More cards...

Here's another couple of cards I made this week. As always, both designs are so simple, even a 5 year old could do it.

In this card, I opted to use one of the Kirigami designs for as main piece.

Speaking of Kirigami, I like this design. Very celtic....

My first card...and more Kirigami

I must say, I've been a right crafty little bugger this evening. I made my first card, even designed it myself.

Although I admit it's not exactly the most professional looking handmade card in the world, the photo taken on my crappy camera phone does not do it any justice - you can't even see the little stamps in the 4 corners which read 'It's Your Day'...

Oh well at least I had fun making it.

I know I said I wouldn't take a picture of every single kirigami design I cut out, but I really liked this one - has a really ancient symbol feel to it....

Kirigami: My new love

Just before the xmas break, I once popped into an arts&craft store (I pop into this store, probably more often than is considered healthy).

As I browsed the store one shelf caught my eye, as it is was stacked with desktop calenders, all craft related. Being a selfish brat that I am, I just had to have one, and proceeded to take years deciding which one I should purchase - I even considered buying more than one!!

In the end I opted for the one, that would be the least time consuming, simple and yet so effective - Kirigami, an ancient Japanese art form.

The above image is 1st January, a pretty snowflake that took less than 5 mins to produce.

I have no intention of taking a picture of every single one I cut out and uploading here, as that would be ridiculous, but I will from time to time upload the designs I particularly like.

Who knows? I may even gain the confidence to create my own designs.....

Ink drawings

Again, it's been awhile since I last posted anything here - that's because I'm soo busy!! Honest! However, I have made small efforts to do a bit of drawing, and over the last couple of weeks, I have been drawing images from Lee Hammond's 'Lifelike Drawing', which is like a drawing bible to me.

Needless to say, my drawings look shite compared to Lee's originals. Also I chose to do them in ink, rather than in pencil - if you saw Lee's drawings you would instantly notice the lack of blending in my drawings.

You will probably also notice that my drawings are completely out of proportion - that's because I was too lazy to use Lee's grid drawing technique - naughty naughty!

Nevertheless, I found it quite therapeutic to just sit there and draw, without particularly concentrating or thinking about anything as such.

So the above images were my best of a bad bunch crafty moves...

Tealights

I often like to have a candlelit room as it helps me relax in the evening. Tonight was no exception, but I thought the arrangement of the contrast of light and shadows was worth taking photos of.

Been a true 'professional' I started to experiment with the camera function on my mobile to see what kind of effects I'd get.

I find the black&white effect in the above photo quite striking, almost like a negative of a photo.

I can't decide which of the two photos (the one above and one below) I prefer: I also can't remember which one was sepia, or which one was antique effect.

To be honest, they're really not that different from each other - but I like both of them anyway.

Finally I took a photo, using the negative effect, with the above result: again a very interesting contrast in light/darkness, particularly the light reflections on the chest of drawers these tealights were assembled on.

And that was my 'crafty' move for the day.....

Another knitting needle holder.....

Yep, I lony went and made another - this time for my work colleague, who knows
a hell of a lot more about knitting than I do.....



This time, I got 2 different tea towels and sewed them together round the edges, before sweing the different sections.

My colleague was well chuffed when she received it, as she was just thinking of buying hersedlf one....

Guess I saved her a few bob.....

Knitting needle holder

I was inspired by this idea after seeing a picture of a knitting needle holder in the 'Hobbycraft' magazine. As it looked so simple yet ingenius, I thought I'd give it a go, using the sewing machine I have finally mastered (long story covered in my other blog).

I have basically taken a tea towel, folded it lengthways to the appropriate lenght i.e. so that my longest needles will fit, sewed the 2 ends along where the towel was folded, then made 1 inch wide compartments by sewing in the same direction - to keep needles seperate.

Et voila!!

Even the cat was impressed, though personally I think she would prefer to use it as a scratching post....

Only thing I need to do now to finish this project is find a nice pretty ribbon to sew on one end so that I can tie the knitting needle holder once it's rolled up to prevent it coming apart.

Whether I actually get round to using these needles, which I inherited from my granny (bless her), is another question...