Paper Crafting Swaps

I took a break from quilting for a couple of days and turned my attention to Paper Crafting for some Swap-Bot exchanges. In one way, it is still 'shopping from my closets' because there is a lot there bought to create scrapbooks for my Grandkids, and one for my family, and the last one for my own photos. It takes me such a long time to get into it and I have taken several classes.

Working with paper helps me work with fabric. I cannot say why this is so, yet it is.

One of the swaps was for an altered cigar box for Hallows. This one was free from a smoke shop and is sturdy cardboard rather than wood.

You can see a Black Widow Spider crawling out of rolled paper in the corner. I used 2 different patterns so rolling one over the top of the other created this interest. Then some pulled poly batting for web. Inside is more batting that cushions the jar, sanded for aging, with a label saying 'Miss Muffet's Magickal Ingredients Spider Eggs'. I snipped off the ends of Qtips and pulled at the cotton to form a nest of....ugggh. They look mighty real.

 The other project is called a Halloween Pocket Whimsey. It is also an altered project, this time, altered from an empty toilet paper roll as its base. It is cut down half an inch, glued at the bottom, decorated with small scraps of paper and accessories added to the outside and small gifts on the inside. These are not finished.

I spent a fair amount of time sorting supplies because I don't work with paper much and had to find items that were of the Halloween theme. I did end up going online to print off certain things and also watched a lot of tutorials on You Tube. Most people who make these items work with Paper Crafting the way I do with Fabric Arts. Most of them are more grrrlie-grrrl than I am, so both that and the lack of supplies have my end products almost tailored.

When I do a vision board, I usually glue things off the edge of the page. Yet, here for these, I am still a bit conservative in my efforts. Some of the tutorial facilitators talk about making their own decorations and its definitely more work than I care to get into.

My plan is to back off all the rabbit trails I got onto...making mini matchboxes, doing more altered cigar boxes (I do have another one started), creating apothecary jars. I've signed up for several more swaps for Hallows and will put them together first, and stick with making those Pocket Whimseys for the Grandkids on Halloween.

I have several quilts going and need to stay at it if they are to move out of my hands and into the hands and hearts of people I love.