Two Years Gone

After two years away from the blog, I'm back.  It has been a very stressful two years, but things are finally back to normal for me.  What has happened?  To make a long story short, a multi-steps move to a new home in Montana, near loss of my dear husband to heart failure, his retirement, and losing my mother to Alzheimer's disease.  Plus a host of smaller things.  But now all is good.  Hubby's health has improved and we are finally settled into our new home and are loving it.

With this new start, I am going back to an old commitment:  art every day.  I returned to this on June 1st, so this post (and the next few, as well ) will be my catch up of all the first 24 projects completed.  And, of course, the daily project, too.    Onward ...

Item 1/365.  (Item one of the 365 for this year.)  This greeting card was inspired by a card made by Jennifer McGuire.  The bird houses are 6 layers of cardstock thick, cut from a gorgeous die, as are the cute little birds.  The branch is hand drawn.  The leaves, bushes and sentiment are stamped.  

Item 2/365:  This greeting card was inspired by Sandy Allnock.  I saw her use some Brusho (which I had just gotten) and this looked like a great way to experiment with the powder.  Her card was MUCH nicer -- she is a terrific watercolorist and I'm just a dabbler -- but I was pleased with the experiment and will work with the Brusho powder a lot in the future.

Item 3/365:  A new white stamp pad was the inspiration for this greeting card, with white "grasses" stamped onto Neenah Desert Storm cardstock.  I used a bit of scrap cardstock as a paint "brush" to add the black scratchy lines, a little sentiment from a Tim Holtz package.  It was a fun, quick card that I really like.

Item 4/365:  Back to Brusho.  Here, mostly sprinkling onto wet paper, then wetting the powder even more.  Fun and the results were unpredictable, which  I also enjoyed.

Item 5/365: And even more Brusho.  The powder is so much fun and gives really interesting abstract results when sprinkled and wetted with a fine spray.

ITtm 6/365:  Brusho, once again, but this time on top of a die cut series of hexagons that were cut, painted separately, and reassembled.   If this were larger, it would be hanging on one of my walls.

Item 7/365:  A small watercolor painting of grasses in the early morning sunlight fronts this greeting card.  Multiple strands of fiber cross the front and are anchored by  a decorative button.

Item 8/365:  Inspired by Leslie Weinrich (the frugalcrafter), this card is made of patterned papers cut with a hexagonal punch and assembled to resemble a hex quilt.  Then, I embossed the entire thing to resemble quilting lines.  It was fun, fast and looks very "quilty."

More to follow.  It is so good to be back!