Whoops. I'm getting really bad at posting my TUSAL in a timely manner. My excuse this time is I was in Cincinnati over the weekend and went to bed early Monday trying to get over the triple whammy of time change for daylight saving time and Eastern time back to Central and not getting to bed before 4am all weekend. Yeah, lame, but that's what I've got to offer. The drab offerings in the TUSAL bottle are all dark brown and all from the "Get Over" piece I finished earlier this month. I need to do some more stitching to get some more goodies in my bottle. The TUSAL really is fun...and you can join in over at Yoyo's Dragon My Needle.My trip to Cinci was to meet PP for the first time. We've been email buddies for over five years and we'd never spoken in all that time. On a whim, we decided to meet before the busy season for PP at work. We spent the weekend doing wonderful things like crafting, shopping for craft supplies and poking around in thrift stores. Weekends don't get much better than that!
PP is very good at paper crafts such as ATCs (Artist Trading Cards that are the size of baseball cards) and inchies (one inch squares.) She brought tons of paper crafting supplies to the weekend meet up and we had a blast using them.
Lucky for us, the tables in our hotel rooms were on casters. To make for a perfect crafting environment, some remodeling was called for. We rolled the table and chair from P's room down to mine and positioned them back to back. We then spread out and let the fun begin.
I hadn't done any modern paper crafting, ATCs and Inchies were new to me. P was very patient, showing me how to do things, how inks were used, and all the hows and whys of using the tools and supplies for paper crafting and stamping. This is my first ATC. The picture was one that I found at Foundmagazine.com (link to picture here) many moons ago. I love this picture and it was what first came to mind when thinking of making an ATC. I'm pleased with the outcome and may frame it. 8D
We also made some inchies. As the name indicates, they are one inch square little bits of art. As with ATCs, there are no rules - it's art and art should have no rules. In addition to all the goodies P brought for crafting, we had a bonanza of pictures and words from travel brochures we picked up in the hotel lobby and a few from a rest area I visited on the way to Cinci.After a day of shopping and some lunch at a disappointing Chinese buffet, we went back to the hotel and I taught P how to do punchneedle embroidery. Most of the time P + sharp needles = blood and cussing (her words, not mine) but she and punchneedle got along well. I had kitted up a little punchneedle project for her with punchneedle tools, an embroidery hoop, fabrics, flosses and a Camel Snus tin. I free-handed a few mushrooms and used a transfer pencil to put them on weaver's cloth. After showing P the basics, she easily got the hang of punchneedle embroidery and created a sweet mushroom with a blue cap with green spots and brown gills. We finished the project
Here's my punchneedle project. It does need a bit of braid or cording around the edge, but it's still cute - even if I do say so myself. After finishing the tin, we cleaned up and packed up all the supplies and rolled P's furniture back to her room. Housekeeping was none the wiser to our redecorating.
Oh, kudos to the Drury Inn where we stayed. Very nice hotel with a manager's reception and free mixed drinks (or wine or beer or soft drinks) and food (hot dogs, chili, chip & salsa, salad, baked potatoes and veggies) in the evening and free breakfast in the morning (not that we got up in time to eat breakfast.) All for a very reasonable price. Two thumbs up!
Awesome weekend with an awesome friend! Thanks, P!
