Bargain time #4

At the weekend I went to my village fete which included a car boot sale.

I scored this skirt for £1.

£1! It's from Miss Selfridge and it still has the tag in.

And it had pockets. I'm very excited about the pockets.

Bargain indeed.

I also got these two bags for 50p each. Similar to this one I got last year which was probably from the same lady.

One has a whole load of beads in it, including a pretty glass pendant with daisies on it. The other bag has a lot of bangles in it and some necklaces. All good stuff.

With some my new beads I fancied up my Mum's sun hat for her.

I just threaded the beads in a sort of pattern onto some brown ribbon.

She's been showing it off already.

Have you got any great bargains recently?  



Curtain ring hair band

This hair band comes to you courtesy of vintage curtain rings.

Well, I don't no if they can be considered vintage, they're just old.

It's pretty much just elastic, chain and then chain that I took apart and put curtain rings in between. Simples.

And it doubles up as a necklace. Handy.

Have any unexpected items made their way into your craft supplies?

Tigers take 2

I really liked the tiger image I made by drawing in pen on to fabric that I did here so I tried it again, this time smaller.

I did the same tiger face and some tiger stripes as well.

I sewed the fabric around a capiz shell because it was nice and circular and added some polyester stuffing inside.

I used one of the tiger faces to make this necklace.

The two black circles came from this necklace which I got in this box of bargains.

I never did figure out how it was supposed to be worn because it was a long length of double beads with a circle at each end, rather than a big loop. I guess I could have just wrapped it around and around.

Nevermind, it's being used for better things now.

And when the new necklace is being worn, it looks a little like this.

I'm pretty used to my short hair now, in fact sometimes when I see photos of my long hair it just looks fake!

Monster in the kitchen

My talented housemate Ryan has come up with these hilarious drawings throughout the year that I thought I would share with y'all.

A monster in the kitchen munching on Pringles.

A sea creature being disturbed in the bath.

A gingerbread man meeting his milky fate.

And a monster in the cupboard.

That's my food cupboard by the way.

And it was just after Christmas which is my excuse for all the chocolate!

You can see more of Ryan's work here.

Homemade rubber stamps

Making stamps out of a rubber/eraser is so easy.

I first did it on my foundation course during the textiles rotation and we used proper lino cut tools but this time I just used a craft knife which worked just as well.

I made buttons...

...a heart and star...

...and a feather.

Then I printed them onto these brown tags.

I don't have many ink pads so I just used acrylic paint which I applied directly to the stamp with a small sponge.

I love the homemade feel of them and the way I can create loads of different patterns with just a few stamps.

Pink and Purple

Here's a new painting I did just for fun.

It's the inside of a flower and it's oil paint on a little canvas board so I thought it was perfect to go on my little easel.

Then I realised there were some other things in my craft space that matched the colours.

Like this painting I did a while ago.

I got the idea online where they had used masking fluid to block out the face and then painted over it with watercolours, but I didn't have any so I used a candle to create a wax resist.

The effect is pretty much the same, it's just not quite as neat.

And then there's this pink and purple felted rock.

It's the only thing I've ever felted and I'd like to do more. 

Miniatures on the move

Before putting my miniature creations away for the summer I thought I would use them as sets for some short stop/start animations.

(Wait for them to load so they move!)

For the first I used the hospital room I made and the miniature scrubs I put together.

Then I thought I'd use the miniature coat I made for my little studio space and the miniature letterman jacket I made. The secret is pipe cleaners!

And then I made a spooky little animation using the shoebox office scene which I think I could make into a longer animation, but I never take enough photos for it to be really long.

Maybe next time.

What do you call a mushroom that likes to party?

That's right; a real fungi (fun guy)

Ahahaha, I crack myself up.

And speaking of, here are some toadstools!

I had this piece of wood lying around that I was going to use for something else but that never happened, and I had to idea to make little toadstools out of drawings pins (or push pins or thumb tacks) to attach to it.

All I did was paint the underneath and the pin part with white acrylic paint and then paint the top red with white dots.

Then I quickly made a little fairy to sit on the toadstool out of paperclips, a bead, crepe paper and felt.

Beach trip

A few weeks ago while I was still in Norwich my friends and I took a trip to the beach!

Cromer to be precise.

It was a really fun day and the above painting that I just finished is from one of the photos taken.

I've never painted waves like that before but I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

Although it was sunny it was pretty windy which made it a tad chilly, hence all the layers. 

But some of the boys still went in the sea. Because they are insane.

We buried someone in the sand, cos it's tradition.

I'm loving it even if he wasn't.

And my friends made a stone heart.

We also had fish and chips, spent a long time on the 2p machines, and had those hot donuts where they give you four but you really only need one because they're so sugary.

Delightful.

1 photo 3 ways

I took this photo when I was on holiday in France in 2007,

and lately I've been using the image to be creative.

I did a small watercolour painting with pencil over the top.

I covered the original photo with sequins, which was inspired by Color Me Katie.

And then here's the failed screen print where I used the image in my Print and New Media taster during my first year at uni. In my defence it was my first time screenprinting and we had to use four different technique in the one image.

My tutor and I decided I didn't get on with screen printing because working with block colours just ain't my thing.

(Is anyone else having trouble commenting on other blogs? Not cool Blogger, not cool.)

Craft Swap

I got my things from the craft swap organised by Kelsey at Artichoke Designs in the mail!

They came all the way from Sweden from Lady Night.

They were each individually wrapped and the sweet note was on fancy paper. It was so lovely.

I got a pretty knitted ring, a pink bracelet and a cute little bunny brooch.

I love them, thanks Lady Night!

Taking part in the swap was fun and it was nice to connect with other crafters all over the world.

Also, it's nice to receive mail!

Speaking of; I also received this which means they got my hair!

Art in Norwich

A few weeks ago I went to the Hubert Duprat exhibition at the Castle Museum in Norwich.

His work is sculptural and his most famous work uses caddis fly larvae which create a case around themselves using the materials in their environment.

Duprat put the larvae in tanks filled with gold spangles and precious stones, so they have no choice but to use them to build.

Exhibited in the gallery was a small tank with living larvae in it that were moving around with their blinged out cases attached. It was pretty fancy.

I like how Duprat refers to this work as a collaboration between himself and the larvae.


Another piece of his work that I liked but could not find a photo for was two large logs covered in upholstery studs. Again, way to make something natural pretty fancy.

My housemates and I also went on a walk to find this piece of art in a local park.

It was part of London Fieldworks' Spontaneous City project which you can read more about here.

I wanted to see a bird poking out of one of the wooden holes, but no.

Yay for art!

House portraits

Remember this drawing of my housemates?

Well we thought it would be fun if we each did a drawing of us all, and here they are.

This is Lucy's. She's a fine artist like me.

This is Luke's. He's a graphic designer.

And this is Ryan's. He's the one with the beard and he's studying Games Art.

The idea behind his drawing is that I'm doing one of my signature poses while the others are looking annoyed. Ha!