Friday 24 August 2012

Art canvas and a silk scarf


Hey folks! Today I have a day off work (yay!) because I have to work on Sunday (not so yay) and I have a couple of completed projects - hopefully I'll have enough time after cleaning the entire house (>_<) to finish off some more things to show you!

This is my first attempt at a kinda scrap-booky, art canvas-y kinda thing. Mmmm, descriptive!


I made it for the Harry Potter Craft-a-long, it's for Defence Against the Dark Arts and so it's meant to represent one's greatest fear. It's quite pretty for something based on that though!
 

My greatest fear is wasting my life, or putting things off too long, and then realising one day that I'm an old lady and I haven't accomplished all that I set out to do. Ha ha, I guess it makes sense that I'm in Slytherin now, doesn't it? ~_^


To make this I covered a five inch square canvas with scrapbooking paper (it's quite subtle, but it's lined up like old school paper), covered it with mod-podge and then just started layering elements on it. The clock is a wooden cut-out that I got at Spotlight, and the gears are cardboard cut-outs from Riot. I dug through my old scrapbooking supplies (I was really in to it in high school) for the metal brads that I used to spell out "time". The scrabble letters that spell out "flies" are paper from the same pack as the base paper; the wings are also from that same paper pack and they are covered in iridescent medium that I got from Riot. I thought it would dry clearer than it did, but I still think it looks good. The stamps I brought from Pigeonhole and the twine is from my kitchen drawer ~_^ I really don't remember where I got all the washi tape and the tag with the lock was made using more scrapbooking paper. I inked around the edges of some of the elements and also the canvas using regular black ink. All in all, I quite like how it turned out and I'm thinking of doing a series of these canvases. I definitely want to do a sewing/ crafting themed one (either "make do and mend" or "a stitch in time") and I'd like to do a writing one as well, but I can't really think of a saying to go with it, except for "write on". If you can think of a good phrase, I'd love to hear it! ^_^


The other thing that I've been working on is more fabric designs via Spoonflower. The picture above shows some gorgeous cotton silk that I ordered to make a birthday present for my grandma with. I used Trove to find the digatised copy of the West Australian from the day my Nana Alma was born, back in 1927, and then I used Illustrator to make a design using selected clippings. The quality of the raw images wasn't great (this is probably largely because I just downloaded them as jpegs, rather than ordering pdf copies) so I mainly used advertisements rather than articles. Plus, most of the articles were pretty depressing! I especially included an advertisement from Boans, which was a department store that no longer exists, as Nana worked for them when she lived in the city as a young lady. I also found the actual birth annoucement for Nana (which was pretty awesome!) so I included that in the design as well.

I'm going to spend some time hemming this by hand as I didn't make the border really big and I'm a bit terrified of putting this through the overlocker >_< The completed item will be a silk scarf ^_^

I've made some other designs as well, which you can check out at my Spoonflower store ^_^

I hope you're having a great day!

- Lisa x

4 comments:

Tanya said...

what the what! MY DEAREST LISA! That custom scarf thing I think is the best thing ever. Ever in the history of things it is the best thing!
Yet another idea that I have to steal from you, or at the very least pin to my pinterest wall. Can I mention it on my blog one day? The world (or at least my few followers) needs to see this awesomeness!!

Lisa said...

Wow, thanks Omlair! I'm really glad you like it! ^_^ You may of course steal/ pin/ blog anything you like but I feel compelled to mention that I am 99% sure that this isn't an original idea ... and after a quick internet search I confirm that! The Spoonflower blog actually did an tutorial on this! I didn't use their tutorial, but it does confirm that I am completely unoriginal ~_^

Tanya said...

Regardless, I haven't seen it before so it's new to me and for that I salute you.

PLUS your execution of it is astounding! Finding the birth announcement?? AMAZING!! I'd love to hear back on your nana's reaction when she receives it too!!

Lisa said...

Thanks Omlair, I'm glad you're not too disappointed by me ~_^ And I will definitely post about Nana's reaction! I'm going to go and see her next week ^_^