Learning to Watercolor

 

My sweet sister bought me a "Learn to Watercolor Nature" book for my birthday, along with a watercolor palette. I've been practicing and am a bit proud of my work so far! That caterpillar is too cute. I've got him framed in my new craft room. 

Playing around with the set inspired me to pull out my Let's Make Art kits I haven't practiced in awhile. Here are a couple foxes I painted. These use liquid watercolor paint, which I am prone to overusing until the paper is soggy, but I'm learning to be happy with what I create. 

More Pretty Petals Cards

Here is another set of cards I made using Pretty Petals Cardstock Paper Pack from Hobby Lobby. Some of the embellishments I've had for ages. The stamps are from Divinity Designs (I think) and the "Count your Blessings" is a sticker from Floral Faith and Inspiration Stickers pack from HL. 

More Pretty Petals Cards

I used Hobby Lobby's Pretty Petals Cardstock Pack for the background for this set of cards, and stickers from a Floral Faith and Inspiration Pack. The vellum stickers are a bit translucent so I like to stick them onto white cardstock for a crisp background. 

Maybe one of these days I'll be good enough at stamping and coloring to not feel the need to loosely trace everything with a black pen. Today is obviously not that day, however! 

I've had these half-cut pearls for probably 10 years and never had a use for them. My mom bought me a new glue gun for Christmas and I haven't gotten to use it much so I pulled it out and added the pearls to some old crochet flowers, which I've also had forever. 

The large flower was another page in the Pretty Petals pack. I don't usually cut out paper like that as I think it typically looks too handmade (in a homespun kind of way, if that makes sense?) but I added foam stickers behind it to add some depth and thought it looked great. For all of these I outline the edges of all papers with a gold stamp pad, even the card itself. I try to always do that with my cards to add a little variety between layers. 

 

Pretty Petals Cardstock Pack Cards: Set 1

I had a great time at Hobby Lobby the other day and bought some new paper packs. I'm going to make sets of cards with this cardstock pack as backgrounds. I'm hoping to use a fair amount of scrap embellishments I've collected over the years with the variety of colors this pack should provide. 

I nearly cringed as I pulled out this bold pink paper for this set, but in going along with my plan of working outside-my-usual-box I forced myself to use it. The stickers are also from Hobby Lobby, in a pack called "Floral Faith and Inspiration". (You can see the cover of it in the background of some of the pictures.) 

I've always loved this hydrangea stamp. The background cardstock has not-quite-ready hydrangeas in this green color, so I used that as my inspiration for coloring. 

It's very hard to see, but I added tiny pearls on the center of each visible flower. It's very pretty in person. 

Here's another variation of the same thing. 

And another card with a sticker. I like the simplicity of this design. 

 

Baby Blanket

I was finally able to dive into another quilting project which is something I've been looking forward to since the last quilt-top I made during our last snowstorm. This is a Jelly Roll Jam quilt I made using jelly roll strips from Hobby Lobby. I wasn't sure what the fabric looked like when I bought it, but it's cute!

 

Rock Tumbling

 My mom gave me a rock tumbler for Christmas, which is something I've been really excited about lately. To go through all 4 stages, plus a polish stage, the tumbler takes about a month. I just finished my first batch of rocks. They turned out much smaller than I expected, though I shouldn't be surprised as they're meant to break down. In the last picture you can see how big that blue on was to begin with. 

Why rock tumbling, you ask? When I was a kid I had a tumbling machine that broke during it's first use and I never got to see my finished product. Last summer I began my adventure with succulents and have been wanting to make a fairy garden. I'm hoping to get enough tumbled rocks to make a cute scene with some fairy pieces my mom got me. 

At this point in my crafting like I think I just realized I owe a LOT to my mom. She's always encouraged my creativity and exploration of all things crafty. 

Snow at the New House

It's so pretty!

Scientific Failure

So this post is to document my failure. For Christmas last year my mom got me a pH thermometer to help me learn more about the science behind my soaps-making. It had been on my Amazon Wishlist for awhile.  Since we were living with her at the time and everything in my house was packed up in a storage facility some where, I had to wait ages before I could use it. A few days ago I finally pulled it out and carefully read through the directions, but cannot figure out how to make it work. She also got me some pH test strips, so I am good on that end, but the thermometer itself does not recognize anything. 

I did some reading and it said if the piece dries out then it might need some special solution, so I bought that and let it sit for a day or so, but when I came to check on it this is what I found. The solution reacted with the environment of the basement, I guess? I don't know. All I know is my thermometer still doesn't work and I feel like an idiot. Oh well. That happens sometimes!

Oh, I did make some lotion bars last week that you can see in the background. They're pretty cool. 

A Winter Snowstorm

 We got another load of snow, which is lovely. I'm really enjoying my time off work and diving into some things I haven't had time for in ages. 

I put together this cute puzzle after Christmas. The pieces were a bit bigger than normal, which I liked, and there were still 1000 so it was pretty big. 

I also bought some Christmas fabric at Joann's when we visited my mom over the holidays. I used it to make some pillowcases and a quilt-top for the bed. 

Here is a 16" pillowcase cover. 

Here is another pillowcase cover. 

And another, though I think this is for a 12" pillow. 

And then I made a king-size quilt for the bed. I didn't have enough fabric for the backing, however, so I'll have to wait until the next time we visit (or I find another Joann's with seasonal fabric all year) to get some more. I love how each quilt block looks like a little present! I also used my Cricut to make vinyl name tags on the shams I sewed as well that look like Christmas gifts. They are so cute! Hopefully I'll get the quilt finished by next Christmas and can put it on the bed!