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...

Before dyes and bleaches were invented...

... there were a lot of "natural" materials, in all shades of brown, beige and off-white. Here is a little album entitled "Life is a journey", where I tried to use these colors and also do some recycling:

The four pages were made from toilet paper rolls (I've been thinking about this technique for years!), covered with brown paper, and then embellished with various scraps, including burlap, handmade paper and manila folders (which I tend to call vanilla folders); add some stamping (map stamps acquired in Poland last year), some fibers and a button... and here is my little Journey Album!

recycling musically in January

In January a few music-related items based on recycled materials have passed through my craft table. The most recent one is a result of a find that happened on a cold and windy morning, when on the way home I spotted an old electric organ by the dumpster. The instrument, beautiful as it must have been in the days of its glory, looked broken and damaged beyond repair... so I allowed myself to partake of it as well. I still felt like a vulture yanking off parts of a carcass (by the way - did you know that vultures have such strong stomach acids that they can eat putrid meat, which potentially includes anthrax and botulinum, and it won't hurt them? What's more, they can also use their stomach content as a weapon, vomiting a defensive projectile at the enemy. Gross, but interesting.)

Back to my find... the most exciting key was "vox humana" - human voice", which I used incorporated into a necklace. I'm no jewelry expert, so it's not a perfect piece, but in my opinion it qualifies as "good enough" :)

Another musical craft was a little album made from an old cassette tape. I had to find one I wasn't emotionally attached to, because I still occasionally play some old cassettes I dragged here from Poland.

And then I converted the box from the cassette into a little stand for inspiring Scriptures and other thoughts:

Yay for recycling!

Art journal page

Some art journal pages... ok, MANY art journal pages are born because I come across a photo I really, really hate to throw away; it transports me to some magically beautiful place, or brings back memories, or invokes a thought.

Last Sunday I was trying to call my family in Poland, but the calling card refused to cooperate. I was sitting in my car, dialing the digits over and over again, browsing a travel magazine in between the attempts. A few images reminded me about a conversation from last summer - how the speedy pace of everyday life prevents us from pondering higher, more spiritual matters, from looking deeper, under the surface of the obvious and tangible.

"walk on the surface but look deep inside"

A new page in the art journal

After a while I have returned to my art journal - sometimes images or words go through my hands, and it's just nearly impossible to throw them away. So they end up in the journal, which is bursting in seams; looks like it's time to start Volume II!

The theme is my new fascination with cooking and baking, doing it "from the bottom of my heart" and not to just avoid starvation :)

And here is a work-in-progress photo if some post-it-not purses for Saturday:

from the crafting table

After the summer break and taking care of a visitor (my brother-in-law spent a month with us) I'm finally spending more time with my crafting materials.
I have started Christmas experiments - as usual, I am drawn to the snowy colors, blue, white and silver. First of all, I put together an origami flower, which may be suitable for the cards that will be handed in. I can't imagine mailing them :)

Then I wanted to try a flatter idea - wintry photos, possibly black and white, with these fabric-and-bead flowers, plus some extra stuff. I'm hunting for a punch that would produce little branches, like this one. I may combine them with the distressed-looking corrugated cardboard.

Last but not least - the big project in progress is the paperbag album hosting the memories from our recent trip to Washington, Oregon and California. It is my first encounter with the brown bags and I absolutely love how you can stuff the pockets with all the extra receipts, postcards and what not - I always run out of space in regular albums!