Goings-on

 My friend Chris John visited last week. After a very satisfactory trip to a few art and papercraft shops, we settled down to some serious crafting!
We started with the cards. Chris had brought some of her card making equipment along and we had fun trying out some designs and new inks and powders. I had bought a small book of blank watercolour paper postcards, so we gave that a try, with Chris' inktense blocks! Ooooh, I liked! One of those is definitely on my Xmas list. The colours are so intense, and the hues are divine. Finished the little watercolour landscape. Then we tried some stamps, and distress inks, glitter pen, and paper cards to make more cards. The little owl is so cute. I'll have to finish some of these off before I can use them.
The next project was a little steampunk box, inspired by a YouTube video by Einat Kessler. Einat does awesome things, and I love steampunk, so this was by way of an experiment, as I hadn't attempted anything like it before. I had collected a whole lot of steampunk itty bits for another project (see the Alice in Wonderland Quilt), so there were lots left. Then I raided hubby's garage and found a few more bits to use (and if you want to donate any little metal bits from your hubby's collection of stuff, please keep me in mind). We first painted the boxes with a mix of black gesso and umber acrylic, a nice dark colour, then dried them. Next, we used glue to stick on the metal bits and left them to dry overnight. The next step was to repaint everything with the acrylic/gesso mix and dry it.Then we went wild with all sorts of sprays and mica powders and paint and inco gold, building up the layers.A final drying and voila - my steampunky trinket box! Such fun.

In the meantime, things are moving - slowly! - on the building site. The plumbers were a little flummoxed today because they couldn't find a convenient connection to the main water drain, so after ripping up one of my pretty white dwarf aggies (I hope they'll put them back!), they ran a direct trench over to the septic. Hopefully that will be all the digging required. The next job will be the plasterwork, possiby starting tomorrow. Here's hoping!