lately

In some ways it feels like I haven't been accomplishing much lately. But I have finished a few projects.

I finished creating and sewing in the lining for this purse earlier this month (after it had been hibernating for over a year) and finally got around to photographing it and listing it in my Etsy shop. Our dreary weather has not been helping on the photography front so yesterday when it was finally brighter (and at least partly sunny), I had a major photo session. I photographed this purse and listed it, too.

It came together very quickly in a fit of inspiration after finishing the crocheted one.  I had almost forgotten how much fun it is to take an idea and then design and create a purse from that idea. I have bunches of other ideas floating around in my head...

One other project that I finished recently was designing and ordering my first set of greeting cards.

I ordered them from Moo (love them!*) where I also printed my mini cards and business cards and I think they turned out beautifully! I've already listed one set in my shop and plan to add others including the one in the photo. Perfect timing to keep my roses around as the real ones in my garden are dwindling.

Something that I didn't finish yet this week are my acorn paintings. Remember my acorns? This week I finally sat down to paint some of them. Their wonderful colors had changed which was a bit disappointing. A good reminder, I guess, not to put things off. It was fun to set up my work space with the acorns. I painted on small paper and decided to try one painting on cold press and one on hot press. I haven't done much painting on the hot press paper and thought it would be interesting to be able to directly compare the two types side by side.

I didn't keep all the variables quite the same, though, because for one I did an initial sketch and the other I did not. Just to keep things interesting. Another thing keeping it interesting was the fact that I am  missing my brown paint. When I took my watercolors on vacation I managed to drop my watercolor box and most of the pans exploded all over the sand. I found all but one (with my brother-in-law's help). The color that never turned up was the brown. I never use the pure colors anyway, so I figured that having to mix brown from scratch, without the help of the burnt sienna, would be ok. And it was. It was actually a fun challenge.

They are not quite finished, but I really enjoyed painting them. It's interesting that when I'm working on paintings I often have initial feelings of panic, that it's not going well and that I really still don't know what I'm doing. But I keep going and things get better. The trick is quelling those voices and continuing.

There's more, but the sunshine (for real, finally) is calling to me. Hope you're enjoying a wonderful weekend!



*although I no longer do any advertising on my blog, I wholeheartedly recommend Moo because I've had such good experiences with them. If you follow the link above, you'll receive 10% off your order. I'll get a credit with them, too, if you decide to order from them.