An Artful Gift for a New Baby
A friend of mine has recently had a new addition to her family, so this project was created because I needed a small extra gift that I could give to mark the occasion – something small, unique and personal, that I could make fairly easily. In the end I decided to make this simple hanging decoration decorated with monochrome drawings (in recognition of the fact that young babies see strong contrasts most clearly). If you use ready made plain shapes, minimal sewing is required, and all you need are fabric pens and a length of baker’s twine to attach them together and form a hanging loop. I left the backs…
Personalise some Arty Pencils
It’s been a long time since I last added something to this site – life has simply got in the way, with moving home, school holidays, and lots of other things going on. Although there are lots of other potential events on my horizon which might further disrupt attempts to get back to business as usual here, with the kids back at school again, I thought it was about time to give it some attention and make time for creative activities once more. With this in mind, and the usual back to school stocking up with stationery, I’ve been creating some personalised pencils. These are a lovely low-cost gift to…
Book Review: Fill in the Blank
I don’t often do reviews on Artful Adventures, in fact I think it’s been about a year since I last did one, at least in response to a direct invitation. This is partly because I don’t seek such invitations, and partly because those products which I am offered for review are rarely either relevant to my subject matter, or of any interest to me. However this one was different. I am a particular fan of books which encourage creativity, and I especially like the genre of Doodle books which invite you to add to them in some way. It’s not that I don’t like colouring books, which I think have…
Doodle Decorated Mugs
These doodle decorated mugs were created using ceramic pens and plain white ceramic mugs – personally I find the pens are simpler to use than brushes. I came up with the idea while browsing in my local craft shop. I was in the ceramic painting section, and a sample mug had been placed by the ceramic pens so that customers could try them out. And try them out they had – the mug was covered in multi-coloured doodles, rather like a piece of graffiti, and I thought actually looked rather good. I liked the idea of a collaborative project which had developed ‘organically’ and I thought it was an idea…
Get your free Doodle Sheets here!
Inspired by my previous post, I have created a series of 6 doodle sheets that are free to download. I have produced them at A5 size (though they could be made smaller or larger if you choose) and they can either be printed off and used as they come, or trimmed and laminated to make re-usable doodle sheets, as illustrated here. If laminated, they should be used with special dry-wipe pens to allow them to be wiped clean. I also punched a hole in the corner of each sheet and tied them together using a keyring so that I could carry them about more easily. You are free to use…
