Skinny Jeans and Trainers (and New Art)

Time for one of my random thoughts posts!

I bought my first pair of skinny jeans a few months ago. Well, actually, Mr W. bought them. I sent him to the shops while I was tutoring, asking for some new jeans (I've really not been bothered about fashion since having kids!) and he came back with skinny jeans. To my surprise and delight I guess, they fitted!

Anyway, I put them on one morning when it was a bit dull and drizzly and was about to leave the house, putting on my trainers. I looked down and realised that skinny jeans and trainers do not go! It suddenly occurred to me why I've been seeing women wearing sandals in non-sandal weather! It's either sandals or boots I've discovered.

Apart from this earth-shattering discovery, I've found a new outlet for my photography. I have images for sale on Fine Art America. You can buy in a variety of formats (like RedBubble). This image called 'Light of the Desert' has just had some votes in one of the contests:

I'm currently working on some other artwork to sell alongside the photography. I'm trying to combine the photography, children's illustration and other arty things I'm doing with all the different inks I bought a while ago. I love abstract and fantasy art and that's what I'm working on right now. I've been experimenting with different textures, backgrounds and materials, so hope to have some new artwork for sale soon!

If you missed my personalised colouring books by the way, they're here over at Folksy. Make wonderful Christmas presents!

  

Hope to show you some new work soon:)

Handbound Books... and New Business Direction

I love, love, love books! I love really old books with their dusty covers and falling apart pages, threads hanging from the spines... And I love brand new books with their crisp clean pages and that lovely new book smell! I love reading books, I love writing in cute notebooks, I love listing in them, creating in them. And I love to make books too.

I've had a long think about the direction my creative business is going. I've never been able to stick to one thing as I have several crafty passions and can't just not make! The problem I have is that my shops have always seemed a bit of a mish-mash. I thought that it could be a good thing - a bit like a handmade department store, never knowing what you might find. However, I'm not sure this really works when selling online.


So, I think I've found how to combine all my crafty things while keeping a cohesive look to my shops. I'm going to concentrate on handbound books. The books I made before were either just tied with ribbon (polymer clay books) or used Japanese stab-stitch. I've decided to have a go with Coptic stitching. Each book will have a polymer clay button and most will have an altered photograph or an original illustration.


I've mentioned altered photographs as that's how I'm going to be selling my images from now on. After some research (and a few years trying!), I've realised that standard photographs generally don't sell that well. People are looking for something different and unique. I've been learning lots of techniques on altering images and that's how I'm going to be selling them from now on - on books, as greeting cards and ACEOs.


Phew - sorry for the long rambling, but I think I needed to get it all down on 'paper' to make things clear in my head!

So - pics are my first Coptic-stitched listing on Folksy, planning for the next few books and some of my altered images I'm working on.

Anyone else out there love books?? I'm sure there are a few of you... Or is your business heading in a new direction?

Cheesy Scones

OK, here's the first attempt from Wallace and Gromit's Cheesy Cook Book. Little W and I made chunky cheese scones the other day. He's always loved helping me in the kitchen, ever since he could stand on a chair!




They turned out pretty well. I think they could have done with a little more cheese, but they were still pretty yummy. They would go well with soup, although we just had them after dinner.

The recipe from the book (pages 6/7) is:

225g self-raising flour
55g softened butter
pinch of salt
50g Wensleydale cheese, grated
150ml milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 220 degrees c, gas mark 7.
Mix flour, salt and butter until creamy.
Stir in the grated cheese and pour in milk to make a dough.
Dust work surface with flour and knead the dough. Roll out to about 2cm thick and cut out circles.
Place on a greased baking tray and brush a little milk on top.
Bake for about 12 minutes.


Recipe says it makes 6, although we managed to get 8.

Just a note on the crafty stuff... I'm working on streamlining my photography and offering more specific types of photographs. I'm thinking TtV, macro, glass painted and maybe infrared. I'm also thinking up new ways of selling, other than prints, cards, notebooks and ACEOs. Calendars are top of my list at the moment. Now I've just got to find time to do it..!

Vintage Photographs

I blogged a few weeks ago about the Kodak Duaflex camera I won on ebay. I've now managed to make a 'contraption' and take some TtV photos. A 'contraption' is the black tube you need to put between the two cameras - the Duaflex and my usual Canon macro lens - to block out the light.

There's four shots I'm pleased with. Here's two of them:

You can buy them through my website and there's another one on Folksy.

I love the grainy effect of these images, although they're really not easy to set up. It took me a whole afternoon just to take these shots. That meant a whole afternoon of rearranging the furniture and getting into all sorts of odd positions - not easy when you're pregnant! Hope no-one was looking through the window!

I hope to get around to experimenting more with this technique and producing some more vintage images. Need to get thinking about some interesting subjects...

Vintage photos on the way!

After losing out 3 times on ebay auctions, I was delighted when I finally won a 'new' vintage camera the other day. It's a Kodak Duaflex from around 1950. Here it is...

I'm going to try a technique called 'Through the Viewfinder'. It's where you take a photograph through the lens of an old camera to produce images that have a vintage look. I love this effect and can't wait to try it out! I need to make a cardboard tube first, to block out the light. It all sounds simple enough, but we'll see...

New Sites I've Joined

I signed up to two new sites this week: byhand.me and RedBubble. The former gives you space to link all your sites - Etsy, Flickr and so on, alas no space for Folksy just yet. You can also link your own website. And at RedBubble you upload your photography or artwork, which people then comment on, similar to Flickr, but the fabulous thing is, you can sell too. Even better, you don't have to do anything - RedBubble print and deliver for you! I think this will be a great way for me to get my work out there. Well, that's the plan anyway!

I'm also looking at premiergallery.co.uk and artgallery.co.uk. Would love to hear people's experience of any of these sites.

Sorry no pics again today. We're off to Willows Farm tomorrow, near St. Albans, so I'll be sure to take some then.

Oh, by the way, where have all my followers gone??? It seems to be a problem a lot of users are having at the moment. Hope it gets sorted soon. I like to see all your pictures so I know you're there! This would be a good time to say thanks for all your comments so far. x