Busy Week!

You know, the hardest part about vacation is coming back from it.  You'd think it would be the packing, but no- it's after you get home!  So much laundry and catching up on whatever you didn't do while you were gone- cleaning, paying bills, yard work, etc.  You might be able to forget that stuff while you're gone, but it's still there when you get back!  And having to go back to work on top of all of that- well, that leaves very little time for anything else.  Which is why I did not do much in the way of crafting this week.  At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Anyway, it's Friday, the weekend, so that means a bit more time to fit things in that I don't have time for during the week.  I am hoping I can get to some bookmarks this weekend- I haven't worked on any for quite awhile.  I also need to get my listing up on my Etsy shop for the photo bookmarks- I think I am as ready as I will ever be, so it's time!  Those are my goals for the weekend.

I did manage to do a couple of things this week.  I mentioned in my last post that Sherry F. won my drawing for a free bookmark, and I made a custom one just for her!  She could not decide between a couple of different designs, so told me to surprise her.  One of the designs she was interested in was the gold butterflies, and she asked to have her soon-to-be intitials (because she's getting married soon) on it, and I just love those gold butterflies with the gold script lettering!  So here is what I made for Sherry:

You might notice that the middle butterfly is different than the others.  Well, yeah...that was a thing. I got all excited about making Sherry a butterfly bookmark, only to find that I was one short on the butterflies.  Luckily, I am good at improvising!  These butterflies (they are by Martha Stewart, by the way) come in a package with 3 different sizes.  The ones I use for this bookmark are the smallest size.  The middle and larger sizes are both much too big for a bookmark.  I could not leave Sherry with only two butterflies, so I took one of the larger ones and my trusty Martha Stewart butterfly punch, and punched out a small butterfly from the wing.  Then I cut out the body and antennae from that larger butterfly and glued it to the underside of my punched butterfly.  I actually think that having the different sized butterfly on the bookmark gives it more dimension and interest.  I also used a new ribbon on this one- also by Martha Stewart.  This ribbon.is.AWESOME!  It is so thick and sturdy- nothing like the typical satin ribbon you get at Michael's!  I was excited for the chance to use it, and I hope that Sherry likes it as much as I do.

Also this week, we had another weekly challenge at the PBS Swappers paper crafts group.  You might remember that the last one that I participated in was for a monochromatic project.  This one was for any paper craft with complementary colors- that would be colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel.  Sherry posted a really neat link for us, and I was very grateful for it for this project- it helped me to figure out what I wanted to do here: Color Wheel

Anyway, I've mentioned before that I'm really interested in trying a card with decoupaged pressed flowers.  I did one before I went on vacation, but it did not turn out well.  So, I decided to give it a try again for this week's challenge.  After referring to the above link, I discovered that purple and yellow are complementary colors.  Who knew?  Well!  I know of some gorgeous yellow and purple pressed flowers, and I bet you won't be surprised to learn that I used PANSIES for this challenge!  Here is my finished project:

This took me some effort and a lot of mulling over how to do it. The card base is a pale yellow card that came in a package of blank cards and matching envelopes that I picked up on sale at Craft Warehouse.  The purple was no problem- I have lots of purples.  The cute yellow polka-dot patterned paper came in a pad of neat paper I got on clearance at Michael's, the bow was actually fashioned from ribbon scrap.  It's not a real bow- I glued the pieces together to make it look like a bow.  Someday, I need to learn how to tie a real flat bow!  The flowers were harder than I thought.  I initially decoupaged them onto squares of the same pale yellow as the card base.  After they dried, I just wasn't happy with them...the yellow of the flowers blended in too much with the background.  So, I tried again, this time using an off-white background.  MUCH better!  I also thought it was much too plain the way it was, so this time I cut the decoupaged squares a bit smaller so that I could fit a yellow border around them.  Bingo!  It looks a lot more like what I had pictured in my mind.

So, that's all I've done so far this week.  No, I still don't know what to do with those blasted coasters...I'm thinking that I should probably just put them away for awhile and not stress over them, and an idea will come eventually.  I have plenty to do in the meantime, even apart from crafting.  Now that it is August, it is time to start thinking about back to school for my kids- eeek!  Where did the summer go?!  We have cleaned out closets and dressers, so will be doing shopping soon.  My 14 year old is going to cost me a freakin' fortune this year- it is SO not fair that men's sizes cost so much more than boy's sizes!  I have also been reading a lot lately and have really enjoyed that.  I have managed to keep my Goodreads shelf up to date, and have even joined the Contemporary Romance group there.   Not that I need yet another time suck- but you know, my love of reading is what led to my bookmarks and my new creative awakening, so I am not going to feel guilty about it!

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!