Tuesday 16 October 2012

Typographic Subway Art of our Homes

I'm not normally one for 2 dimensional purely print art, but with the sheer explosion of these kinds of prints, I couldn't hold myself back any longer. It surprised me at how easy it is to do actually.
And since we have a bit of a prejudice against paid for proprietary software in our house it was done entirely through GIMP. I would suggest using many many layers (one for each bit of text) so you can move them, and change sizes etc independently to help with the design.


 
Also- I'm not sure if this helped, but I started from the bottom. I have read before that if you are trying to replicate something by drawing (like a portrait etc) you should turn the image upside down when you copy it so you can ignore/turn off the "this is a face" part of your brain. Which apparently helps you to focus more on producing a faithful copy than interpreting what you are doing and so getting in your own way. I think it helped to start from the bottom because it is something I would never do and it meant I wasn't in a comfort zone, so I was more creative. Who knows?

Incidentally: these are all place names that DH and I have lived in. Arcadia is the area we lived in when we first shared a flat. I toyed with colouring the words- something like yellow for me alone, blue for hubby and green for both of us- but it just looked a bit contrived. And whilst the print is semi-balanced in monochrome, with three colours it becomes a bit more than my little graphic design skills can deal with :)
Also dear dear husband told me that Irene, in the top right hand corner, looked evil in whatever colour I chose. I didn't want to agree, but the seed was planted....
This is doubly weird since Irene is a quiet little village which is so sweet that you definitely can imagine a horror movie waiting to be set there.
Edit: Here are two of the coloured versions (Made the right choice, eh?)

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Sleepy Lamb Mobile

Here it is, after months of silence. My little lamby mobile:



It turned out cuter than I expected although tying the lambs to the rig is a pain. I have yet to find the right kind of string/thread to hang them by and so they inevitably break or tangle or end up higher/lower than I wanted. Please please leave a comment and give me suggestions for this as I LOVE making mobiles but this is driving me insane.

Saturday 5 May 2012

Tiny sleepy crochet lamb

This little guy is a prototype for a mobile I have in mind.

tiny crochet sheep lamb
little crochet sheep lamb 2
little crochet sheep lamb 1
little crochet sheep lamb


Insert Title Here

So husband figured out the other day what our family motto is. And it may not be incredibly PC. I think he has always had a healthy mistrust of authority and blindly following but he really only codified it a couple of weeks ago. See this cartoon.
Somehow when I took his name this attitude imparted itself to me when I signed the marriage certificate. Awkward.

Either way, I believe our house requires our family motto.


My mother is so disappointed in me...

Fluffy crochet boy monkey

I had a commission to make another fluffy monkey but for a boy. Hmmm. tough. How do I make a small fluffy thing for a boy?
I'll tell you:   a scarf.
and possibly a some funky hair. clearly.
Wanna see the first fluffy monkeys I made? they're here: little fluffy crochet monkies

Saturday 4 February 2012

Felt aeroplane mobile

My newest mobile is this little felt bi-plane.
DH told me that the plane's propeller looks like a moustache and now I can't help seeing it that way! Weirdly I am then reminded of the Red Baron that Snoopy dog fights then :)

This little plane fits in my hand and is so light because of the felt and fibrefill that it spins merrily in the wind.
It is currently snowing outside so I'm not really opening windows to feel the arctic breeze but I did spend a couple happy minutes blowing this bi-plane around just to watch it dip and whirl.
Happy crafting!

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