My weekend project

Was all about Superheroes, SURPRISE!

Admittedly though, I had an enormous amount of fun making it so I can’t complain, at all.

Here’s what I made:
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A bunch of superheroes and a house for them all to live in!

The house is a little kit house I found at Spotlight that you screw together and decorate, best thing ever! It was called a “Princess Doll House” but pffft, We don’t follow silly rules like that around here.

So here’s what I started with:
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And then after some paint and some varnish, I ended up with this:
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See! Boys can have doll houses too.
I’m unbelievably happy with how it all turned out (and yes, I do find myself playing with it when Will’s not looking), best party though is that Will loves it, so much so that the “guys” even came out for breakfast with us on Sunday…
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The car is from the Superhero Village I made a while ago, they don’t all fit in though, so I may well be making a Superhero bus sometime soon.

I still have 6 doll pegs left to paint…hmmm, what should I do with those?

Fancy my artwork on a T-shirt, anyone?

How cool is this? I’m not entirely sure how this website works, I only signed up yesterday but hey, look at this…

Here’s my artwork:
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And here it is on a t-shirt!:TshirtKellyCanby

 

Ha!

I think I need to look around this RedBubble website a little more because it looks like fun! You can make cards, tshirts, posters, other stuff.

That piece of artwork I have actually entered into Redbubbles tattoo design competition…the brief was a tattoo that even your mum would love, so, thats why it’s a bit girly and non-tattooish, really.

Also, while I’m here, people often ask how I manage to squeeze in so much “creative time” with a three year old, every day is different but here’s how I managed it yesterday, we made…

COLOURED RICE!
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Will helped me make up a few batches of coloured rice which, after googling to find out how, couldn’t have been easier! Simply pour some rice into a zip lock bag, add a couple drops of food colour/dye and shake. That’s it! The rice will turn whatever colour you chose. Then I poured the coloured rice into bowls to dry for about half an hour (or until you don’t get colour on your hands!).

Then it’s ready to play with, Will loved it and I got some sneaky time to make pretty pictures. Everyone’s happy!

So you need:
Rice
Food colour/dye
Zip lock bags or freezer bags
Some bowls for drying

Easy peasy! (And fun) (I recommend playing outside with it though)
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Also, I work quite a bit at night when Wills in bed, unless it’s a Thursday or a Friday night, they’re movie nights! And I also take my sketchbook to parks, playgrounds and indoor play centres, just like the picture on the t-shirt, it’s all about juggling!

 

There is literally a dozen other things I should be working on right now

But I decided to do this instead.

Procrastination! At its best.

Can you find the boy with no name who I think might be called Hugo but I’m not 100% sure yet. Hugo or Milo. Or August.

(click to enlarge)

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OK. Now on to the things I should be doing.

Flashback Friday & Adventures with a new guy

I’ve been a little quiet of late, I know.
A mix of concentrating on a book idea/illustrations for that book idea and sewing things and not feeling too well this week and being a mum to a three year old.

All that makes for a busy busy week.

Anyhow, lets take a little look back at an old illustration that I liked for Flashback Friday, shall we?

This one was Day 99 of 365 Illustrations.
I like this one because A) It was done when I first fell in love with Rob Ryan’s paper cuts so I decided to try one out for myself and B) I’d never done anything with paper cut (other than getting them) before. So, it was a happy experiment, I think.
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And now, the new guy!
On Monday I was doing a little doodling and this very groovy little guy appeared out of all the scribbles, here he is here:
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I became quite fond of him as I sat staring at him for a bit and then I wondered, “What is your name, little guy?”
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Neither of us knew.
Perhaps, what we needed was
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a list!
So a list is what we made
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But I’m still no closer to knowing what his name is.

Deciding to put the name (or no name) issue aside, he began a little series of adventures.
First, he met with a bird
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Then, got trapped in the garden
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Before finally, narrowly escaping DEATH!
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Phew! It was a big day for little…whatever his name is.

(More adventures to come, probably)

Happy Friday xx

A whole day to myself. Wowsers!

So, I’ve been a very lucky today.
Will’s been out on an adventure for the entire day. The whole day!

Obviously, I love having Will around, but wow, I’ve had a whole day to myself.
It’s been a so pleasant…and quiet!

And what have I done with my day?
The most perfect things. I’ve painted and photoshopped and drank tea and listened to the radio. Yep, the radio. All. Day. Long.

Here’s what I made today: (click to enlarge)
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It started as a little doodle earlier this morning…
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And I quite liked it so I painted bits of it then drew out all the other bits to scan…
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Then I put it all together in photoshop and voila!

I suspect my wee adventurer will be home soon so I might try and sneak in one last treat…a coffee down the road :)

Happy Friday, I hope you’ve all done things you loved.

 

Get ready for a craft overload!

So excited.

I’d been hearing a bit about needle felting lately but had no idea what it was really, so last night I Googled a bit and watched a YouTube video or two and thought, “Huh, doesn’t look so hard!”.

Today I bought some felting needles and began.

I made this little guy and I am so so proud of him! I mean you know, for a first time, it’s not awful, right?

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I predict bigger and better things to come because there’s something quite therapeutic and relaxing about stabbing that needle in over and over and over again, without sounding all weird…and stuff.

Next project!

Three year old Will has been a bit keen on old Mister Maker lately, to the point where he’s watching YouTube episodes of the show, which is fine really, I think, because he’s watching and learning how to make and create AND it’s giving me ideas of things we can make together like… The Big Heads we made this afternoon…
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I made a little instruction sheet, if you want to make some too. No words though because I think they’re pretty simple and straight forward, just remember to measure the band around the head its going to be worn on AND if you use staples like I did, make sure the sharp bit is facing outwards so it doesn’t scratch little (or big) foreheads.

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Finally, some other stuff we’ve been doing to stay bust during the school holidays (if you read yesterdays post you’d know that we’ve been avoiding all our regular haunts because school holidays means SO MANY CHILDREN! EVERYWHERE!).

We did this: Made cardboard dinosaur costumes and a mini Jurassic Park. Roar.
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And this: Made things with our food. This is just one example, we’re pretty keen food artists around here :)
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And we did this: Made a dinosaur disco party because, why not?
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And we did this: Painted rock monsters
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And to finish, my breakfast doodle from this morning:
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Busy and fun times!

People I saw today*

(*names have been changed because, well, I don’t know their real names)

Oh boy. School holidays.

It’s not even about having Will off kindy because, after all, he only goes for 2.5 hours, 2 days a week, and it’s not about finding entertaining things to do because we do that on normal days already, no, it’s about ALL THE OTHER KIDS!

Our regular places are all choc full of children at the moment.
So that means a lot of noise and chaos and running.

Children are always running!

Yep. I made the mistake of heading to an indoor play centre during school holidays, again.

Luckily though, I took my sketchbook and a nice pen so for a little while, I could block out all the noise and the chaos and the running and draw things.
Things like this…
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Which, when I got home, I thought I would turn into these…
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I think Janet needs a Gin & Tonic.

Hurry up and go back to school, bigger kids!