off to another adventure...

...the new adventure being a quick trip to Smoky Mountains. There is a long drive ahead of us (probably close to 10 hours total, yikes), but we've done this before going in other directions, so we should be fine.

Meanwhile, I'd like to present a mini-album, like less-than-two-inches mini, in which the covers are made from dangly earrings. The shape and the color reminded me of water, so water became the theme; the text is a few verses from Genesis, of how waters were divided, and the backgrounds are various water photos from our travels:

The covers are made from watercolor paper, painted and salted to get the interesting pattern, and then I stamped the title with my favorite little stamps - a mixed alphabet of upper and lower case letters.

change the color of your thoughts...

The last few weeks were full of ups and downs, sadly with the latter being predominant. Life is much brighter now, and I just happened to find a fitting thought on pinterest, which made it into my art journal:

On a totally different subject - The Cat alerted us a few days ago that something was going on on the balcony, and it turned out that hornets had started some illegal homesteading activities!

The miniature nest is gone, and I'm hoping they won't return...

one-two-three, or Saturday craft table

One - a card featuring acrylic stamps with three words, purchased months ago (gotta love those dollar bins at Joann's...) It's a mix of some seriousness plus the playful part - cupcakes, always helpful in achieving goals (maybe with the exception of the weight-losing goal.)

Two - turns out that the bunting stamp I made the day before was too large, so I cut another one, and here is the next step of this experiment:

Three - art journal spread with some scraps that I didn't feel like throwing away, plus notes on recent experiments - those successful and those that did not quite work out:

card finished

Finally! After working on the pieces on and off for three days, here is the outcome:

Meanwhile, I'm testing a brand-new technique - making my own stamps out of craft foam. I started with the shape that will hopefully work for bunting; I have itsy-bitsy stamps given to me at work by some anonymous donor (no one 'fessed up!) that should fit inside these triangles.

I have scraps of foam core somewhere but I was unable to locate them, so I used a matchbox instead. It works as a temporary solution, but is not sturdy enough and hence the impressions of box corners; it doesn't pose a problem since I'm planning to cut out each flag anyway. We'll see how it goes!

The craftroom looks better than before with the addition of a new shelving unit from Ikea, but I still have a bunch of stuff to go through and (oh, the scary thought) toss a few things. We can definitely see the light at the end of this tunnel!

the slowest card ever

For the last few days I've been working on ONE card - normally I move much faster, but somehow this week hasn't been very motivating in the paper craft department.

So - we have the lattice, which I put together from skinny strips cut using my trusty trimmer. The lattice has been gessoed and painted.

The second component is the flower pot; I cut it out from chipboard, and then treated with several layers of magic potions: gesso, acrylic paint (royal gold, yum, tempted into purchasing it by a very attractive price at Walmart), green metallic paste, two crackle components, copper paste to fill in the cracks. I feel so successful - the previous crackle experiments ended up totally flat, no texture whatsoever.

The next step will be adding leaves and flowers similar to this mockup:

...and maybe I'll finally be able to mail this card!

Meanwhile, I also managed to clean up the craft table, and there is a good chance of order coming into the craftroom as well, since my DH is purchasing an IVAR shelf for me today!