Cheat sheet

I am absolutely loving this photography cheat-sheet. I love my camera, but I readily admit that I don't really know how to work it.

It's from Living in the Stills, via My Modern Metropolis:

Jelly shots

We had jelly shots at a party at the flat a few months ago. Sadly, no photographic evidence of this exists as they went down too easily to last long, but I can say for certain that they weren't a patch on the lovely ones in this video:




I post this super-cool film with the taste of the bitterest grapes in my mouth, because it was made by the ladies at Zeichen Press who have apparently made it their mission to lead the life I wish I had. Damn them.

Attention

Thought for the day:

I do not have a short attention span, I simply have a wide range of interests and a finite life in which to explore them.

I'm pretty sure that's a positive thing.

Nice Things

I've been doing some creative things today, as well as catching up on some of my favourite blogs. I came across this lovely list on My Modern Metropolis:



I'll post some images of the things I've been making soon. But for now, here are some pictures from the Silk Mill I visited last weekend in the nearby village of Whitchurch:

Two writing things

Firstly, the very exciting new website for Kohl publishing. Started by an escapee from my work, and now accepting submissions.

Secondly, this delightful list of literary insults.

That is all.

Printing on fabric

Thank heavens for this lovely tutorial from Jezze Prints. My darling super-stylish flatmate wants to use one of my linocuts to print onto a t-shirt, but try as I might, I had not been able find a way to get fabric paint to work - it kept coming out blotchy and parts weren't printing at all.

I was looking online to see if perhaps there was a better substance than fabric paint, but the tutorial showed me how to turn the paint into a useable medium. Jezze Prints is apparently an amateur chemist and she figured out that if you add a few grains of salt to the paint it liquefies a little and absorbs nicely into a felt pad.

I've trialled the printing on a piece of scrap fabric and it worked a dream:





I'll do a few more dry runs and then put it onto the t-shirt.

Also, now I've seen Jezze Print's work, I am really in love with her style, her work looks wonderful:

Over 1500 views!!!

Wow! I just checked in on YouTube to see how my Linocut animation is going and it has over 1500 views. I never would have expected it to do so well within just a couple of weeks.

According to the stats, most of the views are coming from the Craftzine blog, which I love so much. A lot of them have also come from the delightful Yellow Umbrella blog.

I also know that Imaginative Bloom posted it on facebook, for which I'm very grateful.

If you are one of the unlucky few that has yet to see the animation, check it out here:

Life

The best postsecret. This is exactly how I feel sometimes:

New Evian ad

I am loving the new Evian advert. It's so cool:

Yellow Umbrella

This week my linocut animation is featured on the lovely Craft Mondays section of The Yellow Umbrella. It's such a great blog, I'm really happy to have been selected. Check it out.

How-to Linocut animation

I made a new animation to show the process of creating my linocuts. I wanted to keep it short and sweet, so that it'd be fun to watch.

I hope you like it, if you do, please share it.

Comic covers covered

I am loving this new blog, which has comic covers redrawn. That's not a great description, it's much better than it sounds. Check it out.

This is my favourite:


(by Chris Hoobler)

Find a gift for a friend

I don't know how long this has been around for, but I've only just discovered it. There's a tool in Etsy where you can select from you Facebook friends and it will run a search based on the things they like.

It sounds weird, but it's actually really good. I tested it on someone I always struggle to buy for (my little brother) and it came up with some suggestions I never would have thought of.

Give it a go if you're ever short of ideas. Buy Handmade.


(Thanks to Business Insider for the link to the tool.)

It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday

I cannot get this song out of my head. I think it's because I am just so glad that the week has come to an end.
It's a bank holiday on monday and I want to spend the 3 days doing some sort of project. I've been doing a fair bit of printing lately, and I've had some lovely positive responses from friends.

I think I may try and do another animation. I've been coming across a few really inspirational things recently. Here's one by Peter Lowey from the Annecy Festival that I'm loving:



Also this from Katie Blair:

Stop Motion wonder

Oh goodness, this is the best thing I've ever seen:

Moleskine Bags in Hyper Stop Motion from Moleskine ® on Vimeo.

Screenprint love

Oh goodness, this is just the most beautiful thing:



I love it, it has such a delightful style. It's from Etsy here.

Etsy update

In fact, in a fit of productiveness, I've started work on my felt shop on Etsy and set up the widget for it within this blog.

New Etsy

One of the many many things that I have perpetually unfulfilled intentions of doing is sorting out my Etsy shop.
In a shocking turn of events (especially to myself), I have in fact finally got around to setting up a new shop for my printed items, there's just a couple of cards in there at the moment, so I'll be building it up over the next few weeks. I haven't yet sorted out my felt shop, but I will do that next.
You'll be able to see a few items from the shop in the window on the right of this blog, and I'm going to try and get back into updating my blog by putting in some details of my linocutting and printing work.
Here's a photo of some of my new cards:

Sing out your joy

I have been absent from here, but not missing from the world of writing. I've decided that it's time to do The Artist's Way, having finally reached that stage where I could tell exactly how rubbish my writing was before I'd even put pen to paper. It is really good, but it requires about 900 words every morning and then possibly some tasks later. If I'm feeling good, there's also some creative writing.
It doesn't really leave much over for this blog, which is sort of a shame, but I'm appreciating the writing I'm doing, so I don't feel it as a lack. I will return to this at some point I'm sure, and perhaps I'll put some Artist's Way updates on here. I will be adding some writing pieces to Eating Your Own Heart, I think, so perhaps that's one way to check my progress for any interested parties.

One more video

This is a couple of years old, but I just came across it and I love it:



Also, we had the party this weekend and it was awesome! I'm off to London today to meet my dad, his girlfriend and my brother for dinner. I think I might go in early and get to a gallery, though that depends on how much energy I can muster.