New Painting - Getting Thrifty

A new cheap shop opened up near me called B&M and a few weeks ago me and my Mum went to check it. We love all those shops; Poundland, Home Bargains, Family Bargains.

#thrifty

We ended up spending almost 2 hours in B&M.

Totally the best time.

One of the things I bought was this printed canvas for £2.99.

It's 35x90cm!

It would be perfect for me to do a really decent painting on.

Except for that one issue of there already being something on it.

Which took me to another great place. The Scrap Store, of course, where I picked up this can of emulsion paint that still had a couple of inches of paint in, which was all I needed.

Using a roller to get the smoothest texture I painted over the graphic on the canvas.

It took about 4/5 coats but then it was good to go.

And here's what I've done with it.

I used one of my own photos but switched out the figure for some Google image people.

All of my own photos feature people my age so for some variety I had to look elsewhere.

This Week I...

...mostly worked and mass-produced things for upcoming craft fairs, which doesn't make for very interesting photos.

I did however receive some interesting deliveries in the post which I'll share with you.

I'll start by saying that I wasn't sponsored or anything by the companies mentioned - I wish, right! - I'm just a regular customer.

The first thing was these new business cards I ordered from Vistaprint. I only have business cards with a photo of one of my miniatures on so I thought it was about time to get some with a painting on.

Since my Beach Feet painting was so popular at the recent exhibition it was in I chose that image for the cards.

Vistaprint had a great deal on where I got 250 business cards for something like £14, and free delivery.

They even threw in a free business card holder.

They do try to sell you more things at every stage of the checkout process which can get annoying, as do the many emails after purchase with more offers and things to buy, but it's worth it to get the great deal.

I also got some greeting cards printed with three of my paintings on. This one, this one and this one.

I looked around on a few different photo sites and found that Photobox had the best deal as they had a 3 for 3 offer on card packs. 

This meant I got 3 packs of 10 A6 size cards, for about £23, and that includes the delivery.

They also come with envelopes which is incredibly useful as I don't have to worry about finding envelopes to match the size of the cards. 

And the images came out really well on the glossy card.

So how was your week?

Anyone making their own merch?

Gingerbread House Ornament

This post is more to share an idea than a finished product. Because the finished product didn't turn out too great...but I still like the idea!

Having made gingerbread men ornaments I thought a gingerbread house ornament would be fun, and you know how I like making miniature buildings.

I made some simple houses out of card and put a loop of gold thread between the roof so that they could hang.

I painted the houses with acrylic paint. The colour may have been the first mistake. It looks maybe a bit too orange for gingerbread.

For the icing/frosting detail I wanted something three-dimensional to replicate the real stuff.

I found this big tube of filler for 99p and thought it might be perfect for the job.

My Mum made me a piping bag out of greaseproof paper and I squeeze some of the filler in.

The piping in this photo isn't too bad, but other areas were a hot mess.

My piping skills aren't that bad - see last years actual gingerbread house - but the filler is thicker than icing and doesn't flow as well.

 This is what I ended up with.

I think the cardboard is too flat/lacking texture compared the filler which is maybe too big for the scale of the houses.

Any ideas for alternative ways to do this?

Or any other uses for the filler now that I have a whole tube of it?

Another Beach Painting

My latest painting is another that comes from the beach trip I took with my friends at the end of August.

It's also becoming a tradition to create a painting on a narrow canvas of myself at the beach. See here.

I like less traditionally shaped canvases as they allow my to play around with cropping and create a different composition to the original photo.

This is another photo from that trip which I think would make a great painting, but I don't think it would sell as well...

This Week I...

I started the week with a trip to the Scrap Store.

Man, I love that place.

I picked up a lot of fabric and zips, and also some wooden bag handles which I'm hoping to use soon.

On Saturday I did my first craft fair of the season. It went really well.

The venue had three rooms full of stalls and although I wasn't in the main room, I was in the warmest room!

And on Saturday evening I went to see some fireworks with my friends.

There was lots of 'ohhh'ing and 'awww'ing.

How was your week?