Today, I decided I was going to make my first tutorial. But with a bit of a difference. Instead of hanging my camera above me and filming looking down, I decided to create it stop start animation. This is a technique that I use a lot in university when making videos and can look really good. I chose to start with something relatively easy: my kimono embellishments. I wrote a post about these back in April/May and as I use them a lot, I decided it would be a good start. I would love to know what you think!
I did mess up slightly (ooops!) and I wonder if you can see the deliberate mistake.*
*and for those who are really eagle eyed, there is a second one, but I will be impressed if you can find that one!
I guess it's about time that I wrote about last weekend's festivities. The evening overall was a great success and lots of money was raised for the charity although we didn't seem to sell many cards (despite the 100 I had made and the however many that Carole made) I want to share some of the cards that I made for the gig. Not all of them, mind you, we'd be here all night!
I began designing after I came across Some Odd Girl, a company that make stamps and digi stamps. If you have the chance, take a look; they are so cute! I've always enjoyed drawing manga and after looking at these stamps, I started doing my own. This one was one of my first designs (Wimbledon was on at the time) and after I was happy with my sketch, I scanned it into the computer and painted it using Photoshop. I was then able to print out multiple images to put on cards. I also wrote the message on the computer. I made six in total, on different colour card blanks.
As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I had a go at making some more cards with tea-bag folded embellishments. This one is my favourite of the ten I made. I like the colour and using the square that are too small to fold (believe me I tried!) are so effective and they make sure I don't waste any of my stash. I finished off the card with a peel-off message and a length of ribbon.
This next card was made with gifts from my Japanese friend from university. As a leaving present (she was only spending one year in the UK), she gave me so beautiful origami papers especially to make cards with. She also gave me a brush tipped pen, which is what I used to write the message. The papers were perfect to make kimonos out of and I made four of these by mixing and matching.
I decided to make some more of my silhouette cards for the fundraiser mainly because they are simple to make and replicate and the design is really striking. So striking in fact that I sold both of the guitar cards to one person who was after a card for a teenage birthday (and so I found my niche, but more on that later). I also made some camera silhouettes, a couple of them on coloured card blanks.
Finally, I want to show you my second set of my manga cards (I should probably come up with a name for them or something). These were inspired by the gig: being a musical event, what better design to have than a musician? I did these the same was as the tennis ones: sketch, scan, paint, print. I finished this set of six by backing them with red rose patterned vellum and a stamped message. I am going to stick with these characters and I have already started on my next batch of characters with a new theme . . . . watch this space!
Yep, that's right. I have my work cut out for my this week - although, I'll be the one doing all the cutting! Some friends are in a band and every year they put on a charity gig to raise money for Kanzi Kibera, a schools project in africa. Anyway, we are very much involved with the band and the church who is raising the money and so, me and my friend, Carole, are selling cards. Which means we've got to make cards. Lots of them.
On Monday, I got started by doing some tea-bag folding whilst working through my 'Films I need to watch' list. If you haven't tried tea-bag folding, it's very fiddly but quick enjoyable to do. After folding for most of the day, I started to make some more top hats to put onto Mad Hatter cards (I was very organised and looked through my photos to decide which cards I could make lots of). Yesterday was all about the embellishments, as my supply of card blanks was running dangerously low after all the crafting I did at uni. I finished off by making some kimonos out of the origami paper one of my Japanese friends gave me as a present before she left.
Yesterday, I was able to get into town and buy those much needed card blanks (The Works is amazing for them!) and I was able to start making the cards.
I have just finished those (10 in total) and am about to start with my Alice in Wonderland cards and then move onto my silhouettes.
Busy day ahead! I will post photos later on when I have finished them all and I am admiring my handywork! ;D
I am lucky enough to live across the hall from a girl from germany who's father owns a craft shop back in Hamburg. As well as being a very good friend (and very bad influence, may I add!), she brought me back plenty of stash after she learnt of my hobby. After Christmas I received a huge carrier bag full of papers and embellishments to use on my cards. Its always exciting to get new stuff to work with. Coming back to uni after Easter also saw me with some brand new papers and really really cute animal embellishments for me to use.
I've never really bought myself any embellishments to use as I find I am reluctant to use them because if I use them on one card, I won't be able to use them on another. I realise how ridiculous I sound, don't worry. Having said that, these animal embellishments are so cute I cannot wait to put them onto a card or two.
Usually, any embellishments I use, I make my self. I fairly recently designed my self a template to create little kimonos to attach to my cards. I found these to be so easy to make and I can easily spend an evening watching TV and making kimonos. I found the best way to 'mass produce' them is to chose however many sheet of matching papers. For these ones, I used Eastern Promise from Dovecraft. Cutting out all the parts of the kimonos and them mix and matching them allowed me to make unique cards but also made a set of cards.
If anyone would like the template, leave a comment and I'll upload my template and how to assemble the kimono.
