Art and Leisure

I've always enjoyed doing artistic things.   Every since Christmas though I feel like I've been doing more of them than usual.  Lately I've wondered if I don't begin craft projects in order to avoid tackling responsibilities that seem daunting.

I have a friend who makes her own laundry soap.  It sounds like an awesome idea.  I can't remember how much she told me it ends up costing her per load, but it sure beats the heck out of what I have paid for Tide for years.  I was skeptical at first.  I've used Tide for so long that I was afraid a homemade detergent wouldn't smell as nice or get our laundry as clean.  She says that's never been issue in her home.  If I get around to doing it this weekend I'll post about it.  I'd like to start finding little things like this to cut down on some expenses and help me create a budget that's not only smaller, but feels more intentional and creative.

For now I'll offer some updates on some of the projects I've accomplished since the new year has begun.

Here's a wall hanging I made and gifted to my NA sponsor.  I don't necessarily enjoy spelling out all the details of what I do, but if I don't it never fails that someone asks me questions....so I'll try to answer them ahead of time.
I painted a square canvas with black fading into purple.  I was just going to paint.  Then I decided to cut pieces of scrapbook paper to glue on instead.  I haphazardly cut the shapes like leaves, quickly and without much precision so they would all be randomly unique.  I started gluing them on and then decided I would leave a blank space in the middle of them. I found a clip art image of birds and printed them and cut one out.  I taped it to the canvas, then glued around it.  I was getting tired of gluing so I decided to paint some much loved lyrics from the song "Someday" by JJ Heller.  Love her stuff.  Then I took the bird cutout and just glued it to the canvas.  I used E600 to glue everything down.  I think that's what it's called.  Then I brushed over the entire canvas with Mod Podge.  Had I done enough experimenting before hand I would have found that using a smaller paint brush to paint the words, I might have been able to make them appear less sloppy.  Trial and error.  I made one other canvas before this one.  It was a tree with some of the leaves on it and owls sitting on branches.  It also had the same lyrics painted on....even more sloppy and with a larger paint brush.  It looked more juvenile than this piece.  I already gave it away too, so no pics of that one.

I have more photos to upload and crafts to describe.....but I need to take the photos first.  I'll add them to this entry when I get around to it.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.