29/12/11

24/12/11

Season’s Greetings

To all my readers:

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Disclaimer: The photo was shot by me, but neither the fireplace nor the dog belongs to us.

6/12/11

The Salt Dough Snowman

Winter time is a-coming. Time to make some decoration. How about tiny snowmen? Prepare a small amount of salt dough by mixing 1 Tablespoon of flour, salt and water together.

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Form three small balls and  stack them. Add broken off toothpicks as arms and nose. Mark the eyes with a toothpick.

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Let the snowman air dry (mine needed 2 days to get totally dry).

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When dry, you can paint the snowman with acrylic paint.

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Done! Now go on to make a tiny snowman army!

Other things you can do with salt dough:

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I didn’t come around to paint them.by now.

2/12/11

Upcycling Basket Weaving

Last Saturday we went to a basket weaving course organized by the city. We had the whole day to work on three recycling projects.

4 milk cartons become a flat basket envelope:

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12 pages of newspaper become a square basket with pointy edges…

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… or a rectangular basket with even edges.

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If you want to know more about the art of basket weaving with recycled material you can have a look at Lois Walpole’s blog.

30/11/11

Watercolor Wednesday: Tricholoma terreum (or Grey Knight)

 

Similar to last week I present to you a watercoloring of grey knight mushrooms. This painting was made using only black paint.

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24x17cm black watercolor on paper

25/11/11

Origami Session: Birds

Today  I sat down and did some origami, something I haven’t done for a long time. I chose birds as theme and looked instructions up on the internet. The internet: It’s awesome!
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23/11/11

Watercolor Wednesday: Lactarius sanguifluus

After a long dry period in Catalonia, finally rain starts to fall. The humid conditions have started the mushroom growth. One of the common mushrooms is the Lactarius sanguifluus (here know as Rovellò). Here is a watercolor sketch of two Rovellós found in the region of Bages:

Lactarius sanguifluus watercolor

17x24cm watercolor on paper

19/11/11

The Felt Babushka Pin Step-by-Step

Following the post earlier this week, I a, going to show you step by step how the Felt Babushka Pin was made.
Firstly you need 3 templates for body, head scarf and face.
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Using different colors for the 3 components, cut out felt pieces. You need two for the body.
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Arranging face, head scarf and front body piece, sew the face on with white thread.
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Cut two pieces of black zigzag ribbon.
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Sew the two ribbons on the body, tugging the ribbon ends under the head scarf part.
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Using red thread, sew on the head scarf bottom edge. While you're at it you can embroider a mouth with the red thread.
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Embroider the eyes and, using green thread embroider a flower stem on the belly. As a blossom you can add a small glass bead.
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Now you can start to sew the back on. When you are 2/3 around the perimeter, you can fill cotton into the plush pin.
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Finish off the seam.
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Now you can add the pin on the back.
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And you are done!
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18/11/11

The Babushka Felt Pin

One fast and cute project: I made a babushka brooch made with felt, cotton filling and two small glass beads for the flowers on the belly.

felt babushka pin

16/11/11

Watercolor Wednesday: A whole lot of sky

The other day I was just dabbling in making a bunch of sky and cloud paintings. Just  to practice how to do it.

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