More crafts!

So, for the last of a very crafty few blog posts! I would've included these last few stragglers in my last post however they were both gifts for birthdays that were occurring between then and now. ANYWAY, here they are.

First off, I know you're probably sick of hearing about my recent hype for making picture tiles but here's my last little spin on it. (I say last but you just know every one of my friends is gonna be getting a cheeky tile for xmas). I should say that this was a very personalized gift, for my friend, Helen. She's a big Quentin Tarantino fan so I took that as my starting point. I then stumbled across some really nice prints by an artist called Ale Giorgini, which you can check out here. He conveniently had a few different Tarantino inspired pieces and so I selected the ones that I knew Helen liked best and got to work composing my masterpiece gift. (steady on, Laura). I used the same technique as before for creating the tiles which, again, you can find here. I then found myself a bit of scrap wood in me' dad's shed and painted it white before mounting the tiles at equal distances (I just did this using some strong adhesive, a "No More Nails" type thing).

And here's how it turned out.

When the adhesive had set I then stenciled on the film titles (admittedly, not very well) and voila! Helen was happy enough with it and it was a very easy make.

My next make wasn't that crafty actually, but a personalized "handmade" gift technically. An easy, cheap solution to making your own presents as well. This one was for my lovely friend and ex-housemate, Louise! Twas simply a print in a simple frame. I created the text on Photoshop and formatted it for printing before sending it off to Snapfish to print for me on some matte photo paper. I specially downloaded a nice, quirky font as well, just because nothing says less effort to me than Times New Roman!

Apologies for the low quality image!

Then all I did was choose a frame, basic white was all this particular print needed, I thought. Easy peasy.

Ooh, you crafty beggar.

That's right, more crafts.

Good news, it is now Autumn! That means jumpers, boots, scarves and plenty of tea! It also means that there's not long left til I go back to uni and, I must say, I am relieved. "Summer" has just been too long. This does mean though that there will probably be a decline in crafts to update you with, and for that matter, probably a decline in posts in general. However, for now, I have another little collection of crafty bits to show you!

First off, my "Flight Of The Conchords" T-Shirt, inspired by series 1, epsiode 1 of the HBO television show of the same name. This was a very cheap make and pretty quick and easy. Well, I say that, there was one t-shirt casualty (and a lesson learnt, Dylon broad fabric markers are rubbish). For the slightly more successful tee, I chose myself a nice green top (£3.50 Primark) and got to work drawing out my design onto it. To do this I traced it through the material using a thin yellow felt tip pen. Now, I probably wouldn't recommend the yellow pen, as my white lines never turned out, well... white. However I didn't have a magic ink fabric pen or tailors chalk. You could say I poorly improvised, unless you want a yellow design in which case GO ME. I then applied several layers of white, Dylon fabric paint on top of the yellow outline (sealing with heat between each layer). I then stenciled on a quote from the scene I was depicting (in pen first) and BOOM, done, easy.

Left: My first unsuccessful attempt is now a pyjama top. Right: The finished product!

I tweeted this end product to Rhys Darby, a comedian who plays Murray (the beardy man above!) and he replied saying "very cool!" which made me very happy.

And whilst I'm on the subject of T-Shirts, I may aswell show you the tee I hand-painted for the lovely Chester waaaay back in March, inspired by Chris Lilley's comedy series, "Angry Boys". Twas a well received birthday gift.

And that's your lot for now, more to come at the end of the week (because upcoming birthdays mean I can't spoil the surprises of my other little offerings yet!)

Peace out.

Crafty bits

So for my stupidly long summer holiday (seriously, it's about 15 weeks) I have decided that, since I had no luck on the job front, I ought to get my productive hat on in other ways. And because I like making stuff, I'm looking for all sorts of crafty bits to get on with.

Apologies for the terrible quality picture.

Back in January I made this little gem and it looks great in my room back at uni. This year I'm keen to find more projects that I can try and hopefully get the same amount of satisfaction from making! (For those interested, It's a map of West Yorkshire, threaded between metal tacks that gather at a heart that's located around my hometown) It was surprisingly easy (and cheap!) to make and you can find a similar tutorial here. I couldn't find the exact one, my bad!

Last week I had a little go at making my own photo tiles, following guidance from a tutorial here! They turned out pretty nicely but I would like to give them a bit more time to perfect (I'll admit I rushed them a bit, resulting in paper bubbling!) I'll upload some pictures at a later date as I've given the pre-made ones away as gifts already. I can however show you the nice job I did of wrapping them for my friends, twins, Robyn & Ellen.

Can't get enough of brown paper packaging at the moment!

The only other remotely arty sort of thing I've been up to lately is a bit of drawing and painting, with varying levels of success! I have re-adopted my favoured style of painting portraits, in blocks of black and white. Really I think I only do this because it's my most successful way of making a painting look remotely like a face (as I'm terrible at drawing realistic people).. I've done a few different paintings, usually of familiar faces or iconic portraits. Most recently I've painted Jagger, Morrissey & Bowie and I'm pretty pleased with my results.

Thoughts?