The Craft-Arty Kid

Pearl Ears

2013-05-23T11:20:00.000+01:00

Have you noticed that decorative cat ears are now a thing?

Taylor even wears some in her 22 video.

I got the inspiration to make my own from a tutorial on Cut out and Keep.

It's pretty simple really; bead some wire into ears, thread on beads, attach to a hair band by wrapping around ribbon.

It took me ages to find both beads and ribbon that matched and were the right size.

My ear turned out a little wonky but I don't mind.

It adds character.

Cupcake for One

2013-05-21T12:18:00.001+01:00

Last week my sister spent a long time helping me with my CV and things so to say thank you I made her this cupcake!

You know that bit in Bridesmaids where Kristen Wiig makes and decorates a single cupcake.

Well I wanted to do that, so I googled single cupcake recipes and came across a recipe for a single funfetti cupcake on Chocolate Covered Katie

There's loads of single serving cupcakes and other desserts on there. Well worth checking out.

Everything is measured in tablespoons and the key is using oil instead of egg, because it doesn't make sense to just use a bit of any egg.

When I was mixing the ingredients it was looking a bit doughy so I added more milk so get a better batter consistency.

Then I tried making it again, following the recipe exactly and I think the cupcakes came out pretty much the same. This just meant that I could have one as well as my sister.

Putting sprinkles in a cupcake is awesome.

The taste is different to a regular cupcake, but still delicious.

I'm excited to try out some of the other recipes on the website.

This Week I...

2013-05-19T21:35:00.000+01:00

...made some cupcakes! And had fun with different kinds of icing/decorations.

The pinks ones are strawberry flavour!

I went to a quiz with my family and we came joint 2nd.

We were pretty happy with that since my sister said we weren't even trying, cos we spent a lot of time working on this doodle masterpiece.

And on Saturday we watched the Eurovision Song Contest!

Me and my sister liked Malta's entry; the singing doctor with a song about Jeremy from I.T.
He just looks so happy!

How was your week?

New painting, not a self-portrait

2013-05-16T13:38:00.001+01:00

This is my latest painting.

It's from a photo I took whilst camping in 2008 when Rebecca, the girl in the picture, was five.

What I like about the photo is how much she looks like me when I was that age.

In fact my sister thought I was painting myself.

Here's the original photo, and below is the closest example I could find of me looking similar, in 1993.

Yup, they call me 'two biscuits Lisa'.

(No one has ever called me that)

Beads

2013-05-14T10:22:00.000+01:00

I bought these two beads back in 2008 from a bead shop in New Zealand, which I talked about here.

I've only just got round to doing something with them. Well, one of them.

The little black beads I used for this necklace came from a bead shop in New York.

So well travelled.

I made it so that the three strands are different lengths, but now I'm not sure if I'd prefer them all the same length.

Oh well, too late now, the ends are all glued together.

The necklace also doubles up as a pretty cool bracelet when wrapped around my wrist.

This Week I...

2013-05-12T18:40:00.001+01:00

...went to Cambridge to check out some galleries.

In between the rain showers it was actually sunny!

My friends and I finally got round to watching Pitch Perfect after no managing it last week.

Rebel Wilson is the best thing about that movie.

And I've been delving into my big bucket of beads. More on that soon.

Spring time swap

2013-05-09T16:45:00.000+01:00

Last month Dawn from Candidly Clyde organized a May day spring time swap.

It was in a round-robin style so we gave to different people than we received packages from.

I had Twinkle from twinklevanwinkle.com to send something to.

I thought a painting would be nice so I searched through the photos on her site for inspiration and came across this instagram photo which had the caption, 'Happy Hour | The Lemon Drop - pretend like it's Spring :)' which seemed appropriate for a springtime swap so I painted it.

I also made a little strawberry fridge magnet out of Sculpey.

I received these goodies from Franca from Oranges and Apples.

A set of notecards with Franca's own photography and a cute flower hairclip.

Lovely.

New painting - Beach feet

2013-05-07T10:10:00.000+01:00

Here's my latest painting. It's a big'un.

I knew all that detailed sea would be a challenge so I decided to draw out the image using the grid method (which you can kinda see in this photo).

When I was doing art at school lots of people did this with their paintings, but I preferred to free hand it.

The grid was useful for drawing out the picture, but when it came to painting I didn't really use it.

At least I know not to bother next time.

The painting is a cropped version of this photos of my friend Natalie being pushed into the sea. Nice.

This Week I...

2013-05-05T19:05:00.000+01:00

...hung out with my girls, and Lizzi (yeah, her from all the paintings) made chocolate covered fruit kebabs. Om nom nom.

We had planned to watch Pitch Perfect, but when us girls get to talking there isn't time for anything else.

I took down my exhibition at the Arts Centre on Tuesday which meant I had to rearrange my bedroom to find somewhere to put the models.

The shelves on the left are new (and now contain the models), and my computer has turns a whole 90 degrees so now I'm facing the wall not the window. It's weird y'all.

I had some correspondence with everyone's favourite home diy bloggers this week which resulted in mailing this package off to Virginia. More on that soon!

More bleach

2013-05-02T14:30:00.000+01:00

Last summer I spray bleached this top.

I've worn it a couple of time, but I wasn't totally convinced by the way it looked.

So to change it I thought, 'bleach it all!'

I put the shirt into a washing up bowl of water and bleach, poked at it with a stick to it was all submerged, and then left it for a few hours.

When I took it out and rinsed it, it looked like this. I thought about putting it back and actually making sure every bit got bleached, but I quite liked the pattern caused by the creases.

This is the back.

I've always got the option to change it again if I want, since I've come this far with it.

New painting : The Lizzi show

2013-04-30T09:45:00.000+01:00

This is my latest painting. It's my friend Lizzi.

She's my most depicted friend in my art work.

I think this is partly because she lives the closest to me, so I can quickly pop round to get a photo or draw her, and partly because of the hair.

Here's some of my previous Lizzi art.

This was a drawing I did for my A-level art work.

Lizzi sat for me and I think we put a The OC dvd on to keep her occupied.

This was another A level piece.

We had a lot of fun taking photos for this piece.

Every so often we talk about doing an updated version now that her shoe collection is way bigger.

This was a piece I did for fun to experiment with adding textures on the painting.

See what I mean about the hair?

This painting was done during my first year at university.

This is the only painting Lizzi's actually asked me to do, a portrait of her and her boyfriend for his birthday.

I think I should start painting my other friends or I might start getting accused of favouritism.

This Week I...

2013-04-28T19:14:00.000+01:00

This week I've either been modelling...

...or painting.

Can't wait to show y'all when this one's finished.

And I've been watching The George Jones Show, because I need the education.

Though I've never really listened to his music - not surprising since I've only been listening to country music for about 5 years - a lot of the artists I listen to did and were inspired by him.

Plus, Billy Ray in 1998? Lol.

Matchstick Pendants

2013-04-25T10:35:00.001+01:00

When I was at uni I bought a bag of these wooden matchsticks one weekend thinking they would be useful for my model making, only to find that my friend Natalie had bought me the same thing.

I thought it was about time I did something with my abundance of matchsticks.

Ok, this project only used 18 of them, but it's a start.

I started experimenting with shapes that I could make using the sticks, and UHU'd them together.

I also added some E6000 to make sure they didn't fall apart.

I painted them black, added a jump ring, and hey presto; geometric pendant.

I think they look pretty cool.

I picked black because my outfits tend to be black + another colour, so I figured they pendants would go with most things I wear.

I don't know how long they'll last, because they are just glued together, but they're doing all right for now.

My own Disney colouring pages

2013-04-23T11:32:00.000+01:00

Here are some true facts:

1) Colouring is fun

2) High-fiving Disney characters and trying to capture it on camera is fun

So I present to you the 'High-5 Disney Character Colouring pages' (it's a working title)

I used these photos from my trip to Disneyland last year of my friend Lizzi high-fiving, or trying to high-five, Disney characters.

Minnie Mouse was loving it. The Queen of Hearts on the other hand totally blanked Lizzi. Not cool!

I put the photos into a programme called Revelation Art. Sure, there's probably a way to do this on Photoshop but I don't have that on my computer.

I layered a blank page over the photo and used 'onion skins' to alter the transparency. Then I used the 'simple spline' tool to draw curved lines, tracing the picture.

This is the same method I used to make my Colour Me Magnets

I think these are so funny, and now I just need to take Lizzi back to Disneyland to get a full set!

Yay colouring!

This Week I...

2013-04-22T08:12:00.000+01:00

This week I had another dentist appointment to tighten up my braces.

A danger of my dentist being right behind Oxford Street is that often wander into H&M before my appointment.

This time I wandered out with these shoes! They were reduced down to only £3 so there was no way I could leave them in the shop.

I also helped my sister move, which included fitting in to the cupboards. Standard.

And the rest of the week was spent working on a miniature.

Gotta keep my skills in check.

Are you filming?

2013-04-18T14:54:00.000+01:00

Just a video for you today. Enjoy!

This is something I've wanted to put together for a while, and finally got around to doing it.

I had to look through 3 years of videos, but that was fun.

It's a lot of people asking the same question.

My highlights are:

* My old housemate Lucy getting scared by a knock at the window

* My sister doing 'Mr Napkin Head'

* And my friend Robyn's observations at the begin and end of the video. Well Robyn, it isn't just you who says it.

Maybe I should just buy a camcorder and then there'd be no question as to whether I was filming.

But then I wouldn't get these laughs.

Magnify Exhibition

2013-04-16T11:50:00.000+01:00

I currently have some of my work on display at the Letchworth Arts Centre.

They had a gap in their calender for April and offered me the space.

I'm showing six of my miniature models.

I've put them on plinths and arranged them so they can be walked around as much as possible.

It's like a creepy model village!

I had thought about putting them on the shelf but I like them on plinths better.

It also means a lot less drilling into the wall.

I was given the cafe gallery which has some nice wall space, but they only work for 2D art.

So instead of displaying some of the my paintings which would have been unrelated to my miniatures I invited my friend Natalie to exhibit with me.

Natalie is my friend from uni, we shared a studio space, and I thought her miniature portraits would work well with my miniature models.

We even made it into the paper.

This Week I...

2013-04-14T20:32:00.000+01:00

This week I had a job interview with an artist to help him paint tiny figures so I painted some of my Dad's model railway people as practice.

(Spoiler: I didn't get the job. The search continues)

My sister saw the drawings I did of my friends and requested one of her, so I started work on that.

On Friday night some friends and I went to see Josh Widdecome and Charlie Baker do stand-up at the Radlett Centre. Hilarious times indeed.

New Miniature

2013-04-11T18:10:00.000+01:00

The wall I showed you earlier was for this new miniature piece.

Like most of my other pieces it has a dark narrative.

The wall is screwed to the base which is two layers of MDF; one for the road and one for the pavement, making this probably my sturdiest piece ever.

The road is cork as it has a similar texture to tarmac. It painted it grey and then went over it will chalk and charcoal. I also dug at it with a craft knife to create cracks and potholes.

The hedge round the corner is made from another kind of foam with dried tea and mixed herbs glued to it to create a leafy texture, which has then been painted all kinds of green.

I weathered the bouquets of flowers I'd made by crushing them a little and dripping brown paint water on them.

What do you think?

Illustration inspiration

2013-04-09T10:25:00.000+01:00

I recently found this image online. After a bit of digging I found it's by illustrator and graphic journalist Wendy Macnaughton.

I really liked the style and to try my own version I decided to use images of my friends.

(I've blurred out some of the words just because I don't know how much personal information my friends would want on the internet)

I traced the images from photos using my light box. Yes, I traced them. I wanted to get straight to the colouring and not spend ages trying to get the faces looking right. So I used tracing as a shortcut.

I coloured them in using coloured pencils.

I've never really done realistic colouring with pencils before, but i think I'm getting the hang of it.

Though apologies to my friends if you think I made your face look wonky or discoloured!

Coming out from the faces I wrote my friends' full names, their birthdays and things I associate with each of them.

Next I want to try something with more words so they're blocks of text coming out from the image, so many something with song lyrics.

This Week I...

2013-04-07T19:56:00.000+01:00

... tidied and organized my bedroom and my art space.

What a difference labelling makes!

I started a new painting. This is just a part of it.

Can you guess what it is yet?

On Saturday my friends and I took a spontaneous trip to Wimpole Hall, as one of my friends volunteers there.

The phone invite went something like;

'Do you want to come to Wimpole Hall with us?'

'Sure, when?'

'We'll pick you up in two minutes!'

It was an actual sunny day so I decided to leave my coat in the car.

I know, a risky move, but I did it anyway.

How was your week?

Check out my wall

2013-04-04T12:42:00.000+01:00

After my Scale Model Making course I wanted to use one of the techniques I learnt so I made this wall.

Bricks I've done before, but flint cobbles? New territory time.

Here's how I did it

I took this photo by balancing the camera on my wrist. Fun fact.

The key is Sculpey!

Mark out the pattern in a lump of Sculpey.

I also molded the back of the Sculpey to fit my fingers for easy grippin'.

Once the Sculpey has been baked it's ready to imprint into the kapa-line foam.

This stuff is amazing.

When I tried the Sculpey on a test piece I may have leapt about exclaiming, 'It worked! It worked!'

I'd already stuck the foam to a piece of MDF so then I built the rest of the wall around it; the tiles on the top and the brick pillar on the end.

I painted the entire thing a mortar colour, making sure to get into all of the cracks.

Then I used a dry brush to paint the stones as this would pick up the pattern.

When I was in 6th form my Dad built a brick wall in our back garden. For that time I was pretty much an abandoned child cos he loved that wall more than me. Then my friends got in on the act and one time came over to my house just to hang out with the wall. They even brought a brick in to school dressed up like me, and said they preferred brick-Lisa (yup, we were the cool kids in school, obvs). It was a tough time.

But now I get it. I love this tiny wall like a child and I'm proud of everything it's accomplished.

Geez, I need a job.

Acme building

2013-04-02T12:46:00.001+01:00

The Acme building is finished!

You can see progress of this project here and here.

I put a Kenny Chesney poster in the window because that's what was there when I saw the building in person.

I did my best to distress the brick work like the original building.

I think these are the best windows I've ever made. Might have something to do with using a super sharp scalpel for a change.

The the roads signs I printed out the images from the internet (finding the right ones took a lot longer than I thought it would) and taped them to a thin brass rod which I stuck in holes that I'd drilled in the MDF base.

Now I'm off to put this in an exhibition with a few of my other pieces!

This Week I...

2013-03-31T20:06:00.000+01:00

...made some miniature bouquets of flowers for my current art piece.

Fiddly business.

I went out for a meal three times this week.

I was so hungry when the food arrived when I went out with my friends that I didn't stop to take a photo first. So I took one after I was done. You're welcome.

And I went round my sisters to catch up Nashville. 5 episodes watched in one afternoon.

That's how it's done.

Also, my other sister came home for the Easter weekend and at one point we left voicemails for my other sister of us singing Spice Girls songs with piano accompaniment. Cos that's how we roll.

Did y'all have a good week?

Best Cookie Ever?

2013-03-28T09:40:00.000Z

When I was in Nashville I had The Best Cookie Ever.

I'm pretty sure it was the best.

No others from my cookie-eating history stick out as the best.

And, I only had half of it. I only needed half of it cos it was so full of awesome!

(And I was sharing it with my sister)

Here's a fun video of me describing my lunch, which included the cookie, in my best southern accent.

We had an hour to kill before seeing the Kings of Leon. What else was I supposed to do!

(Southern-me cracks me up. Also, who remembers when I didn't have braces?!)

The other day I thought I'd like to do some baking, so I flicked through a recipe book and landed on oat and raisin cookies. And then I thought, 'what if I could make them like the Nashville cookie?'

This is what I came up with.

Note: I was trying to replicate the flavour, not the look of the cookie. Clearly.

I remembered the Nashville cookie tasted of mixed spice and had visible carrot in it.

The recipe I was using had neither of those things, but I put them in anyway!

Yep, I'm a recipe renegade!

The cookies didn't turn out too bad. I'm definitely on the right track.

I think next time I could afford to put in more mixed spice and more carrot.

Also more butter because they were a little crumbly, but the recipe called for 4 tablespoons of butter and I like to be more precise and use grams or ounces like a normal person.

Here's the recipe if anyone is interested:

4 tbsp butter

125g caster sugar

1 egg

50g plain sugar

1/2 tsp salt

(I've just realised I forgot to put in the salt. I didn't miss it)

1/2 tsp baking powder

175g porridge oats

125g raisins

I added: 1 small carrot, grated, and many shakes of mixed spice

15 minutes on Gas Mark 4

What's your Best Cookie Ever?