Crafty Creatives box 15!

Wow, this month has been absolutely crazy so far. I have not had a second to sit down and craft apart from making more new displays for my things at the shop, and those were late-night panic-filled endeavours! I have however been acquiring a few crafty things, some of which work perfectly with this month's Crafty Creatives box!

Can I just say I was way too excited to see more new surround paper? This stuff is always neatly packed into my 'paper crafts' box for future use!

This month's box was 'Monochrome'! I have been working on covering my (currently unused) keyboard tray with a monochrome sharpie doodle and I've been looking at lots of inspiration lately- this art card provides even more! I can't wait to get this one up on the wall.

More felting in this month's CC kit! I have to say that while I'm ever-so-slightly sad that it's not a new skill, I'm happy to learn to 3D felt! This will be a fun one to do, and I know that the felting kit Woodland box was extremely popular (it's one of my personal favourites!)

I am a little bit crazy when it comes to collecting little notebooks/sketchbooks/what-have-you and this made me squeal a bit! The pen and pencil are of a beautiful quality as well so I'll be sure to fill this little book with lots of sub-par attempts at drawing, but I'll love it!

And here it is all out as usual:

• Art card by Jo Newham
• CC kit: felted sheep
• double-sided domino beads
• graphite pencil
• polymer clay rose
• mini blackboard peg- I love this!
• Stabilo Sensor pen
• Crafty Creatives doodlebook
• tea bag folding squares
• sheet of Aubrey Beardsley prints
• black and white sewing pins
• fat quarter of black and white fabric

It's a great box- while I love boxes with a strong theme, I think that this box (and the Blue box) provides such a good opportunity to get seemingly-unrelated items together, and it all looks so great together. I love that this box has so many crafty essentials, and that though the kit is a skill I've already been taught by the CC gals, it's another level up. I'm also interested to try the tea bag folding as I'd never even heard of it before now!

But of course, I am not one to leave things black and white... so I took my newly-bought pile of brightly-coloured Sharpies to my fabric... and I love it even more.

Crafty Creatives Box 14- 'Western'

Crafty Creatives box 14 landed several weeks ago, but we were away on holiday! Finally last Friday this box was redelivered, and though I hadn't managed to avoid seeing what this month's theme and contents were, it was still nice to get my pink parcel!

First I'm going to show off a few photos of where were were. My own ancestral homelands (not really) of Illinois. Flat, hot, and corn (and soybeans).

Ahhhh, the country life.

So perhaps strangely fitting that this month's box was very North American themed! Though, I was not in the wild west- this box's theme was 'Western'!

Native American culture is something I've grown up treading very lightly around. My American ancestors go back mostly to the Revolutionary War, so I know there have probably been some along the way who have not been the best of neighbors to those who were displaced. Appropriation is tricky, and in some cases inappropriate. That said, I think this art card is beautiful and I think for the most part this box was handled lightly.

The kit for this box was a dreamcatcher- an obvious choice! I look forward to getting the feathers in box 15 so I can finish this one off properly. Although I do have to point out that as they originated from the Ojibwe people they are technically not 'Wild West' but more 'wild north'!  

There was also a second kit in this box- a rope basket. This one looks a bit trickier, I have to admit.

There was a good selection of beads and charms in this one, including a generous amount of star studs.

click to enlarge!

A quick rundown of my box's contents:

• Art card by Anastasia Alexandrin
• CC kit- dreamcatcher
• Extra kit- rope basket
• two strings of turquoise beads
• lots of bronze star studs
• five feather charms
• 1 metre suedette floral cut trim
• piece of fleece
• purple stone bear bead
• two pieces of recycled denim
• two sheets of craft paper

I got some great fabric when I was back in the US and have some plans already- what do you think?

Read about the effects of the 1830 Relocation Act.