‘Lino’ Print Owls

I’ve been wanting to try lino printing for quite some time now but I don’t have the correct tools or the inclination to buy the tools.  I do however, have a pack of vinyl floor tiles and a series of gouges that Alasdair uses for his carvings.

Ever the type to make do with what I have, I decided to see if the vinyl tiles could do as good a job as lino.  I think the outcome is passable although nowhere near as clear as those I’ve seen from lino…this could also be to do with my lack of ink and brayer and my improvisation of kids paint and a spongy paint roller (also designed for kids).

Not at all bad though.  I printed the outline shape and then cut the same piece of vinyl further to create lines, which I then painted black.  I love all the extra bits that are created from the carving.  Many would remove these ridges but I think they add something of a handmade quality.

I’m thinking of combining this technique with some of my handmade paper and a more elaborate picture for some more luxurious prints.

Plimsolls … now there’s a blast from the past!

I don’t think I’ve owned a pair of plimsolls since, ooooo, forever!  If I had to make a guess then I might suggest it’s been at least 25 years, certainly not since leaving primary school!  This is something that’s been pulling at me for some time to do and, Mmmmmm, there’s nothing quite like the smell of new plimsolls is there – or does that just make me a bit weird!?

Anyway I’ve been noticing images of customised plimsolls ever since I joined up with DeviantArt a couple of years back and I’ve got to say they are something of an inspiration, even if my own initial efforts are a far cry from those featured in that link – these pictured here really are an initial effort.  If nothing else it gave me a chance to try out taking photo’s in my new light-box!

The lass has made me promise to do her a pair and I can envisage something in pink/lilac with love hearts for her and she seems happy with the idea.  Of course if I do a pair for her then no doubt the lad will want a pair too so I guess I’ll need to do two more pairs at the very least.

Japanese rice field art

It’s said that, ‘adversity is the mother of all ingenuity’, and when the small town of Inakadate (pronounced ee-NAH-kah-dah-tay) fell upon hard times that certainly seemed to be the case.  Struggling with a lack of industry and a public debt of more than three times it’s annual budget the town looked towards tourism as a potential source of much needed income, I can’t imagine they expected such success when they happened upon the idea of of using different colours of rice to create football field sized works of art.

In 2009 the works led to an estimated 170,000 visitors to the town, whose population is a mere 8,450.  A huge triumph in terms of visitor numbers even if they haven’t fully realised a method to capitalise on the economic potential of such large numbers of visitors – the council took $70,000 worth of donations, although you would have to imagine that local businesses have benefited from a surge in custom from the passing trade.

You can read the full article in the New York Times.

more flowers … less fairs

In the last 4 weeks we’ve had both of our booked craft fairs whipped out from under our feet, due to no fault of our own I hasten to add.  The first thanks to the council library failing to sort out the right licence from, well, the council; the second being cancelled for who knows what reason.  It’s not like it’s the end of the world but it is just a tad frustrating!

In fact the only ‘fair’ we’ve been to recently was the Rosneath Highland Games, although that was only to spectate, not that I would struggle to throw the hammer or toss the caber you understand but I wouldn’t want to put all those big burly blokes noses out of joint by showing them up …

… I didn’t even get any decent pics of the games that I would be happy to share on here, so – I’m afraid – that means more pictures of flowers!  This remains a craft blog, honestly, even if it does look more and more like a gardening one!!

It’s pink … what more can I say!

Marigold

Rocket (I believe)

They’re white, and flowery … very pretty!

It was the lad’s birthday a couple of weeks ago so there’s a cake post waiting to be written, coming soon I assure you!

even more GrownStuff and a give-away

… and still I’m gripped by an inability to craft, seized as I am between an unfinished poly-tunnel and the start of the school summer holidays.

Progress on the poly-tunnel is slow, although there is at least progress with the door-frames having been erected since my last update, leaving only the base-rail to attach, the cover to apply and finally the door to attach.  On the bright side I have discovered an aquilegia hiding under a willow hedge, I’ve wanted aquilegia in the garden for an age and knew that if I was patient it would make it’s way up here from the village below.

We also have one of these (below) in the garden although, I’m damned if I know what it is …

… in fact, it’s bugging me so much that I’m willing to give the first person who can identify it a £5 discount off anything with a price-tag of £10 or more from the shop.  All you need to do is convince me that your identification is correct by providing me with a link/s to somewhere that shows pictures with the correct name attached.  Just leave a comment at the bottom.   That should be easy enough if you already know what it is :)

Also today the lad has been playing with dung beetles …

more GrownStuff

I’ve just browsed through the last page worth of posts that we’ve made on here and can’t help noticing that the amount of MadeStuff has somewhat tailed off of late, indeed, I currently have NO crafting projects under-way at the minute.  I’ve been too busy cutting the grass …

What I do have on the go at the moment is the building of our poly-tunnel, although I suspect that this is going to take more than the ‘couple of days’ that the instructions suggest it might take!

Meanwhile though garden has been coming along and, amongst other things I’m having to shift the wood from the wood shed so that I can tear it down (it’s falling apart anyway) and put in a chicken coop for the chickens we will hopefully get in the next few months (or next year) once I’ve sorted out the fencing.

Here’s a wee sample of some of the current blooms in the garden …

Wild poppy

London Pride

Our single aubretia bloom

Given wings, would we fly?

It seems like forever and a day since I originally thought about giving my bonnie birds wings, indeed, it seems like forever and a day since I actually started making this one!  Based around the same principles as it’s forebears I had to add some additional armature to build the wings both from a practical point of view but also to ensure that they would be strong enough to stand-up to life’s little knocks.  This is the end result

I’m reasonably pleased with the finished product although, contrary to what it looks like, I had an abstraction of a Green Finch in mind when I painted it!

{image source}

You would think that given, aside from chaffinches, that this is the only bird that visits our garden with any regularity that I’d be able to summon up an image in my minds eye and work it up on one of my bonnie birds; it seems my mind is prone to wandering when I pick up a paintbrush and the notion that I might paint anything in the fashion that I originally intended is completely lost!!

Available to buy from the shop

In the garden

I think I may be becoming a fanatic, well, maybe not quite; although I did find myself outside in the rain this morning pulling weeds and re-arranging pots!?  The garden really has quite a lure to me, being confined to quarters over the winter and suffering a wee bit with cabin fever really makes you appreciate being able to get outside … of course, being fortunate enough to live in a beautiful part of the country helps too!

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been making the most of the good weather doing some chores in the garden, like installing an outside tap (I hate plumbing with a passion) and building a retaining wall – amongst other odds and ends.

Click to enlarge

I don’t have a good history with plumbing projects going back to a project when we first moved into our current house when a plan to replace the element in the immersion tank took around 4-5 days and ended up with me having to remove and replace the entire tank, then there’s been the radiators and pipes that have burst and the cursing that occurs whenever a newly jointed pipe turns out to not be water tight … seriously, you have no idea!

Fortunately I had no such problems with the plumbing this time around … maybe I’m getting better at it.  The wall took a little longer than I had anticipated and massively more mortar than I’d have imagined was possible, it looks like it’s about to fall over in the picture but that’s as a result of some, er, clever photography.  Maybe I should find a clever photographer to explain it!

As luck would have it though the garden has some wee gems in it at the moment, and as I mentioned earlier the area we live in is beautiful.  It all helps to lower my blood pressure.  Here are a few samples of what’s going on in the garden just now:

Strawberries are beginning to flower, yum!

Black Currant blooms. Plain flowers, yummy berries!

Some pretty lilac flowers - does anyone know what they're called?

Blue Bells, except they're white ...

Pretty blue 'weed'

Black Currant (or possibly red) berries coming along nicely

You may notice that the currants feature twice, we’re fortunate enough to have quite a few and I’ve discovered this year that they’re easily propagated, something I’m hoping to do more of once the polytunnel has arrived and been assembled.  I’m not sure if it’s something we’ve mentioned on here previously but we decided to invest in large (14′ x 30′) poly-tunnel as our site is extremely exposed which can make growing much of anything extremely difficult.  More on that at a later date though.

Eating Daisies …

Seemingly daisies are edible, yum, they have very light peppery flavour and there are loads of them around.  Which is handy, since the kids seem to be permanently hungry … or at the very least bored which seems to inevitably lead to cries of:

“I’m bored.  Can I have something to eat?”

Now I have the answer:

“YES!  You can eat daisies!?”

In light of this revelation here is a wee homage to the humble Daisy (clicking on the images will take you to the artist or crafter’s site):

Daisy Flower art poster by Derek McCrea

Daisy by chavez666

tiny daisy post earrings by peculiar forest

Daisy and ribbon by Sighs and Whispers

Webs of development

It seems that the higher the temperatures get with the incredible – if not late – onset of spring and summer the lower my enthusiasm for doing crafts becomes.  Given the choice of doing ‘work’ in the garden or sitting doing crafts it seems that the garden chores win out every-time … not that there isn’t plenty to be getting on with out there!

I’ve not been completely idle though on the craft front with a couple of developmental pieces underway.  This one was just done for fun when I was messing about with some left over mache.

The spider in the foreground here was my first, half-hearted attempt at a spider, partially inspired by some fabric spiders I caught a glimpse of on Ann Wood’s blog that Jolene follows, clearly it bears no real resemblance to that spider – it really just provided the kernel of a notion that later developed (and is developing) into an idea.

Following the creation of this rather cartoon-like spider I went on to work on something a bit more life-like with reference to a variety of spider photo’s and biology models that I found around and about on the internet.  The end result was this spider pictured below.

I’m still not entirely satisfied with the spider – although I do like the mandible’s – I think the Abdomen (back bit) is too small in relation to the Cephalothorax (front bit).  I may work up another version of this, weather permitting, that’s a bit more anatomically correct – although I don’t think I’ve ever made anything that’s not largely abstract … it might be an interesting challenge.

I’ve nearly finished working on a winged version of my bonnie birds, another development piece, and I’ll share that when it’s finished too.