The beach muse ......

I ALWAYS take a stash of craft goodies when I go somewhere. Be it for an afternoon or a weeks vacation, there will always be a few minutes for creating something. As this trip turned out, there was a good bit of time for the creative muse to come and play.

Took some vintage silverware bits left from making bracelets and some jewelry findings.

The result ---- earrings and several pendant drops.

Months ago I found some instructions for origami butterflies at the Todolwen blog. Karen Bailey has a beautiful blog and her style is so in tune with mine. I will not share the instructions for the butterflies here, but the link sends you straight to her tutorial and let me tell you, it is wonderfully well written and illustrated.

I have a huge stash of papers left from making paper snowflakes and I packed them as well. I did find after making the first one that I needed a small clip to hold a glued fold while it dried and then to hold the wire antennae while they dried. I used mini bobby pins, and a pill bottle of those gems is now a part of the tool kit.

Anyway -- here is the result of my interpretation of the origami butterfly. WARNING -- these are super addictive to make.

Walking on the beach I found a pair of angel wing shells -- teeny tiny ones. I snagged them and knew already what they would be used for. A spoon collage. Yes -- I had the stash for it with me.

It wasn't quite dry when I took this but the quote was cut from the bitty bits of the music pages. It says "courage to sing with the whole heart"

Recently a very good friend of mine who had never sang out loud found the courage to sing to me. I know this was a fear for this friend and I recognized the courage it took to face that fear. The decision was heartfelt and the song choice was wonderful and familiar and I found myself joining in the song as well. With tears in our eyes, we sang together. It was a beautiful, forever special moment and I wanted to pay tribute to that moment in a permanent way.

So, thank you my wonderful friend for letting me be a part of your finding the courage to sing with your whole heart.

I also made tags  -- and there will be lots more of these.

I have an altoid tin that I toss in a few die cut shapes in. Whenever I am punching shapes and have a bit of paper left I do a few more and toss them in the tin. I have a flower die from spellbinders (it is no longer available and I can't find it on their website) and I had punched a few in assorted sizes from from heavy weight red paper.

To make the dimensional flower - I dampened the paper shapes. (Confession I laid them in the bottom of the sink after I washed the dishes and let them soak up water from the still damp sink  - lazy girls craft method) Then I cupped my hand and sorta mushed them into a cup shape in my palm. (highly technical technique there - huh) Sit out on the counter to dry and for my condo mate to ask questions like "what the hell" and "why are these here" oh and "what you gonna do with those"


 I spritzed a white tag with glimmer mist. (Mel's Diner  limited edition glimmer mist)

Nested the dried flower shapes and punched a hole thru the middle (note this was not the right time to punch that hole - should done that while they were flat.) then secured the nest with a brad and glued it to the tag.

Then punched a butterfly from the tag and added wire antennae and perched it on the flower. I'm loving it.

(One more note -- my travel craft box is an older version of this Stanley Mobile Work Box -- it holds a whole lotta stash)