Ivy Lily Creative

If Puerto de Mogán was the most beautiful place in Gran Canaria , then Palmitos Park was my favorite thing about the trip. The park has both animals and plants. There are parrot, dolphin, birds of prey and exotic birds shows, orchid and butterfly houses and a cactus garden. I also enjoyed the bird cage that you can go into and walk amongst the birds. I have a video clip of that and the shows I mentioned, it's at the bottom of the post. I filmed a stork couple trying to build a nest, for example. One of them got 3 sticks in his beak and dropped them. Then he got them to the tree and dropped them to the ground again. Making a stork nest is pretty difficult. In the birds of prey and exotic bird shows, the birds were flying free. The eagles actually flew so far behind the mountains you couldn't see them anymore. But they came back some minutes later. It seemed like a pretty unconventional "zoo" to me and made you feel like they really treat the animals well. Jos Pu...

As promised, I'm getting back to you about these "magic pens" that I bought at a fair in Gran Canaria . I think I've seen people sell name calligraphy pictures made with these pens at fairs before, but this was the first time I noticed they sell the actual pens too.  Trio markers have 3 tips in one marker with different colors so you can draw with multiple colors at once. Both Trio markers and ColorSplitz markers change color when you draw on them with the white activator marker (magic pen) (but regular markers won't change color, I tried). It takes a little while to learn the technique with Trio markers and you have to draw slowly and carefully to make symmetric shapes. And remember to let the colored markers dry before you use the white activator on them. I was trying them out one weekend and filmed a little video , if you want to see my doodles. After I was done filming and had packed the markers away, I kept getting more ideas of what to draw with them ...

 View over Las Palmas from Saint Anna Cathedral. One morning we took a bus to the capital of Gran Canaria (or one of the two capitals of the Canary Islands): Las Palmas. You could go round the city with a sightseeing bus, but we decided to just walk around. We began and ended our walk at the San Telmo bus station (where the toilet doors don't close, by the way). Our route went through the Triana shopping street, Vegueta area with a lot of colorful houses close to each other and the promenade. Yhtenä aamuna matkustimme bussilla Gran Canarian pääkaupunkiin (tai toiseen Kanariansaarten pääkaupungeista): Las Palmasiin. Kaupunkia voi kiertää turistibussilla, mutta päätimme vain kävellä ympäriinsä. Aloitimme ja lopetimme lenkin San Telmon bussiasemalle (jossa vessan ovet eivät muuten mene kiinni). Reittimme kulki Triana-shoppailukadun, Veguetan alueen (jossa on paljon värikkäitä taloja lähekkäin) ja rantakadun läpi. 

I saw a tutorial in a Finnish crafts magazine ( Ihana ) on how to recycle old one liter yogurt buckets or containers into flower pots. They used fabric for covering the containers, but I opted for paper and the same diamond/rhombus shapes as for this box . I cut out more diamond shapes from magazine pictures and painted the containers with 4 coats of white acrylic paint. The result is not opaque and I found a better tip later on: you can remove a lot of the print on the containers with nail polish remover. I tried it and it works. You can use decoupage glue varnish for the gluing and finishing, but I just used water diluted glue this time. The process is a bit messy, but I like the finished flower pots.   If you want to watch how I made the flower pots, there's a video below or here .  

One of the places I absolutely wanted to see in Gran Canaria was Puerto de Mogán. It's called Little Venice because of the canals. The white houses with colorful borders and little alleys with flowering trees were the most beautiful view of the whole trip. Yksi paikka, jonka halusin ehdottomasti nähdä Gran Canarialla , oli Puerto de Mogán. Sitä kutsutaan pikku-Venetsiaksi kanaaliensa vuoksi. Valkoiset, värikäsreunaiset talot ja kukkivien puiden reunustamat pikkukujat olivat koko matkan kaunein näky.

Of course I had to send a few holiday cards from Gran Canaria . I hope they've arrived. I bought some of the cards and all of the stamps from a little shop in Las Palmas. Cheers to the ugliest and most boring stamps in the world!  Gran Canarialta piti tietysti lähettää muutamat postikortit. Toivottavasti saapuivat perille. Ostin osan korteista ja kaikki merkit pienestä kaupasta Las Palmasista. Kiitos vaan maailman tylsimmistä postimerkeistä...

I found instructions for a beautiful spruce shaped wreath from a Finnish craft book. I made the wreath at the summer cottage, but brought it home to replace the Easter wreath finally. The basis of the wreath is made of willow branches and the "branches" are made of pine, spruce, juniper, calluna, blueberry, lingonberry and birch twigs. Finally I added a few cones. I used cutters, iron wire and secateurs to put the wreath together. The blueberry leaves dried up in a couple of days so it's best not to use them. And the needles started falling off in less than a week so you shouldn't touch wreath much after it's finished.  Luonto Sisustaa -kirjasta (kirj. Susanna Uusitalo ja Ritva Tuomi) löytyi ihanan kuusikranssin ohje. Tein kranssin mökillä, mutta toin sen kotiin, koska pääsiäiskranssin oli jo aika jäädä odottamaan ensi kevättä. Kranssin pohja on tehty pajunoksista ja "kuusenoksat" männystä, kuusesta, katajasta, kanervasta, mustikanvarvuista, puol...

Sunwing hotel in Arguineguín, Gran Canaria. / Sunwing-hotelli, Arguineguín, Gran Canaria. I was in Gran Canaria for a week in the beginning of May. We were staying in Arguineguín in the south of Gran Canaria, but also visited Las Palmas , Palmitos Park in Maspalomas and Puerto de Mogán . I'll divide each of those places into their own posts. We also wanted to go hiking, for example in Roque Nublo area and on the sand dunes in Maspalomas, but this trip didn't go exactly as planned... Olin toukokuun alussa viikon matkalla Gran Canarialla . Matkakohteemme oli Arguineguín saaren eteläpuolella, mutta kävimme myös Las Palmasissa , Palmitos Parkissa Maspalomasissa ja Puerto de Mogánissa . Jaan ne kaikki omiksi postauksikseen. Halusimme myös mennä vaellukselle esimerkiksi Roque Nublon alueelle ja Maspalomasin hiekkadyyneille, mutta matka ei mennyt ihan suunnitelmien mukaan...

I wanted to immortalize one sunny Saturday in the middle of May. And this time, instead of taking a lot of photos, I took some video clips. You can watch the result below or here .  Halusin ikuistaa yhden aurinkoisen lauantain toukokuun puolivälissä ja tällä kertaa tein sen videomuodossa. Tuloksen voi katsoa alla tai täällä .  Garden photos from last spring here . Puutarhakuvia viime keväältä täällä .

And finally I'll end this Mallorca series with photos from Alcudia and bus trips around Mallorca. (I've been writing Alducia all the time, but it's pronounced Alcúdia, stress on the cu.) Our hotel was in Alcudia and that's were we spent most of the week. Alcudia is a beach resort so perhaps not the most interesting place in Mallorca. But taking trips around the island you can have a more eventful vacation. Palma is definitely worth visiting. And on the road between Palma and Alcudia, you can see beautiful landscapes: farms, orange trees, poppy fields, horses, sheep... Mallorca -postaukset päättyvät Alcudiaan ja kuviin bussimatkoilta saaren läpi. (Olen muuten koko ajan kirjoittanut Alcudia, mutta Alcúdia kuvaa sanan ääntämystä paremmin. Paino on toisella tavulla.) Hotellimme sijaitsi Alcudiassa ja vietimme siellä suurimman osan viikosta. Alcudia on rantalomakohde, eikä siis ehkä Mallorcan kiinnostavin paikka. Reissailemalla ympäri saarta saa kuitenkin tapahtuma...