BB Arts & Crafts Circle

[ecomama]

Hey wonderful people!

I take delight when I read about what other people have made themselves; from art works to sewing to knitting to ANYTHING!

The CREATIVITY in these forums is astounding.

The skill set is pretty mind blowing too.

It warms my heart to know that Arts and Crafts are being enjoyed by so many of our members.

Please feel welcome to SHARE your past, present or future projects with us all.
Or even what you'd like to learn how to do.

Any gift ideas are most welcome too!

Love EM

[Lillylane]

Hi mb20lover,

I’ve only just recently discovered gel pens and I really like them. Made some very simple thank you cards for my daughters’ kindy teachers. My girls then decorated them with drawings using gel pens.

lillylane

[Lillylane]

Hi Jstar

Yes I think doing Brush pen calligraphy does two interesting things:

1. It focuses my attention because you can’t really think about anything else if you’re watching each pen stroke going down and modifying the pressure gradually to achieve the ‘thick and thin’ parts of each letter.

2. It forces me to slow down! There is great emphasis on this in tutorials as it’s one of the trickiest things as a beginner to remember.

Good mindfulness I guess.

Enjoyed hearing about your screen printing. It’s something I’ve always been curious about. It could be applied to so many things.

L

[Lillylane]

Hi EM,

I think of brush turkeys now whenever I write ‘brush pen’ 🙂

Those watercolour brush pens are awesome.

Thanks for this great thread and hope you get some time to yourself to do things for you that help you rest and relax.

L

[ecomama]

Hello everyone, new posters very welcome... we're all learning!

I love reading this thread, it calms me imagining the crafting as you describe it.

My Lilly Pilly lol there is papa brush turkey RIGHT THERE inspecting the grounds lol. Oh what can I do... they were here before me right? Sorry about the brush turkey pen association! omg sorry bout that. My blind chicken is having time in the front garden with me while I have my morning decaf and write here.
It's so relaxing.

I'm changing bedrooms and it's quite the experience lol! (Some PTSD reactions, so trying to deal).

I imagined my new b/room looking "so" and after just one night in there, I've completely changed my mind!

I realised I love Scandi style; the CALM I feel when looking at it / rooms styled like this. Yah I'm doing it lol. But not now omg my kids would scream. (My goal is for 1 year but don't tell the kids lol).
Yvette is helping me mostly bec she's the most motivated to get into her new bedroom (my old bedroom).

Yesterday we completely dismantled my huge heavy KS bed and reconstructed it. It looks like a huge wart on a big toe in the new room!
I'll swap beds with one son downstairs in a big room (but later I keep telling myself lol).
Then he can have the big bedside tables and huge tallboy. I'll take his / my Kauri pine QS more Scandi style (just need a new mattress).

Getting rid of the other broken cupboards and possibly giving the new small wardrobe to p.son who moved out.

I found my Scandi style needlecraft books and a "Redwork" book.
My new glass doored tall cabinet will store my books and possibly my "nice" needlework things to see and inspire me. I'll have to use old wardrobes from downstairs for now, IDK.

Today Yvette and I will move the rest of the furniture from my old room and rip up all the carpet.
I'm leaving carpet in the built ins and dreamt of how to cut it last night! Lol. How to cut it BUT in the right places to hammer a metal trim. There's also the timber border to get up somehow. Don't have the right tools hmmm.

We're planning to white wash the raw timber floorboards. Just like Yvette's old room.
I'm sweating at the thought of it all! But it's a hot one today.

Love the inspo everyone!

EMxxxx

[Jstar49]

Hi all,

Lillylane, Wow yes, I could imagine the 'mindfulness' of doing calligraphy as you were describing it. It sounds very absorbing. Thats such a great thing isn't it, when you find something that completely absorbs you , even if just for short spans of time.

Screenprinting is a lifelong fascination for me. I had thought it relegated to the past, but got inspired by showing a small group some bits and pieces. Now I'm all in again and converting our garage into screenprinting space (I hope). My recent artworks are native floral inspired, and I long to wear a pair of leggings with flannel flowers weaving up my leg! I also print on all natural fibres, which I love. Cotton, linen, maybe wool.

Em all your talk of furniture re-arranging reminds me of my place. I would like to do lots, but my sewing room is in a state of flux so it will be some time before I can fully let go in there, and perhaps by then I will have work to distract me! Oh well, it will be lovely to have it organised, and it no longer doubling as the tv room.

I'm tired today after travelling, so the sanding i got all inspired about (small bedside cupboard which will become mermaid purple for T's b/room) is having to wait.

Cheers,

J*

[HamSolo01]

G'day all

Nice to see a thread like this

I have largely spent my creativity side of my brain on videogames where I design stuff. It could be a game like Cities Skylines where you run and manage a city. I once made several that were attempts to replicate bigger cities throughout the world but it was rather hard as my pc couldn't handle the complex graphics haha.

I also used a Lego designer software to make my own lego models and designed the underworld of coruscant from star wars. It was a hard task and very fiddly.

I bought a game called "Planet Coaster" where you design themeparks and I am slowly getting the hang of that.

In the real world I have a mosaic of darth vader to complete and my sister got me a lego mosaic pattern that requires using small stud bricks of differeing colours to make up a portrait. I have a choice of Kylo ren, Darth Maul and Vader so I will see how I go. I have a model of Kylo Ren already and a mosaic of Vader, so maybe Maul will be the choice.

I used to draw a lot too, but as a perfectionist I used to get angry haha.

Creativity is a fun little thing

[Lillylane]

Hey HamSolo

Thanks for sharing your creative projects with us. I’m intrigued with the idea of city designing/building. Can imagine it being really immersive and rewarding. And taking patience and skill!

When you create these cities, can other players sort of log in to it too and have a look around?

lillylane

[HamSolo01]

Hi Lilylane

Nice to meet you

On Cities Skylines you can upload what are called mods - items you can use in your custom city. These can be things like buildings, parks, bridges, icons etc. For example, I have a mod of Sydney Harbour Bridge that I used to recreate Sydney - but it was too demanding on my PC's CPU haha. So I had to change it. It is super creative though yeah. You have to manage the budget and provide utilities like electricity and manage traffic.

Most of the time you end up managing traffic lol because you need to make roads that function - Something sydney lacks lol

You can upload things onto their online portal - through Steam - which is an app you can install on your desktop. It's like Origin or GOG or anything like that. It's a pretty cool invention. you can add people through it too. It's like Xbox or PS4 etc.

What creative outlets do you enjoy?

[ecomama]

Hey HamSolo lol GREAT NAME! My BF would think that username is awesome!

He's also a passionate technology guy - Lordy be, his text just now was explaining the complicated issues he just found in an instrument he needs to repair, like I'M an Engineer too? NAH! lol.

He's drawing up the Building Plans for my backyard cabin on a Computer program called Solidworx (maybe an x IDK?) but they'll end up in 3D! How fancy! Every single thing the cabin needs will be IN there. Then he "suppressed" the stuff I want to add to it later like a front porch and water tanks etc, far too fancy for me.

I thank him regularly for "dumbing down" his conversation so that I have a modicum of hope in understanding it! LOL! He's a darling.

I am SO HAPPY you've joined this thread - you're zooming us into the high tech world.

You're incredibly creative and just WOW!!
My children would SO IMPRESSED by your work too. They love building cities in different worlds.

Welcome!

EMxxxx

[ecomama]

Hey J* and Lilly

I LOVE reading about everyone's endeavours, dreams and states of their creative spaces too! LOL!

Now our entire HOME is in upheaval lol. Ah whatevs, Rome wasn't built in a day right?

It's just FUN being creative to a point, the point is when it's just hard darned work lol.
Plus I find it a very welcome distraction from the outer world tbh.

Yvette decided to do the whitewash herself, so that's interesting lol. How else will she learn right?
So it appears we DON'T have any white, water soluble paint here so a trip to Bunnings tomorrow is on the schedule.

The staples from the floor were the last thing to get rid of and they were a pain.

I think we need a sealer over the whitewash if I remember the process correctly?

Well Yvette plans to have it ALL done in around 11 days - including all her own bedroom furniture disassembled and re-assembled in there for her friends to come over. So we have a deadline. Oh yay.

I guess we'll see how we go.

Still lots to do.

Love EM