Tag Archives: Handmade

15/02/2010 · 3:57 pm

V-Day, Hearts & Flowers & Cake & all

I can honestly say that yesterday was the best Valentines day ever (yet)… simply because it was the first PROPER valetines day. 
Without trying to sound all old, Valentines day is a disappointment when you’re young. Boys are immature and don’t make an effort – they don’t buy girls flowers or chocolates anymore, not even to say sorry. I’m not an old fashioned girl, but every girl wants a gent to whisk her off her feet deep down inside, right? ;)
In past years I have said that the reason I don’t recieve anything on Valentines day(although once I did recieve one single red rose which cost £25!!!!)  is because I don’t celebrate it as if you ‘love’ someone then you should let them know EVERY day of the year, not just one! And it’s basically just so that the card shops can fill the gap inbetween christmas and easter!
But when you have someone to share it with, you take a slightly different view :)

Don’t worry, I didn’t give money to those greedy card shops though – me and my boyfriend decided we would make gifts and cards, which you would think is great for me because I’m arty… but it’s so hard making stuff for boys!

Anyway… I made a card using some scrap mountboard from my portfolio and some bookmaking stuff that was in our (old) studio:

I decided to make it something special and book-like..

I even hand-bound it :)

Ta-dah…. simple but detailed… hearts & ribbons & all

Next… the present! I decided to bake a cake, because apparently the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?

With help from my sister, I baked a normal Victoria Sponge cake… with buttercream and jam filling.
I drew a heart onto the cake with some icign sugar to help me get a good shape….

…Then I cut off the parts that weren’t needed!

Voila! A heart shaped cake! I then added icing…

… which admittedly, is quite patchy but we ran out of icing sugar and added too much water so it dripped down the cake… but nevermind!
And for the final touches; pink icing :)

And there you have it; my boyfriend’s valentine’s heart shape cake present – which tasted REALLY sweet haha

And what did he make me? A bunch of flowers :) Which is actually quite funny because when I told my mum we was making presents for each other she replied ‘What? Is he going to make you a bottle of wine? A bunch of flowers?’ Well… yes! haha Bless him.

It took him like 4 days to make them from tissue paper and garden wire… and he’s not an arty person but they are very good aren’t they?
And better than a real bunch of flowers because they will last forever! :)

Purple sand!! :O

So yeah, I’m rather impressed – anyone else?

Did anyone else make a present/card this valentines day? Or recieve something handmade? Let me see..!?

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04/01/2010 · 6:43 pm

The Recycled Post Book

Before christmas we had been doing some bookmaking and I made 3 books in total (view them here)…

And then we were set the challenge of making a book with content, which was also made from unusual materials.

At first I was quite stumped on what I was going to produce – it’s always harder when the possibilities are endless I find?

I didn’t recieve either of my christmas presents from my boyfriend on time… and this gave me the idea of making a book from postal items; envelopes and bubble packets.

I have seen that Toby Burkill (an ex-cowa student) had bound some postcards together for his friend to take on her travels and post back to him, but nothing else post-y yet…

I wanted to use envelopes for the pages, and then put something inside them so that the reader would have to open the envelope to read what was inside. I looked at the different types of envelopes and I like the windows you get in most of your post because they reveal a small amount of information but not everything. I looked at buying some envelopes with windows and was slightly put off by the price; I AM a student afterall! But I decided that used envelopes would work just fine too…

After collecting my envelopes, which range from bank statements, tescos clubcard, boots and ucas, I found a bubble packet that was the perfect size to use as a cover. I cut all edges so that it was only joined at where the fold was (the bottom of the packet usually) so that it would work as a cover.

Today I consulted my local bookmaking expert, for his advice on which binding method would work best. He advised me to use pamphlet binding, which is quite simple but strong enough. I got the needle and thread out and I sewed(is that even a real word?) the ‘pages’ to the cover earlier:

With a few of the pages turned… (above) You can see the opening of the envelope is still clear so that I can slot my content in when I have finished it… clever me ;)

The back cover (above)

Birds eye view – on the right you can see the flap which folds round from the front. I am going to add a detail to this part so that it will stay closed at the back… not to be revealed just yet though!

The same goes for the front cover and content – I’ve decided to keep these bits quiet until the big reveal :)

Who’s excited? I really like this!!

Update:

I have finished the book!

Here is how I have fastened the cover. I used two split pins and an elastic band to create a catch.

For the content, I researched some Royal Mail facts and figures about mail and their delivery services. I found out some quite shocking information…

…. but sometimes it takes upto a week (this is what I have learnt from looking at forums, blogs and articles from online newspapers)

I also looked for any information on the delivery notes left behind by postmen, and found that it is a common occurence for these cards just to be left without any attempt being made by the postie to deliver your item! How rude!

I chose to highlight some words which I considered to be more important by making them larger (23pt compared to the rest at 12pt) and centre alignment… I’m not sure why I did this, I was just trying to make it more interesting?

I mocked my own version of a delivery note card because of course if you have to collect a packet/parcel then you have to take your card back to the post office to collect it so we didn’t have any left lying around that I could use!

And for the front cover…

I added a postage paid stamp (which I mocked up from an existing one on the envelopes) and also a documents enclosed pouch (which is from the parcel that I got before starting first year, with all my Graphicy kit!)

I haven’t got any pictures of the completed book in full, but Mr S. has assured me that he will photograph all of the books handed in sometime in the near future… so it shouldn’t be too long!

Let me know what you think – do you like my idea?  Have you seen something similar done already(I would be interested to hear about it!)? Commments please !??? :)

For another Royal Mail influenced piece of work  check out LCAD Student Aaron Skipper’s ‘Royal Fail’ mailer about the postal stikes!

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05/12/2009 · 4:16 pm

Take A Looky At My Booky(s)

So yesterday afternoon I continued on adding to my series of books (which I still haven’t named yet! – I must get around to this soon!)

Last week I did not take pictures of anything but I can tell you that I decided to have a go at making a hardcase japanese stab bound book so I was making my hard covers!

Yesterday they were nice and dry and ready to be bound, so I pierced my holes and got on with the sewing. It’s quite an easy process but it’s hard to pull through the holes, I snapped my thread a couple of times! And Voila:

My first Japanese stab bound book! (name to be decided)

This isn’t actually my stictching though, Mr Skinner re-stitched it for me after I did it all on my own but forgot to do something which meant it wouldn’t be tied off properly… but I did stitch this one, top right hand:

A soft cover japanese stab bound book which I had started in the last post!

Here is my series so far:

And now Mr Skinner has managed to fit Bookmaking into our assessment criteria so we have been set a proper project! This is to create a book with content and using some non-bookmaking materials. So basically something unusual and interesting. I am still undecided on what to do for this, but I need to get a move on really seeing as the deadline is our last day before christmas, so the 18th!

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