Shhh... sneak peak at my swaps!

For the last couple of weeks, I've been swamped with school stuff. (That would be why there are, like, three posts on this blog during that time.) Grading, grading, answering emails, more grading. Besides the sparse blog posting and total lack of housework taking place at my house, I also had to put my swaps on the backburner for a few weeks.

Thanks to Spring Break, I've been able to get caught up with most of my schoolwork, some of my housework, and both of my swaps. I'm so excited to be done with these that I thought I'd go ahead and share them out on my blog. I don't think either of the people who are receiving from me actually read my blog, so there's not much chance of spoiling the surprise.

First, the card I made for our ya-ya card swap.




For this month's swap we were giving three Easter egg shaped cut outs and a piece of bright green glittered paper. I used the largest egg cut out as a base for the egg on this card. What you can't see so well on this picture is that the flower shape is punched OUT of the egg, and the lighter pink is layered behind. The bits of green are all the glitter paper.

True to fashion, I didn't get it completed until AFTER Easter had passed. I'm nothing if not consistent.

My other item is for the Recycled, Reused, Repurposed Swap in my AREtsy group. (AREtsy is an Etsy Street Team for Etsy sellers from Arkansas.) When I joined this swap, I thought this was going to be a relatively easy project. After all, it seems that 90% of my "supplies" are cast off, recycled, or ready to be repurposed. But, again true to fashion, I think I made the project more difficult than it needed to be.

My first idea was to make some little stuffed birdies from an old suit skirt and some unused gauze. (I have since found out that the unused gauze was part of some bomb shelter supplies.) However, once I got into that project I realized that it was probably a little too specific in terms of decor. And it took a lot of time. The idea of spending that much time on a project and without knowing whether the recipient would have a place in her house to hang it - well, it just kind of sucked the momentum.

So on to another idea... This one came to me as I was showing some of my latest supply acquisitions to Denise. I saw an old IKEA mirror frame that I rescued from the trash pile when my friend Scarlett was moving out of her house. I figured that counts as recycled. And then I saw a deck of cards. Not the pretty vintage ones. One of the decks of "plain" cards that my sister brough to me so I could feel free to experiment before hitting my "pretty" cards. I saw the pretty patterns on the back of the cards, and realized that it was great mosaic fodder. So out came the 3/4" punch, and this was the result: