What I Have Been Doing...

I know I haven't been blogging much this month. I cannot seem to explain the slowness, but I think it may be the weather. Spring has sprung, but rain keeps coming up in my area off and on. And I'm still getting used to the time change, even though it's been more than two weeks.

But things have been all right. I guess just a lack of ideas for the blog. As far as other writing goes, I have been working on different kinds of poetry as I said earlier this month. I had said I would be waiting until April (National Poetry Month) to do poetry in my writing class a work, but decided not to wait till then. I did an intro writing exercise last week and for my next class (nest Monday) will be doing more. I had each participant look at the site Shadow Poetry  (sadly it's been deleted) for different kinds of poems and find one (or more) that they would like to try writing. 

I have also been trying to decide on craft projects for work for the coming month. This week I will be doing Paper Mosaics (a sample above). Next month, I want to do a silhouette lantern from a jar, but have found so many different ways to do this one. Here is one way, as instructed in a Youtube video:





And here are some samples of such lanterns and some links on how to make them (Here and here). But there are even more than just those two instruction links. I have come across so many different way to do it that I have been experimenting with them at home before I decide how to do it at work next month. I have ben using empty chocolate jars at home. One of the many ideas I have come across for this project says to use tissue paper. I tried that one, but the paper got quite messy against the Mod Podge, so I decide against the tissue paper method. I have read about way to color the jars, including one that involves spray paint and another in which the jars must be baked, but neither of these is an option where I work (we can't use our oven at work this way, and I don't have a working oven at home). So I have been trying  other ways to color the jars. I still have not come up with exactly how I want to do the lanterns eventually, but will keep experimenting and let you know what I decide to go with. Meanwhile, here are some images of silhouette lanterns. Many of the sites call them "fairy lanterns," though they can be made with any silhouette you choose. I will be letting each participant choose what silhouette they want to use.