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In need of a little head-clearing R&R (away from work demands & deadlines), I popped out to visit my delightful neighbours…
… and found Artis has been well and truly yarn-bombed!
If you’re in Amsterdam and fancy a bit of yarn and lemur action (and, frankly, who wouldn’t) the knitting remains in place at Artis until 16 March.
Like this:
My annual, end-of-another-year, festive greeting card production-line has been in full swing. I’m officially addicted to cutting paper snowflakes!
This year I thought I’d include a ‘how to’ (of sorts) because they were fun & simple to make and you might like to make some for your friends and family too (everyone likes receiving a handmade card, right?). I’ve also made a few more than I’ll use this year and they’re available now in my etsy shop. Edit: no longer available!
Spoiler alert: If we’re “friends & family” and you don’t want anything to do with these cards until one lands in your letterbox, then scroll no further :-)
Papercut snowflake cards ‘how to’:
What you’ll need:
- blank cards
- mulberry tissue paper (or something similarly lightweight, translucent, and interestingly fibrous – the fibres running through the paper look beautiful when backlit)
- pencil
- eraser
- scalpel / blade (this one works a treat)
- ruler
- bone folder
- scissors
- double-sided tape
(1) Start with a blank card (a square format works well with the circular snowflakes).
(2) Make a stencil on stiff-ish card for the ‘petal’/'wreath’/'rosette’ motif that will be cut out of the front of the card (I’m not sure what to call it… let’s go with ‘petal’).
[Useful tip, courtesy of trial and error: Make sure the inner and outer diameters of this motif and its placement on the card are not such that your petals, when folded out, extend beyond any of the edges of the card - if they do it'll be impossible to get the cards into the matching envelopes you bought!].
(3) Place the stencil in the desired position on the front of the card (it’s useful to hold it in place at this stage with removable tape) and (4) lightly trace your motif with a soft pencil.
(5) Using the pencil lines as a guide cut your motif out of the card with a scalpel. Use an eraser to gently remove any pencil marks that may be left on the card after cutting out the motif.
(6) Score the base of each petal with the bone folder (if you don’t have a bone folder any bluntly pointed tool would do here – like the tip of a butter knife, or knitting needle tip if not too pointy!).
(7) Cut circles from your lightweight (mulberry) paper, ensuring the diameter of the circle is slightly larger than the diameter of the motif you’ve cut out of the front of the card. (This is a very handy tool for cutting paper circles).
(8) Fold the circles into eighths (fold in half, in half again, and in half a third time), and cut some paper snowflakes. I deliberately tried to include a few heart shapes in each snowflake (‘spreading the love’ and all that) but you can cut any shapes that take your fancy.
(9) As already mentioned it’s addicitive, so you’ll have no trouble cutting lots…
(10) … and lots.
(11) Stick small pieces of double-sided tape on to the outer ‘scalloped’ edges of a paper snowflake. Remove the tape’s backing.
(12) Place the snowflake in the centre of the card motif and press down to secure.
(13) Gently fold out the petals of your card motif. The scored lines made earlier (in step 6) make this a breeze.
(14) And you’re done!
(15) The paper snowflake looks purdy on the inside of the card too.
(16) Make some more…
Happy card making!
scalpel / blade (this one works a treat)
A wonderful shop in Amsterdam is now stocking some of my limited edition ‘Curiosity Cabinet’ silkscreen prints. This is very exciting for me – not only because it is the first time I have had my artwork for sale in an actual bricks & mortar shop, but because the Otherist is without a doubt my favourite shop in Amsterdam! I remember when I first went in to it, just over two years ago after having recently moved to the city from London, and feeling as though I had walked in to a little slice of my own personal paradise. It is a veritable treasure trove of beautiful, inspiring, enchanting and intriguing objects; functional, decorative, and everything in between.
In the words of the shop’s creators: “The Otherist is our version of the Cabinet of Curiosities. It’s our chance to scour the globe in search of items that wow and amaze, and hopefully inspire. We seek the exceptional; the memorable; the unconventional; the other, and gather a collection of merchandise that highlights the stunning talent of artists and designers from around the world. Our focus is on the uniquely handmade, the one-of-a-kind and difficult to find. Much like the old Wunderkammers, our collection is an ever-changing and oft-difficult to classify assortment bounded only by our own aesthetic.” (excerpted from the Otherist’s website)
It really is a wunderkammer and I am thrilled and honoured to be a little part of it. It’s like a very special early Christmas present… and if I hadn’t already been feeling thoroughly spoiled after my recent birthday I would’ve splashed out on this very handsome fellow when I was in the shop dropping off my prints on Friday:
Isn’t he beautiful?
If you’re ever visiting Amsterdam make sure you have the Otherist on your list of places to visit. And if you’re in Amsterdam now, I have no doubt in my mind that a visit to the Otherist will solve any remaining Christmas gift giving dilemmas you may still be having :)
You can find the Otherist at Leliegracht 6, 1015DE, Amsterdam (but whatever you do, hands off the owl… he’s mine :)
I’m a sucker for old-school machines (like this beauty – here, here and here – made by Jezze & co), so when I saw the one above in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem recently I was mesmerised. I don’t need to know what they do or how they work to find them fascinating, especially when they’re this finely crafted!
That said, I did read the exhibit’s label (although didn’t necessarily understand it all), and can tell you that it’s an Electrostatic Generator. It was made in 1784 by John Cuthbertson (an English instrument maker who settled in Amsterdam) after a design by Dutch scientist and teacher Martinus Van Marum. Van Marum used the machine for over a decade in his various electro-chemical and electro-physical research experiments.
Apparently, with its 1.65 meter diameter discs, it is the largest plate generator ever built and could produce a spark with a record-length of 61 cm, which implies a voltage of
330 000 volts. Smokin’!
“Each disk is rubbed by four friction pads of waxed taffeta pressed to the glass by leaf springs. The central portions of the disks are coated with resinous material to absorb the vibrations when they are in motion”
“The disks are rotated by a double crank in a frame fixed to the top of a table, on which two men stood to work the machine”
(woodwork designed by architect Leendert Viervant)
“Combs ‘transport’ the charge to the conductors”
“The arrangement contains a battery of Leiden jars, the earliest type of condenser”
(text in italics is quoted from the exhibit’s label)
The Teylers Museum is filled to the brim with other intriguing and exquisitely crafted scientific instruments, and also houses (in what appear to be the original 18th Century wooden cabinets!) a huge collection of fossils, bones, crystals, rocks, paintings, drawings and prints.
They also serve a mean chocolate cake in their cafe. You should go… you’d like it :)
My Spoonflower printed ‘Curiosity Cabinet’ fabric arrived at the end of last week! Although it was exciting to see the design on great lengths of fabric (in retrospect I ordered w-a-y more than I should have, but at the time I thought I’d minimise the postage costs!) I was rather disappointed with the end result. This has as much to do with me being a textile design novice as it has to do with the current limitations of the digital printing technology used by Spoonflower (and not forgetting that the Spoonflower service is still in Beta, so we’re all learning!).
The final printed fabric lacks a fineness of detail which I had hoped would be there (i.e. it’s in the original design and I’ve seen such fineness of detail on other printed fabrics). I was also disappointed by how ‘washed out’ the final printed colour is, as compared to the colours I had chosen (a lovely dense blue-grey and a pale bluish eggshell colour). I think the pale colour reproduced fairly accurately but the darker colour is a bland and non-descript shadow of itself. As a result the design loses its ‘pop’. I feel the design really needs the strong contrast to work, and in retrospect (had I known quite how much the darker colour would shift) I would have used only one printed colour with the white of the fabric as the second colour, in an attempt to better maintain the level of contrast. Spoonflower do state on their website that true blacks and very saturated colours may not print correctly, but I had hoped the dark blue-grey I’d selected would be OK (not being a true black, and not being particularly saturated). Unfortunately this wasn’t the case.
As already mentioned I’m a complete textile design novice so do not pretend to understand the complexities of how different combinations of printing technologies and fabrics may affect the quality of the finished product. I would like to be able to read more about the practical limitations of the digital print process/fabric combo on the Spoonflower website but haven’t found the information I’m after there, so I was very happy to find this thorough and informative review of the Spoonflower service over at CicadaStudios (written by a textile design pro!). It answered a lot of my unanswered queries and means I’ll be better equipped to make informed decisions about any future designs I hope to have printed by Spoonflower. Their service has great potential and I’m sure it will only improve over time.
All of that said, I was very keen to start making stuff with my fabric so I dusted off the sewing machine (I’m a sewing & sewing machine novice too!) and set to work making a couple of simple cushion covers. The colour may not be quite what I’d hoped but it’s an uncanny match for our existing sofa…
And the cushions have already come in handy making a normally uncomfortable outdoor wooden chair much comfier while I took advantage of some recent (and so far rare) summer sunshine!
