Blizzard paper - another sample of WIP

A girlfriend at work (thank you, Anita!) has given me a few sheets of marble paper - kind of whitish-grey. My first thought was: this is a blizzard, perfect for something snowy, possibly an exploding box!

So - I got out pinturas acrilicas and started with stamping large snowflakes, in white pearlescent paint mixed with glitter paint. Nice! Then I stamped smaller, more detailed snowflakes in silvery ink and put silver glitter dots in the centers.

Here is the sheet...

...and here is a close-up to show the details of this experiment:

I'm planning another layer - either white or translucent heat-embossed snowflakes, but I have to wait till the existing treatments dry; otherwise, the embossing powder will stick to everything.

It turned out that I had a surplus of the paint mixture, so I used it up on the brown bags which also go to the craft show as packaging for my paper goodies:

On a different front - the exploding boxes are getting the more detailed decorations. I think this is my favorite part of the process:

craft-table-scape

The work on the French proverb piece has temporarily been suspended since I have received an order for a set of "chrysanthemum" cards, based on the dimensional embellishments from K&Company, my favorite manufacturer eveeeer!

Here is one card already assembled...

...and this is what the dining room table looks like currently:

Morning crafts presented in the evening

Early morning crafts are quite enjoyable, but also detrimental to my punctuality arriving at work... The good news is that I have time on the other end, so to say, to stay and make up for lateness, if it happens.

Today I made a briefcase for a little boy, who celebrated his birthday yesterday, so I added a miniature b-day card with a miniature cupcake. It was really hard to stay away from all the girliness for the post-its... cupcakes can be colorful, though, even for a boy!

Also prepared some components for snowy cards. I see another batch of barbasnow coming up in the near future!

And here is another photo to commemorate a date that will not happen again for a looooong, long time.

Barbasnow

My dear and extremely patient husband has gotten used by now to less-than-usual activities going on at home, so he wasn't too surprised when I borrowed a little bit of his Barbasol shaving cream to create snow. The recipe can be easily found online - half cream, half white school glue, I threw in a drop of pearly white acrylic paint, mixed well... and here is snowfall accumulated on the roof of a little paper house!

Then I punched a snowflake out of cardstock and thusly made a stencil for further experiments:

I tried to sprinkle my barbasnow with glitter and sugar (sugar doesn't seem really work), mix glitter into the paste and also add snow on top of a stamped image. I would say the experiment has been successful, and now I have a new technique to incorporate in wintry cards!

an unexpected present

When I came to work yesterday, there was a big Panera bag on my desk, which housed a sizeable vintage fruit cake tin... don't you just love this image?

Inside there was something even better than fruit cake (especially if it were to be the original one :D) - namely, several pounds of old buttons.

Yay! Last night I touched every single one of them, threw out a few that were old the unpleasant way, and the vast remaining bunch will be washed and dried soon. So much fun!

I also have a little bag of buttons from Poland which my Mom gave to me, but I'm too attached to them to use the them for anything and potentially part with these beauties. I start thinking, "Oh, this was my dress, and that was my Mom's apron" - and I'm done, can't even think of anything beyond just touching them and bringing back memories.

And then there is the button jar which i got from the Kids last Christmas... these I can use, no problem. There is just so much joy in those little colorful pieces of plastic!