Tyvek Clutch Bag

I have made this clutch bag for a very dear friend of mine who has been helping me sort out some things at my house. It is made from an express mail tyvek envelope. I covered one side with pretty paper napkin pieces using decoupage medium. The other side I covered with a cream silk to form the lining. I then stuck more pieces of napkin along the edges of the silk and wrapped them round to the front to hide the edges. I was wondering how the tyvek would stand up to sewing, I looked online and found differing opinions some said OK but some said it would act like a perforation and tear. I folded the envelope into nearly thirds and machine sewed some lengths of embroidered cream 2" ribbon onto the sides to form the gusset of the bag. I think that with the layers of napkin and the actual ribbon itself it has strengthened the seams in the tyvek enough so that it won't tear. The flap is held down by a magnetic clasp and I covered the back of the top clasp with some lace and an altered flower that matches the roses in the pattern of the napkin. I also added a length of contrasting lace ribbon as a long shoulder strap which will tuck into the bag when not used.

Recycled Art Journal

I wanted to use up some papers and beads and stickers that I have bought at yard sales over the past year. So I thought that I would make this journal by recycling old brown paper sandwich bags, 5 in total, I guess this makes it a totally recycled item. The gussets are folded over and then 2 bags are glued back to back. The gussets form the smaller pages inside the book. The 5th bag is stuck to the back of the book and the gusset of this bag is used to form the small flap across the front of the book. The two large paperclips that hold the flap closed I covered with leaves. I am sure my explanation is as clear as mud. This is the video of the process that I followed (thank you angi) but there are plenty of videos on youtube on how to make a mini paperbag albums. The inside pages of mine can be seen on my flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulaexukatcs/

Midsummer's Night Dream

This is another postcard for the Art 'n' Soul group containing at least 2 of the following:
* A vintage image (stamped or printed)- I stamped a vintage image from Scrolls work that I won in dark blue ink. Beautiful stamp.
* Paper collage - collaged flower from sheet music, watercoloured oval scolloped punches, glued together with hot glue. Pretty thread used as stem trailing down.
* Some lace or ribbon or fabric - added paper lace made out of matching sheet music paper
* A button or other embellishment - metal butterfly added to flower
* Embossing or texture - mounted on cuttlebug embossed cardstock edged with silver heat embossed powder.
I made a picture frame for the stamped lady using some stickers. Hope whoever gets it doesn't mind. They are very special. The borders are designed from original 15th century art from The Vatican Library - The Bibliotecca Apostolica Vaticana. I picked these up at a yard sale and the blurb on the back says "A significant portion of the proceed from this sale goes directly to preserve and restore the priceless Vatican Library, ensuring these treasures for future generations."

Salt Springs

Been away for a short break in the Ocala National Forest to a campground at Salt Springs. Such a beautiful and peaceful place. We were bathing in these springs where the water is a constant 72 degrees farenheit, crystal clear as you can see from the photo. We swam with a family of otters and mullet that must have been about 24 inches long. There are nine springs that rise in these waters and you can try to dive down into the caves where the water rises but the flow is so great that you can't go very far down before it pushes you back to the surface. Campsite was nearly empty when we got there. Lots of shade provided by big oak trees decorated with spanish moss. We went down some forest roads and saw tracks of deer and bear. Black bear lives in this forest so all food has to be locked away at all times. If you get a chance to visit this area do go it is a very pretty forest. Very little if any phone signal though and certainly no 3G. Which was great made us focus on the locality and resting rather than technology.

Enchanted Castle

This week's Soartful Challenge was to use the Enchanted Castle image in the middle of the picture. The colours are so beautiful and romantic on this that I decided to make this one a larger image and printed it off onto lilac cardstock. I embossed the sides with my cuttlebug and highlighted the embossing with some lilac ink. I mounted the picture onto another piece of lilac cardstock and glued lace all around the edge. The 2 large paper flowers (4 layers)are made using an oval punch with scalloped edges and the smaller flowers (3 layers)with a circle punch. Using lilac cardstock again I cut the pieces out, edged them with deeper lilac ink on the front and back then sprayed them with a little water and scrunched them up. I opened them up and posted a brad through each layer scrunching them up again one at a time around the brad. The layers were opened up slightly and left to dry. It gives the petals a lovely wrinkled look. These were stuck onto the picture along with strips of white netting for stalks.