Pay It Forward

At the beginning of the year, LD decided to participate in a Pay It Forward project on Facebook. The rules were to post the following as your status: 

Pay It Forward for Creative People: I promise to send something handmade to the first 5 people who leave a comment to this update. They must in turn, promise to post this and send something they made to the first 5 posters on their status. It must be handmade by you, and it must be sent to your 5 people sometime in 2011

 Only three people responded to LD's post and hopefully at least one of them will pay it forward as agreed. The following is one of the gifts passed on.

A handmade rubber stamp, carved from Renoir Ezy Carve which, as the name suggests is beautiful to carve and gives some great results. The stamp was finished off with clay (hand rolled and cut to size) and painted in enamel, and a laminated picture of the stamp glued on top.

Fingers crossed the person who received it loved it as much as LD enjoyed making it xx

Knit Wear

Oooh! We've been a little quiet lately and didn't provide a post last week - sorry. Last Sunday we were off gallivanting with friends and stuffing ourselves silly on all you can eat buffet breakfasts in South Perth, so the crafting together was postponed to the following Sunday.

Although LD & Veeni didn't get their craft on together, LD did do some solo projects to make up for it. LD had previously come across a bracelet made out of a knitting needle and wanted to give it a go. After some research this How-To looked to be the easiest. Easy, however was not what LD discovered. The thickness of the knitting needles may have been the issue, as they never became malleable enough to bend and stay in shape. After multiple attempts and longer times in the boiling water, LD tossed in the towel.

LD is one stubborn mule though and wasn't willing to be defeated by a few knitting needles, so a couple of days later she went back to the mission. Rather than boiling the needles another time around though, the microwave looked to be a much more pro-active option. Firstly, baking paper was placed in the microwave and the needles placed on top (if those buggers were going to melt to a crisp, there was no way they were taking the microwave with them). After a minute or so you could see that the needles were becoming very bendy, so out they came and they were wrapped around an empty beer bottle (label removed) - Voila! it worked!

Another attempt was made with some children's needles but they didn't look so happy afterwards. The key is definitely to monitor the time and check on them regularly - oops!

Although the boiling water has worked for many people, the microwave seemed much quicker and also prevented the risk of the ends of the needle touching the edge of the pot and melting (as occurred with one of the needles). Another thing to note is that the boiling of the needles appeared to fatten and shorten the needle, as well as discolour them slightly. The microwave however did not do this.

Crafty Eaters

LD's had a self-imposed disposable camera project going on over the last few weeks and these are a couple of shots that came back from the developers.

The camera was dunked in water and had the base ripped off and taped back on with masking tape. Here you can see what we love doing on Sundays, excluding crafty goodness - EATING!! 

Breakfast

 Sunday Sky

LD eating again!

Second Sunny Sunday in May

It was such a beautiful day and with many plans to spoil our mums, we decided to start our day early. So early in fact that all cameras were forgotten and we had to resort to the trusty mobile phone camera (oops!)

We started the morning by spray painting our chalkboards to be. Whilst there were pots of chalkboard paint available we thought the spray paint would be faster drying (we're impatient, as you may have figured) but also provide a smoother finish for writing on. We've still got a few things to add to these before they're complete, so we left them to dry and will come back to them next week.

After making bread clay last week, we pulled it out of the fridge and got rolling and cutting. Our black dough was so tough and  impossible to roll - we're not sure if this was the result of too much glue or possibly the type of paint used (we resorted to a different acrylic brand to that used in the other doughs as it was all we had left in our paint collections). Either way, the black dough made a quick exit to the bin but thankfully, the other doughs turned out beautifully and they were super easy to roll and cut.

LD picked up a great set of cookie/fondant cutters for less than $20 and they definitely made the job a lot easier.

Veeni made these cute heart buttons that would look fabulous sewn onto her felt creations, but they could also be used for cards or gift. Not too sure how they would go through the wash, so we'd probably avoid sewing them onto clothes.

Veeni also wanted to have a go using molds and these little, old men, albeit a little creepy with their fat noses and wrinkly smiles, looked perfect for the job. Unfortunately they weren't dry enough for us to see how they worked out but we'll let you know next week.

Sticking to her accessory trend LD created some art deco inspired brooches and pendants. LD is a wee bit obsessed with the 1920s at the moment, chopping her locks into a bob and swooning over Gatsby - if only he had fallen for anyone but Daisy!

LD later varnished these up with some clear nail varnish, a multifunctional tool that can be used for so many things (see here!)

LD also made a few buttons of her own but her cat, Kit, also took a fancy to them and now most of them can't be found. Luckily, all ingredients are non toxic.

For three hours we had a pretty productive session and we definitely love the easiness of bread clay and the endless possibilities of what can be done with it.

Breadwinner

This Sunday was all about preparation. We're attempting to give ourselves a deadline each weekend e.g. 3 hours, in order to remain productive, rather than spending too much time procrastinating or chatting (although we've found we're very good at multi-tasking with that one).

Firstly we whipped out the man tools by sawing and drilling some wood pieces, LD forgot the main ingredient to this one though, so you will have to wait until next Sunday to see what this turns out to be.

We then moved on to Veeni's home-made silk screen, unfortunately the tricks for this one weren't quite right for the trade either so we will have to wait til V's dad can give us a hand with this one - stay tuned.

Lastly, we went on to a craft that LD's mum used to do with her when she was a youngen, it's called bread clay. Some of you may be familiar with this, but for those that aren't: it is a mixture made up of white bread (crusts removed), white craft glue and acrylic paint. The acrylic paint gives it a vibrant colour and the clay can be used to make almost anything from decorating photo frames to Christmas tree ornaments. It also air dries, making it a 1980s mummy's dream.

There are a number of ways to make bread clay but we thought we would try the cleanest way by preparing it all in plastic zip lock bags. The problem we found with this was that the glue doesn't get tacky easily, the mixture gets stuck in the corners and it seemed to take ages to form a ball. So, being an impatient bunch, we decided to do it the old fashioned way and get dirty. Mixing and kneading the dough saw much quicker results and, although LD had a moment of panic when she couldn't seem to get black goo off her hands (watch how much glue you use) it did eventually form a pretty, plasticine-like ball. 

Another thing worth mentioning is that though some suggest to add the paint after forming the ball, we actually found it easier to add the paint at the same time as the glue. The first batch we added the paint later on but we found it took a long time to work the colour through the mixture, you'd think it was done and then push down on the dough and see more white in the middle. Adding the paint with the glue removed this issue.

Making a few different colours of the dough took up the majority of our time but, as it can be stored in the fridge until you're ready to use, it will be great to jump straight in next Sunday.

Like A Record

After months of contemplating, discussing and millions of we shoulds, we, LD and Veeni, finally set a date and got started on our weekly art, craft and experimentation sessions.

Our first project was an upcycled Record Bowl - we'd seen these in retro shops and local markets but thought it would be fun to give it a go ourselves. We did a bit of research online and, although everyone had their own variations of how-to, we figured we got the gist and jumped in feet first.

Our first attempt was a moment of uh-oh! We'd heated the oven to 200, placed the record on the base of a metal, oven-proof bowl and left it for 10 minutes (as one 'recipe' suggested). After about 8 minutes we began to smell something and ran in to find this:

Luckily we were able to pry most of this off the metal bowl and the rest we slowly melted and scraped away. It was unfortunate that this first bowl snapped when pulling it off, as the inside was beautifully smooth and shiny.

So, onto our second attempt. We lowered the heat slightly and placed another record into the oven. As the record began to warp we pulled it out and with oven mitts, pushed the edges of the record around the bowl. This sounds easier than it is but the vinyl cools very quickly and it doesn't stay down. We found the best way to do it was bit by bit; place it in the oven, bend, then back in the oven. Over time we managed to push the edges around the bowl and get it to look like this:

Whilst this bowl looked good we wanted the edges to be deeper and for it to look more 'bowl-like', so we flipped the metal bowl over, pushed the record in as far as it would go and back into the oven it went. After a few minutes we removed it and pushed the record in further and pushed the edges towards the walls of the metal bowl.

We were really happy with the end result and by our third attempt we were both able to go home with a bowl each.

An Autumn Affair