a few things

Well, I sorta' felt my overload "fog" lifting slightly from my brain today. I still had so much running around that I had to do today but I got in a little art time so that makes everything all better!

First, I want to show the finished basket of goodies for my friend who had surgery on Wednesday! There are also fun tags hanging on the side. Mine is made from a formica tag and it has about 5 tags behind it where I wrote notes to her. It's sorta' like a little booklet! Max and Sam also made a tag. Can you believe this girl had major surgery that took a a few hours... she had surgery at 11:00 and was HOME by 5:00!!! Isn't that insane? Not even a overnight hospital stay!

The next thing I want to show you is a little treasure I found tucked in a book amongst a stack given to me through freecycle! Can you believe a real autographed photo of Ole' Blue Eyes Himself?!!!!

I've been over at Fran's almost every day this week. She and I were both working on making journals from scratch. She helped me with the design but once I came home with most of it still to do this afternoon, I ventured on my own. I hate written instructions and fight against patterns! Anyway, I got it complete and had forgotten how much I love making books by hand. I will be doing more. I have many ideas for other journals using some of the same techniques as this one but I think I want to change the way the signatures are sewn in. I did venture from the directions with mine a bit but will completely change it next time. And this clasp is another treasure find! I found a whole package of about 6 sets of these cool hook clasps at Goodwill for less than $2.00! I just love them! Anyway, here is my complete journal!

I hope you aren't sick of pictures just yet cuz I have one more to show. I found a little bag of these small plastic birds and plastic GLOW-IN-THE-DARK cherubs... yes, you read that right... why anyone would make them to glow in the dark is beyond me. However, my boys think they are cool. Anyway, today I purchased some patina solution by Modern Options and played around with a few of them. Here are before/after results! I plan to make wire nests for the birds and create charms from them. Not sure about the cherubs yet though but they sure are improved with the patina! At least they look more like a garden decoration than a weird halloween idea gone bad! LOL!