Tuesday and Wednesday Accomplishments

I have definitely been more motivated this week, in the crafting department anyway. I haven’t finished a whole lot of anything yet, but I’ve at least been working on things a little, which is certainly a lot more than other weeks recently! So, here are some of my accomplishments this week so far:

I booked our vacation to Ocean City, MD last night. We are going to get away and relax for my hubby's 30th birthday! We’ve never been there before, and I’m extremely excited to go. We have been on a couple overnight stays or weekend getaways (2 actually – NYC overnight for our 1 year wedding anniversary, and Baltimore for a weekend in Nov. 2007) since our honeymoon, but no real extended vacation since then. We’re not big ocean swimmers or anything, but it will be nice to just relax on the beach with books, take walks along the ocean, and just have nothing real to worry about for a whole 5 days.

I bought metallic silver spray paint. I had started to decorate a wedding themed photo frame over a year ago. The idea was to paint it silver, then use white ribbons, stencil some white words, and throw in some of the double heart charms I bought for a few projects from my own wedding somewhere on there too. I bought a better frame than my Snowflake Photo Frame, sanded it all down, and began painting it with silver acrylic paint. I can’t even remember how many coats I was up to with the acrylic paint, and it still isn’t smooth or consistent enough for my likings. I thought the spray paint would work better, but I was a little nervous about the silver part – the acrylic looked nice, and I was afraid the spray paint would look tacky. So, this week, I sprayed over the frame with the new paint. I like the silver look, but it’s still not quite smooth enough for me in some areas, so I’m going to have to re-sand and re-paint. I was going to do that today, but I prefer to do it in my garage with the door open, and it was extremely rainy, then extremely humid today, so I didn’t think the paint would dry very well. Hoping to get to that tomorrow.

I made myself a new earring/necklace set! I had some beads I bought a while back that I hadn’t done anything with yet, and I was finally motivated to create something with them today. It’s my favorite set so far! :) I’m calling it “Blue Beach”. It’s made from 2 different sized white shell beads and round light sapphire shell beads. My birthday on Saturday motivated me to create it, because I want to wear it that day and feel pretty. :) The upcoming beachy vacation was also a good kick in the butt too – I like to take all my pretty clothes and jewelry with me on vacation, it makes me feel even better. Here it is:

I found this new way of photographing my jewelry from looking at other people’s online shops and blogs, and I am so much happier with the result of my pictures this time. I even had the perfect dishes for this particular set! (Sandbar from Pfaltzgraf) This specific set is mine for keeping, but as long as the beads are still available, I will definitely be adding it to my Artfire site! So, guess what that means? Craft store, here I come!

I’m hoping to be able to at least finish all the silver painting on the frame tomorrow now, and work on some sachets for a friend who requested I help her make them for Christmas gifts. I haven’t tackled them yet because my very old and decrepit free sewing machine that I got from my parents started to give me trouble last time I used it. I almost broke the needle a couple times because the tension has decided to turn on me and not loosen up, so I may now need to take my grandmother up on her offer of giving me her old sewing machine, which is certainly in better condition than the one sitting here collecting dust now. Hopefully I will at least be able to start on them this week yet – I also have to make some jewelry that my other grandmother requested for a birthday gift for her friend (yet another excuse for a craft store trip!).

It might not seem like much to some of you crafters out there, but the rate I’ve been going lately, these are huge accomplishments for me!