DECORATING LEAVES-SCARF DESIGN

This is from a fairly old project at university. The brief was to design a scarf based on Norfolk. I knew everyone was going to go with the obvious cobbles and the markets, so I wanted to assure I had something completely different. I went down the route of Norfolk outdoors. So I developed drawings of architectural details and markings and moved these onto leaves I collected from woods in norwich. 

From the drawings on the leaves, I scanned them into my computer and played around with layouts and composition on photoshop. I came up with lots and lots of final scarf ideas but for me, two stood out. 

This photo below is my final scarf, I can assure you it looks far better in person and the quality has come out really bad in this picture. However you get the idea. I got this digitally printed and then frayed the edges (after sewing of corse).

EASTER STRING BASKET/NEST

The process is so simple, just a little time consuming because it takes ages to dry. But don't let that put you off! My first attempt went horribly wrong as I used a sugar and water solution which was supposedly the 'best way for hard string' according to a DIY blog. My balloon popped before it was even dry so I ended up with a ball of soggy, pink wool.

Here is my process:

1. I dyed my wool in a fabric dye with salt mixed in to prevent the dye from running. 

2. I mixed up a 1 part water 1 part PVA glue solution with some glitter in and soaked my wool in this for a good 5-10 minutes.

3. I found the end of the wool and using two fingers pinched together I ran the wool through to get rid of excess glue. Then I wound around my ballon. There isn't a set way of wrapping, just make sure as many gaps are covered in wool as possible.

4. Leave to dry-at least overnight. You will find that the balloon would of shrunk to around half its size, so pop this and pull it out.

I brought these little sets of rabbits and sheep in Tesco as part of their Easter range. They're so fun and ever so cute in life. To line my Easter basket I shredded gold paper and filled this in with a few feathers. Then all I had to do was fill it with chocolate eggs, a rabbit and my animals! Looks really effective and the basket can be used to play with once the choccies are gone.

WALL OF HEARTS

I have a rather unhealthy growing collection of hanging hearts that I have hoarded from birthdays, presents, impulse buys etc for years! After having recently moved back home this became apparent and I decided to make a eclectic arrangement of hearts on one of my very plain walls. The inspiration was taken from clusters of photo frames on walls-a recent interior craze which has taken off. 

Originally all of my walls were white with just one feature wall being a floral in soft purples. Laura Ashley-Mauve Kimono to be exact. For a few weeks I pottered about with every possible colour sample of purple trying to match the shade of wall paper at the same time as standing out enough without being to dominating. Eventually I settled with a Dulux pot of purple. 

Making Mother's Day cards

Yesterday I was busy with my god daughter covering the kitchen in painted hands and feet prints. I laid out a huge piece of lining paper and lots of colours with glitter and let her run free. Eventually after lots of cleaning up and once the prints had dried I cut the prints out.

The first is a butterfly card using feet and a paper body. 

And the second is a hand printed caterpillar which was originally going to be card but she wanted it to run around the house. 

Valentines hearts

I found this really cool idea off Pinterest but they were in the form of pancakes. I wanted to make mine out of white chocolate.

I looked everywhere for a piping syringe but I had no luck, so I brought some little icing tubes and piping bags. I used the lid of the icing tubes and I cut off the end, I dropped the lid into the piping bag and filled with white chocolate. Very easy to control! 

White chocolate lace hearts-valentine gifts!!!

Making my Georgian Dolls House

To start:
I ordered some plain, untreated wooden shelves from Homebase costing around £20 and I measured the height and width of these. Then I worked out how much MDF wood I would need making sure I had extra on the top for the roof. Using a Jigsaw I cut out the windows, doors and the roof shapes ready to begin painting. The MDF wood was £7.50 from Homebase.

Here is a working drawing of the shapes to go around the windows-to be kept simple!

Next step was the exciting part where I selected the colours I wanted to use. I knew that pink was a definite so I found about 20 sample pots of shades of pink and then painted them onto some lining paper. Once dried I could see which ones went best together…This is the outcome.

The main colour on the outside of the dolls house was painted in this Crown Easy Rider. I originally brought 2 pots of Farrow and Ball paint thinking it was on special offer and got home to realise it was £7.00 for sample pots. So I took those back and noticed Crown paint samples were on sale for 93p each.

I wanted to test what colours would work best and how they would come out, so I stamped straight onto the lining paper sample paints I did earlier. I found the glittery ones looked magical-I picked this up from The Works for £1.49 and it does go a long way.

I have a selection of woodblock stamps which aren't the easiest to print with onto wood, but they do look very effective as a collection. You could try using foam stamps but the design wouldn't be as intricate.

This is what the final background looked like before I glued it to the shelves. I left a small space in-between each section so the glue stuck better to the wood (wood to wood sticks best). To glue it together I used Evo-Stik which is a wood adhesive and I left over night to set with loads of books on top to weigh it down. I also banged in small wood nails/pins to hold it firmly in place.

Finally I brought some decorative wood from Homebase, cut it down to size and also two little door knobs and using some metallic spray I coated them in a silvery/gold. 

Nearly finished-To add the finishing touches to my dolls house I used a metallic silver Sharpie pen and drew around the windows and added some little trees on the steps by the front door. Then I printed two stamps-one on the top of the house and the other above the door.

And this is the final outcome:

Georgian Dolls house

For my god daughters birthday I decided to her something special and a one off piece. I came across these Dolls House cabinets by Andrew Martin in January 2014 edition of Homes and Gardens magazine. I love the simplicity of these especially the chalk grey colour-very in this year!

From here I did a google search of Georgian style houses and created a mood board of some of my favourite houses and even little features I liked for example the patterning around this door frame.

I then looked at patterning I would put around my windows and door frames as Georgian houses are typically very simple with touches of pattern but mainly a few clean lines around the tops of windows. 

I looked at dome and triangular shapes.

Lampshade 2

Originally I made this design up as wallpaper but

then decided to cut it up and make it into a lamp.

 The base for the lampshades are old bits of

drift wood, picked up from Orwell Shore.



Wallpaper 5

This wallpaper is the same as Wallpaper 2, but here 

I changed the colour scheme to light grey on to dark

grey and off set every other collum. 



Chair for my Final Major Project

The pattern on the chair is based on Lichen found on trees.

I cut the repeated design out of newsprint and screenprinted

it on to hand died fabric.

I picked this chair up from a junk shop for £3, brought it

home and cleaned the paint up then using a sander I distressed

sections of the paint to create a used look. Then I pulled off the

old fabric covering and turned the chair upside down and using 

upholstery nails I attached the fabric in place.

Wallpaper 3 & 4

Wallpaper 2

This is a length of wallpaper printed in neutral 

colours using a lino cut, which I think adds

some interest with the distressed lines.

Wallpaper 1

Lampshade 1

As part of my Final major show for College, I plan 

to create a range of fabrics and wallpapers sticking to a theme

of Circles. 

This lampshade is going to be part of a set of 3.

I made this lampshade by dying cotton fabric a light grey 

with a hint of purple, and I also dyed some cotton pink which is the 

circles underneath the pattern, which was created by

a lino print.