Christmas Characters in tiny jars

I bought these tiny jars a while ago and I couldn't think what to do with them, and then I got the idea to put some tiny characters inside of them and make them into christmas tree decorations. (They are very small, the jar opening is about 10mm) I think that next time if I made more I would use jars with a larger opening! That is why the snowman has somewhat stumpy arms haha! 

I made the characters out of white Milliput and then I painted them. Milliput is ideal because it's air drying so it would dry in the bottom of the jars to create the snow, and its super hard so it is easy to paint.

 

  

 

Polar Bear Felted Christmas Jumper

I thought I'd share with you my hand decorated Christmas Jumper which I made for this Christmas. I wasn't going to make one this year but I remembered I had some soft white wool fluff, and I found the perfect jumper in a charity shop so this is what I created!

I drew out the polar bear shape and then resized it and cut it out of white normal felt. Then I needlefelted on some layers of white fluff onto the flat felt until the bear reached the right thickness. I was able to create some depth to the legs and ears when the felt was thick enough. I added a simple black bead for an eye and some brown wool for a nose. Quite simple and hopefully tasteful!

(Apologies for the images, my house is very dark! )

Origami Paper Folded Christmas Decorations

In the summer I learned how to make these lovely Origami folded paper decorations, courtesy of Origami Est at The Handmade Fair. Its very easy to do and quite relaxing! Really pleased with the way these turned out, I used some lovely Christmas foiled paper by Dovecraft, Time to Sparkle, in 6 inch squares. You can see how to make these in Origami Est (Esther Thorpe's) book, Paper Home

or online here.

Happy Sprout Christmas decorations

Just thought I'd share these cute happy sprouts that I crafted out of Fimo :)

Make it in Design Summer School Creative Brief - Pure Zen

For the last couple of weeks I've been coming up with a pattern design for the Make it in Design Summer School Creative Brief, which was themed "Pure Zen". 

My idea was based upon the idea of oriental origami being very calming to make. A Crane bird is a very popular design to make, and so I decided to base my pattern idea on the image of a folded paper crane.  I used a calming grey palette for the crane outlines and a very slight pink hue in the watercolour background. I'm fairly pleased with the end result although I didn't really have enough time to work on it!

Origami Cranes Pattern

Example of a possible application of the pattern as a wallpaper

Fabric application

More wallpaper

My folded paper origami Crane

3 x original interior images: Designed by Mrsiraphol / Freepik

Cleo Dungaree Dress

I wanted to make a Dungaree dress, and it was surprisingly hard to fin a decent pattern! I chose this one from Tilly and the Buttons, called Cleo it was relatively simple to make and only uses 1.2m of fabric which makes it very cost effective.

I made a couple of changes to the pattern which was making the straps thicker, so that they would fit better into the clip things which I had already bought. I forgot to bear in mind that wider straps need a larger space where they attach to the back of the dress. I also made the straps so that they were adjustable in length, meaning I had to make the straps pieces longer from the pattern.

I added some swallow Iron on patches from Jennie Maizels (it's best too sew those on as they didn't stick very well to the corderoy!). Overall pretty pleased with the dress and definately plan to make more.

Nb I have actually no idea how the pocket ended up so low down! seems to be ok though!

 

Copper pipe bedside table

As I could not find a table small enough to fit beside my bed, I decided to make one from copper pipes, because I'd seen a lot of pictures and ideas on Pinterest. I chose a (what I thought was) simple shape that didn't require any bended corners or general complicatedness! 

Once I had assembled all the bits I decided it was best to glue them in place using araldite but it is probably better to solder them if you can! 

I'm really pleased with the result, though I think I need to give it a bit of a polish! Thanks to the guys at Plumbtech in Frome for cutting all the many pieces of pipe for me and Roman Glass where I got the custom cut bit of glass for the top.

 

 

Owls in embroidery hoops

From my last post owls hanging nursery mobile I decided to make some more simple gifts using the same owl characters. I sewed the pieces onto some pale grey needlecord (left over from my dungaree dress which I made - blog post to come when I get around to photographing it!) I stuffed some wadding into each owl too to make it a bit 3D, then I framed them in a painted embroidery hoop and hanged with a matching ribbon.

Please do get in touch if you would like me to make you anything similar :)

 

 

Owls hanging nursery mobile

Recently I created this set of cute owls to make into a mobile to decorate the nursery of a friend, which has a woodland theme.

I used lots of scrap fabrics but with a similar colour scheme, sewing 4 stuffed owl characters and 4 different kinds of leaf. I tried to add some detail to the back of each owl too, using buttons, felt and different patterns of stitching to stimulate the small person whilst they look at it!

I'm really pleased with how the owl characters turned out and maybe I can make some more of these little characters soon! Please do get in touch if you would like any similar things created for you.

 

 

 

Eden Project Botanical Illustation Course

Last week I attended a Botanical Illustation Course at the Eden Project. This was my second time doing a course there and this time it was a whole 5 days of drawing and painting, and learning a bit about plants.

The course started with us learning all about the different parts of plants and flowers to help make more informed drawings. We had tours of both the outside and tropical biomes from members of the horticultural team at Eden which were really interesting. 

We began the final piece by choosing something to draw, there were plenty of interesting plant materials to choose from, I chose this Globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus) because I love the colours and shape, plus I thought it would be achievable to complete a painting of this in the time. Next we made a scale drawing of the item, which we shaded in using graphite on some tracing paper. The original drawing was then transferred to the watercolour paper using tracing paper before being painted with watercolours.

Our teacher was the lovely Laura Silburn who is a botanical artist working in Cornwall, and a Fellow of the Eden Project Florilegium Society, whos beautiful paintings we were able to view at the end of the course.

My completed Artichoke botanical watercolour painting

Initial sketch of Artichoke

Dissecting a daffodil

Daffodil Ovary!

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