Crafty Violet's Chaos: Beaded bracelets, Over-priced soup, and Two Cards

What a busy four days! We have been on the go constantly. In fact, coming home this afternoon I looked over at Joe and said, “Being retired is exhausting!” Biked on Saturday (30km), Up to Lake Huron in Sarnia on Sunday and yesterday we did another 25km on the bikes at Rondeau – started out a bit chilly though. The temperature has dropped at night to about 55F but up to 75-80F during the day if you are in the sun. It’s like someone flipped the fall switch!

Today we drove to Port Stanley to see another play. Excellent play! We really enjoyed this one a lot. Not all was great though. We normally have lunch at The Roxy in Port Stanley and it was closed today which we thought was odd. But it turned out a lot of the little shops were closed – another sign that summer is over. So, we had to find another place to eat that served vegetarian food, or seafood for me. Joe is not as fussy as me and he will eat chicken on occasion but rarely other meat. We opted for The Wharf which sounded like a good fish and chip place albeit a bit fancy. Wrong. They only serve Pollock – yuck! We just don’t like Pollock at all – and no baked potatoes, only french fries and I’m so not a french fry person. So, we looked over the menu again and decided to have soup instead. Now the soup price was, gasp, $12.99 a bowl so I was foolishly expecting a HUGE bowl of seafood chowder and HUGE crusty bun. Wrong on both accounts. Just a regular size bowl of chowder in a tomato base instead of cream base and a very small bun. Joe opted for French onion soup (he doesn't count meat broth as meat!!) and he said it was delicious and more filling. We left the restaurant and I went to the drugstore and bought a chocolate bar so my stomach wouldn’t growl during the show. Won’t be going back there!

On a happy note, above the playhouse is a Ten Thousand Villages shop, which sells handcrafted goods from third world countries and gives the artisans a fair price for the goods. I was admiring a beaded bracelet but didn’t have time to buy it during intermission.

As we were leaving the theatre Joe pulled me aside and handed me some money and said, “Go buy that bracelet.”

“What? No, its okay. I don’t need it.”
“Go buy that bracelet.”
"No, really it's ok."
“Go buy the bracelet!”
“Okaaay”

Here it is:

about nine rounds of beads.

This is the back.

And how it fits on my wrist.

(Ignore the artwork in the back. That's a mixed media piece I did and I didn't bother cropping these.)

I love it! If I can find some memory wire bracelet lengths I do believe I can make similar ones in other colours! At least I hope I can.

Okay, enough rambling. Here are today’s cards. I haven’t made cards using this technique for awhile so I thought it would be a good reminder.

The stamp is from Stamping Bella and it was stamped with Versamark and then white embossing powder and heat set. Then the fun begins. I took various Distress Inks and sponged them around and around, blending them where they meet. You can use other inks as well but I really like the Distress Inks for this technique. The trick to this is to start with the lightest colour in the centre and work your way out. Every time you add ink to the sponge, rub it on scratch paper first to blend the ink into the sponge so you don't get lines. The sympathy card was a purple base and then I added the purple ribbon thru the ribbon tag (Spellbinders). The tag was lightly pounced with some purple ink as well as I found the white too white. Not sure where the sentiment is from.