Summer Send-off

It's one of my favorite kinds of days here in Pennsylvania.  It's rainy and cool - 59 degrees.  Just right for fall.  I have a candle burning and my cats are sleeping beside me.  The leaves are just beginning to change right outside my window.  It's a soup, snuggle, and sleep kind of day.

But, summer officially ended only five days ago.  So, as a last hurrah for the summer of 2012, I have a beach card to show you today.

Isn't it pretty?  I really like this one - simple, airy, light.  I stamped the little girl on watercolor paper with black Stayzon ink and colored her with watercolors.  

The background is also watercolored.  After mounting the background to the front of the card, I tied a piece of jute around the card, then cut out the stamped image and mounted it over the background and the jute with foam squares.

This stamp set from Clear Arts is called "Seaside".  It's one of my favorite stamp sets ever.  Besides the stamp set and ink, this card uses only watercolors, watercolor paper, and jute.  Simple.  Summery.  Sweet.

Good-bye, summer.....

Summer frames

I've been a busy girl for the last week.

In February, a little girl named Isabella was born.  She was premature,weighing only 1 pound and 2.8 ounces.  She had to have surgery to close a hole in her heart.  She is so tiny - so very fragile. And she is already an important member of our community.

This is Isabella at one month old.

In a few weeks, our community is holding a spaghetti dinner fund raiser for Baby Isabella.  There will also be a Chinese auction.  My friend, Tracy, asked me if I could contribute one of my handcrafted items for the Chinese auction.  

I happened to have a couple of unfinished frames and some new Martha Stewart Crafting Clay in my stash, and I had a few ideas running through my head.  On Wednesday night I got down to work.

Here are the final results.  First up is a summery, rather beachy scene, inspired by Webster's Page's new line called the Palm Beach.  I loved the colors in this line and wanted to find a way to work with them.  

There is a quote written around the heart opening that reads, "The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."  Isak Dinsen

The other frame is also summery, although it's more about our summer holidays.  So...it's...ya know - patriotic and stuff.

So, which one do you like best?

Cool beach blues....

Hi all:

Occasionally, I break away from paper crafting and get my hands into a different area entirely.  I apologize for those of you who like to read about my paper adventures, but hope you'll enjoy today's post anyway.

My favorite color is blue, but it's a special blue.  It's that Caribbean turquoise -- that "I want to dive into this" blue.  Pool blue.  Beach glass, sea tile blue.  The blue that makes you feel a bit cooler just to look at it.

I recently bought a new t-shirt in that color.  I like to pair my blue with white capris or shorts.  So far, so good. But what could I add to really make it sparkle?

Once day a week or ten days ago, I noticed a new display at Michaels.  On one of the end caps in the jewelry aisle, there was a collection of beach-themed charms.  Seahorses, shells, starfish, sand dollars - all done in an antique-toned silver and set with iridescent blue/green glass.  I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with them, but I bought a set of three charms just because they were so me.  And - hello - blue/green iridescent jewels?  Yum!

They sat on my desk for a while and I looked at them nearly every day, forming ideas in my head.  Last week, all of the beads at Michaels were 40% off.  It was like the universe was practically commanding me to scoop up beads.  I fetched a t-shirt off the shelf in nearly the same shade as my new one and went to work, choosing colors, textures, shapes, and sizes that I loved together.  I came home with eight different packages of beads and went to work.

I finished my project on Saturday night and wore it to church yesterday morning.  What do you think?

I love how it came out.  Right at the bottom, you can see the little starfish and off to the right, about halfway up is the shell.  Way at the top, you can see the tail of the seahorse.  There are so many sea-like beach finds on here, I can hardly stand it!  I love the chunks of shell and the freshwater pearl pieces together.  I also love all of the blues.  I found a few other beads in my stash that were frosted and added little bits of a beach glass touch.  You can see one in the lower left.  Most of the beads are my favorite blue, but I put some greens in there as well.  Here's another look...

The top half of the necklace is simply a chain.  All of the party is in the lower half of the necklace.  It measures about 30" in length, so it's long and slips over my head easily - another thing I prefer.

I love, love, love this and will be wearing it many times this summer with my new t-shirt - and probably with my new white t-shirt as well.

Enjoy that summer-like weather!

Kath