This Week I...

...made some miniature bouquets of flowers for my current art piece.

Fiddly business.

I went out for a meal three times this week.

I was so hungry when the food arrived when I went out with my friends that I didn't stop to take a photo first. So I took one after I was done. You're welcome.

And I went round my sisters to catch up Nashville. 5 episodes watched in one afternoon.

That's how it's done.

Also, my other sister came home for the Easter weekend and at one point we left voicemails for my other sister of us singing Spice Girls songs with piano accompaniment. Cos that's how we roll.

Did y'all have a good week? 

Best Cookie Ever?

When I was in Nashville I had The Best Cookie Ever.

I'm pretty sure it was the best.

No others from my cookie-eating history stick out as the best.

And, I only had half of it. I only needed half of it cos it was so full of awesome!

(And I was sharing it with my sister)

Here's a fun video of me describing my lunch, which included the cookie, in my best southern accent.

We had an hour to kill before seeing the Kings of Leon. What else was I supposed to do!

(Southern-me cracks me up. Also, who remembers when I didn't have braces?!)

The other day I thought I'd like to do some baking, so I flicked through a recipe book and landed on oat and raisin cookies. And then I thought, 'what if I could make them like the Nashville cookie?'

This is what I came up with.

Note: I was trying to replicate the flavour, not the look of the cookie. Clearly.

I remembered the Nashville cookie tasted of mixed spice and had visible carrot in it.

The recipe I was using had neither of those things, but I put them in anyway!

Yep, I'm a recipe renegade!

The cookies didn't turn out too bad. I'm definitely on the right track.

I think next time I could afford to put in more mixed spice and more carrot.

Also more butter because they were a little crumbly, but the recipe called for 4 tablespoons of butter and I like to be more precise and use grams or ounces like a normal person.

Here's the recipe if anyone is interested:

4 tbsp butter

125g caster sugar

1 egg

50g plain sugar

1/2 tsp salt

(I've just realised I forgot to put in the salt. I didn't miss it)

1/2 tsp baking powder

175g porridge oats

125g raisins

I added: 1 small carrot, grated, and many shakes of mixed spice

15 minutes on Gas Mark 4

What's your Best Cookie Ever?

Scale Model Making

As you may have gathered from previous posts, I recently completed a scale model making short course at Central Saint Martins.

It was really good; the class size was small so we got a lot of attention from the tutor (who is the author of the book I mention way back here), I learnt a lot of new techniques, and one of the guys on the course brought in cakes his wife had made for us! 

The best thing I made was this brick wall.

It's made from Kapa-line foamboard. I've tried a few different methods of making bricks before (here, here and here) but this is by far the easiest and most effective.

As it's foam you can just push into with a pencil and make marks. I also used a wire brush to texture the surface.

On the other side we made an interior wall including door and window frames.

I haven't finished wallpapering it yet, but you get the idea.

This was all made with PVC sheets, another material I'd never used before.

We also had a go at making figures and trees (both unfinished, obvs).

The figure is made of Sculpey around a wire armature.

The tree is made from wire mesh, another kind of foam, and eggshells!

And then there's these chairs that I love.

The larger one is made of the kapa-line foam and has been treated with resin to make it more durable.

I could paint it, but I quite like it the way it is.

The small chair is made of stencil card.

They're both stuck together with super glue (the cheap stuff from Poundland is just as good as the expensive stuff) and yes I almost stuck my fingers together/to my work many times.

It was a great course and I think my art work is really going to benefit from it.

This Week I...

...spent a long time on a sewing project that I eventually gave up on.

I don't know what made me think I could work with sheer fabric.

Also the sewing machine kept doing this (see photo above).

Saturday was the last day of my scale model making course at Central Saint Martins.

I've got the certificate to prove it.

I'll show y'all soon all the cool stuff I made.

And on Sunday I took a box of craft-arty goodies to my local mill for their gift shop.

I hope they sell well, especially those magnets!

I hope you all had a good week.

Bus bench

As part of the miniature model I'm currently making - the Acme Farm Supply building in Nashville - I've had to make a bus bench.

I've got a lot of my own source photos because for some reason, second to photos of the food we ate, my sister and I took a lot of photos of us on bus benches around the city.

I had no idea how to go about making the bench so I asked my model making tutor for some advice.

He suggested using the kappa-line foam we've been using in class.

I started by cutting out the end pieces of the bench out of PVC card and sticking them to the ends of a piece of foam.

Then I sanded the foam until it was the same shape as the end pieces.

I painted the foam black and added the rails made of plastic covered wire which was conveniently already black.

I printed out a poster for the back which I stuck to some more PVC card and added feet details to the bench legs.

Then all I had to do was attach it to the main model.

Cake and Card

It was my Mum's birthday last week and in addition to getting her a present I also made her a cake and a card.

For the card a roughly drew a flower and then cut out all the parts with a scalpel.

I put a piece of coloured paper on the inside to highlight the cut-outs.

The cake was a standard Victoria sponge.

To decorate the top I tried putting a plastic doily on the cake and sifting icing sugar over it.

It kind of work, but I piped on some extra icing just to define the pattern.

And I put the cake on our 'I love you Mummy' plate.

Oh yes.

This Week I...

I started the week by sending off a painting to America!

This is the first painting I've sold off my Etsy shop so it was very exciting.

In scale model making class I worked on my wall.

Check that brickwork.

On Saturday evening I went to the gig that I'd organised for the Letchworth Arts Centre when I was still interning.

It was country-ish music as when I got the position back in August I told them I'd be going on holiday to Nashville and they were like, 'Nashville? You can organise a country music night then.'

I booked two bands; Taylor'd Country and CC Smugglers.

CC Smugglers got everyone up dancing and at the end of their set they came into the audience to do a few songs busker-style. It was awesome.

Colour Me Magnets

I have a new thing that I made and am really excited about!

Magnets that you colour in!

I love colouring in!

I've used the same magnetic paper that I made the gangsta words with, and it turns out felt tip pens draw splendidly on it.

So far I have two sets; cupcakes and teacups.

If they take off then I'll make more. I'm thinking dinosaurs...

I'm really proud of the packaging too.

I now want to print on everything other than plain white copy paper.

These magnets are of course available from my Etsy shop; cupcakes and teacups.

Mothers Day

This is my Mum when she was at college.

(Yep, I inherited those crafty genes, and that headscarf)

And this is my Mum and I stuck in my Dad's jacket.

Why the Mum pics?

Because Sunday was Mother's Day in the UK.

My gift was helping!

(It's my Mum's birthday later this week so she's getting actual presents then)

I decided to make up some coupons for various house things that I'll do so she doesn't have to; washing up, cleaning the bathroom, the ironing, the dusting, and even making a cup of tea.

Chore coupons. That's a bit American...how about Housework Vouchers.

Coupons is funner to say.

And like real coupons I've even included term and conditions.

The one for making a cup of tea is 'Dad can have one too'.

It's only fair.

This Week I...

On Monday I helped put up a recycled fashion exhibition at the arts centre.

That outfit right on the left is made entirely from teabags sewn together!

At the third session of my scale model making course at Central Saint Martins I finished another tiny chair and started making a tiny figure.

And on Sunday for Mother's Day we went to our local mill for cake.

Delightful.

Velvet

Even though velvet was recently a big trend, I think the last time I rocked it was this.

So I haven't had much to do with velvet.

Until now!

I got given this velvet fabric to make this bag for a production of Annie Get Your Gun.

More prop making.

And it's mustard coloured. That's another trend, right?

I figured the theatre people wouldn't want the scraps of fabric back so I did what I do with most bits of fabric.

I made a coupla bows.

The smaller one is a brooch and the larger one is a hairband which you can find on Etsy here.

Magnets, yo

For Christmas my sister got me a couple of packets of magnetic photo paper.

Who knew such a thing existed? 

The first way I decided to use it was to make a set of words to stick on my locker and have fun making different phrases.

As you might know I'm kind of a gangsta, so this is a set of gangsta words!

This is how I talk, yo.

I think I need to print out some more words, because I forgot vital ones like 'and'.

Not cool L-Dawg.

I can also use the words to label my photos...

...and my other magnets.

This Week I...

This week I bought a whole lot of fruit...

...for an edible art workshop!

The workshop was at a school 3 and a half hours away so I got to stay in a hotel the night before.

Fun fun.

Saturday was the second session of my scale model making course at Central Saint Martins.

I made a tiny chair!

How was your week?