Hello and welcome to The Capricious Crafter blog! Who or what is the capricious crafter? Well, that would be me, Becky, a sixty something child of God, wife, daughter, aunt, great aunt, friend and lover of crafting, cooking, reading, travel, and more. My husband and I have been married almost thirty years and are looking forward to his retirement at the end of 2014. Our plans are to buy a new camper and hit the road as much as possible. Oh, the possibilities are endless for our future!

I am a child of the 1950's and that is definitely my favorite 'era'. I collect Fire King items from the 1940's and 50's, clear glass or crystal glassware, especially pitchers, cream and sugar sets, etc., as well as old dishware and serving pieces, vintage fabrics and so much more!

I have been crafting for as long as I can remember, and definitely from my early childhood. I remember my mother teaching me how to make paper dolls from the Sears catalog and 'shirt cardboard' from the cleaners. And now I still love playing with paper! My primary crafty passion is paper crafting items such as mini albums, cards, tags, etc., however I also enjoy crocheting, some sewing, embroidery, mixed media art and art journaling, felt crafts and so much more.

My purpose for this blog is to share the crafts I make, foods I cook, decorating and caring for my home, new products I try, treasures I find at estate and yard sales, my collections, and anything else I come up with. I hope you will join me on this journey ... it's going to be a very 'capricious' ride!

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Sharing ... deepest apologies ... yes, I am a horrible blogger!

But what are you going to do about it?  Huh?  Life is changing so much these days, and I'm just rolling with it, and blogging is just falling by the wayside.  Hubby is 60 work days away from retirement.  We just got home yesterday from a 12 day camping trip in South Carolina.  Hubby has his first cataract surgery a week from Tuesday, we have another camping trip planned toward the end of June, his second cataract surgery in early July, another week of camping toward the end of July, and the list goes on!

I'm not getting much crafting done either, but I did get some art journaling done while we were camping, and I wanted to share some of it with you!  I did three art journal pages, and I'm kind of proud of all of them!  First one up ... it's a kind of a list of the 'B's' that I loved on this trip ...




My favorite 'B's' from this trip ... books, blooms, butterflies and birds!  The bird and butterfly on the right hand page are 'happy mail' goodies from my crafting friend, Gloria.  The 'blooms' it is hard to tell, but it is a lupine, fussy cut from a piece of note paper.

The second page is my 'prayer warrior' angel.  She is an angel on her knees in prayer.  I used to make a lot of these angels as little stand up cards, but hadn't done one in a while, but it came out fairly pretty ...





I gessoed the pages of the journal, then painted them with a mixture of white metallic and sorbet green acrylic paint (the cheap kind) and just love the shiny effect.  I used a pink, green and blue gelato and did vertical lines, then blended them with my fingers, and added a glaze over the top.  It looks like plastic, which is a really cool look!




The hair is black, but it doesn't really show up in the picture.  The halo is a wood veneer piece from Michaels.  I painted it with gold and then added gold stickles in the hole in center.  The wings are only adhered at the center, giving them a 3 dimensional look.




The quote says "SHE (cut from patterned paper) was a warrior in a flowered dress, who did battle on bended knee with folded hands and her loving heart turned toward her amazing God in prayer.  She knew her courage and strength comes from Him, and that time spent in prayer was never time wasted."

And the third, and my very favorite, is a 'quilted' angel in the style of Christy Tomlinson.  For the skirt, I used gelli prints on deli paper and cut small squares and decoupaged them onto the paper.  They have a stained glass look.




The background came out far too bright of a yellow, so I washed it with a much paler yellow glaze.  I love metallics, so the wings are a rose metallic acrylic paint, and the heart is a gold metallic.  Her boots are turquoise and brown, with some Stickles for a bit of bling.




And the quote was simple ...




"SHE was a stained glass angel.   A woman of many colors and facets, but her heart was made of pure gold."  I named her 'Santee' after the name of the state park we were camping in, and the prayer warrior I gave the name of Elloree, the name of  a nearby town.

I hope you have enjoyed my projects for today ...  And I will try to come back sooner next time!   Blessings,