Home of The Small Art Company and a bit of British all sorts about my family, kids, home, art, mixed media, craft, photography, illustration, travel, cooking, organisation, teaching... Good to see you:)

Monday, November 30, 2009

Advent Tree Calendar

Yippee! It's that wonderful time of year again - Christmas! Once the 1st December arrives, I feel I can officially talk about the festive season, so here we go.

I made this Advent calendar last year for my son:




As you can no doubt see, it's made from glittery green felt, some burnt orange fabric, some tartan ribbon, deep red felt, white felt for the numbers, bits of sparkly gold thread and some white buttons.
I'm certainly no sewing expert and have to say, I was quite pleased with the finished result. The decorations are made from Fimo. You can just see Father Christmas hanging at the bottom. I'll do another post when the tree's fully decorated in a few weeks!

Vintage Photographs

I blogged a few weeks ago about the Kodak Duaflex camera I won on ebay. I've now managed to make a 'contraption' and take some TtV photos. A 'contraption' is the black tube you need to put between the two cameras - the Duaflex and my usual Canon macro lens - to block out the light.

There's four shots I'm pleased with. Here's two of them:



You can buy them through my website and there's another one on Folksy.

I love the grainy effect of these images, although they're really not easy to set up. It took me a whole afternoon just to take these shots. That meant a whole afternoon of rearranging the furniture and getting into all sorts of odd positions - not easy when you're pregnant! Hope no-one was looking through the window!

I hope to get around to experimenting more with this technique and producing some more vintage images. Need to get thinking about some interesting subjects...

Photo Coasters - Perfect Christmas Present!

I'm really pleased with these 3 sets of coasters I've made. Well, I say 'made', but I guess I just put my photos in them! Hence the reason I won't be listing them on Folksy, but if you would like to buy a set, then I'll be putting them on my website. Just give me a couple of hours!
Here's the first set. These would make perfect additions to your Christmas table. They were designed using my glass painting and photographing technique:


Then there's this flower set, which would make a lovely gift for your mum or nan:




And lastly, a collection of my children's prints. I call them children's prints, but to be honest, I think many adults would love them too!




I've also finally managed to make and send two decorations in the Folksy Decoration Swap. I'll blog about them once the recipients have received them.

Other than that, am pleased the gift fair's out of the way so I can start on a big tidy up!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

At last - my website!

Yes, it's taken 5 and a half years since buying the domain name and about a year and a half since actually doing anything with it, but I've finally got a proper website up and running.

You can view all my photos here (well, quite a few of them) plus some other photographic gifts.

I've also been busy with the Fimo and made a load of Christmas decorations. I'll be taking them to the Winter Wonderland Shopping Fair at Hylands House in Chelmsford on Sunday and any I don't sell I'll be listing on Folksy and my website.

Anyway, off for a second baby scan in a mo...

Monday, November 16, 2009

Shop Handmade Gift Boxes now for Sale!

Belinda at Shop Handmade UK has been working hard putting together some wonderful gift boxes. They're currently for sale on Folksy: http://www.folksy.com/shops/ShopHandmadeUK but will be taken to Oxford Handm@de Fair on November 29th, so hurry if you see something you like!

Each gift box includes a variety of handmade items which designers have supplied at discount prices, so the customer will save a huge 45%!! My items are in the turquoise, jade and purple boxes. Here's Frederick amongst all the other lovely things in the Jade box: Thanks Belinda!