Paper or Plastic?

I LOVE altered art of any kind: Fabrics and bits of ribbon, buttons, embellishments and more. I love creating little artistic altered purses and wall art (check out my etsy shop for samples). But as much as I love fabric and all things textile, my first love would have to be paper. I absolutely love paper! Walking through the scrapbooking store is like walking through a flower shop~beautiful colors and textures; all that's missing is the fragrance of flowers! I love paper arts because of the immediate results and the way it forgives. If you screw something up in sewing, it can take a long time to undo your mistake and then redo your project. If you make a mistake in a collage, you just glue something on it! No one is the wiser and often times that is when the prettiest things happen.

I was at Joanns (one of my favorite haunts) yesterday with one of my sisters and flipped through a few of the altered art magazines. I had a tough decision to make, "Belle Amour" had a fantastic spread on altered tote bags and a fun article on making "tiles" for jewelry out of shrink plastic (aka "Shrinky Dink" sheets). But "Somerset Studios" had so many great looking projects that I couldn't put it back on the shelf. I read through the article I was interested in on the shrink plastic project, just to get the general idea, then picked up a package of "Shrinky Dink" and some jump rings and got ready to learn the basics from the instructions on the package.

Well, I cannot tell you how much fun I have had with this project this morning! I got up early and savored all the beautiful photos of incredible projects that artists sent in to Somerset, then I went for my walk, had breakfast with my dear hubby and dived in. This is my kind of project! It's so immediate, cheap, quick and so much fun! I absolutely love shrink plastic!

I can post directions on the blog if anyone is interested. Today I worked on some charms and later I will post pictures of the final jewelry project. I wish the photo of the charm I'm posting had come out better...photography is not my strong suite, yet. If you like the project idea, you should get the "Belle Amour" issue though, the creators pieces are beautiful. I'm more of a fly-by-my-pants sort of gal, so I'm much happier working from a general idea than a set of step by step instructions.

So, the next time someone asks me "Paper or Plastic?" I'm really going to have to put some thought into my answer!