Bird sketches

I just finished a new series of bird illustrations, this time done in pencil. At the risk of sounding odd, I was excited to rediscover the 3B pencil. I got into the habit of using a 2B because it doesn't smudge as much, but the softer pencils do shading beautifully, and you can get nice dark black tones as well. The image above is the layout I decided on for greeting cards that I'm planning to have printed today.

In case anyone is interested and doesn't know, the typical yellow pencil that everyone commonly uses is the HB. But artists generally prefer a softer lead, the larger the number in the B range, the softer the lead is. Ie, 6B is a very very soft drawing pencil, nice for shading and can create very dark black shadows. It also smudges very easily (can be good or bad depending on what you want) and the lead can also break more easily and need frequent sharpening. The H pencils get harder as the number goes up, so for example a 3H pencil may be good for drafting where you want light clean lines, no smudging and no need for dark shading.
This one is the Eastern kingbird.
This is the Tufted titmouse. He's my favourite. Not my all-time favourite bird, which is the robin, but my favourite in this series.
This one is the Yellow warbler.
And finally, a goldfinch.

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Cutie Mary Blair coaster set project

This is a little project I just finished which is very easy - anyone can do this for sure. I started out with an old coaster set from Goodwill. It had a plain wooden box and all the coasters had the same Kate Greenaway illustration. I love Kate Greenaway, but this particular image was a little bland, and also they were all the same.
I found my new illustrations from an old Golden Book anthology. Before you are horrified, please note the very bad condition of this book! (Still hard to cut the pages though). The reason I used a book rather than illustrations of my own are because I needed something professionally printed that wouldn't get damaged if it got a little damp. I wanted to be able to actually use the coasters!The next step was to trace the coaster onto a piece of white paper, then cut out the rounded square shape. This gives you a little window so you can frame the exact part of the illustration you want to have on the top of your coaster. After you have determined the placement you can trace an outline in pencil then cut it out. I find that it's best if you make it slightly larger than the coaster, then trim the image once it's attached to the coaster.
I attached the images to each coaster with a little pva glue. I found this kind of glue at an art shop, but other glues would probably work. The tricky part is to brush on enough glue so that your picture adheres everywhere, but not so much that it ends up wrinkled. Try doing a small amount first, then if it's not enough gently lift the paper up and reapply a bit more glue. I found the best amount is the amount you would apply if you were painting the coaster. I didn't add glue to the top of the image - this isn't decoupage - you don't want damp glue on the bottom of your drink!

Finally I primed the wooden box and painted that white. If you already have the glue, an old book you can cut up and some paint, this project can be very cheaply done. I only spent $1.99 at Goodwill for the old coaster set. And look how cute the finished set is!
These illustrations are by the wonderful Mary Blair. Look to vintage Golden books if you'd like to see lots of lovely illustrators. I found some other stories in the book illustrated by Garth Williams, and some by Richard Scarry. It inspired me to see earlier work by these artists (and cheered me up). Just a reminder that most artists aren't overnight successes.

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Updating the shop!

I thought I would try out this new Etsy Mini feature, here are some of the things in my shop!

Etsy Buy Handmade clairelmilne

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Jewellery making weekend

I had such a nice day today going for one of our loooong weekend walks. We went to look at some bike shops for Bradley, and I got to visit Arton Beads, Romni Wool, Fresh Collective and Red Pegasus. I found a notebook with a vintage bird illustration on the cover at Red Pegasus (and covetted some silver acorn earrings). I also bought a beautiful skirt at Fresh Collective and lots of beading supplies at Arton. Starting last night, I've been making jewellery once again and I've been putting new things in the shop.This time I also did the photography outside, which of course is much better light and the colours are truer. On the way home I collected stray leaves and twigs to use as backdrops.I go through weeks where I just don't feel like creating, then suddenly I'll get inspired and I can't stop! Lately it's been busy in a good way, because I've also been working on my Scholastic book and I really like how it's turning out. I wish I could share my pictures, but I have to wait until the book is published in the fall.

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New York ribbons

I feel I've been neglecting my needle book posts..so I'm going to try to catch up a bit. We've had a busy time recently, mainly because we just bought our first house! We didn't think we could afford one in Toronto, and were planning to just buy a slightly bigger condo, but after not really seeing anything we liked, we extended our search a bit and found a little house just at the edge of our budget. I keep telling people that it's very small (it's a 1-bedroom bungalow), because I don't want people to see it and be disappointed. I have to admit that my first reaction on seeing the house was to laugh, because it looked so tiny. But while it also needs redecorating throughout, it definitely has potential to be a really lovely little home. We'll be moving in at the end of July and I'll be sure to share our decorating pictures then.

We also had a trip to New York city recently, and stayed with a friend in Hoboken. Lucky for me he had already found the "ribbon district" and had lots of great shopping tips. The ribbons at the top of this post are all from M&J Trimming (1008 Sixth Ave.), a store that will dazzle the ribbon lover, but also has buttons, lace, purse handles etc. All my favourite ribbons were from the front of the store, in a section devoted to embroidered ribbons, with many fancy ribbons imported from Europe as well.
To balance out this splurge, I also found these lovely ribbons (above) at the Textile Museum sale last week, the place where I like to stock up on crafts supplies for the coming year. The one on the bottom is my favourite - many thanks to my friend Sarah who found it first but let me have it!

Around the corner from M&J Trimming are more ribbon, button and bead stores, including the Martha Stewart recommend Tinsel Trading (Tinsel Trading 47 West 38th Street New York), and a similar store I discovered called Store Across the Street (Store Across the Street 64 West 38th Street New York). And if you're in that neighbourhood, I recommend the beautiful Bryant Park nearby as the perfect place to have a drink and sit down and look over your new ribbons. There are lots of little iron table and chair sets for anyone to use.We also went to a couple of flea markets. At the first outdoor parking lot (junky type) flea market I found a beautiful antique compact for $5 and a Noel Streatfeild book I hadn't heard of (New Shoes) for $1. It was across from an expensive looking indoor antique mall which we didn't visit (too much to do, too little time!) The second flea market was a few streets over in a parking garage. We could have spent hours in there but were getting a little tired and hungry.And speaking of ribbons, I picked up these bargains at Kate's Paperie on Broadway in Soho which was having a moving sale. This was also near to my other favourite stores, Pearl River Trading, Anthropologie and Kate Spade.And last but not least, my catch up wouldn't be complete without finally sharing the adorable little rabbit made for me by the lovely and talented Susan!

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Good Catch Motherlode Craft Fair

Illustration by Becky from Sweetie Pie Press

So guess what? I was invited to participate in my first craft fair! At first I was worried I wouldn't have time, I have a lot going on, but then I figured it sounds like such a nice group and a good chance to try it out.

What will I be selling? Well I have some knitted bags that are always expensive to ship, so I figured a craft fair was a better venue for them. That includes the finished verson of this:And I have my bird card sets, and I found some lovely thick vintage cotton fabric with a tree pattern that I'm going to whip up into cute totes. I have some jewellery that hasn't made it into the shop yet. I have some needle books that just need to be embroidered, so hopefully those will be ready in time. And possibly some more pouches. So much to do so little time!

Here's the info:
Good Catch Motherlode Craft Fair
Saturday 12 May 2007
12:00pm-5:00pm
Good Catch General Store
1556 Queen Street West
(Back Yard)
Toronto, ON
FREE

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Catching up

April is a busy month for us, we have four birthdays to celebrate now (including mine) and of course Easter. For my birthday Bradley took me to Montreal for a lovely long weekend staying at the same B&B as we did before. The weather was gorgeous this time, so we had a great time walking around and I had some handmade coupons from Bradley for both a ribbon spree (see above) and a button spree (see below).
Another one of my other Bradley presents that I loved was the blue floral fabric I used to whip up this large messenger bag before going away. I used some dark brownish khaki twill for the exterior and used pale blue twill to line the inside, and the floral for the outer flap, and to line the pockets and strap. This bag turned out to be exactly what I needed, light enough to carry around all day but big enough to stuff full of extra things on the way home. The fabric is Denyse Schmidt's "flea market fancy" and comes in a variety of colours.
Other than crafts shopping we also did some geo caching (Bradley's current passion) and ended up hiking around on some nice trails on the mountain. We also saw a very inspiring show at the Beaux Arts museum, about Disney and the artists that inspired Disney. I had the thrill of seeing some of Beatrix Potter's artwork in person, including a sample illustration for Alice in Wonderland that she made to send to publishers. Why on earth she wasn't commissioned to illustrate more books before publishing her own is beyond me.

The other highlight of our trip was finally meeting my extra-talented fellow illustrator, Susan Mitchell. I'm planning to post more birthday and Susan goodies in my next post!

And finally, before leaving I was commissioned to illustrate a book for Scholastic, and so that's been keeping me busy since then. It's a wonderful story (with a lovable dog in it) and it's been a real treat to work on it. Of course I'll be sharing the artwork for that in the next little while.

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Illustration Friday - green

The picture above is a detail of the illustration below. It's meant to be a Spring picture, so the robin is busy singing, still looking for his mate.
I've been working on my slice of a postcard that our Illustration for Kids group is sending out collectively as a Spring promo. I thought it might also fit for the Illustration Friday topic "green".

Sometimes it's hard to be creative, I've been feeling a bit flat lately. Spring is always a nice inspiration though, and I like this peaceful scene. I'd like to be sitting under that tree!

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Lattice cork board

This is my current WIP - a white wool felted purse knitted up with moss stitch. The fabric in the picture is going to be the lining.

The other project I just finished is for the sewing corner - a lattice covered cork board. I see these in magazines all the time and decided to finally make one after finding a cork board at Goodwill for $0.99.
The first stage was to cover it with fabric. The frame was too securely attached to remove, so I had to find a way to attach the fabric and still have it look tidy. I used a light blue cotton cut to the same size as the frame. Then I used a pencil to mark the dimensions of the cork part.
The pencil line marks the hem allowance which you fold over. Then you pin the fabric in place and make sure it's tidy and even all the way around. I used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the cork.
The last part is the lattice. (I wonder why I love lattices so much?) The little white bookshelf has a lattice inset too, so it's kind of a theme in that corner. I made the cork board lattice by marking off even intervals then pinning bias tape in place with silver tacks.

The bias tape is single fold, which works best. (I just found out the difference myself - previously I'd only bought double fold which wouldn't have looked quite right for this project.) Also, the tape is cut on the bias of course, which means it has a little bit of stretch, so after pinning it snugly in place, it will hold your odds and ends without the need of extra pins.
Here it is in the sewing corner - I also added a hook to the wall for my aprons. I think I'm finally done now! Thank you all so much for all the comments on my crafts corner, I'm happy to have inspired so many people, because I think every crafter should have their own little corner to work in.

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Crafts "room" reveal

I finally finished my crafts corner! It's not much, I don't have a whole room to work with, but I love it because it means that all my sewing things are now organized in one corner. I used the blue crafts room inspiration page in my last post, but didn't end up changing the wall colour. But I did manage to get lots of blue into the corner.

The picture above is my favourite new accessory, a little ruffled ceramic dish that I found while thrifting. It's perfect for holding my pincushion and loose pins and thread while I'm sewing. Even if it wasn't useful I have to admit I'd still love it because it's so pretty.

Here's a picture of the whole corner. All my smaller crafts books are in the middle shelf of the small white bookshelf, and the large ones are in the birch IKEA bookshelf on the right.
I used wooden shelf kits from Home Depot, they're only $6 each and the wood has a nice border, and it's all ready for priming and painting. The white metal brackets I used are the same kind I saw in the Blueprint room, and I recommend them over the large wooden brackets that came in the kit because they take up less space. This was a tip from the magazine and I'm glad they mentioned it because otherwise the boxes on the bottom wouldn't have fit. I recommend planning out what will go on the shelves so you can make sure there's space.

These baskets, boxes and tins hold lots of sewing supplies, but the one on the top left is empty because it's getting so fragile. But it's the first sewing basket I had when I was little, which belonged to my great aunt and it's very special to me. I adored it and used it all the time. The lining is pink silk.
I gathered up some other blue accessories, pleased to find that my tea cup and Dorcas pin tin fit in with the colour scheme perfectly. The little blue case is a cheap party toy with the tiny balls that you have to try to fit into the punched circles. It had a clown picture, but I used another Martha Stewart magazine tip and opened it up and replaced the inside with pretty Japanese paper.
The chair slipcover is my pride and joy - my first slipcover ever and a perfect fit for the wooden chair. I also love the fabric - a new pattern from Fabricland that has a Japanese look to me. The flowers in the pattern are made up of tiny dots. I made a template with cheap fabric first, and while it is more trouble, it is worth it in the end.
I made a scalloped mat for the sewing machine from two pieces of wool, and cut a scalloped edge by hand. The secret to cutting scalloped edges is to clip the fabric with "v"s first, then round out the v's to make the scallops.
These metal boxes hold all my threads and other notions. I painted them both white to match. I covered the drawers of the IKEA box on the bottom with patterned paper, inspired by the lovely Blair at Wise Craft.
And finally, I found a plain wooden wastepaper bin at Goodwill, and painted it white and then added a blue bird on a branch with the leftover paint from the desk. I like the scalloped edge.
So that's it! The only thing that wouldn't fit in this corner is my fabric stash...someday I'll figure out what to do with that!

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Miniature crafts studio - part one

from home & country June 2006 - I love everything about this page, the blue, the ceramics, the antique sewing machine and of course the whole nook aspect of it.

I feel bad I haven't posted in a long time. I'm not sure why, I'm still doing lots of sewing and knitting, and I've been sneaking lots of new things into my etsy shop. But I was thinking it might be because lately I've been obsessed with fixing up our home. You know when you reach the point where you have to apologize a little bit? You say things like: "Is it ok if I just tell you my idea for those chairs? Just quickly..."

In the last year we've replaced the light in our kitchen from a horrible flourescent fixture to a charming schoolhouse light. We also replaced the ugly living room light and added a lamp in a formerly gloomy corner of the room. And we finally hired a plumber to remove the sink we had in the living room - I guess it was a kind of bar area, but it's in an alcove and I was using it as a closet. Lots of wasted storage there! We still need to add matching hardwood flooring to the place where the cabinet used to be, but the hardest part was getting rid of the sink so thank goodness that's done.

from Country Living March 2007 - I had to get this great issue which has interviews with several women entrepreneurs that are so inspiring, including a peak into Amy Butler's studio! (this isn't it). I love this craft's room - so airy but still full of goodies (you can click on the picture to see it larger)

I've painted more things than I care to list, including shelves, doors, walls and boxes. Incidentally I discovered the secret to painting slatted bifold doors. This is it: a small brush. I mean really small, like an artist's brush, and you just take your time (preferably with a movie on in the background) and paint. The big brush may seem faster, but trying to get into all those corners by waggling the brush (and pretty much ruining it) isn't worth it. I've tried both methods and the little brush was downright relaxing. It took around an hour per coat but it didn't stress me out and there aren't any drip marks either. Then I added a pretty glass doorknob.

I've sorted, rearranged and gotten rid of things. I've moved furniture, put things in our new storage space (for three years I didn't even know there were any in the building!!) and bought new furniture. The best pieces were an IKEA table that folds down to about 12 inches wide, but is perfect for dining for two or working on when one leaf is up, and can seat six when both leaves are up. And of course my beautiful secretary desk that is everything I hoped it would be.

from Blueprint March/April 2007 - An incredible small space makeover - that's why I had to get this issue, the apartment is even smaller than my place at 307 square feet! This is where I got the idea for the shelving I'll be doing.

So what's next? Well I wanted another secretary desk but this one would be for my crafts things. But that seemed greedy. And as my always patient friend Jaimie (who luckily is also obsessed with home-making at the moment) mentioned might draw the limelight away from the one I just bought. So using a plain desk I already have I'm planning to create another miniature studio - but this time for crafts. And the pictures in this post are all my inspirations derived from my magazine addiction (but that's another story).

Of course I'll be showing the reveal in my next post!

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Pretending it's Spring

As promised, here are my new curtains that are filling in for wallpaper. I've been seeing so many pretty wallpapers recently, but it can be expensive and you can't take it with you! So when I saw this fabric I decided it was perfect. Also, my new desk is right beside the window and the old curtains just didn't seem good enough anymore.

Here's another picture so you can see the pattern better:
I'm usually not very patient, but the fabric was expensive so I took some time to finish them properly, with careful measuring, matching up of the pattern between the two curtains and a nicely hemmed lining fabric. That's right, they're actually lined. It's a bit tricky but if you'd like to know how to make this style of curtains I could do a tutorial.

I've also been making new things for the shop, http://www.clairelmilne.etsy.com. I'm inspired by Spring which I'm pretending is just around the corner. This new blue flower charm necklace is now my favourite, I had to make another one for myself. I'm certainly never going to get rich this way, but at least I'm supporting my crafts habit.
And just in case you love the curtain fabric as much as I do, I made some pouches with the leftover fabric. And I made one for myself too. Oh well!

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