An Art Project and Two Layouts

Things have continued to be rather busy here in backwater North Carolina. Since my last post, I've spent a good bit of my free time stitching, but almost no time scrapbooking. It seems when I'm tired, I will turn to stitching before scrapping... possibly because I like to stand while I scrapbook. And I don't want to share photos of what I was stitching on until I get them into fully finished form.

A few weeks ago, Alton and I visited a folk art show at Fearrington Village. It was an interesting display... and not at all what I was expecting. I thought we would see primitive items, or, I don't know, handmade pottery, quilts, things like that. Instead, for the most part, what we saw brought to mind the decor of a House of Blues venue. There were two vendors, however, who were selling art that they had created by drawing or collaging on vintage pieces of paper. I was these pieces, many of which were quite pretty, and thought, "I could do that." So, I came home, pulled out some vintage sheet music, and got to work. Rather than drawing my own images, I decided to use some of my Unity stamps... Donna Downey co-branded stamps, to be specific. I inked them with two shades of blue Distress ink, and stamped away. I then traced around the edges of my stamped images with a black pen. And then I added a little touch of bling. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out in the end:

and this:

Here they are framed and hung on the wall. Sorry the picture is crappy, but there's never a lot of light in that room. And yes, I know that I need to straighten them up. I'm not positive this will be their final display place, so I'm not fixing the location of the nails until I am certain.

Monday afternoon, I finally felt ready to plunge into my Egypt album for real. So I made my title page. I decided not to include any pictures or ephemera. Instead, it's just a collage of images from one sheet of paper, and it includes little notes about what the trip meant to me, who I was with, and the year. Nothing too fancy.

I added pop dots under some of the elements, and placed some buttons throughout the layout to create some dimension for the project:

And finally, I created a layout last night for the March challenge at the Webster's Pages Inspired! site. This month's challenge was to create a 'shaped' layout. I used the scalloped die cut page from their Spring Market line and piled on the embellies. The picture is one of me in my Easter dress when I was a little, little girl.

Maybe this evening I'll have the inspiration to work on another layout for my Egypt album. Til next time, happy crafting, everyone!

Stitching Stash and Missing Threads

Wow, I've really gotten slack in the blogging department. It's been a busy couple of weeks at work, leaving me too tired at night to do much creative work. I haven't scrapped since my last post, but I have been able to do a little stitching. Stitching doesn't seem to be as energy intensive for me.

I was saddened early last week by the tragic death of Lisa of the Primitive Needle. While I did not know her personally, I have long admired her work and followed her on her blog. My thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends. Losing a loved one is always hard, but this was a particularly tough way to lose someone. Many stitchers have chosen a "Halloween-y" piece to stitch in her honor, because of her love of all things Halloween. I immediately thought of Lisa's design, "The Black'd Skie" and pulled it out of my stash to work on. I already had my linen, and this weekend, when I visited my parents, I pulled the fibers I would need for the piece. The fibers are all subs for what was originally called for because I don't have access to any Soy Lustre silks. Here's my progress over the weekend:

And that is all the progress you are likely to see for a little while. Why? Because, exhausted as I have been this week, I cheerfully packed up my chart and linen when I left for home on Sunday, leaving behind my black silk and scissors! Ugh. I'm not going to get very far on this particular piece without that black silk.

Which left me with a dilemma: do I return to Sarah McPhail until I can reclaim my black silk, or do I start something else new? Because another thing that I acquired over my weekend at home is a lot of new Market releases:

Ha ha ha! No way I could resist ALL that yummy newness! So I picked up Shakespeare's Peddler's new limited edition kit "God Bless Those" and started stitching on it late Sunday evening. Here is my progress after that first evening and morning:

I didn't realize quite how fast it was going to go... I will finish the stitching this evening! I fell in love with this kit as soon as I saw it on the Shakespeare blog because she was inspired by the recent struggles of the Egyptian people, an event that I followed avidly as it unrolled. This piece really speaks to my heart.

So what will I work on for the rest of the week? Hmm, I have another pattern I bought last month that I just picked threads and linen for. It looks like a quick stitch (although not 2 days quick!), so I think I will see how far I can get on the Sampler Girl's "Getting Away with Jane Austen" pillow this week. Sorry, no picture yet.

Well, I'm off. My stitching is calling. Tomorrow, I'm going to work on my scrap mojo, and see if I can drag it back out of hiding. It's time to make some serious progress on my Egypt album!