YUZEN wooden clothes pins
Originally uploaded by karaku*

Aren’t these gorgeous?

You can buy these and other handmade items from the creator at her Etsy store.

Aside from teaching a workshop on stamp carving at last month’s South Bay Craft Group meeting, I haven’t been doing a great deal of crafting. I made a few stamps in preparation, using images from some new stamp books I bought (check My Library for the specific titles). And I created a few square collage postcards, including one for an upcoming color-themed swap, but nothing major otherwise.

However, I’ve been starting to prepare for next month’s workshop, which will be on “washi paper quilting,” based on these kits from Hanko Designs. I’ve done a few of these pieces before, but the idea is that you combine washi paper, cardboard, and thin sponge to create a padded or quilted effect. I’ve been trying to find a pattern that will be easy enough for a first-time project in a class format. I was looking at the Hanko Designs page and saw mention of “kimekomi,” which they said is a traditional Japanese art (or craft?) that inspired their kits, so I started searching for that online.

What I found about kimekomi seemed to mainly refer to 3-dimensional dolls that use fabric and padding, with many layers to add dimension (check out this site’s examples). They’re quite beautiful, but not entirely like the 2-dimensional pieces you can make with the kit. Then I remembered having seen some intricate 2D pieces like this in a local Japanese arts store, so I tried looking for that. Let me tell you, if you don’t know the exact term for something, using general but related terms takes awhile to get anywhere! But I eventually found what I was looking for.

Kurumie, or oshie, is another traditional Japanese art (or craft?) form that uses padded pieces of fabric or paper, but in 2D form. Some of them are quite intricate, like these kit examples, with many complex pieces and layering. The idea is still the same as the Hanko Design kits though. You start with a sturdy base, add some padding (cotton or sponge), and then wrap fabric or paper around it, finally assembling everything to create an overall picture. Some of them even have a bit of embroidery or painted areas on them, to add even more detail.

Anyway, I’ve been looking at so many web sites to find as much as I can about this art, but there isn’t a whole lot out there, especially about the history. It’s really great to discover things like this though, to see where certain creative forms come from and what from the past inspires people in the present. I’m going to continue to look into this as I work on my class examples, but I just wanted to share a bit of this in the meantime.

If you’re interested, I’ve bookmarked a bunch of kurumie links and I would highly recommend the Hanko Designs kits (and their other items) if you want to try your hand at it.

I’ve been on a bit of a color kick this morning.

It all started when I was reading through my news feeds and clicked on a link to view Sally’s blog. I don’t normally view her site directly, so I hadn’t seen the design of it in awhile, including the gorgeous aqua color she was using for header text and links (sadly, it’s gone now). I became so enamored with this color that I started thinking of what it would combine well with, beyond the white, yellow, and gray on her site.

I kept thinking about these color combinations on my way to work, noting how colors I saw along the way might work or not work with the aqua. I thought about ways I could play with these combinations, either with paper, paint, or digitally. The last method made me think of a Flickr color tool I’d seen awhile ago.

When I got to work, I couldn’t find the exact tool, but I did find another that was rather fun to play with. The Flickr Color Selector lets you choose a color, and then it loads Flickr images that contain that color. It’s really quite fun to play with and I came across some really lovely photos, including some simple but beautiful ones by tomooka, a photographer in Japan.

I kept following this color kick, eventually coming across a few more color tools that are intended for creating schemes. First, the “kuler” site by Adobe lets you create schemes by starting with a base color and applying a bit of color theory to them, or by making your own custom combinations. If you use any of the Adobe CS2 programs, you can even download the schemes and use them there.

I also found a program called Color Schemer, which lets you do about the same on your own desktop. You can export the results to another program and even share them in their web gallery.

I poked around a bit to find some color wheel posters, but most were based on red, blue, and yellow. When I took a class about color last year, we focused on cyan, magenta, and yellow as the primaries, and I’m a bit fond of these instead. I couldn’t find a full poster, but I did find a nice CMY color wheel I’ll probably order soon.

I’m really quite fond of and sensitive to color, and this was a fun start to realizing its appeal yet again. I’ve been in a bit of a creative lull, but I’m hoping that this will get the juices flowing again. And all because of a single color!

Work has been a bit hectic as of late, to the point of taking some work home last weekend. However, I made a point of setting some limits on this work and spent the rest of the weekend working on some craft projects for a few swaps that were due this week. It was really nice to just dive in and focus on them, especially since I’d already figured out what I wanted to make.

First up was the Matchbox Craft Swap, which required making something tiny enough to fit inside a matchbox. I had some blank matchboxes that I’d bought for a past project, and I thought about making a miniature scene inside of one of them. I didn’t really know what to make the scene out of or where to find the right items for it, so I scrapped that idea and made a cross-stitched pin instead:

The pattern is my own creation, though I have to give proper credit to another crafter for the inspiration. I was browsing Flickr for cross-stitch and embroidery photos and found this lovely set of cross-stitched pins:

Very cool, and definitely not like the sappy cross-stitch stuff you find in local craft stores. I decided to start with this and play around a bit, and this will hopefully lead to some variations and further patterns. And if anyone’s interested, I’d be more than happy to share my pattern, either in PC Stitch or image format.

As for the pin itself, I basically stitched out the design and then sewed the fabric around some layered pieces of template plastic. I wanted to add a fabric backing with the pin back, but I got tired of sewing and just hot-glued the pin back on. Maybe not the best approach, but it gave me a reason to finally use the hot glue gun I’ve had sitting around for a few years.

I was still in a cross-stitching mood after this project, so when I moved on to the Coloriffic Swap-O-Rama October Swap, I worked in another piece. This month’s colors were orange and purple, and after reading that my partner likes elephants, I combined the two into this framed cross-stitch piece:

I found the elephant pattern online and modified it slightly, dropping the border and filling out the background to fit inside the frame. The frame came from a $1 bin cross-stitch kit I found at Michael’s; it was some awful candy cane pattern kit, but it was worth it for the frame alone and I tossed everything else aside. Stitching the elephant part was easy, but working on the orange background took forever, so I probably wouldn’t do another one like this, or at least not for a swap with a looming deadline.

My other handmade items for this swap included collaged postcards and mini envelope/card sets (my old stand-by), plus a bunch of drawing supplies and candy for my partner. Here are a few photos of it all:

And now I’m all done for a little while at least. I signed up for a Japanese-themed swap on Craftster, which I have yet to start, and then I think I’m going to take a break from swaps for a bit. Or at least the rather involved ones that require a bit more time than I feel like dedicating right now. It’s hard to keep up the motivation to do things when I’m not at work, and I think a project without a due date would be more relaxing and easier to get into.

After working on a number of projects involving squares, I’ve been playing around with another simple shape: the circle.

I was inspired by the design on Metromint bottles, which have lovely silver labels with blue or green circles, depending on the flavor. It’s a very simple design, but I thought how it might work nicely as a card design, so I started punching out circles and making measurements.

I didn’t really get very far with the card idea, beyond making sample circles and sketching out some ideas, but I did end up making some bookmarks with circles of cardstock. I needed to finish off my last swap for the month, which is a reading themed swap, and I whipped up these bookmarks and laminated them before adding the ribbons at the top.

Very easy to make, and it gave me some ideas for color combinations to try out. Part of my inspiration came from these postage stamp bookmarks, which I’d seen in a local bookstore recently. I might try out my own version with the various stamps I’ve got saved, but that’ll be for another day.

Oh, and I almost forgot! I wanted to share some lovely items I recently bought from a few Etsy sellers. As part of preparation for my new job (which officially started today, though I only had to sort out paperwork), I’ve been doing clothes-shopping and picking out a few new accessories. I poked around Etsy for a bit to find a new purse and managed to find some really pretty ones.

First, I bought this gorgeous bag from Mint Workshop, which, even if it’s a bit larger than I’m used to, is so wonderfully made and beautiful to boot.

(More photos are available here.)

I also managed to find a cute business card wallet in a matching fabric, made by Keyka Lou, which I plan on putting my own business cards (when I get them) inside.

(More photos are available here.)

The quality of these pieces is so amazing, and I highly recommend checking out both of these sellers’ items. I try to support other crafters, and especially when I find pieces as great as these, it makes it even easier to do.

I’m still waiting on another Etsy seller purse to arrive soon, and am also looking for some nice, handmade pendants or necklaces for myself. (Recommendations are quite welcome!)