Five for Friday

1. Sage & I got our fairy gardens done on Saturday.

I had purchased two galvanized containers at Home Sense.

We bought some succulents, took some moss from a friend

& made some buildings & fairy accessories out of air-dry clay.

Here's what the container on the top step holds.

We created the house front from air-dry clay and painted it with acrylic paints

& clear coated it. 

For this house, we just made a front and put it in front of some soil, with moss on the top.

We made a little bridge from air-dry clay and pressed the pieces onto

my woodgrain impression plate to add a woodgrain look.

We purchased the blue stones at Walmart for "water".

We created this litlle birdbath and added a stone for more water. ;)

In the second container, we created a house with four sides.

We also made a little bench (the same as the bridge) and a little bird

and even a book (which I impressed with my text impression plate.)

The last container is a metal pail that I bought years ago at a garage sale

and painted silver.

We purchased these chairs at our local nursery.

We made the table and little teacups from the air-dry clay.

Sage also made a well.

Using my Silhouette, I recreated the diamond from the other two containers

and cut it out, along with our house number.

2. It's been so nice out, we've been riding our bikes/rollerblading (Jonah) everywhere.

I took this photo on the way home from church on Sunday morning.

3. We attended the annual Family Fun Day at Winkler Bible Camp on Sunday.

Austin chose not to come, saying he was too old.

But the four of use had a great time!

The photo (bottom, centre) shows Jonah & I canoeing on the lake.

He decided to stand up and pretend he was in a gondola and even started singing!

He's too funny!

He was trying to freak me out into thinking we'd capsize, but I stayed calm & cool. ;)

4. I bought some Prima Watercolor pencils on Wednesday at my LSS.

I decided to try them out and made this card:

I did some smooshing in Altenew's Frosted Pink on the background.

I stamped the sentiment (from Gracious Greetings).

I stamped the flowers (from SSS's Flowers on My Mind) onto their coordinating diecuts.

Then, I added colour with the pencils and then went over them with a paintbrush 

dipped in water.

There's definitely a learning curve there, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

5. Jonah has been counting down the days to today for weeks....

He's taking me out for supper tonight (A&W) & then we're going to see Jurassic World in 3D!

He's treating me -- it's my Mother's Day present from him.

Dinner & a movie with a handsome young man?

Sounds good to me!

Thanks for looking!

Five for Friday

It's been a good week!

1. On Tuesday, my best friend, Val, had the day off, so we spent the

day together in Winnipeg, shopping (something we haven't done since

the Women of Faith conference last fall!)

It was very fun -- and a nice break!

2. Sage and I have decided to make some fairy gardens.

We went shopping for plants on Monday after school and

saw some very fun little ceramic houses

-- which were also quite pricey!
I suggested that we get some clay & make our own.  

(I wondered if we'd need a kilm, but we called Sage's art teacher

and she said that air dry clay would work fine.)

So I picked some up on Tuesday in Winnipeg

and we started making the houses yesterday after school.

We made our house front and had no idea how to keep it upright....

so we leaned it up against my paper trimmer and stacked a few things on top.

And look! We made a little bird bath!
In Winnipeg, I also picked up two very pretty galvinized tubs.

Don't worry: I will share photos when we're done.

3. Tomorrow, Sage, Jonah & I are off to Winnipeg

to volunteer at the Ironfist Taekwondo tournament.

I'll be a judge for patterns and a referee for sparring and they're volunteering as runners.

Oh, and at Jonah's request, we'll be going to A&W afterwards for supper. ;)

4. As I've shared before, I've been taking

 Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook class at Studio Calico.

On Wednesday, I worked on some projects for Sketch 6.

Here's the layout I made, using some Reverse Confetti products:

So, when I did my craft room purge last month, I came across these

 Scenic Route chipboard letters, of which I have three packages.

I debated on getting rid of them, but didn't.

Instead, I'm challenging myself to use them.

With lots of letters missing (no a, e, r, t, g, etc.), it's been a little challenging.

I pulled them out for this layout and had a hard time coming up with a title,

since I couldn't do "cuddles", "cuddling", "kitten", etc.

I finally settled on "cloud 9."

Yes, that's a nine. ;)

On my Bazzill Basics Classic Smooth White cardstock base, I stamped

one of the stamped from Color Me Happy to create my splatter --

I love that I can stamp this and not leave it up to messy chance!

The patterned paper I used is American Crafts DIY.

Under the second photo, I stamped the sentiment from Fancy Words Coordinates.

5. The store where I sell my cards in my town has requested some sympathy cards.

I decided to make four sympathy cards using the sketch.

Now, during my craft room purge, I also came across lots of

embellishments that I loved the look of in the store when I bought them

but then didn't seem to use on any of my cards/layouts.

I'm pretty sure this is because I prefer to make my own

(you know, to justify my large stamp collection). ;)

But as I was getting rid of things, I decided to hold onto the ones I still

really liked and figured that now was a great time to use some of them.

So I made four sympathy cards, using the sketch,

some Bazzill Basics Classic Smooth White cardstock,

a rectangle of American Crafts' DIY patterned paper and

my favourite sympathy sentiment from Reverse Confetti's Lots to Say.

Here they are:

This chipboard shape is Crate Paper.

I matted this card on a piece of Bazzill Card Shoppe: Cotton Candy cardstock.

This card is also matted on Bazzill Card Shoppe: Cotton Candy cardstock.

The flower diecut is from Heidi Swapp and I added a couple of PTI buttons with twine.

This card is matted on Bazzill Card Shoppe: Rock Candy cardstock.

The chipboard is from Crate Paper and I added a PTI button with twine.

And lastly, this card is matted on Bazzill Basics Turquoise Mist cardstock

and the chipboard embellishment is from Echo Park.

 

Thanks for looking!