Hand-made cards

I've really gotten into making my own cards for special occasions. It gives me a good impetus to get creative, it keeps costs down and its a chance to give someone a one-off piece of art.

For my Christmas cards this year I experimented with masks. Not the kind you wear over your face, but the kind that help keep areas of your page clear.

I used very low adhesive scotch-tape for my masking. For this batch of cards I just used the one thickness of tape, but placed the tape in different configurations to get different compositions. I also cut circles into paper so I had a stencil I could make round shapes with.

I did a few quick initial sketches to get some ideas for compositions, and then just went for it straight onto the cards. Each card was different for the other; and most were abstract and improvised on the spot. But the general feel I was aiming for was candy cane, so lots of stripes. And some circles to represent baubles or holly.  Soant for water colour paint.

Colours were typically Christmassy - greens and reds. I wanted to keep the colours simple, but alternate them on each stripe to get the candy cane effect. I used a mix of felt-tip pens of different thicknesses. The nibs of some of the pens were a little worn, so lines weren't always solid and even. But I quite liked this as it gave the cards a hand-printed feel.

Some were more successful than others. They tended to be the ones I didn't overload with elements; leaving lots of white space. The scotch tape worked very well as a masking agent and was very easy to work with; though it did get grubby after a few uses and smudged the pen work a little (I actually didn't mind this as it just added to the hand-printed look).

This was actually a birthday card I made for my mum about the same time as the Christmas cards. I masked the edges of the card, but did the rest freehand. I sketched the contours of the peony in pencil first, using an image form the web. Then used markers to add hatching to give tone. Same card stock as the Christmas cards.

Cracking a Christmas piñata

For Christmas 2014 I decided to make my young niece and two nephews a bauble-shaped piñata. My inspiration came from a dear friend of mine who made one for a Christmas party she went to. As I was on a budget I thought it would be a fun activity for the kids on Christmas day.

My friend made her's following the steps on this website. Which was my starting point. This was my first experience making a piñata, but I have a bit of experience with papier-mache so thought it wouldn't be too difficult.

I used a balloon as the mould. As I couldn't find proper papier-mache glue, I made my own by mixing water and flower. Tearing newspaper into strips took considerably longer than I thought, but it was rather therapeutic.

I deviated slightly from the website instructions and covered the whole balloon in layers, including the top. I think I ended up with about five or six layers, leaving each layer to dry thoroughly before starting the next one.

Once the mache was completed, I popped the balloon and gave the piñata a lobotomy; slicing off its lid. I filled it with sweets, toys and tiny pieces of paper of different colours (which I tore by hand!).

I also made a hole in the lid and bottom of the piñata and and threaded through some heavy duty twine (I wanted to make sure it was strong enough to hold the heavy piñata up). I intertwined the twine with some tinsel to make it more Christmassy.

Then I fixed the lid back on and paper-mached it to the body. I also reinforced the base to make sure it was strong enough that the twine handle wouldn't tear through when the piñata was hung.

My piñata wasn't looking more pear-shaped than round (tip: actually use round balloons!); so I made a shallow cone with cardboard and fixed this to the bottom to give the piñata a more tapered appearance. This also served to hide the knot of the twine handle.

It was now ready to decorate. I decided against using strips of tissue paper to decorate the bauble as I thought it would be too fiddly. So I decided to spray paint it gold and then decorated it with a message to my niece and nephews.

I also added a crown to the top, to make to look more like a bauble I made this from cardboard which I spray painted gold; adding a strip of back paper behind the 'teeth' for added effect.

It was ready. Probably about four hours work all up (plus drying time).

On Christmas day I hung it up on the clothes-line. And everyone gathered around to watch the destruction.

It took about 9 minutes to crack open. A few adults had a turn as well; it proved to be quite the stress reliever! It was great fun watching everyone try to crack it open. Quite a highlight of Christmas day in my opinion.

In hindsight; the piñata was probably too thick. The layers of paper with the thick flour glue made the walls of the piñata more like thick cardboard than delicate paper. Hence, it took quite some effort to crack open. But then again, that just prolonged the fun.

Christmas wreath from my first cold Christmas

Catching up on sharing some of the things I made over the busy Christmas period while travelling. This wreath / candle decoration was made using berries and leaves foraged from hedgerows in the English village we were staying in, and from my sister-in-law's garden. I was so tickled to see holly with actual red berries on it (being in the northern hemisphere for Christmas rather than in Australia where I normally am) that I just had to pick some and bring it inside. I didn't have any grand ideas on how to poll this off technically speaking so I just used a flat bowl to arrange the leaves and berries on. Features pine cones, holly, rose hips and many things I didn't recognise. Lasted a good few days looking fresh without any water.

Ugly doll for Xmas

Finished doll with the pattern.

Before Christmas I hand-sewed an Ugly Doll for my nephew, who was about 8 months old. The felt is pretty cheap to buy at Spotlight - something like $7 per m. I think I just got some half-metres, and also some small packets of black and white that have adhesive backing for the eyes

Cut out with the bits placed on - sewed them first, then turned him inside out to sew up the outside. Stuffing was through the head.

With his face and pouch on (he's a marsupial monster). The pouch is not centred - a mistake - but hey the kid can't talk to criticise.

Even with the stick-on felt. I still stitched around the eyes and mouth though, because infants tend to chew on everything.  Stuffed with cushion stuffing.

Finished little dude.

Design tips - don't make so much of a 'neck' as it a place where the stuffing will shift around and the doll will fold.  The body was a bit too tubular which made stuffing the feet a bit tricky. He's meant to look goofy not scary - I think it worked!

Candle-abra-cadabra

Candle making fun for homemade Christmas presents, one crafternoon at the lovely Miss D and F's pad in the Inner West. Candles were made by heating soy wax flakes on the stove (they are light and fluffy like old fashioned soap flakes), with essential oils or candle-making fragrant oils added. The molten wax is then poured into vessels of your choice - in our case a mix of mason jars, old brown jars (empty marmite jar from when UK family was visiting worked a treat!), lovely Turkish style glass tea cups, and delightful vintage cups and saucers. (This is the ladies watching wax melt - much more fun than watching paint dry)

When pouring, you need to first put your wicks in - different thickness wicks for different size candles. the wick is secured into a little disc of metal that sits flat at the bottom of the container. Bigger candles need thicker wicks, for some clever technical reason I can't remember. To secure the wick you need to secure it to the bottom of your vessel with double sided tape, or if you are brave and wild and free and care to risk all in your candle making ventures you can just poke it in once the wax is pored and stop it from flopping over sideways or drifting away by clever use of things like kitchen skewers. I think that's right, the details are a bit hazy now a few months later - all I remember is the pouring and waiting to set part, plus the joy of the finished product. This is Miss D carefully pouring into an old red metal jug that looks straight out of a 60's Danish Farmhouse. She had some incredibly some funky tea cups lined up as well. Once poured, the hot wax is still transparent, becoming a lovely opaque soft off-white colour when cooled. Here are the ladies watching the candles cool.

And finally, after an hour or two, they are ready! It's important not to poke or prod them while still drying as the wick moving can crack the surface of the not-yet-properly-set candle, messing with that ice-floe smooth surface that is so gratifying. You can see here that even drinking glasses make great containers. Did I mention that soy candle wax has quite a low melting point? This means that at the end of the candle, when there is that pesky stub of wax left at the bottom of the container, you can dissolve it in hot water, then wash, leaving you a nice tea cup/ jar/ tumbler you can re-use.

The final step is to trim the wicks down to say 5mm above the candle, once the candle is well and truly set. Doing it the following day is a safe bet.

'You mustn't eat the dough...'

...is what the adorable 3 year old said to me as she ate it, on this super fun crafty day with kids. Using salt dough to make Christmas tree decorations using simple cookie cutters and acrylic paint. Trying my hand at working with kids, and starting small wit some pre-Christmas babysitting / craft workshop for friends' kids.