a bit wary!

I hope you have a great New Year’s, and a fantastic 2016 – I can’t wait for it to begin!