I've had a lot of fun today! Sheffield has had a massive load of snow, so I was very happy to arrive at work to be told that I could go straight home again! Hurrah! Me and Mathew had a walk through Sheffield city centre to see the snowy spectacle and take loads of pictures (which you can see on my Flickr page here if you want! The Very Very Snowy Day Set)
Anyway, I had to go into work today because I had to take in this little angel decoration I'd made yesterday! One of my work friends has made a Christmas tree-shaped advent calendar for the building. On each day a door is opened to reveal a photo with a Christmassy/wintry theme, submitted by different members of staff (four of the photos are mine).
Of course, every Christmas tree needs something to go at the top, so my colleague asked me to make a little angel. I roughly sketched the design, then re-drew it a bit neater and more symmetrical. I used carbon paper to transfer the design onto foamboard. I made the halo and each of the wings separately, then painted the angel with acrylic and gouache (poster) paints. Foamboard is quite difficult to cut around the intricate shapes; I used a Fiskars craft knife with a new blade, and made short cuts to round off the angel's curly hair. The halo is made from an oval of gold crepe paper stuck onto foamboard and the wings are glittery wrapping paper with a curly design painted on. I then glued the halo and the wings to the back of the angel to give a three-dimensional effect.
I'm quite pleased with my little angel, but I don't know if it's a boy or a girl. What do you think?
If it's snowy where you are too, stay warm tomorrow!
Hiya! I hope you're all well and happy. "Long time no blog" I hear you say! I'm sorry for my absence, I've been getting over winning the Feeling Stitchy contest! Yes it's taken me this long... winning something is rather a shock to my system, you see. Oh and catching up on things that I've been meaning to do for a long time... like making some little printable flags for sandcastles!
The beautiful Carbis Bay... ahh, what I'd give to be there right now...
A couple of years ago, I made a few little flags for sandcastles on the train down to our holiday destination, the lovely Carbis Bay (pictured above) near to St Ives. If you like Cornwall, I thoroughly recommend a visit as the beach is wonderful, the sea so clear and there's some great walking on the easier bits of the coast path (I'm a real pussy when it gets a bit steep and rocky!). Anyway, here's some pictures of those flags in action:
Since then, I've been meaning to make some for you good folks to download and print out... Finally, I've gotten around to it! I think this would be a good activity for children to keep them occupied when you're packing for your holiday. Then again, you might want to make yourself a little flag and wrap it around a pencil. Click on the images or links below to download the flags (you have a choice of ready coloured, or blank for you and/or your little 'un to colour in)
I made them with our little long-term visitors, Little Tiger (who else??), Cotton Carrot and Bunny Giraffe in mind. Of course, the ever modest Little Tiger demanded a flag with his "beautiful" fizzog on it and nothing much else... Cotton Carrot didn't really mind as long as there was a carrot featured somewhere; so I've put lots of carrots coming out a happy sun to reflect her sunny disposish. And Bunny Giraffe, the most musical and rhythmic of the pals, gets a singing bunny in a rainbow of music! Which he's very happy with. :-)
Health and safety note: please ensure young children are accompanied by an adult when using sharp scissors, and please keep craft knives out of their reach. If your youngsters are using bamboo skewers, please cut off the pointed end for them first.
To make the flags, you need:
A print of the flags
Scissors
Glue
Clean lolly sticks (or bamboo skewers, cut in half, or pencils)
Here's how you put them together
1. Download the sheet you want, and print it out. If it's the blank ones, colour them in and decorate if you wish.
2. Cut out along the dotted lines.
3. Get your stick ready. Apply glue to the back of one half of the flag.
4. Place the stick on the centre of the flag.
When I used a lolly stick, I decided to position it halfway up the flag, as it's quite short.
5. Fold the flag over and make sure that both sides line up neatly. You now have a double-sided flag, ready for some sandy constructions!
Unfortunately, I'm not going to the seaside this year... (sob!) But because I still want to see LOTS of sandcastles with these flags in, I'm offering a prize to the most impressive and imaginative sandcastle bearing one of these flags! If you want to have the chance to win an exclusive Joey's Dream Garden brooch, here's what you need to do:
1. Make at least one of the flags
2. Make a sandcastle (it doesn't have to be on a beach; in a sandpit would do if, like me, you can't get to the seaside)
The closing date is Monday, 13 September 2010, 00:00 on Howland Island (i.e. GMT -12 hrs; click here to find your timezone's equivalent time: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html ) and I will contact the winner via Flickr soon after.
UPDATE 14 JULY: Blogger is currently having technical problems, meaning people sometimes cannot leave a comment. If you cannot leave a comment (please try first, I love getting comments!) please e-mail me and tell me what time you tried to comment. My e-mail is jramone@toucansurf.com. Thanks!
Take care in the sun (and the sea, if you're going to the seaside!)
For someone who isn't particularly into sport, it's remarkable that I can get mesmerized by the Winter Olympics, like half-pipe snowboarding, speed skating, ski jumping or luge etc etc (but NOT curling)... but it's GREAT!! It's the same with the Summer Olympics... I loved watching the last Olympics in Beijing, and to top it off, they had a bunch of really pretty mascots! They were called "Fuwa" (good luck dolls, or "friendlies" - awww!) and were designed by Han Meilin, a famous Chinese artist.
And for this Winter Olympics, there's even more super-cute mascots! Here they are:
The Vancouver Winter Olympics mascots were designed by the fabby illustration couple Vicki Wong and Michael Murphy, who go by the collective name Meomi. I didn't realise until very recently though, that they've illustrated a series of children's picture-books called Octonauts.
Here's some pictures from their book, “The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade”. I love Meomi's sleek, colourful and cute style and the amount of detail they put into their pictures.
The cover which attracted me...
Look at the cute endpaper design! It's a noisy world at the bottom of the ocean.
Not all Olympics mascots are so cute (there's some real abominations), but another particularly cute mascot was designed for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, a little bear called Misha, designed by the Russian children's book illustrator Victor Chizhikov.
A few years ago, an odd little shop called something like “Russian Cultural Centre” opened on Commercial Street in Sheffield. It was open for only a few months and because I was a bit nervous of going in to have a look around, I never did. I do regret that now. However they did have a Misha ceramic ornament in the window which Mathew really wanted, and the worse thing was, when they closed the shop they left it behind, all alone and gathering dust when it could have been warm and loved in our house! I hope that someone claimed it and is at this moment cherishing it.
The cover which attracted me...
Look at the cute endpaper design! 
It's a noisy world at the bottom of the ocean. 
