(269-267) Quilling

While at the craft store this week picking up supplies to create baby shower invites, I came across a beginners kit for quilling. The patterns looked interesting and I am a sucker when it comes to trying new things, so I picked up the set.

Quilling, also known as paper filligree, is a form or art that uses paper (in strips) as its main medium. The artist uses a quill to coil the paper around and then shapes the paper in different forms. This has been around for many thousands of years and was quiet popular during the Victorian era.

Saturday when playing passenger on the drive to Eugene I did my first quilled creations. My first attempt was a dragon fly and followed it with a duck:











I love how quickly you can see results with this form or art. It is fairly easy and opens the mind for a ton of creative options on what to apply the filigree work to. On the down side that the gluing is a bit messy (but nothing permanent as the glue can be easily cleaned). Paper is inexpensive and the strips could be created on your own if you were really ambitious. Most of all, the technique is surprisingly relaxing.

Sunday on our drive back up to have dinner with the Glennons, I made a snowflake ornament for Barb:















Now I am waiting on a book I ordered on Amazon "The Art of Paper Quilling" to by Claire Sun-ok Choi to arrive so I can read more about different techniques.

(273-270) Sock Monkeys Ready to Play

Here are the sock monkeys for Jen and Tom. We decided they look more like robot sock monkeys...they kind of took on a life of there own during the project. Greg was very proud that he was able to sew one of them himself too!

Monkey #1 " Smiles" & #2 "Hot Lips"

Monkey #3 "Surprise" & #4 "Happy"

Final Mobile :

Hand made card and final wrapped present:

To top off the gift I hand made a card with some quiet scrap book bird paper and a couple -cut pieces. With a special note for the mom and dad to be. It just so happened that the green ribbon worked perfectly for wrapping the gift together.

I'm Back!!!

My plans got a bit disrupted by life. Though there are many things that are creative about a wedding, I took a break from my precarioussoul blog until the wedding project was complete (as I know not everyone is fond of hearing all the gory details of a wedding). Now I am happy to report today is our one month anniversary.

After almost a six month hiatus I am trying to get back on track with my goal - documenting things that make me feel creative for a year. A sub-part of this goal was to try to complete 356 creative projects.

My year is ending in December and I feel pretty good about the reflection on things that made me feel creative through out the year. However, looking at it in the aspect of the 365 projects, I think will be nearing one third of my goal by December. Not too shabby!

Perhaps I was ambitious as I originally hoped to document daily, rather it is each week that I am finding something that captures my mind creatively. But my vow is to keep on track with my original goal and keep creating until I complete 365 projects. This will take much more time to create, but I am a goal setter and this will help me to create and in blogging I am hoping to inspire more people to do the same.

On that note I am off to bed to dream of some new inspiring creative adventures.

(276-275) Sock Monkey ProtoType and Sock Monkey #1

Today I prototyped a sock monkey to find a way to work the design with one sock. The prototype was looking a bit more like a cat sock animal, so I tweaked the design and also decreased the size so it would be right for a mobile (used toddlers 22-24 month socks). Here is the first monkey:


Greg volunteered to sew the twin monkey.

Tonight I cut the socks for set #2 and tomorrow the plan is to sew round #2. Later this week I will get around to figuring out how I will embroider the mouths. Just in time because the baby shower is November 13th.

(277) A Photo Book for our Honeymoon

I put a draft together of our honeymoon pictures on Shutterfly. I started to get annoyed with how limiting Shutterfly book design is however, so I began to research online publishing options. I checked out:
Lulu
Blurb
Costco
Picaboo
Snapfish
Shutterfly
Tiny Prints
Smilebooks
MyPublisher

I had never realized how many competitors there are in the market! Thus far it seems like a lot of recommendations point to: Adormapix.

I found a couple of review articles here:
Digital Thoughts
TheDailyDigi

Anyone have suggestions for advanced photo book design options and photo book print qualities?

Thanks in advance!
~Amber

(278) Dan's Birthday Panda

So I have been doing creative projects, but am falling sorely behind on posting them.

So here is a quick easy one. Today to wish our close friend Dan a happy birthday we created a special Photoshop image -

It was super silly, but made me feel creative for the day.

(283-279) The Beavers Have Arrived...

Though I was a bit under stress in the production mode, the beavers turned out to be cute buggers. I hope Kate & Corey enjoy them and can't wait to meet their little one!

Here are the first set of beavers: