The frog prince and his glowing mushrooms

Last week The Octopode Factory Friday challenge was Mushrooms. I made three very lovely Octoshrooms complete with glow-glitter spots.

Unfortunately my adorable glowing 'shrooms weren't cool enough to stop time and I didn't finish a project before the deadline.

Now you know why my card for this week's challenge, Royalty, is filled with nearly as much royal frog-i-ness as it is psychedelic fungus.

The card background is black light weight chipboard coated in multiple sprays of homemade perfect pearls mist, then coated with generous blobs of dimensional pearls in white and lettuce which I spread around with a fingertip, and sprayed again with more homemade pearl mist.

Can you see anything except the dimensional pearls? Me either, and I'm here in front of the card. The homemade shimmery mist disappeared. Oh well. I know it's there and that's enough.

The Octopode mushrooms were colored on the computer, printed, trimmed and embellished with Martha Stewart glow glitter.

Our frog prince is a My Guy original! That's right! I needed a princely frog and My Guy kindly produced this "digistamp" for me! Mr. Prince is colored by me with Prismacolor art markers.

The card is finished with the inside sentiment "Your Prince Will Come."

Show off your own royal inventions with the crowd at TOFF before Friday, I know they'd love to see you!

And, assuming you're not easily upset by, erm, Adult Content, head over to the Wikipedia entry for The Frog Prince (story) and read the entry referring to Jean Johnson's version of this famous fairy tale.

Things sure change when you get away from Mr. Disney and his super safe sugar filled stories.

Shadow box art in miniature

Lately the CuddlyBunny Craft Machine has been turning out wee shadow boxes!

For this recipe the main ingredient is one teeny box, like the party favor tins available at most big box craft stores, and those found here at AlphaStamps.

Otherwise, you pretty much need whatever you'd like to see inside, and outside, of a mini box.

If you clicked up there on that AlphaStamps link I've already lost you, but that's OK because the stuff there is awesome fun. And because it's more or less where I got the idea!

Anyhow, my piece here is a simple one for a friend who loves Romance with a capital "R".

The picture is from a TwistedPapers collage sheet (maybe it's too late to mention this, but that link goes to risque French postcard imagery, so careful clicking for those of you who are prudish).

I pasted the picture onto a piece of heavy stock cut slightly smaller than the interior of the box and then attached two pieces of felt. This I slipped in without attaching to the base of the box, so that as the added inside elements, including beads and a button, moved around, the picture occasionally moves as well.

After gluing the lid onto the box (no stealing those beads!), I used Archival Ink to stamp "Adore" on each side of the box and stuck half of a business card magnet on the back.

Unbelievably, that's all there is to this lovely little box that is light enough to display on a refrigerator or other metal surface.

Other boxes I've made, but not yet photographed, have 3D effects inside, lace around the lids, Tim Holtz tissue tape coverings and handmade charm embellishments.

Those of you who stuck with me this long, thank you! Now scroll back up to that AlphaStamps link to check out what the artists there have done with small shadow boxes, because theirs are so very wonderful and inspiring!

Life inside of a glass house

You might remember my September Practical Magic Party post and the terrariums we created for the celebration.

Despite having been opened only twice and never receiving water in addition to the original "potting" soak, the fern in the large terrarium and the who knows what in the small glass jar are both flourishing.

The fern is developing new "branches" while the who knows what has managed to fill the jar and is currently attempting a jail break (we'll probably have to replant her in the spring ... she's likely ground cover and a silly glass terrarium isn't going to keep her from spreading).

And guess what else? We now know that mushrooms grow at the speed of Holy Shit Where'd That Come From because our fern was all by herself on Tuesday, but by Wednesday she'd been joined by a tiny white mushroom friend.

Thursday a second mushroom appeared.

We're expecting a tiny fairy to built a cottage beneath the fern fronds tomorrow.