Birdhouse Update: Tenants Move In!

Remember the personalized birdhouse that I gave to my father-in-law at Christmas? 

Well, it's finally summertime... and some new tenants have moved in. What fun!

Handmade Parade: Mini Portraits

Two years ago, I made mini portraits of my sister- and brother-in-law's menagerie. These sweet keepsakes are on 6 x 6-inch framed cradled panel.

I used a Chartpak blender marker, black, grey, and white coloured pencils, graphite pencil, acrylic paint, and a matte gloss medium.

It's a techinique that I've also used to make people portraits for other family (because as previously reported everyone needs some art with their own face on it!).

They can be hung on the wall and are also deep enough that they can stand up freely on a bookshelf or mantle...

Handmade Parade: Recycled Vintage Embroidery Quilt

My grandmother and great-aunt, like many women of their generation, were skilled embroiderers. When they passed away, my mother inherited their hand-stitched tablecloths, napkins, and table-runners. Though many of them are too small for my mother's table, are worn/slightly damaged, or are out of fashion, she has kept them with respect to the work that her family put into making them, and for the memories and meaning they hold for her.

Some of the best cloths made an appearance at my brother's wedding a few years ago and my wedding last year, to honour my grandmother, who would have been so happy to be with us on those special days. But mostly, they've been folded up and stored in a cabinet.

My brother and his wife recently had a child, a beautiful bright baby girl named after our great aunt. To welcome her, I recycled some of the embroidered cloths that her great grandmother and her namesake stitched so many years ago and fashioned them into a baby's quilt.

The idea of my little niece cuddling up against vintage embroidery that was hand-stitched by her ancestors is so beautiful to me. I'm sad she'll never get a chance to know these strong and loving women, but she will definitely hear their stories... and she'll have a little part of them beside her as she grows into a strong woman herself.

 

Handmade Parade: Spice Tray

For almost as long as I've known her, my close friend has spent the summer at her cabin in Northern Saskatchewan. Every spring, she packs up her car and makes the trip to her favourite place on earth, only to return six months later before winter sets in. This means a huge packing up of the car, twice a year, and major decisions about what items are essential enough to make the cut.

I had all this in mind, plus her passion for cooking, when I made her a spice carrier last year. This baby will travel with ease between homes, and never leave her stranded without the essential ground cumin!

I chose airtight glass jars and then built a wooden box that would fit them snugly, attaching drawer pulls as carry handles on either side. I hand-coloured a vintage illustration of a "cuts of meat" diagram (from a pretty creepy 1960s cookbook called The Complete Round-the-World Meat Cookbook) to decorate the bottom of the tray.

 

 

(Aside: Is it weird that I collected this gem of a book, featuring such recipes as "Tongue in Almond Sauce", even though I follow a vegan diet? No? Perfectly normal? I'm a hero? Okay, good.)

I also made an accompanying cookbook for my friend, with categories and splash-resistant pages, so that she could keep her recipes organized in one place, ready for easy transport. I filled it with a few of our shared favourite recipes, and left lots of room for her own cherished discoveries.

Check out the illustration on the "Desserts" cover page...

Stay tuned... Megan will be reporting on our completed 'Seating System' shortly!

Handmade Parade: T-Shirt Quilt

I've written about the highs and lows of my collecting instinct before (recap: high - when I finally get to use the glass jars I've kept since I was a teenager and they are perfect for my current project; low - the feeling that it's just a slippery slippery slope to having a space so full o' weird stuff you can't bathe and you're suddenly being featured on "Hoarders: Buried Alive").

Still, I love t-shirts. I always have and always will. I'd assembled quite a collection  -- including some rad tees from fun gigs in my twenties, a couple of very special teeny shirts from when I was a child, a few delightfully embarrasing ones (NKOTB concert tee November 1990 - what up?), and a lot of memories.

So many of my t-shirts reminded me of the people in my life - a David Letterman tee from a family trip to New York, a shirt screenprinted for me by a wonderful ex-boyfriend, one from a friend's newly formed record company, a shirt from an art show that represents another friend's graphic design, and a concert tee from the first show I ever went to with a friend and without my parents (Jesus Jones, hilariously, in 1991), to name but a few. Looking at them all at once, it became apparent that much of my life was mapped in this pile of shirts.

I asked a few close friends and family to contribute to my collection. I wanted the shirt that they no longer wore, but that held some meaning and memories for them. I put them all together in a giant two-sided quilt that I completed in the summer of 2008.

It's amazingly warm and weirdly stretchy -- and I just love it!

Tip time! It was a pain in the butt to sew since both sides were stretchy - If I've inspired you to give it a go, I'd recommend doing it single sided with a cotton or quilting fabric backing.

Anyway, my good friend Jeff made me promise that he could have my quilt when I die (creepy, dude!), so this summer I decided to make one for him as a Christmas gift (admittedly partially so he wouldn't kill me off). I enlisted my husband to donate some of his own well-loved (read: worn out) t-shirts. This version was all band/concert shirts and all are meaningful to the three of us - artists my husband and Jeff bonded over when they first became friends and shows we've seen together over the years.

See? Now I'm so glad I kept all those shirts...

Handmade Parade: Personalized Birdhouse

As Megan mentioned, we've spent the last month crafting up a storm in preparation for the holidays. Well, the steamy hot chocolate has been savoured, the carols have been sung, the vegan Nanaimo bars are long gone, and the gifts have been opened.

Now it's a brand new year. It's time to organize our closets, do a sit-up (yep, only one -- I'm being realistic), and blog it up!


Here's a gift that my husband and I made for my birding father-in-law this Christmas. A birdhouse that looks like his house.

With a secret surprise if you look in the front door... there's a family picture on the wall!

Stay tuned to see more of our handmade gifts!

Handmade Parade: Acrylic Felt Appliqué

I've been using acrylic felt to appliqué for years now. Sheets of acrylic felt are cheap cheap, the edges won't fray (so they can be sewn on without worrying about sewing under the seams), and they're available in a ton of colours. It allows me full creativity since I can cut out any shape I can think of and it doesn't require any fancy or particularly advanced sewing skills to put it together! Simply cut out your design and straight-stitch it onto fabric. I have found that it washes pretty well. It does pill a bit over time, but they can be easily pulled off and the design is as good as new.

Here are a few of the many things I've made using acrylic felt:

An iPod case, inspired by Picasso's celebrated blue period, for a musician friend...

A bunnyhug (SK represent!) from my celebrated robot period...

A couple of simple bird-themed tote bags...

And an 8-bit skull and crossbones t-shirt...

Using acrylic felt for appliqué is a great way to embellish and personalize bags or clothing items for a simple and thoughtful gift!

Handmade Parade: Wine Box

Nothing shows your appreciation and admiration like a handcrafted gift. In Handmade Parade, we pull out gifts we've made for friends over the years to give you ideas or inspiration for creating your own handmade presents.

Sometimes I'll have a gift ready to go but still feel that it needs a little something extra. A great solution is to make the wrapping part of the gift! Since I am physically incapable of throwing anything I might one day use, I am left with lots of containers - chocolate boxes, coffee cans, and cookie tins. As fellow collectors will know, this personality trait can often feel like a curse (as the piles begin to outgrow the closet...), but when it pays off there's no better feeling!

I just love those wooden boxes that pricey wines come in, and I always save them. Usually, if my wine comes in a box, it's the cardboard variety (funny 'cause it's true!), so these fancy wooden containers don't come my way all that often. Consequently, I save them for special occasions and special friends.

The boxes will always have a winemakers logo on the front that needs to be covered - I've used acrylic paint in both my examples below, but there are many possibilities. For example, decoupaging book pages or comic pages onto the crate would be simple and beautiful!

Here's the first version I made, many years ago, to house a birthday present for my illustrator friend. He had just launched his website and so I had access to his newly-designed logo, which I replicated in acrylic paint on the box.

I think he still has this with him; last I heard he was using it to hold his precious paintbrushes! I guess he's keeping his secrets somewhere less obvious...


Here's a simpler box I did this month for a designer friend who just moved to the snowy Rockies. I'm making an educated guess that there are snowmobiles in Banff:

Megan and I filled it with a "Winter Survival Kit" - a Shambolic Rockstar scarf, hand-mixed chai spices for soy chai lattes, handmade bath products, etc.


There you go. I really like the idea of reusing packaging and making it into something personal. Reduce, reuse, recycle... but, if you don't have any wine boxes on hand and you want to do this project, they are available very cheaply at many dollar stores.