Vonvonz Handmade

Binding a book had been in my mind for quite a while, just haven’t get down to do it until now. Wanted to experience how it is like to sew the pages together so I didn’t add a thicker paper for the cover and back. I ended up with a 36 pages little brown book that measures around 3 by 4 inches. I’m gonna use it for sketching and writing down any ideas in my mind. I’ll try one with a harder cover sometime. : D The whole process took less than 20mins minus the doodles. Hehe.

I’ve always wanted to do a newspaper decoupage, even tried it on my nails but too bad my nails are too tiny for me to work on. LOL But that didn’t make me drop the urge to do it… I did it on the Holga 120s! XD It turned out nicer than I’ve expected. Though I’m not too excited about the gloss finishing which probably will work better for colors but it’s still good.

Materials:

• Newspaper (Would be nicer if you can get papers with different font types.)
• White Glue
• A brush to apply the glue
• Art Knife
• Scissors
• Wooden stick (Satay stick we call it.) - helps to pick up the cut up pieces and secure on the surface.

Somehow I think something is missing but I don’t want to over work the camera yet since I haven’t figure out what it is, I’ll consider it complete for the moment and place it in our display cabinet. Which reminds me… maybe it’s time to rearrange things in the cabinet so that all the cameras can sit together and reorganize the other toys too. : )

Did a doodle of Ethan awhile ago, thought I should make him a rubber stamp XD <3 The bf and I saw some cool looking camera stamps and he was wondering that it would be cool to have stamps of his camera, took the challenge and here it is! Totally not easy! XD;;;;

Last night I was unable to sleep due to my nose allergies, so I decided to put some mushroom bois and fat cactus up onto my etsy for sale. Then I finally felt really tired and fell asleep for a few hours. = u = Please check etsy out if you’d like to bring those guys home. <3

Ya, as shown in the photos above, I took some time off to make a new coaster for myself with some pretty fabrics using the weaving method. : D I’m a person who loves chilled drinks, I don’t drink hot drinks unless I feel cold or have a craving, so having a coaster beside me is important so it can catch all the condensed droplets on my glass. The fabric colors make the coaster feels like a forest with some pink flowers growing on the ground. XD

Tomorrow I will be making some short tutorials for rubber stamp carving using alternative tools that I have around me. : D

Made a ring pillow for my friends for their wedding. : ) Nice experience.

This is my second attempt to make a sweet looking bib for my friend’s baby girl. The stitches and shape of the bib is much neater and accurate this time round. The cute polka dots fabric I used gets wrinkled and stays that way no matter how hard I iron it, but I like it that way actually.

I have a collection of ribbons that I bought and kept them for a very very long time because I didn’t find any chance to use them. haha.. Now I find the chance to put them to good use!

I have been thinking of making a new baby gift for a friend, but I can’t make up my mind what I should make… Finally I decide that I should make something useful, and I found a nice pattern in Cotton Friend and here it is!

To my horror, I realised that I have stitched the right side fabric the wrong way, actually both sides can be the right side for this nice fabric… But since I am not sure if it will affect the usage, I just keep sewing and completed the project. It’s good to gain experience anyway.

So far, I have kind souls in Flickr telling me that having the opening on the right or left side doesn’t matter, So I am quite relief now.

Though there are a few glitches and things that I worry… I wonder if big metal snap buttons are suitable for bibs, I dont have round velcros and I don’t have enough time to get them. So I am contemplating to make tie-strings type of bibs instead. As for the glitches would be that there are some stain on the flora pattern fabric that I didn’t notice earlier due to lighting problem and my red ribbon (suddenly I can’t remember what’s its term. ^^;;;; ) is not straight.

So, I will still make another one to further perfect the bib. I need to consider which type to make now.

Pattern from Cotton Friend - Summer edition 2005 vol 15.

I finally printed a Tshirt! But still no colors though. hehe

Front

and the back.

It’s a cartoon version of my boyfriend and I. I illustrated it on my pc and I failed for the first design.

This is the first design, as I am using a black tshirt I don’t like having white onlines, so I make it that the the black on the t-shirt will be the outline for the print. But this first illustration that I did didn’t work out as the lines are too line and some of the lines are not join together and that makes it hard to make sure the design will go into the correct place. So I corrected the illustration and moved on with the one below. Which is more paper-cut style and I like it.

After I the space out, I iron it on the from of my tshirt.

There it is… all ready to get painted.

I don’t have a roller, so I just use a paint brush to slowly go through the corners. This take quite a long time because the brush is small but I just want to make sure I get all corners covered. I might want to get a roller sponge or something and perhaps some fabric paint too.

Being an impatient person.. a hair dryer is my best friend.

After 4 layers of acrylic with textile medium and hair dryer, I peel off the stencil and there it is. I noticed that the edges are not crisp and clean and in some area, the paint actually bleed through the stencil. So I am wondering if is it because of the textile medium that makes my acrylic to watery or something. (If you refer to the picture before this one, that’s the first layer of paint and it’s really thin IMO) So I might experiment with fabric paint when I get some.

I turn the tshirt inside out, have a piece of cloth under the front side and iron press the painted area to set it.

Now, I move on the stenciling the logo at the back near the collar area.

Loving this logo, it’s our initials ^^

See how thin the first layer is?

After 4 to 5 layers of paint.. I think I applied too much and a part of it actually cracked, and ironining didn’t really help. I just wanted to make sure that it’s white enough, but I guess the paint is too thick. Same as the above, I turn it inside out and iron set it.

My kind friend in US helped me get a roll of Reynolds Freezer Paper 150 because I want to do my own printings but silkscreen print is too complicated for me. The freezer paper had been sitting in the corner for quite a long while and I haven’t find a chance to use it up until now.

First I drew this cute dog and his friend birdie in Flash (sounds like snoopy!) Then I export it as Jpeg and open it in Photoshop. Go to Filter > Stylize > Find Edges. This will make the dark areas go away and create a clean outline just like the printed version below, the reason why I do this is to save the ink, it is not nessesary to apply Find Edges to your image is it is too complicated and you need to see where the dark areas are to help you cut.

I set mine at A4 and 300dpi. I then proceed to measure and cut my freezer paper into A4 size and feed it to my printer. Do not print on the waxy/semi glossy surface.

This is how it looks like and I am going to cut it out.

After cutting, I set aside which are the important pieces that I need to iron them onto my fabric.

I almost burn a hole on the nonwoven material because my iron was too hot! I forgot to check the heat level. Since I was not sure what heat level it was suitable, I get a scrap piece of material and test the heat on it. In the end, I used Nylon level, but it’s not really hot enough to make the Freezer Paper stick well onto the material. I had to press the iron at the same position for a few seconds before I move on to another spot. I guess it will be easier to press the Freezer paper on fabric since I can go on higher temperature. Here is how it looks like after pressing.

I mixed 2 part Acrylic paint to 1 part Textile Medium (Keymistress, I finally use it!!!)

Carefully brushing my way through. I have some scrap paper at the back of the material so that the paint will not bleed through and stain the other side of the bag.

I let it dry for a few hours…. … … (the most difficult part… the waiting!) I could use the hair dryer but I decide that I’ll just wait.

After the paint is totally dried up, I carefully peel off the Freezer Paper. The print wasn’t perfect but it is actually better than what I expect. I think it will work fine on fabrics!

Time to heat press this print. I am not sure if it is hot enough to make the paint stay but I just go ahead to press it with the suitable heat level instead of burning a hole in the bag and ruining my iron ^^;

That’s my first Freezer paper stencil print! I am looking forward to colors printing and printing on fabric ^^

This is the bag that holds our pillow when we bought them, I kept them because I wanted to reuse the zipper on the bag, but after I removed the zipper, I noticed how big this piece of material is, so I decide to reuse it too!

A drawstring bag made of non woven material is really easy to sew because I don’t have to worry about the seam and stuff The string is also made from the same material.

I still have the part with the brand printed on and another pillow bag that I have not cut it. (we bought 2 pillows) I wonder what I should make with it. More shopping bags or another drawstring bag to serve as a container for our reuse plastic bags? Hmmmm