I hope you enjoyed this week’s posts & pictures about the fabulous illustrator Yasmine!
If you like interviews and art, then you’ll be happy to hear that later this month our special columnist Tricia will feature interviews with SEVEN different show-poster artists!
If you miss Tricia, you can visit her school supply posts, which are still loved by all.
Oh, and as for the bracelet above: yes, I kind of love it, in all of its awkward, impaled weirdness. (From regencies.com.) Have a great weekend! (I’m taking another quick trip to Cape Cod for a wedding!)
These Donuts (and donut holes and dolls who like donuts) of the Week by Heidi Kennedy have big eyes and have just been eaten by brightly colored dolls with stringy hair. That’s right, pretty random, and somehow at least a little bit cute.
Book covers, in all their beauty, are often both an inspiration and an actual material for crafters. I zoomed around Etsy and the internet today to bring you some of my favorites in book crafts.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man book cover Wallet ($35, ReboundDesigns on Etsy - lots of great wallets and some pricey but cute book purses)
Bobbsey Twins Book Purse ($45, ExLibrisPurses on Etsy — a new user, but I just love the orange insides!)
Donna Parker Goes to Hollywood Journal or Sketchbook made to your specifications (PenguinLovePress on Etsy, $20 — lots of vintage book covers ready to be made to your specs)
Assorted spiral bound book cover journals, $13 each
Make sure to visit my other Book Week posts here!
I recently discovered the new “got milk?” web-site while surfing NotCot.org. I love the white paper cut-out look, very milky. There are also lots of fun moving parts and colorful characters. An excellent example of corporate web-design (for those of us with fast enough connections to keep up with it).
My favorite part of the site? DIY projects for the crafty milk-drinker-recyclers among us. The downloadable pdf instructions are availible for both milk cartons and milk jugs. I know, it’s all a little kindergarten, but the youthful part of me can’t help but get excited.
“Do it your mole” was a contest to create your own “cut and assemble” paper figurine from a pre-made mole figurine (available for pdf download). The translation on the page is a bit rocky, but the project looks like it was fun!
I was so excited to find that my favorite photographer, Thomas Allen, provided art for the newest issue of O Magazine (yeah, I read Oprah, what?!). The article, about Memoirs, includes at least six specially created Thomas Allen photographs (don’t know who this guy is? look here), some of them full pages or full-page spreads.
Above and below are examples of just pieces from full imagines in the magazine, but I suggest a full perusal at a newstand near you (just flip to page 166).
Though perhaps not as “professional” as the cases below, these little guys from Barry’s Farm are cute enough to make up for it.
The above monster will eat your laptop. You can also cuddle with it.
Doesn’t this look like Dilbert? You can dress your laptop up in this functional little suit and tie.
There is also a robot case and other designs!
I love these mixed-media map collages by Chris Kenny (via Etsy’s weekly blog round-up).
“Chris Kenny produces an unexpected kind of poetry with his three-dimensional ‘drawings’ and constructions made from twigs, fragments of maps and strips of found text. Objects or phrases of the same type are mounted on pins and organised in a way that suggests an intention to rationalise the differences between them” (englandgallery.com).
I immediately starred this post from SwissMiss when I saw it in Google Reader earlier this week. Then, it came up again at Nylon’s blog, and now, I can no longer resist a re-posting.
Fernando Brizio has created “renewable clothing” for a show on “design in a fast-changing society.” Not only are these pieces different every time you wear them, but they actually encourage you to make an (organized) mess of yourself.
“By placing colored felt-tip pens in the pockets of the dress its appearance changes over time. Within an hour to one and a half hours the colored ink bleeds into the fabric and creates a one-off design for each occasion. The owner can then clean the dress and color it in a different way for each time they wear it” (designboom.com).
(Part I and Part II are those places.)
These Shadow Theaters and Shadow Puppets from Owly Shadow Puppets remind me of the days of yore. (Not that I was alive in the days of yore, but they played with shadow puppets back then for lack of technical entertainment.) Anyway, what’s awesomest about these puppets is that they’re held together with brads, so they bend and move as you move the two sticks. Oh, and, as per the definition of a shadow puppet, they make cool shadows.
The Sea Monster (above) is my favorite, and is only $10.50 on the Owly Shadow Puppets Etsy page. The artist has also got some cool lesson plans for teachers on her website, so if you have kids, or you like to pretend you are a kid, you can make some puppets of your own!
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My Imaginary Boyfriend had lots of cool pillows, pictures, and, yes, a creature — if a robot counts as a creature, which I think it should. (And by “my imaginary boyfriend” I mean the craft shop, not my actual fake imaginary boyfriend.)
(My imaginary boyfriend would totally give that robot to me for my birthday, by the way.)
Below creatures are adorable. And a little creepy.
I sort of what to cuddle with these creatures AND run away from them! The image above is from the artist’s website, where there are a few more crazy creatures to wonder at. Unfortunately, the store isn’t up and running yet. We’ll be waiting!
The Cherry Box
I couldn’t get enough these deer heads. Usually, big ol’ deer heads on walls freak me out. They are dead animals. Heads. Hanging. For pleasure. But these plush heads mock that tradition, and thus crack me up. These poor plush heads are about $45, but range depending on size & type.
I also loved their hats, which came in many fruit varieties, but I was partial to the creature varieties:
I actually tried on the above hat and almost bought it (only $20… but where will I wear it?)! They’re available online in the “Accessories” section of the Cherry Box website.
Today/tomorrow I’ll be featuring all of my favorite creatures (stuffed, usually) I found at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn this past weekend (for all Renegade-related posts, click here).
DIYers really like to make random, sarcastic, ironic, and/or scary/cute creatures. It’s a thing. And these renegade crafters did not disappoint — especially on the random front.
My Paper Crane needs it’s own special call-out for two reasons:
Reason #1
It has stuffed (plush) DONUTS that look remarkably like OUR donuts on S&D! (Not that two chocolate-covered donuts should look altogether very different from one another, but these guys could be siblings, or cousins at least.)
Reason #2
I was told there would be moldy toast (plush, of course) at the fair, and there was (and burnt toast, and regular toast). Apparently, I also told others that there would be moldy toast. Later I discovered that this was confusing (”She is going to a craft fair to find moldy toast? But why? What kind of craft fair is this? Sounds like a science fair!” etc). Luckily I took this picture to clear that up.
Today I’m reporting back on just some of the prints I enjoyed at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn this past weekend (for all kinds of other Renegade Fun, click here and don’t stop scrolling!)
There were way too many lovely & wonderful prints for me to collect them all here, so don’t think this is a comprehensive collection of the creme de la creme. Although these guys are pretty, er, creamy.
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How adorable are these old school silkscreened prints (below) from animalsleep? If you want to go straight to buying a print, click here. They’re about $20-30. Very affordable for such lovely things. (**Oh, and can you not buy this one? Because it’s my favorite.**) They also make shirts and other whatnots, if you’d rather wear your art.
Sycamore Street Press is a letterpress studio that makes lovely, lovely letterpress cards (featured on all kinds of blogs these days, too!) — very delicate, a lot of pastel colors — so why is it that I gravitate towards the print below (available here)? It’s only $20 and I think it’s so funny!
I have a little place in my heart for linoleum printing (though I’m kind of/a lot jealous of these!), so I got pretty excited when I saw Tugboat Print Shop sitting right before my very eyes with their linoleum blocks out for show. (”These are the linoleum blocks you print from?” I ask stupidly, artstruck.) They range from about $20-80. (I happen to like this dragon and this house.)
And I can’t forget these Renegade Craft Fair screenprinted posters. They are like the posters you get at band concerts. Except better. And for a craft fair.
And I love the screenprinted posters from Strawberry Luna!
My (albeit limited, perhaps I’ll try again tomorrow!) quest to find the business card of the printmakers below has failed (hmm, why can’t I find that business card?). If you know who they are, please comment below!
Although many of the accessories at the Renegade Craft Fair this past weekend were fabulous, a lot of them were typical: chain, string, charm. This is not a bad thing, but it just made the bracelets, collars (collars? what?), headbands, and hats at The Candy Thief booth stand out even more.
These accessories all use the same detailed technique of layering brightly colored felt “leaves,” attached with contrasting stitching. Special details include little flowers, buttons, and beads, and a layer of dark fabric inside the bracelets (presumably for beauty and comfort, since felt seems like it might be itchy).
Despite (and because of!) the jagged leafy edges, and a material that some believe is reserved for elementary school art class, these accessories are beautiful & elegant.
The Candy Thief Etsy Shop allows custom orders on headbands (you can choose your colors and give your measurements) for about $35. There is also a whole slew of already-made headbands for you to look at if you need some Candy Thief eye candy.
The collars, though a bit more daring, would be the kind of accessory to stir conversation and turn heads (in a good way) and look most suitable for a trendy night on the town (though we all know I don’t look down on wearing anything anywhere!). These guys can be custom ordered, too (about $45).
And lastly, but not leastly: I love these adorable bonnet-hats that I am kicking myself for not looking into further, because I don’t see them in the Candy Thief Etsy Shop. With four coordinating fabrics, a little brim, and a tie for your neck, these vintage-feel hats seem perfect for a sunny day on the beach.
One of my favorite things yesterday at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn was the Postcard Machine.
A woman sits inside this crafty little “postcard vending machine” with a microphone and speaks in very terse, robotic voice as you interact with it to get your postcard. (more…)
