Spotlight on Veeni

For those that have yet to see Veeni's work, here's a little spotlight on her cute, wearable creations.

Our recent work with old records sparked these beautiful upcycled bracelets

And check out all of these felted goodies:

There are so many more that are just as adorable as these but hopefully this gives a glimpse of the things to come from Veeni. We'll keep you posted as to when the online store opens or if there are any public appearances happening.

LD & Veeni xx

Going Where The Sun Shines Brightly

Winter has definitely arrived in Perth, it's rainy, wet and (to us little sunshine lovers) cold. With many people starting to hibernate into their black and grey uniforms of winter, Veeni has already escaped to the sunny sites of Bali and LD is now packing her bags for an English summer. With travel being on the recent agenda, we got to making some itinerary wallets.

Using the hand painted and printed fabrics of the previous week, LD decided to cut up the pieces and collage them onto a base piece of pre-cut fabric. The dimensions of our base piece was based on it being a little larger than a business size envelope; you need enough room to fit a folded A4 piece of paper, a passport, tickets and any other bits and pieces you intend on taking with you.

LD hadn't used a sewing machine since she was 15, so Veeni provided a few pointers and LD was off.

Once the pieces were stitched onto the base piece, we then stitched it to another piece of fabric, this time leaving one side unsewn so as to creat a pocket. By creating a pocket we were able to insert pieces of card so as to give our wallet some strength and keep its shape. It was then folded into position, ironed and stitched together.

Having already completed the sewing side of it earlier, Veeni continued to hand stencil onto her wallets and finish them off with buttons.

Here is what LDs wallet looks like. Considering LD hadn't sewn for years, Veeni's tips were definitely useful and we were pretty happy with the end result.

For easy access we decided to finish this one off with velcro and, as you can see, it fits everything perfectly!

Leave Your Prints

So much has been going on lately! Veeni just got back from Bali and it's less than a week til LD is off to see Europe. On the Sunday before Veeni left this is what we got up to...

Veeni's ever so talented father made a beautiful silk screen printer for her, so with the sunny weather still on our side we thought we'd give it a go.

Veeni received The Street Art Stencil Book for Christmas which was a great starting point for us beginners. It includes a variety of designs by street artists from around the world and provided a lot of inspiration.

Having done silk screening in high school, it easily came back to us. The hardest thing is getting the right amount of paint on the screen without it bleeding under the stencil, after a few attempts we got better at this and sometimes the bleeding works quite well depending on the print.

Veeni was dog sitting for her parents while they were off romancing for their wedding anniversary ♥, so Rosie was always on hand to provide guidance and help with the breakfast clean up.

While our screen prints dried we went on to do some hand painted fabrics. Here's Veeni's brain that has a slightly eggy appeal. Perhaps it's our love of yummy meals that means food is always on the mind :)

And here is LD's hand painted fabric that has a more tea towel feel about it.

With travel being a part of our lives at the moment we thought we might use our prints to make passport/itinerary wallets - we'll see how we go.

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.