Paint Party Friday: Blockprinting gifts and another garden bird

 Hey everyone! A bit late for Paint Party Friday, but I'm busy in the gift workshop, printing tea towels to give as gifts. I finished three so far, besides other gifts, as these are the ones which need to be sent via mail to the recipients. I would have loved to hand over the gifts personally, but won't see the people this year for Christmas due to covid.So they will be sent wit a nice handmade card.

The sheep and flower one goes to very dear friends. The stamps are from a great little shop in the UK called The Arty Crafty Place. Check them out!

The one with the flowers and bees goes to a dear friend and coworker, who is having a hard time and needs some sunny yellow color in her life.

And the last one will be sent out to my godmother. A moon gazing hare. Love how this one turned out!

 

 

Then I made these two mug rugs from fabric scraps, that I used for testing a new tie dye color. Love the deep blue. I also got some new printing colors for dark fabrics and tested them on the mug rugs. Love how they turned out and I think, they will go to my office desk for my mugs  and water caraffe. The owl stamp is a handmade linocut by me. You might recognize it, as I used it earlier for some placemats, together with some other woodland animals.

 

 And in the middle of all the stamping, dyeing and sewing crazyness, I finished painting another garden bird. A nuthatch. Fun little birds! Love their coloring and slowly I'm getting better about where to "push" the watercolors with my paintbrush.

 

 

Sharing with Paint Party Friday! Come and have a look at all the other lovely artists and their work during our weekly blog hop!

Paint Party Friday: Nature Journal and Advent Calendars

 A bit late to the party, but here we go with some new art from my workbench. But first of all I would like to wish all who celebrate a lovely first weekend of Advent. Enjoy the time!

 I started another page in my nature art journal and it is about my hedgehog house and the not so so hedgehog-y inhabitant. I told the story of the shrew in my hedgehog house for another PPF, eating the catfood I placed in there for the hedgehogs.

 

 

 Here's the shrew sniffing for the catfood. Love those little garden helpers, which aren't rodents and not even related to mice, but to hedgehogs. They eat a lot of insects.

 

  

Here's the shrew trying to get away with a flower-shaped catfood pellet. They are so tiny!

 

 Looking forward to finishing this page in my nature art journal.

 

 And then I finally finished the two linoprint advent calendars I was making for DH and my parents. All printed with my handcut lino stamps. The one with the tres and stars is for my parents and they were so happy, when I gave it to them last week.

 

 

 

The little bags are filled with sweets.

 

And that's the one I made for DH and I made five different Christmas/winter stamps for it. Love how these turned out! I used fabric colors for stamping and they hold up to washing very well, after they are fixed by ironing over them for about five minutes. I use these colors for stamping tea towels, too.

  This is filled with sweets, too. But you can also put little gifts or poems in the bags. The possibilities are almost endless.

Have a great weekend and enjoy a good cup of tea or coffee, if possible with a friend or family! Stay safe!

Linking to Paint Party Friday!


 

Paint Party Friday: Back again with so many ideas!

I haven't joined PPF for such a long time! Can't believe it! But here I am, as my lovely friend Nicole of Beadwright saw some of my latest creations and asked, if I would join in again. How could I forget about the lovely folks at PPF?

So what am I up to? A short time before Christmas 2019 I ordered some lovely wooden printing blocks at a small UK based business called The Arty Crafty Place. I wanted more designs lately, to design more fabric and maybe greeting cards, but can't afford to buy more right now. So what to do? Design my own! But how? First step was ofc paper and pencil and some very basic designs.

Then I remembered that we once did linocut/linoprint back in school (ages ago *LOL*).

I did some test prints on paper. I really like how they turned out.

I might make some cards or paintings with them in the future, but for now I made a set of placemats for our home. Even DH fell in love with them and so did I. I even tie dyed the fabric, as I didn't have enough of the color I wanted. Combination of bought wooden blocks and my own linocut ones.

That's the other side, so you can turn them over, if neccessary.

Joining Paint Party Friday! Have a look at all the other great artists sharing their work there every Friday.

Blockprinting and reusable gift wrapping

A short time before Christmas 2019, when it came to wrapping all the handmade gifts, I thought about the "tsunami" of wrapping papers and bags, we all face during Christmas. So what to do? I came across a little UK based company called The Arty Crafty Place and they sell a wide range of beautiful wooden printing blocks for designing fabric and paper. I decided to order and some days later my order packed with much love arrived, including a card and a bag.

I printed lots and lots of cotton bags and pouches to wrap my handmade gifts in them and they hit like da bomb. My favorites are the hens! And even my godmother borrowed them to print some fabric for her own home. Aren't they cute?

Some more drawstring bags.

A bigger market or shopping bag.

The drawstring bags were filled with a nice piece of soap and some crocheted or knitted washcloths. The set below was one of the many I made.

Some more bags stuffed with goodies.