Bits and Pieces

Hey! Gosh, it's getting close to uni starting now - I am so excited! ^_^ I have been working on a couple of kinda big projects which aren't finished yet, so here are some other things I've been doing ...

I found this set of rainbow seed beads in tiny plastic test tubes! So awesome ^_^ I've been trying to think of something to make with them, but I haven't decided on anything yet.

I've been making a lot of salads and really, really loving these baby beats - yum! ^_^ Colourful lunches are the best!

Washing out paintbrushes makes pretty coloured water, which is also pretty cool ^_^

 

The power went out for five hours one night, leaving me glad that I own way too many candles and also keep tiny battery operated lanterns in my linen cupboard (that's obviously the logical place to keep them ...) ~_^

Scott and I have been watching "Psych" and having fun competing to spot the pineapple in each episode (yes, we're that easily amused!). It's gotten to the stage where I took this photo while doing the grocery shopping to send to Scott and he's been drawing pineapples and leaving them around the house ^_^

My awesome work friends threw a farewell afternoon tea for me ^_^ Theresa even made me a sugar and flour free cake ... but we all decided that baked goods should definitely contain both of those things! The dapper minifig was one of my presents - I also got *a lot* of stationary (they know me so well ^_^)

I finally gave Nana Alma her new convertible mittens - they're the type that she can pull off the covers that go over her fingers and thumbs to turn them into fingerless mitts when she wants to turn book pages and the like.

Nana Alma, Mum, Bec, and I went to high tea at the WA Museum, which was really great! We also saw "Unveiled" which is an exhibition on the history of wedding outfits - it was really interesting ^_^

I've been doing a little bit of embroidery, and also spent a bit of time organising my floss container. Seeing all of these colours together makes me happy ^_^

I made this little brooch which will be part of my Steampunk Librarian costume for Oz Comic Con (it's next weekend - squee!) using a mini life drawing model. To make the sign I wrote on a piece of balsa wood with the quill and ink my parents brought me from Germany. It didn't turn out perfectly neat but I still like how it looks ^_^ I also added a tiny top hat made from Sculpey and drew on a little mustache using my trusty Sharpie ^_^

 

And I finished off these little Harry and Ron brooches ^_^ To make them I just used blanket stitch to attach the fabric cut out to a piece of felt. The fabric is one of my designs from my Spoonflower store.

What have you been working on?

- Lisa x

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

Crochet peas and carrots, plus Spoonflower fabric napkins

Hi, how has your long weekend been? Mine is almost over, and I didn't do quite as much craft as I planned to. But, I slept and cleaned more than I planned to, so I guess it all evens out ^_^

I crossed another thing off my giant craft list - yay! I crocheted a pea pod and a carrot using the pattern in the fifth issue of Mollie Makes. The photo above was taken using one of pages of Mollie Makes as a background ... don't you just love that font and the tiny little flowers? ^_^

Esther the rabbit was happy to participate in a little photo shoot ~_^

 

I like how the pattern turned out some pretty life-sized vegetables! I have no idea what I'm going to do with them now though ...

 

I also *finally* finished making napkins from some of my designed fabric, printed by Spoonflower. I made twelve napkins, they have a plain white fabric backing and are finished with a rolled hem.  

I'm not really sure how to take exciting photos of napkins though, sorry!

What did you do this weekend? Any tips for how I could add interest to my photos? Or actually take good photos? ~_^

- Lisa x