Week 29 Creative Challenge : Crocheting Doilies with a Specific Purpose
Hello! Checking in with my Creative Challenge . During week 29 of 2023, I made something that, I realize, will only interest a small specific audience -- people who like doilies and who also have a tiered tray with a centre pole, that they'd like to put a doily on. I venture to guess there aren't many of you out there, but I don't want to miss a week of this challenge, and this is what I made last week, so here it goes!
I picked up this galvanized steel three tiered tray at HomeSense recently, which I envision decorating with different themed items, inspired by ones I've seen done on YouTube. Basically, the idea is to try to tell a story by putting a whole bunch of related items on the tiers, in an attractive way. It's supposed to look interesting from all angles, sort of like a temporary sculpture. If you're curious, you can search online for images, where you'll see all kinds of different renditions. They're often decorated for the various holidays. Being a lover of vintage things, I plan to use mainly vintage things on mine.
Week 28 Creative Challenge : A Myriad of Miniatures
Greetings dear online friends! I had fully intended to work on something different for my Creative Challenge last week but ended up getting sucked into a magical miniature rabbit hole instead.
Week 27 Creative Challenge : Itty Bitty Book Binding
Hello! Here's what I made last week for my Weekly 2023 Creative Challenge.
As previously mentioned, I've become a wee bit obsessed with miniatures lately, so I've added to that new collection by creating some tiny books.
The one I like the best was this "The Secret Garden" book, which was bound using the same historic technique, called "Coptic Binding", that is used to make a regularly sized book, so it has separate pages that can be turned.
The Secret Garden was my favourite book as a child and I recently revisited it, by listening to the e-book. I still love it. It was first published in 1911 and has been rereleased with many different covers over the century plus of its existence, but I chose the one illustrated by Tasha Tudor, which was released in 1962.
That is somewhat beside the point, since the image of this book cover and the others I made, were degraded so much when shrunk down to an inch and a half, that they look blurry. The cover started out looking very crisp and clear on my monitor, but lost that due to what is known as "the problem of pixilation", when shrunk down so much. So, please don't think it's your eyes failing or my lack of camera focus when you look at these images! I tried a few different ways to make them print up more clearly on my home printer but failed. My mister, Nick, suggested I convert them to a different kind of file before printing, so I'll try that next time.
I used pages from an old paperback that I found by the curb, so the print size is out of scale, but it does the job. Next time, I might try scanning some print and shrinking it down, but I expect I'll run into the same issue with a degraded image due to shrinkage. (Haha, yes, George Costanza did just come to mind!)
Week 26 Creative Challenge : A Freshwater Pearl Bracelet and Matching Earrings
Hello and happy Sunday! Here's my Weekly 2023 Creative Challenge update.
I went through my jewellery-making things and picked out a strand of freshwater pearls, dyed in a rich colourway of indigo/purple/turquoise/gold, called "Peacock". I got these at Michael's a while ago, during one of their bead sales, so I'm not sure if they're still available, but I think these are relatively common. If you can't find these specific ones, though, no worries, the techniques for making bracelets and earrings in this post are the same, no matter what kind of beads you have. (I realize that the pearls look like they're plain black in these instruction photos, but the light wasn't right to capture their lovely colouring and lustre.)
Week 25 Creative Challenge : Miniature Cabinet Restoration
Hi! I hope you're doing well. Here's my weekly post about what I made last week for the Creative Challenge I'm doing for 2023.
I've mentioned recently that I love seeing what all the miniature enthusiasts are doing on Instagram. The little dioramas these talented creators set up are so very charming. I can't help but be inspired to try my hand at the world of tiny things. I began a couple of week ago by making a small Hudson's Bay Blanket.
And, this past week, I redid a plain wooden cabinet that I found in the children's crafting section of Dollarama. It came with 3 small pots of acrylic paint in primary colours and a little plastic paint brush, so, kids were meant to paint it.
