Wednesday 18 March 2015

WOW where has February gone?

The month of February has flown by - so many changes in my personal life and a raft of appointments to keep.

The weather is improving and its finally light when I wake in the morning. This has really put me in the "Spring" mood - I am determined to clean out the studio. It is still knee deep in half finished projects from last year and the over spill during the Christmas period.

I have been ruminating and procrastinating for far too long! I have cleared my diary for Saturday and the kiddie parties seems to have slumped for now. If I don't get any work in then my day is free to spend in the studio to clean up and pack things away.

All I need is a bit of sunshine to make it perfect! Failing that - I'll put the fairy lights on to cheer myself up. That is my goal for Saturday - when my DH built the studio and I kitted it out - it was beautiful. I guess I just have to console myself that it's in the state it is because creating is messy business.

Some pics of when the studio was re-jigged for the 4th time. Ahhh The good ole days





Wednesday 4 February 2015

Faces.

I love seeing the drawings of faces on Pinterest - people are so talented. I've always wanted to give drawings a go. Not the fine art stuff though - that just won't happen in my lifetime.

I decided to sew a book of watercolour paper together and practice faces. This has been going on for an entire year!!!

You be the judge if practice does indeed make perfect. I think I need to work on the shading and perhaps trying to centre the features better. I'm really happy with all the practising, but will note that my other half has had a whale of a time critiquing my efforts. Even laughed out loud at some of the attempts.

So your turn to critique - I have drawn faces in this book but will only post a few - the first one, some boo boos and the end result of those practices.

The first go:




These are some of the ones that my other half had a good laugh about:

 Staring eyes and huge cheek area.



 
I messed the eye up and he couldn't contain himself over the eye patch.




"OMG!!" with a very loud lengthy braying sound - (must be a bloody donkey!)




 And last but not least - "Squash-ball face".




Then I started producing these and there was moderate praise.








And these are the ones that I really like. Some are still works in progress (re. shading and colouring) but thought I would post it anyway.


 



 


I'm sure you would agree that it is a VAST improvement - just have to work on the shading of the faces to make them look a little more realistic.

I drew these last night.






So to conclude - I do think that practice definitely makes better (not perfect).

That's it from me -

Happy Crafting x

Thursday 29 January 2015

So it was my little one's 5th birthday on Saturday - I've decided to give him a Pirate Party. I hired a hall and set about making the decorations, I also planned to bake the cake myself. A bit terrifying (the cake - I've never made one quite as big) - 24 kids and parents to eat on it.

Of cause I couldn't just stick with a tray bake - oh no ... it had to be a Pirate ship!

I first started with the ships for the tables - I bought 4 paper mache sailing ships and decorated it. I plan to attach the balloons to it.



I created a holder to keep the boat secure and covered it with some tissue paper - then added glass marbles to weight the bottom of the boat so the balloons don't lift the boat off the table.

Next I bought few paper mache treasure chests - just painted it and added jewels and a skewer to hold the balloons.




Finally the cake - I was so pleased it all turned out ok. I baked it in a roasting tray - I needed a big pan but didn't want to spend £12.00 on one cake tin. It turned out really well. I baked two 9" x 12" Madeira cakes then froze them. Its easier to cut the shape the cake if you do this.

I iced it with Buttercream icing and this is how it turned out.




I added the paper sails and there you have it. One pirate ship cake for my cheeky little monkey.

I sprayed some Oreo cookies with some gold spray and had instant "doubloons" to add to the main table - I also covered flavoured water with pirate labels I printed off the internet, to add to the main table again.





The party went down and storm and the cake was lovely and moist and everyone loved it.

Some party pics.






Right I'm off to pick the boys up from school.

Happy Crafting.
Fae x

Monday 19 January 2015

New Year and new crafting goals - I've decided to just do the crafty things I'm in the mood for and not be dictated to by the dreaded "must finish this!!!"

This invariably leads to the mojo packing it's bags and going on holiday. I'm left staring at half finished pages "that just don't work!"

Since adopting this new philosophy - things has been much calmer and I actually created various items.

I made more journals -


I worked on several pages and stopped when I got bored or just didn't know how to move the page along.








And last but not least - I practised drawing faces. Oh my word - who knew one could be so BAD at drawing. Since this blog is ALL about the warts ... here a a few of my (and I use this word in the most loosest of terms!) drawings.










There you have it - not very good, but the most surprising thing happened. It got better - the more I practised! I will upload the latest drawings soon - just for comparison.

Motto for the day - " If at first you don't succeed ... try try and try again" - (In my case it was rinse and repeat for almost a year!

Right I'm off to do something creative.

Stay crafty,
Fae xxx