Crafts by the Lake

Guess where I am?  In the Trinity Alps of northern California!  It is beyond gorgeous here, perfect weather, peaceful and serene.  A day spent at the lake, fishing, swimming, exploring.

So, OK, after a few days of this, a girl's gotta CRAFT!!!  Problem is, what to do when you're stranded out in nature with no tools or supplies?  Can you spell I-M-P-R-O-V-I-S-E ?


First, I collected an assortment of interesting artifacts:

Then I played and arranged and re-arranged and decided I was making a "temporary art installation" or an "environmental collage" or whatever fancy name you want to give it.  No glue, so things were attached by shoving, poking and pinching.

Trust me, it looked a lot better in real life.  Would have made a great centerpiece, but of course there was no table, and no meal !!?!?  Here's a view of it as it perched on the shore, left for the wild critters to play with long after I was gone...

Well, my mojo was put into gear, so I had to do something more.  I gathered these wet leaves from the lake water gently lapping at the shore....

...gently put them in a baggie and brought them back with us to our little cabin.  There, I did have some very basic supplies - one tote - including MOD PODGE and I thought I could play around with them.  When they dried they were very brittle and delicate, but oh-so-lovely - and dousing them in mod podge made them shiny, pliable and usable.  


So here are 5 simple cards I made with them...

  
Fun, cheap, "natural" and great reminders of our vacation.  I'm going to try 'podging lots of other things!!!