I'm still alive

We're having another heat wave over here, and I've been stuck inside studying... Phew! But now I'm finally done with my exam, so I've had a little bit of time to craft. I really wanted to do some sewing, but inspiration still hasn't hit. So instead, I decided to make another batch of homemade paper. Last week when I visited my mom, I mentioned that I remembered making paper with her when I was little. Luckily she still had a screen left, so we whipped up a first batch. We used recycled newspaper, and we didn't use a blender (mom wasn't to keen on wrecking her expensive blender with paper goo...) so the pulp had a lot of chunks in it. Here is what the finished sheets looked like:


This second time I made more of a serious attempt, and I followed this tutorial over at flickr - I can totally recommend it, it's super detailed! I put more white paper in the pulp this time, and I used my old cheapo blender. Worked like a charm! Here's a picture of the second attempt:


I'm not sure whether you can see it in the photos, but this batch came out a lot smoother and lighter than the first - which is great, since I'm hoping to stamp on it with some of the awesome stamps I received in the stamp swap at Craftster.

And this evening, since it's too hot to do anything else, I went through some of the paper that was going to the recycling, and shredded it in preparation for another batch of paper sometime later this week! :)


Have fun in the heat!

Craft fair fun

I'm back! We had a great weekend at Keith's parents, with lots of crafty inspiration. On Sunday, we visited a craft fair where Keith's grandmother and little sister were selling some of their creations. Tons to see! I didn't buy much since I need to save my money this month, but it was great to walk around and just look at all the beautiful things. The things I did get are this lovely apron made by Keith's grandma, made of a pretty and practical waxed fabric - perfect for my messy baking! - and a cute handmade card.

Oh, and check this out: We drove to the fair IN STYLE!

This awesome 1960 Dodge Phoenix belongs to Keith's dad, who is a mechanic and nuts about classic cars. We had so much fun riding with the windows down and singing rock'n'roll tunes!

Since I got back I've been busy carving stamps for the rubber stamp swap I'm in, and I also found the time to do some more baby crafting. I love Heather Bailey's Bootie pattern, so I thought I'd try it out. Here's my slightly lopsided first attempt:

I hope my sister won't mind that they're blue! I was looking for a nice color combo, and didn't stop to think about the fact that blue is supposed to be a "boy color" (I think that's rubbish anyway) before they were half finished. Oh well, I'll just have to make a matching dress then! :-)

Oh, and since they have all been received now, here are my latest Artist Trading Cards, made for the Alphabet ATC swap at Craftster. I'm really proud of them. What do you think?