In Progress

I haven't been feeling very well this week, so progress on things has been a bit slow, and my organizing project it temporarily on hold.  But I have been working on a couple of cool things, so I thought I'd share.

First off, I decided to whip out the needles and do some knitting.  It's nice to have a project that I can work on while I'm curled up on the couch.

I've been wanting to try felting for a while, and it seemed a good idea to start off with something small, so I decided to take a stab at making a felted cuff.  I tend to work more with acrylic blends and cotton yarns as they're easier for me to get ahold of, so my options were somewhat limited.  I went with a ball of Noro Chirimen that I bought a while back just because it was pretty (the reason I buy most of my yarn).  I experienced a bit of label dyslexia, and initially thought that it was 60% wool and 16% cotton.  It's actually the other way around, so I'm not sure how well it will felt.  I also might be making this thing entirely too big, but that's sort of intentional.  I have no idea how much it will shrink when I (try to) felt it, and I figured too big was better than too small.  This is definitely an experimental piece, and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

It's already quite pretty, I think.  I love the colors in this yarn, and it's so nice to work with.  I think I'll be buying more the next time I make it to the yarn shop.

I've been doing some more painting this week, as well, though nothing quite as artistic as last week's project.  Nope, this is a more utilitarian project.  

I found myself faced with a bit of a conundrum when I decided to close my first shop and start fresh with a new one.  I had several hundred business cards left from my old shop, and I was going to be needing knew ones.  So I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone by using the old ones to make my new ones.  

I painted over both sides with a couple layers of gesso, added a couple coats of green and gold, then experimented with hand-lettering and stamping the shop name.  Here's my favorite:

Obviously, I still need to add the rest of the pertinent information, which I'll probably just write by hand.  Once the informative side is done, I intend to do a quick mini-collage on the back of each card, basically creating an informative ATC.  

Of course, this process is somewhat time consuming, so I'm considering ways to make it quicker.  I might try spray painting the cards rather than painting them all by hand, for instance.  And I'm going to look into getting a custom stamp made for the shop name, and possibly the info, as well.  

So.  What have you been up to this week, folks?  Tell me of your crafty adventures!