It's a Creative World

Faking it with Sharpies

Hello, Eleanor here, with a bright and zingy Teeshirt, tie-dyed Sharpie style.

You need:

an inexpensive plain white 100% cotton teeshirt, or an expensive one if you prefer ;)

assorted Sharpie permanent markers in colours of your choosing

Isopropyl rubbing alcohol, or if you can't get hold of it, surgical spirit works just fine, that's what I used.

an eye dropper or small syringe, or anything you can drip fairly accurately with.

Here's my £2 teeshirt:

Into the teeshirt I slid a plastic file, so that the marker didn't get through onto the back of the shirt:

Like this:

Now I made some little dots around the neckline, with these:

I tried not to put colours next to each other which, if they ran together would make brown. I like brown, just not accidental brown:

Now I used the lid of a really useful box, turned up so that the cotton fabric doesn't touch anything, allowing the alcohol to flow and absorb freely:

I just slid it in from the hem upwards (it doesn't matter if the shirt stretches, we'll sort that at the end):

This is what I used (very little of it, too, and a great smell, just like root beer, not that I recommend sniffing it for anything longer than the briefest moment):

I dripdabbed (my new word) it on, into the centre of each little flowery thing, watching it spread, adding more until I liked the result, then moving on to the next one, until ... TADAA:

Allow to air dry, then pop in the tumble dryer for a brief burst, it heat sets the ink and restores shape to the shirt if you've overstretched it in the decorating process.

It's washable, with very little, if any colour loss (but you know that anyway, if you've ever tried to wash out Sharpie marks) and the bright colours on white look good over dark jeans.

I first saw this technique done by Martha, but it's everywhere. Great fun, it would make an easy (well supervised because of the materials used) party activity, with little outlay, Tesco value teeshirts will do fine.

Cheerio for now.

x

 

 

 

Blue and white china aka shrink plastic

Inspired by Eleanor's post back here which was inspired by my post here, I had a little go at creating a necklace with some shrink plastic and permanent markers.

Thing was, I had a cheap permanent marker pen, and I think it was none too permanent. It was all going fine until I applied a layer of Diamond Glaze to give a glazed china appearance to the necklace. As it was drying overnight, the ink bled out losing some of the detail.

So, then I tried drawing with my promarker to find that the pen bled on the plastic whilst drawing as if I was drawing on blotting paper.

Eleanor mentioned that she had used a Sharpie pen, and I knew I had one somewhere, so I spent about an hour hunting for it. I asked all the family members if  they had used it for something. No joy.  I located the black, red and green sharpie, but the blue one remained elusive. 

Until yesterday that is. We were outside doing a spot of gardening, and I look up to see my husband walking past with some seeds to plant, a wooden plant marker and guess what, yes, a blue sharpie pen! 

"That wouldn't happen to be the blue sharpie pen I was hunting for everywhere would it?" says I. "Oh, were you looking for it? " says He. 

Well, now I can attempt necklace number two. Hopefully with better results. 

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for the inspiration Eleanor!

Doda

x

a little bit of She Art...

Hi everyone, its Alix here!

Just for fun i thought i'd share a few paintings i've done following on from Christy Tomlinson's She Art painting class which i took last year.  If you haven't taken this class i highly recommend it...you can see all the info on it here :0)

Now, i am no painter...and i can't draw for toffee...mmmm toffee...but i can do this style of mixed media artwork...and so can you!!  Christy is so sweet and takes you through baby steps with lots of video tutorials...its as easy as painting by numbers when you know how.  i'm slowly working through my friends immortalising them one at a time...

here is my friend Pippa...who is a real painter :0)

notice how the background is painted and then the girl is paper pieced over the background using scrapping scraps...and then painted over to help her meld into the artwork...

 

notice how there are lots of details...some are doodling...and some are rubons...both are super cute :0)

and notice how there are dimensional elements too...like these pearls...all in all the idea is to use all sorts of media...can you spot the stamping on this girl's legs?  

...and don't forget you can have *he* art too...this one is me and his Nibs ;0)

you can even have religious icons if you're so inclined!!  please forgive me...this is my first ever *face*...i know its far, far from perfect...but i sort of like her! :0)

so what are you waiting for...get out your scraps and some paints...you've got nothing to lose...if you don't like it...you can just paint over it!!  *genius*

BLUE AND WHITE

Our creative girl Doda posted recently, here, about where to find inspiration, and that very post was where I found inspiration for this project. My eye was drawn to Doda's screenshot of her pinterest board, and down at the bottom were some blue and white porcelain hearts by, I think, Harriet Damave, which I fell in love with.

Here are mine:

They started life as a sheet of white shrink plastic, which I zendoodled with a fine blue Sharpie. I cut hearts approximately 2 inches across at the widest point, punched a hole on either side, and with the aid of a heat gun -

Here's another look at a finished heart, to see the thickness; I just love the miracle that is shrink plastic, seems I never grew up!

I used small silver jump rings to connect the hearts, using 7 in total to make a loose bracelet, with a silver tibetan clasp at the end:

Modelled by yours truly:

These are ready for necklaces and brooches:

Thank you Doda, that peep at your Pinterest board was just what I needed.

Eleanor

x

PIMP MY PLIMPS

Hello, Eleanor here.

I've been playing with my markers.

I like a comfy plimsoll, and wear mine with everything in the summer, skirts included, so when I spotted a plain white new pair for a song, I snapped them up, thinking I could do something with them.

What I had in mind was something bright, cheerful and summery, which will go with anything.

When I got them out at home, I took them into the garden to take the 'before' photograph, and that's when the idea came to me, as I snapped them among the daisies and buttercups...

From this:

To this, my own wearable wild flower border:

I used Sharpie markers in a range of colours and thicknesses, but I had to restrain myself or I would just have carried on until my simple garden was completely overgrown.

Now I just need to thread the laces back in, or I might use a length of pretty ribbon.

Happy summer.

x