Purse

I got a new sewing machine for my birthday, and I've been making some purses with it.
I got a bundle of small pieces of fabric and have been using contrasting colours from this.

Resin Pond Miniature

I saw a few examples of resin pond miniatures and thought I'd give it a go.

I used aquarium sand for the base, plastic grass, and sculpted the fish, frog, water lilies, and rocks out of Fimo (with one real pebble).

The resin comes as a liquid with a catalyst which you mix together and then leave to set. 

First I mixed the resin mixture with the sand, and placed in an ice-cream tub. Then I arranged the rocks, reeds and underwater creatures. I then poured on the rest of the resin, and half way through the setting process i placed the water lilies on top.

Once it was dry, I cut away the ice-cream tub (which had partly dissolved at the corners) to leave the pond freestanding.

I would consider making the pond inside a ceramic bowl in the future, as I saw in some of the examples.

Liquid resin really smells! I would recommend doing this outside if at all possible. The resin does not smell once set.

Vegan Meals

This week I am testing out a vegan diet. I don't plan on becoming totally vegan, or even vegetarian, but I would like to reduce the amount of animal products I consume.

This is following a few instances recently where I have been made aware of some of the horrible things which go on in the meat, dairy, and egg production industry. If you are curious search on youtube for 'The video the meat industry doesn't want you to see' (but be warned, it is extremely upsetting)

Even though I dont plan to completely cut meat, dairy, and eggs out of my diet, I plan to reduce my intake, and to try (as much as possible) to responsibly source any animal products I consume, such as by buying from local farmers. I want this to be a realistic aim, and so am taking small steps.


Anyway, as I said this week I am trying a vegan diet, and so far I have eaten the following:

• Baked beans and sweetcorn in puff pastry, with sweet potato chips and broccoli.
• Jacket potato with the other half of the can of beans and raw spinach leaves.
• Portabello mushrooms stuffed with pumpkin mash (made with soya cream) and black cabbage.

I forgot to take photos... so here are some random photos of the ingredients!

I also made vegan mayonnaise to dunk my chips in, with the following recipe:

4oz tofu

2tsp lemon juice

2tsp mustard

1 cup vegetable oil

salt and pepper

(blend and add the oil bit by bit)

It came out pretty well, and although it was very clearly not real mayonnaise, it was definitely a good substitute.

Outfits based on bugs

It has been an incredibly long time since I last posted... apologies for that.
Here is a random collection of outfits based on bugs which I made using the website Polyvore.

Under the Sea Mural

This evening I completed a mural which I have been working on for a while (a total of around 12 hours work spread over free moments on evenings and weekends). Its been a lot of fun to do, and I hope to do more in the future.

Hanging Pocket Storage

I've been looking for some hanging storage but haven't been able to find one that I like so I decided to make one. Here is how:

You will need: 

Fabric (twice the size of how large you want the finished product to be) I'm using a PVC coated fabric for extra rigidity.

A coat hanger (with horizontal arms)

A small amount of thick ribbon

Thread, pins, and a sewing machine makes things much quicker!

Cut the fabric in half (I will call them A and B).

Take piece A and lay the coat hanger in the centre of the top edge about 5cm from the edge.

Cut a slit the size of the central part of the hanger.

Cut a piece of ribbon to the same length as the slit and fold it in half to line the edge.

Pin it in place and repeat for the other edge.

Sew both pieces in place.

Decide how many rows of pockets you want and work out how tall each row needs to be. (Remember to allow for a gap at the top.)

Cut piece B into strips, allowing about 3cm extra per strip for hems.

Pin hems on one edge of each of the strips.

And stitch.

Lay the strips on piece A in the correct positions.

For the bottom strip fold the unhemmed edge under piece A and pin.

For the other strips turn them wrong side up with the hemmed edge pointing downwards and pin them in place.

This way the pockets will be formed when you fold the strip upwards.

Stitch all of these into place.

Fold the pockets upwards, turn the whole thing over and pin hems around the left, right, and bottom edge.

Fold the top edge over so that the slit is on the top seam, pin this in place.

Sew the hems.

Decide how many pockets you want in each row, measure the width and mark out the divisions.

Sew straight lines from the bottom edge up to the top of the top row of pockets.

Slide the coat hanger through the slit.

Finished!

Totoro Mural

I painted a mural of Studio Ghibli's Totoro.

He and his other forest friends are climbing up the stairs.