Carleen and Tom

Carleen and Tom are a young English couple living in Australian. They're getting married soon. I used to work with Carlee and we had arranged to catch up for breakfast this morning. On Friday I suddenly thought I ought to organise a wedding gift. Hardly enough time to make a quilt (bwahaha - my quilts usually take years, not hours or days).

I started with a card. I've been aiming to make a card every day or so, to build up my "on-hand stock". It was nice to have an actual recipient in mind.

The card is 9x4 inches, and based on an idea in the "Cardmaker's Sketchbook" (I will post about it - it's a wonderful resource.) It is black card, with a strip of gold hearts on clear velum. The stickers are el-cheapos, trimmed and repositioned on cream card. The velum is partly attached by the two visible brads, and partly by tape under the stickers. Inside is a piece of silver paper for the message.

I asked my online quilting group, Quilting Down Under, for ideas for a personal wedding present. Someone mentioned cushions. I know Carleen & Tom have two beautiful Bengal cats and they're a bit cat mad, so I looked for suitable images for a matching pair of cat cushions. Instead I found a lovely abstract of two cats. As it was too long to go on a cushion, I changed directions and made a small wallhanging.

When I was finishing it I remembered I had a cat wire hanger. Not sure where it came from; might have been a swap. I've had a small hanging on it for years - my very first practice block of hand quilting. But, really, it's neither here nor there to me and it is perfect for my cat hanging.

The two cats are Australiana fabrics I've had in my stash, left-over from a quilt I made in Perth (over 12 years ago). The border squares are from my 2 inch scrap stash. The background and binding are plain black homespun.

The squares in the border are pink/red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple - there's three fabrics for each colour, two squares for each fabric (i.e. six squares of each colour). I was told years ago that the secret to any scrappy quilt is to repeat fabrics. Apparently, if you repeat fabrics you can basically get away with anything. Where possible I have chosen either Australiana or cat fabrics.

The cats are appliquéd with machine blanket stitch. I quilted in the ditch between the centre and the border, and shadow quilted about 1/4 inch from the edge of the cats. The whole thing is very approximately 20x10 inches.

I'm quite happy with the result.

Creativity Journal - Day 19 (floating)

Create something that floats on water. (It doesn't have to be a boat.)

I was thinking about this challenge last week, while sitting in my car in the car wash. All the water around obviously went with the floating theme. I tried to work out how to fold an origami boat with my receipt but failed miserably. I just ended up with a piece of paper with dozens of criss-crossed folder lines.

All the emotional dramas of being unemployment (or well under-employed) got in the way of life last week and I never quite got around to researching my origami. I finally did it the other night, and finally now I'm posting the results.

I won't post the instructions, mainly because there's lots of resources on the web already. I'll just send you to the two sites I used.

The first site was for a simple sail boat - Origami-Instructions.com.

One comment: I used my receipts and I found that the 'sail' must remain taller than the sides when you're folding. That is, when you get the instruction "Now fold each edge of the paper upwards as shown.  Use your fingers to open up into a hat!  You can stop at the hat, or continue on to the boat." the centre points must be above the edges you are folding up. Using receipts, which a long and thin, I sometimes had to fold in the extra length.

The second site was for a long thin boat. I thought this style would work better for my receipts, particularly the family grocery bill. The site I found was origami.wonderhowto.com.

I had a little bit of difficulty following the end of the video. I sometimes think these sort of instructional videos would be best done with the video over the person's shoulder. That way, non-spatial people like myself, aren't trying to tie our brains into knots working out which way around things go. The main thing that I missed at the end is that the very last step, after all the folding is complete (from about 1:47 in the video) actually involves turning the entire boat inside out.

If you look closely in this photo, you'll notice that my long boat is not very secure - because I didn't turn it inside out. I was watching the video on my phone and just couldn't make it out.

The next day I tried again, watching it on a bigger screen, with a some what squarer piece of paper.

I refolded my original receipt boat and tried them all out in the water. Result - some receipts make great boats because the paper is waxy; others are very thin and take on water quite quickly.

The wonderful thing about both these boats is that they only involve about five or six sets of folds (and the magical turn inside trick for the long boat). They're really easy to learn and memorise. I can see it being a useful "magical aunty" sort of trick for visits to parks and ponds - IF you put all your 'dead' boats in the bin so they don't feed birds :-(

Not fabric related, although I was thinking so stiff serviettes could be folded into the long boat for cutlery sets at a dinner party. Not word related, although I used printed paper. But definitely not clutter creating, because I used paper destined for the bin.

Creativity Journal - Day 8 Update (book)

Transform an old book into something new by cutting, folding, gluing, and so on.

I finished this challenge a couple of weeks ago, I just forgot to post about it. I finally overcame my hesitation (paranoia) about cutting up or destroying a book. I will confess going to two op shops before I found the 'right' book. I didn't even really know what I wanted to do with it, and still I couldn't choose a book. "Too plain, too fancy, too many pictures, too many photos." Sigh!

Finally I found a book that was a good mix of words and photos. In the end - I didn't use any of the photos at all. Still, I've saved them, I'm sure they'll come in handy for something. One day.

I found a poster on Pinterest that I really liked.

I wanted to make my own version; something uniquely ours rather than a copy. Knowing I planned on working with cut outs, I designed it in Excel using bold fonts, no thin line fonts. I used Excel because it allows for limitless page size.

I had already bought a canvas. I didn't buy a square canvas, because it wouldn't work in the space I was planning to use. My canvas is twice as long as it high, so although I was using the above layout as a guide, I had to think about my own design elements. Once I decided on what words were going on what lines, I used Word Art to allow me to drag the words bigger, higher, wider (or smaller, shorter, narrower) in the space I wanted.

The fonts I used are:

• Rockwell Extra Bold (twice)
• Cooper Black
• Berlin Sans FB Demi
• Franklin Gothic Heavy
• Arial Black

When I finally had a design that met the Teen's approval (my art critic) I printed out the lettering. I rough cut each letter, laid it over the section of the book's page I wanted to use and then cut through both layers with a craft knife. Much easier than cutting out the letters, drawing the letters onto the page, then cutting out the page.

My letters all cut out and ready to go. I considered cutting out the pictures from the book somehow to make a collage background for the canvas. I decided that it would be too busy and not the look I was hoping for. In the end I squirted rows of green and white paint on to my canvas and just sort of smoshed them about with a brush.

The end result was quite evenly coloured, but it has a hint of variation. Because the paint ended up quite thick, I used it to 'glue' the letters down. Sadly, that means not guide lines and my letters are little wonkier in placement than I would like. If I did it again, I lay out my lettering before I painted the canvas and draw faint guide lines to get a more even layout. Everything should be moved down just slightly; the 'most' is supposed to tuck into the 'h' of 'house' - not sit over the top of it; and the 'share' line has a slight slope, but these things are hard to remember when you're working on the fly.

Apologies for the poor quality picture. I think I must have taken it in the afternoon, when the sun comes through the window behind this opening.

Creativity Journal - Day 16 (Stamping)

Make a unique print by cutting up a potato or sponge, and use it to stamp on a material of your choice.

 
Again, I’ve been missing in action. The good news is that my creativity continues, even if my blogging is somewhat erratic. Today’s challenge fester in the back of my mind as I completed some paid work (woohoo), drafted an essay for uni, created three 80s costumes for a theme party, and generally kept up with off-line living.

My efforts do not reflect either of my themes, but are in keeping with my ‘create no clutter’. We had a birthday party to attend. I have a box full of gift bags and paper shop bags. The plan was to buy a five cent washing up sponge, cut it, paint it, and stamp a paper bag to use as a gift bag. If the bag has a shop name on it, a piece of card with the recipient’s name or “happy birthday” covers it and you’re good to go.

Naturally, I didn’t take any photos of the finished product. I was too busy admiring the effect of the dish sponge. I used ordinary acrylic paint – silver on brown paper. To get an even image, I used one of my Perspex stamping blocks to push the sponge down; I didn’t bother attaching the sponge. When I was finished, I decided that washing out the sponge to store and reuse would use more water than it was worth, so some small clutter.

five cent sponges (well, sort of, nothing's five cents anymore)

Star cut out

Paint, silver acrylic

presser

Stamped bag. A name tag was placed over the shop's stamp.

Close up. Isn't that fun?

Another close up

Creativity Journal - Day 3 (Paper)

Make something out of paper, but don't use scissors or glue or draw on it. What now? (And no, you don't have to know origami to do this.)

I was a little perplexed how to go about today's challenge. I haven't mentioned it yet, but one of my rules is that creations are not to create clutter. I don't want to end up with a bunch of things I have no use for just so I can say I was creative.

I could think of lots of things to make from paper without using scissors or glue or drawing. But to make something that also related to words or fabric AND was useful or wanted? The brain cells had to work a little harder.

For my words project I have an embossed bookmark. The card was a strip left over from scrap booking, so technically, I didn't use scissors for this project. Although writing is a form of drawing, I have chosen to believe that by not using a traditional drawing implement, I have fulfilled the spirit of the challenge. (My creativity, my rules.)

The bookmark is for my happiness journal. Some time ago I watched Shawn Achor on TED talking about the 'happiness advantage'. His research, based on chemical analysis and brain functions, indicates that being happy leads to success, rather than the common perception that success leads to happiness.Something he mentioned made perfect sense to me. The goal posts of success are constantly moving. If we set success as graduating, once we achieve that, we set a new mark in the sand - get a job, then, get a promotion, then ... and on it goes.

At the end of his talk, Shawn talked about a 21day challenge. The challenge is quite simple - perform five simple tasks every day for 21 days to improve your happiness. The five simple tasks really help you focus on perception of reality; changing your view from negative to positive. Those five tasks are: exercise, meditate, let someone in your network know you value them (and why), record three things (different every day) that you're thankful for, and journal about one positive thing that happened during day. If you watch Shawn's video, he explains the rationale for each.

As I mentioned when I started this creativity project, I'm not real good at day-to-day routine. I started the 21-day challenge several times. I did end up completing 21 consecutive days. Since then my journaling has been a little sporadic (although not as sporadic as my exercising). I do think it's a good idea to 'count your blessings, name them one by one'. I think we too often see the negative and we are quite surprised 'by what the Lord has done' when we stop and think about it.

Moving on to my fabric challenge. Work with paper using a fabric theme. Hmmmm. Although it sounds contradictory, this set me less challenges than working with words. I put an old needle in the sewing machine, took a piece of scrap book paper, folded it, sewed it and hey, presto, a pocket for paper off-cuts from my current scrap booking endeavours.

Are you any good at origami? What's the best thing you've ever folded?

Holster

I made more stickers today. Little smiley faces in jail LOL. The Man is a prison chaplain and works every 2nd Sunday in a different prison. Each prison has different service times. These new stickers have the prison name on them, so The Girl & I know where he is and when he's due home.


The original clip art is a smiley astronaut. I put the name badge over the stars on his helmet and the bars on the front.

I also continued working on my sewing holster. It's almost finished but the binding HAS to be sewn by hand :-( They say to cut it 1 1/4 inch wide. The instructions seem to indicate that it's folded like normal binding, but aren't very clear. I've had to trim the layers right back to be able to wrap it over. I'm almost half way there with the hand stitching. Maybe photos tomorrow :-)

Stickers & Doodads

I've had a busy day. Can't say I've been in the best frame of mind today. The next door neighbour rang at SEVEN AM. There went my planned sleep in. Still, things achieved.

Decided that sharp objects and measuring (requiring clear thinking) probably weren't a good idea. Took some time this morning to make some stickers for the family calendar. I use a big, almost A2 sized, desk calendar for the family. I bought some stickers, but there's things missing that I wanted and things that we don't use. I went to Word, found some related clipart, and made my own.

To find related clipart (ie clipart that's in a similar style) - search for an image in Word. Open the preview window so you can see the name of the image; usually a bunch of numbers dot jpg or wmf etc. Copy that name into Goggle; the top result will almost certainly be the Microsoft clipart site (that's the easiest way to find it, rather than navigating the MS site). Open the preview window there and there'll be a link for "style" (another number). If you click that, it'll find all the clipart that's the same style as the original.

To make my stickers, I resized all the images to 1.5cm high, printed a long strip of them, and then feed them through a scrapbook sticker maker gadget. Handy dandy thing. Think it was about $15 from KMart; rolls of tape are about $10 (but seem to last ages); works a treat. I use it for address labels, spice bottle labels etc.









My 2nd creative effort was to extend one container of fried rice into a full meal. Cut up a bunch of veggies, scramble fried some eggs, fried the veggies, added the fried rice, added a packet of fried rice flavouring. Hey presto - a full meal and left over.

And last, but not least, I've started a sewing holster. It goes around you neck; looks a bit like an extra long undone bow tie LOL. Has a pocket at each end and a pin/needle holder. It's all quilted and the one in the book looks pretty speccy. Tonight I chose some fabrics and cut them out. The idea is to quilt the fabric and then cut it to the shapes required. Hopefully, pictures to post tomorrow.

Busy Weekend

We had a full weekend. Lots of creative activity. Saturday I worked on T for Thomas in the morning. Later in the afternoon we went to the Jacaranda Festival; a local fair. In the evening we went to the Planetarium. Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy so we didn't get to see the real stars. Saw a great star show in the dome though and got some contacts for The Girl to learn how to use her telescope.

Sunday morning we visited a church on the north side. I met Graham & Sheila Woodward about 20 years ago in Victoria. Although our time together was brief, they made an impression on my life. Our church was away for the weekend, so we took the opportunity to go visiting.

Afterwards, we visited other friends on the east side of town. We ended spending the rest of the day with them. It was a good afternoon. I came home and went to bed. No "artistic" creativity on Sunday; but lots of inspiration. Some lovely quilted wall hangings in the church and some wonderful dramatic presentations. And some inspired conversations in the afternoon.

Today I have created a card for my friend whom we visited on Sunday afternoon. The photos are brilliant (I was been "hurried up" to play cards). The flower is a larger image behind an aperture in the front of the card. The verse is 1 Corinthians 2:9 No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.




I had a realisation today on the way home from a very draining day at work. Since April I have spent the vast majority of my work day buried in programing a database. Database programming is very logical and analytical. Today I tracing numbers; it's complicated to explain but suffice to know that there's LOTS of numbers and NO art LOL.

I considered that maybe I need some means of clicking from left brain to right brain when I get home. Maybe the 'forced' five minutes of creativity is enough; I'm not sure. I know there are exercises that are supposed to engage both sides of the brain. It's something I plan on investigating.

Teddy Card

I wasn't creative yesterday. Most of the afternoon I was battling a caffeine withdrawal headache. Why I do this to myself I'll never know. Today I finished my niece's engagement card.


The front of the card. The card has a precut window and came with various coloured frames. The teddies are from a packet of postcards I bought about 12 years ago. They were supposed to be for birthday cards. On the back in the postage stamp corner some of them have names. Obviously not a goal that I met!


The inside of the card. The card doesn't have a flap to cover whatever you put in the cut out, so I needed to cover it with paper of some sort. My sewing/craft room is very well organised. Everything is in boxes, with labels. There's no boxes behind other boxes. I used to have lots of smaller boxes, but the ones behind were a pain to get to. Now, I have larger boxes and some have smaller boxes in them. I have a box labelled paper craft. Inside is a box with stamps, another with pens, etc. I spent two days looking for paper. Naturally, I couldn't see the BIG box labelled "scrap book paper". When I did eventually find it I found these lovely couple of bears, who look like they're supposed to go with the front bears. In fact, they're from a cutesy calendar I saved (also probably 12 years ago).


Personal details on the envelope have been smudged electronically; in real life they're very pretty :-) I stuffed the envelope. Day dreaming away I wrote the groom-to-be's name instead of the street name. DUH! I have no labels at home, but The Girl has a label maker. Feed your bit of something in the top and hey presto a label pulls out the bottom. So, I took the opportunity to make the writing a little fancy.