craft blog/New dress a day

photo: Marisa Lynch @ New Dress a Day

New Dress a Day is a very inspiring blog: Marisa Lynch decided to make one dress a day, for 365 days, with a budget of 365$. Every day she takes an old second-hand dress (price: one dollar) and re-designs it into a completely different piece! The most impressive thing is that she has a day job, yet she manages to make a dress a day, and to blog about it…Reading her blog just makes you want to be proactive.

This is her great blog, her project is reaching the end soon. Every entry features before and after photos, and some pictures of the process…

And this is a podcast with a very good interview with her, from CraftyPod.

charley harper needlepoint

This looks really good! Check out Purl bee‘s post for more information on needlepoint, and this link for a great selection of needlepoint designs.

The design above is Charley Harper...I posted about it a while ago, but here’s one more image!

For more Charley Harper images…here.

Image transfers tutorial

I made these little wood cards during my awesome collage class at Root Division, a non-profit art organization in the Mission.

I xeroxed the owls images from a field guide to birds I found at the library, then made the transfers.

How to: 1) For the first one I used Matte Gel Acrylic Medium. I coated the image with the gel, using a foam sponge , then I placed it face down on the wood surface. Finally I covered it in wax paper, and burnished until the image tranferred.

2) For the ones in the second picture: I taped the photocopy face down to the primed wood surface, and rubbed wintergreen oil on them. Then I burnished the image for a few minutes and voilà…(I recommend using plastic gloves and keep the windows open while using the wintegreen oil technique).

A link to image transfer techniques:

http://www.liquitex.com/techniques/transfer.cfm

hand-made plushie @ the museum

I made this monster in an hour, sitting on the floor of the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Folk Art, a couple of weeks ago. The occasion was the amazing Craft Bar with Etsy Lab, where you were provided refreshments, sewing and knitting supplies and kits to make stuff! I can’t wait to go to the next one. Is  completely free for students – only 5$ for everybody else.

The sewing kit, and demonstration, enabled me to make a plushie out of old sweaters and buttons. In alternative you could make a cup cozy or knit a scarf (pattern provided) or whatever you wanted. It was such a great night, with so many people crafting happily all over the place, men, women, old and young people alike. And here I am, from the museum’s flickr page…

photo: flickr Museum of crafts and folk art

Above: I’m the one in the black sweater, sitting underneath the green framed cloth. Below: frantically sewing the last part. I’m behind the girl in the grey beanie hat :-)

photo: flickr Museum of crafts and folk art

There’s no better way to celebrate craft in a museum than…making something.

the perfect studio

atelierpompadour‘s studio, featured in the Etsy Open Studio Flickr pool

It’s been a long time without blogging…I’ve been really busy trying to organize my research, juggling interviews, classes, studying Spanish and reading anthropology books. Then I stumbled on this photo on Etsy: this looks to me like the perfect studio, and made me want to have a place like this for myself.

The lack of time sometimes is not the real reason behind the lack of making something creative. I’d say the lack of a good private space just dedicated to making art/craft/writing/whatever you like is the main problem. A space full of all the supplies you need and with tons of natural light, how dreamy!

In the meantime I keep my creative self busy with all sorts of art classes – like drawing (done), collage and bookbinding. That’s a good solution for pushing yourself to actually MAKE things.

snow and candles

It’s cold and snowy here in Denmark, and I just love it. Biking in the snow (tons of snow) is a lot of fun, eating soup in cafès where candles are lit on every table is the ultimate cozy treat and…well, I’m definitely in love with this weather! This year it got pretty idyllic Scandinavian, so I wished I could stay here a little more – and go to California when the rainy Danish spring is starting. But I guess I’ll get adjusted to the San Franciscan sun pretty quickly.

(I found a great tutorial for decorating candles with wax paper that I need to post here. And this is a version made with dried flowers.)

Photos of snowy Copenhagen coming up soon!

Printables for free

art by Amy Moss/photo from Eat Drink Chic

I need to print some business cards (or I’d rather say student cards?) for my fieldwork in SF. I found some very nice templates, and not just for business cards…there are so many free PDFs for gift tags, cards, stationery sets, soda bottles, cake boxes, anything really. The one above is by Amy Moss, her lovely blog Eat Drink Chic has so many great downloads!

I also like Creature Comforts, another blog packed with nice free printables, and I do it yourself.

Knitting shoes?

photo BlueandRedCows posted on craftster

Knitted Converse! Nice project posted on Craftster with full instructions, here.

DIY goat cheese

photo Urban Cheesecraft

When in California I’ll definitely order this! I’m intrigued by the idea of making my own goat cheese, and I actually like to use chevre for quesadillas. Mmmh..

This is the great Etsy shop that sells it, from Portland, Oregon:

Urban Cheesecraft

Why do we craft?

photo by dotty angel on Flickr

I’ve finally re-learned how to knit, and I’m about to finish my first basic project…and while looking around for some knitting websites I found 2 amazing podcasts on craft:

1) The first podcast is “Reconsidering Craft“, from the program”To the best of our knowledge”, on Wisconsin Public Radio, and features crafters from the indie underground craft revival in the US, as well as a sociologist, a neuroscientist (she talks about the healing power of knitting), a writer who published a book on scrapbooks in the States from 1970 to 1945…

2) And this is Cast On, a very inspiring podcast and website “dedicated to the paradigm shifting notion that knitting matters” . Anything on this website is knit-related, and in the most interesting way.