Lord, it’s been hard to get motivated to do anything in these days of quarantine. Especially cleaning house and writing on my blog. But I have made time for crapsmanship, and fortunately, I have a lot of random craft supplies and access to Amazon shopping. We have some friends with a baby girl due in May, and this baby gift is my latest attempt at something pretty.

The picture above is my inspiration, so I ordered a BIG bag of buttons from Amazon.

Ella’s nursery is being decorated in shades of eggplant, purple, and yellow, so I began with this background while I waited for the buttons to arrive. The background is made with acrylic paints and stencils on a 9″ x 12″ sheet of mixed media paper.

Once I had the buttons, I did a mock-up with random colors of purple buttons. Not quite crapsmanship, but I wasn’t happy with the colors. The background was too bright, and some of the buttons didn’t really show up. So back to the drawing board — literally. I darkened up the background with some black and purple Distress Inks, and then I selected the lightest lavender buttons for the E. I used painters tape to make temporary lines to follow as I glued the buttons to the background.

Here’s my finished letter, but a problem lingers. I can’t get to the store to select a mat and frame, so the gift remains unfinished. Let’s hope this damned coronavirus is eradicated by May. Ella needs this present!!!