Even the Best Laid Plans…

So, as I posted last time, I really did want to escape to the Poconos every weekend until we had to give up our winter seasonal spot, but…

Last weekend I had the stomach flu.  It was inevitable – everyone else in the house had it.  So…we didn’t go away that weekend.

Then this weekend we had some of the wildest weather on record – it was warm with heavy rain on Friday and Saturday followed by some incredible winds (we lost cable and internet for a while and lost all power for a little bit) and cold temperatures yesterday.  There were lots of branches down and several trees lost in our neighborhood.

The good news is that I finally had a chance to play in my craft room during the storm.  I have been inspired by a bracelet on the cover of this book for some time:

I just love the Eiffel Tower pieces in the lower left corner!  I used it as inspiration and came up with this piece:

The images are from some ArtChix collage sheets I had – the images were originally larger, but I just cut the pieces I thought would look best.  The bracelet links with the images are 1X1 inch squares of glass that are taped and soldered around the edges – there are images on both sides of the glass.  I added some clear glass drops, filigree connectors and some Eiffel Tower and scallop charms.

Speaking of glass – I had some 1X1 inch beveled squares in my stash, but wanted this piece to be lighter and flatter so I decided to try cutting microscope slides (1X3 inches) down to the correct size.  This was my first attempt at cutting small pieces of glass and I was not as successful as I’d hoped.  I went through many broken and cracked slides before I came up with enough pieces for the bracelet.  Happily, I have no major injuries to report other than a small nick on my finger and a strange sensation of something scratching me along the bottom leg of my sweatpants (some small, embedded shards of glass, perhaps?).  But I like how the bracelet turned out, so I guess it was worth it.

I also decided to make a small necklace – I used one of the successful 1X1 inch cut pieces to make a tiny collage:

I used a piece of old ledger paper found in my stash of ephemera as the background then added a pair of butterfly wings behind a vintage image of a little girl.  I strung the piece on a very thin leather cord and added a dragonfly charm and some crystals hanging from the bottom.  I think this will be cute worn with a pair of jeans and a black top (my standard casual wardrobe).

And while I was in my craft room, I decided to try and enter the Stampin’ Up! Artisan Contest again this year.  While I didn’t win last year, several of my pieces were on display at the Stampin’ Up! convention in Denver.  We have to make two 3D projects as well as several cards and scrapbook pages for the contest.  So far, I’ve at least done the 3D projects – can’t show them here, but I think they’re pretty good… 🙂

Oh – and I had another card published in Take Ten Stamper’s Sampler in the spring issue.  I got my artist’s comp copy in the mail and had to search through to find my card.  It’s been so long since I even sent anything in  – the card was from LAST Christmas…I need to gather up some more projects and send them in soon.

It’s been really difficult lately to find the time to work on crafts – this job-thing has really cut into my creative time.  It’s hard to find the time to do all the things I WANT to do as well as all the things I NEED to do.

I did manage to book a trip to Florida to visit my friend Linda next month.  We going to visit between my birthday and Emily’s birthday and have a nice girls’ weekend.  I’m looking forward to that!

And I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to post here as often as I used to – bear with me as I adjust to the working world…I’m getting there…