Better Late than Never (?)

i'm not just a beader.

sometimes, I get brave and try out crafts too.

but will I be giving up my jewelry gig to do this?

not in a million years.

But sometimes, it's fun to try this kind of stuff out.

Vintaj Brass Co. sent me some of their new "Fastenables" along with some of their new "Black" line, (arte metal) and some Brass blanks!  At first I felt intimidated... but then my metal hole punch arrived in the mail and all was good. I was on a roll.

I love how the blanks turned out. I hammered the edges a bit giving the pieces some extra interest and texture and poked some holes in them with my hole punch. I pulled out some of my small vintage buttons and wired a few on to decorate them. I even got brave and pulled out my letter stamps and tried my hand at the stamping again. Wish I had a lower case set, but for now, these work fine.

I also tried my hand at riveting. (butterfly in lower right corner) My one tip on that is, if you plan on trying it, it works better when you have a really flat surface and a flat metal surface. I tried 4-6 times with several curved brass pieces, and my rivet kept bending when I would hammer it, or the thing just wouldn't work at all and the pieces would pop apart as soon as I was done.

I bought some paints at Michaels, just acrylics.Nothing too expensive or fancy. I knew that I wanted to spruce up the black fastenables and painting them just seemed like the best way.

Pretty paints all in a row...

As you can see below, the flower starting popping right away after the

first few brush stokes of paint...

And below is the final result!

It is a bit more sassy, isn't it!?

I tried a few more while I was at it.

The other day I mentioned trying out a greeting card, and so I put something really simple together. Is it going to win any scrapbooking, paper ephemera awards?  NO.

But I just wanted to show that it is a pretty easy craft, and didn't take me that long to put together. Other than the painting the butterfly I mean.

The letters are stickers.

Here is a close up of the butterfly on the paper.

I just shoved the points through the paper but probably should have punched holes first now that I see

how shoddy this looks.

Like I said, it ain't winning any awards.

I just embellished the top of the inside of the card with some Washi tape, and

another Vintaj decorative button.

Overall it turned out cute, and yes I am going to give it to my Momma come May 9th.

If anyone appreciates a good handmade card, it's my Mom. I've been making her cards

since I was a youngin'.  I used to sign the back of my cards "Hillmark"

(my maiden name is Hill)

This weekend, I hope to try out my hand at playing with

Resin. Ice Resin in bezels. IF I can figure out

what the heck to put in them.

Stay tuned for that fun!