Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Eclectic Ellapu June 2016 Pink Team Challenge

The theme for Eclectic Ellapu's Pink Team challenge for June is Midsummer!

This was a fun one for me, as I originally learned about the Midsummer holiday via green walnuts. Seriously. It is odd, but true. Turns out that St. John's Day, aka Midsummer Day, aka June 24, marks the first day that many (European) markets have green walnuts available. Why would people want to buy unripened walnuts? To make pickled walnuts, vin de noix, and nocino, of course!

May you have a heady Midsummer Day!



The painting depicted on this card is "Salome with the Head of John the Baptist" by Guido Reni, circa 1630-1635.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Gratitude Journaling Via Mini Card Deck

Gratitude journaling; merely concentrating on things we are grateful for is supposed to reduce stress and increase the positivity in our lives. To apply this concept in a personal way, I decided to focus on things that I am grateful for in my husband. I made a small series from a macaroni & cheese box, cut into a deck of 1.5" x 3" cards. This project was inspired by an article by Irene Rafael in the Jan/Feb 2016 issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors, by Gretchen Miller's incredible projects, and by an article about using gratitude journaling to manage stress.







Monday, May 16, 2016

Quickie Project: Trash Into Ornament

After Valentine's Day, I ended up with a plastic heart shell leftover from some SpongeBob SquarePants candy. It sat on my desk for nearly 3 months before I decided that it needed to be made useful or thrown away. That week, I needed a minimal supply, grab'n'go project, so here's what that almost-trash turned into:


 
 


Monday, May 9, 2016

Gypsum Mixed-Media Work-In-Progress

Years ago, as a friend started blogging poetry that tended to settle deep into my soul, I asked if he would mind if any of it ended up in my crafting. He did not mind, and every once in a while his words still inspire me. Unfortunately, those "once in a whiles" that inspiration hits rarely correspond with when I have time to sit and craft. This year, though, I have slowly been working on a piece that will incorporate several lines of his poetry.



The background of this piece is a panel from an used USPS Priority Mail box, "stamped" in dark grey acrylic paint using wadded up packing paper, then layered with some green acrylic paint, then gel medium mixed with white and pearl acrylic paint. This background piece sat near my desk for months, until this evening, when many instances of mental contemplation met with crafting time and some final decisions. The major downside of having used the gel medium on the background is that I now cannot use the spray inks I had planned on using to ink over most all of this background. They wipe right off! Clear gesso would be the solution to this dilemma, but I only have white gesso on hand at the moment.
This post is just the layers I added tonight. I will post again when I add the final layers, embellishments, and poetry to this project. *crossing my fingers that it turns out well!*





{crafted while listening to Pedro the Lion's "It's Hard to Find a Friend"}