Showing posts with label cool things from the web. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cool things from the web. Show all posts
Friday, December 19
Some really cool things have come out of making stuff and posting it online in the past 5(ish) years. Like this, or this and this.
But the most recent is really one of the very nicest. My longtime internet-and-real friend Francesca Iannaccone sent me these great pictures from the primary school art class that she helps out in. The teacher had brought in some images to use as source material for the kids to work from, and some of them were mine.
Look at these! Frankly I think they are far superior to the originals.
A host of Angels for The Stained Glass Museum Shop. Last year I made them in a range of pastel colours, this year they're dressed in sparkly Jack Frost white.
Can I confess that I used to rather dislike this type of glass - but look how pretty it is on a wintery infant-school-nativity angel!
✳ ✶ ❉ ❊ ❄ ✺ ✻ ✸ ✳ ❋ ❆ ✳
I was very happy to see that Binny Talib has designed another beautiful Advent Calendar app. Me and the kids loved last years (it was still being played with well into October!) so we can't wait for next Sunday to open the first door. The illustrations are sweetly charming, and combined with jaunty barbershop quartet music and wonderfully inventive activities each day, I hope this will become a very modern Christmas tradition. You can download it here.
P.S. If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you will have seen me get a bit emosh and excitable about our cat Dodger, who had been missing for 6 weeks, being rescued from a narrow gap in between two buildings by an estate agent. Very skinny and weak (the cat, not the estate agent), but alive, and now back home with us. He is very happy to be back. So are we.
I love the internet. I devour blogs, procrastinate on Pinterest, enjoy the bantering on Twitter and so on. But the problem is, you can't do anything else at the same time.
It really eats into your productivity.
So that's why I'm enjoying Grace Bonney's series of podcasts, After The Jump. It's like the internet, but on the radio.
She interviews fascinating people from all walks of creative life - illustrators, designers, entrepreneurs, writers - in an informal but intelligent way. Through the course of the interview, their route into their career is discussed as well as their family background and plans for the future.
I was a bit worried that it might be all too "Yay Me!" for my self-effacing British ways, but she's a great interviewer, naturally curious and engaging, and the people she chats too are open and generous with their answers, often dishing out sound advice on how to deal with the problems of running a small creative business.
And all the while I'm listening, I can get on with making stuff! Meanwhile, I'm picking the brains of some really talented people. Working and learning.
Any other recommendations for great creative podcasts are welcome - there is also a good list here by Abby Glassenberg.
It occurred to me recently that what I need is a site that amalgamates all my interesting, informative and visually splendid* social media content (Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram), and puts it out there in one easily digestible dollop.
If you can get past the name and cartoon mouse, Rebelmouse does exactly that, and in a pleasingly simple layout.
*My actual content may not be interesting, informative or visually spendid...
I stumbled across this trailer for a documentary about people who live in absurdly tiny houses. I say absurd, but secretly I'd love to live in one. I'm often to be found lurking in the shed department at our local garden store. I think my obsession with living in a shed probably started with the badly dubbed German (?) TV series of Heidi. Her bedroom was up a ricketty little ladder in the hayloft at her Granfather's log cabin and I always thought it looked the perfect place to sleep.
>>>>>>><<<<<<<<
Sorry for the absence, I've been catching up on 8 years worth of housework in order to make my house presentable for a photoshoot. I shall be annoyingly coy about it for now, but all will be revealed soon!
Funny how serendipitous the world wide web can be isn't it. Just a few days after watching Arrietty, my head still full of teeny kitchens and bedrooms, I received an interesting email from Brae Oktober asking if I would give permission for one of my stained glass windows to be miniaturised and printed on acetate to be used in a doll's house project. And what an amazing project. This has to be one of the most beautiful doll's houses I've ever seen - the attention to detail is astounding.
This last shot shows the exterior - look at that paintwork! The moss on the tiles! The leaves in the porch! The house is based on Brae's childhood home, which looks equally stunning. You can see more pictures and follow the progress of the house here.
I love Twitter. Not only because it is funny and diverting and not too time-consuming, but because nice things come of using it.
About a week ago I saw a tweet from Lisa Stevens about some chancer selling sawdust on Etsy at $20 a packet as "Rustic Confetti". How we laughed. I joked that I should sell my left-over glass shards all beautifully packaged as "Evil Confetti". Lisa replied that she would happily take any of my glass shards off my hands to use in her ceramics, so I quickly put together a parcel of little bits and pieces and popped it in the post.
And then, a few days later, what should arrive through my post box but this stunning ceramic piece that she made using the glass.
Because the main reason I've been hankering after one is I want to play with that Hipstamatic App. But now, thanks to a bit of detective work and the help of My Girl Thursday, I've found Picnik. Soooooo much fun. All sorts of effects, including Cross Process (above), Lomo, Sepia...the list goes on. This was a pretty flippin brilliant photo of the Nellster to start with, but all the better for a bit of tweaking.
Must go, I want to play with it some more. Oh, and do stop by tomorrow. I'll be doing a Giveaway.
Then there's this gorgeous Alphabet Flash Card set by Lisa De John that small daughter received for Christmas (she is desperate to keep up with her older sister on all things, reading being no exception) All the cards are a delight (some of the animals are rather curious - Narwhal anyone?) but my favourite is this fox-in-the-snow (where do you go to find something you can eat? - oblique Belle and Sebastian reference. Sorry, i'll stop ponceing around now...) They're available from a little bookshop I know
A friend of mine recently introduced me to a great Czech children's animation - maybe it's massively famous and I'm late to the party, but anyway, it's called Little Mole and it's so beautifully animated and designed. I love finding good stuff for the kids to watch - makes me feel a bit less guilty about their tv consumption. There's plenty of episodes to see on Youtube, but this one seemed most apt.
Lastly, I had such an amazing find the other day. A beautiful hand-knitted Fairisle cardigan in jolly Norwegian red, white and navy. With such cute buttons (not seen in picture alas). For £1.25. Swoooon. I think Isla looks possibly more adorable than I've ever seen her when she wears it. Especially when she falls asleep on her teddy while I'm cooking tea. (Older daughter is faking, rather convincingly). So taken with it was I, that I turned up at the Womens Institute cake-jam-and-knitted-goodies stall on Saturday (a weekly event in my town) and pleaded whether anyone knew who might have made it....between us we tracked down the author and so now I am in the process of buying some yarn for a larger one to be made for Nelly. I will be furnishing you with the photos of the matching cardies in due course. I'm sure you're all on the edges of your seats.
(P.S. Can I apologise for being a bit absent lately. Loads going on, including building work, which means the electricity is a bit on/off. Thanks to everyone who's popped by and commented - and I'm looking forward to catching up on my favourite blogs properly as soon as it's all sorted)
...Beth Foster (you know, her from The Linen Cat) not only for your patronage, and the very kind words on your blog, but also for giving me an award! I'd like to pretend I'm far too cool to care about such things, but well, I'm not, and I do.
Here are some of the gorgeous soft toys and lavender bags she makes...she has such a good eye for a snazzy fabric...
