Back!

Wow, it's been three weeks--21 days--since I posted here.  I didn't plan to take a hiatus but several factors conspired against me in the rest of my life.  I successfully fought off a cold that took my partner down for over a week, but I was feeling crappy and exhausted the whole time.  And work has been kind of nuts.  Not only was I not blogging, but I was making very few cards as well.  I would sit down at my table, move some things around, look for inspiration, and not find anything.  I wasn't happy with the few things I forced myself through making.

I want to ultimately catch back up but I have quite a backlog of days so I'm not quite sure how to go about it.  I guess I was overly optimistic to think that I would be able to keep going all year without periods like this, but I am not giving up my project.  Just going to have to move forward and see how it goes.

So, onto some cards!

Yesterday's weekly "Clean And Simple" challenge on Splitcoaststampers was to make a card using white and shades of blue.  I had in the back of my mind an idea from an Inspiration challenge from a few weeks back, and was able to join it with the CAS challenge.

The inspiration site was Galleria Arts and Crafts, a site for a Calgary, Canada store that sells locally crafted items.  Among the items were these collaged paper brooches:

My version:

As always, focusing on blue sent me into a nautical frame of mind and I was thinking about oceans and seas while making the little collage pieces.  To make them, I started with pieces of watercolor paper and sponged them with a variety of shades of blue ink.  Then I spread some superglue on the bottoms of the pieces and dipped them into a baggie full of tiny gold beads.   I wrapped some blue and blue green eyelash fiber around the middles, and added a few more items to each.  I used foam tape to mount the collages on a background of handmade paper.

The handmade paper is a long-hoarded stash item that I am glad I am finally making myself use!  Years and years ago, when I was first getting into paper crafting, I took a day-long course on handmade paper at Georgia Tech's Institute of Paper Science and Technology, and in the hands-on portion of the class we made several kinds of paper ourselves.  The background piece is one of the ones I made using shredded denim fibers mixed with paper linter.

I made one more card for the CAS challenge:

This was super quick and easy, and kept with the shades of blue theme.  I started by sponging the edges of the card with a variety of blue shades of ink.  The background paper is another piece of handmade paper, this one was one I received in a swap long ago.  There is a smooth side to the paper that you can write or draw on, but for background paper, I like the rough side, that retains the texture of the paper towels the maker used to help squish the water out of the paper when she was making it.  I added an Anna Griffin sticker and stamped the Stampin' Up sentiment in denim ink.

More soon, I promise!  Thanks for looking, and have a great day!