Best bunting for your bucks.

This week I have been making some bunting for a charity called SEND A COW

Bunting is such an easy way to quickly add some colour and fun to a party or any place that needs jazzing up a bit, I have scoured Etsy and here is my top ten, hope you like them too.

From Paisley handmade.

From AniVintage

From vintage green limited.

From 1 pixie place

From Baloolah Bunting

From eaden yarns

from vintage and nostalgia

From chillipeppa (hee heee)

From peony and thistle

From The doll city rocker

Of course other market places are available but seriously why bother else where?



Marbling

Yes, I'm still alive.

The Sproggit and I had a go at marbling, I have to say that even though I only have a short post about it we really were quite obsessed about it and produced at least a hundred pieces of beautiful paper over a week or so trying different techniques. The example below was our first attempt. We watched plenty of tutorials on You Tube this one is our favourite, its quite long but the end result is pretty amazing.

Anyway, here is our first one, I had a kit which I bought years ago, I dont think it cost much, maybe ten pound. It came with water thickener and a few inks in a nice box. The only downside to paper marbling is that to get the best water you need to mix the solution the night before.

We didnt flick the ink into the water at first, we just let it drip in. We added more and more ink until the surface was pretty much covered.

 As you can see, the colours we got in our kit were full on but we later experimented with kids poster paint mixed with a bit of water to make it drippy. That worked well especially with the flicky method.

 Nextly we got a cocktail stick and had fun dragging the ink around. flower shapes are easily made by pulling the ink into the centre. This effect works best when you keep putting the ink inside the previous drip to form rings.

Here is our finished piece. Yes. this really is our first try. Now you can see why we ditched the camera and just got stuck in. Much fun was had.

A little goes a long way

I have a fabulous customer who makes unique handbags and more, she is as crazy about wax print as I am and she recently sent me a picture of a her green boucle, while she had it wrapped around her shoulders she had a eureka moment, what could possibly make this snugly wrap better?

AFRICAN WAX PRINT OF COURSE!

I love how wax print is just as interesting on a small scale and I have a Grey wool blanket that needs some life injected into it so I think I may be stealing this idea.

Photo a day

Day twenty....................

SOMETHING I DREW

Okay, so I didn't draw it, but I did help colour it in.

Day twenty one............

BOTTLE

I picked these up at the local car boot for about 50p. no idea how old they are but they are very pretty and have wibbly glass.



I finally found the time to finish my one off hand painted cotton. but I seriously suck at photography and out of all the shots I did, this is really the only usable one. which is still rubbish. Will have to re-do them all before it makes it into my shop.

Fabric printing

I have been working on different fabric printing techniques, I had a go at screen printing using home made screens, but I didn't like the way the ink had to be really solid just to get a print. Then I remembered when I worked at a T-shirt printing place a very long time ago, I was told that there is no variation in screen printing. You have good prints and bad prints. This is very true so I realised that I would probably never be happy with screen printing, I needed some thing that let you be more creative with the ink amount.

Stencils were the way forward. and any way, screens are just stencils...............on screens right?? 

So I have nearly finished my first yard. I have to say, I SERIOUSLY LOVE IT! I have been designing and cutting my own stencils, lots of angular stuff, but also some circular masks. Here is a little peek.

I love the way you can use the ink how you want, creating light and dark areas. My stencils are all temporary and will only be used for this piece so it will be absolutely one of a kind. I will post the finished fabric as soon as its finished.

Wax crayon print.

Today we tried wax crayon printing, the munckin drew a design on some fairly fine sandpaper, I went over any bits that were not very bright.

We put some card inside an old white school T-shirt, placed the picture face down and put a scrap piece of fabric on top, we set the iron to cotton and moved it slowly over our picture. after a couple of sneek peeks to check it had transfered enough we removed the sandpaper, put the fabric back on and ironed for a bit longer. aparently this heat sets it but its then reccomended that it goes in the tumble dryer for twenty minutes. but I dont have one.

I am rubbish at photography so the print looks a bit pale but it actually came out much brighter than above. These T-shirts are two for three pound in supermarkets and the crayons and sandpaper we already had at home, so this was a great inexpensive craft and she cant wait to wear her creation tomorrow!

Ink, stamp, fabric.

I have been doing another custom order today, so the rag rug has taken a back seat, I had a request for some Indian block printing. <------- video here! I don't have the speed of this guy, and a 36 x 60 inches piece of linen took me a looooooong time. I will definitely look into making some kind of ink pad like he uses for next time I do a large piece, I think it will help me get into more of a rhythm, right now I apply the ink with a small sponge. I took a quick pic while I gave my back a break, please excuse the poor light, had to wait until the monster had gone to bed.

I have bought a few new colours and plan on going to bed with this book. for inspiration on how I will use them. Its a beautiful book that I really recommend. Its written by the lovely MissPrint ladies and covers a broad range of techniques.

Cute custom order.

Today I had a custom order request,  I made these cute die cuts from an unloved childrens book, backed them with re-claimed pre-consumer waste white card (bit of a mouth full) and covered a match box with a picture and text from the same book. I'm so proud of them I had to share.

I think they would make really sweet business cards.

I may have to make some for myself!

'Rag rug' for the munchkin.

This is what I managed on day one.
It is definately looking more ruggy now. not sure how far this fabric is going to stretch.... but I am loving the colour combo and it will look fab in her room anyways.

I would love to see pics of rag rugs you or someone in your family made, or if you are making one right now why not post your progress too?!

Pinteresting........

I have not had much time for crafts the last few days, my daughter is about to start school and its been a long, long holiday, she has needed a lot of entertaining! I have discovered pinterest though, 
http://pinterest.com/faye_berrie/  its some thing I heard of a while ago but didnt get round to looking into. Its a great place to share ideas and find inspiration too. I have been using mine to collect crafty ideas, creative ideas for the home and share my etsy treasury's. here is one of my favourites.

To take a look at what the Etsians say about their items just click on this link, and check out all the other beautiful things that can be found on Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NzA1MTI5Mnw2OTU0Mzk2ODQ/good-bye-summer?ref=pr_treasury

I have also made a special one for today, September the eleventh.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NzA1MTI5Mnw3MDIzMTM5MDI/we-are-strong?ref=pr_treasury