Friday, August 1, 2014

Washi Tape Flowers with Cathe Holden

 I attended a "meet up" workshop at Cathe Holden's Inspired Barn studio in Petaluma, CA. I created 9 flowers, enough for three little corsages.
 She showed the group of ladies gathered in her magnificent wonderland of a studio how to create the individual petals and leaves with wire and washi tape.  If you are not familiar, washi tape is colourful paper tape, originally from japan - but now available all over.  You can buy it by the roll or in packs.
She gave us each a tiny little tin bucket to carry our flowers home.  It is this attention to detail that i love!
 The supplies are simple - an assortment of tapes, some wire, some curling tools and florist tape.
 Without giving away all her secrets - you can see here the beginnings of the petals.
 It helps if you have a killer assortment of floral stamens.
 And a dozen or more washi tapes....  this is what it is all about people!  
as i always say - it is simply more more fun to play with someone else's Barbies 
(remember back when you were 7?).  '
And Cathe has the best Barbies in Northern California!
Here are some of the other student's flowers:



The variety of patterns and colours is so inspiring.
Here are some that Cathe made to show us how:


To learn more about Cathe's workshops and Inspired Barn click HERE.
To see the last workshop i took with Cathe click HERE.

Crafty Vacation

I spent a glorious week at my sister's lakefront cottage and among all the fun and sun managed to find some time to do some craft projects.  This is the view on from the dock.  Yeah - pretty awesome.
 First up was to create a hand painted sign for the little cottage where we slept.  I purchased the painted tin bird last summer, but didn't get a chance to do the sign.  I bought a plain unfinished wood oval at the dollar store.  i painted it with blue acrylic paint and added the blossoms in creamy white.  I wrote out the name in script by hand then painted it in yellow.  i added the dots around the edge with the butt end of the paint brush.
I bought this canvas at the dollar store - i think it was $3.  Just a plain canvas with the outline of an image you can paint with the cheap pack of included acrylics.
WOW - so bright - this is how it turned out!  it was fun and mindless - like a paint by number - but with a little bit more freedom to do it your own way.
My sister asked me to paint something on this used wine bottle.  I used some borrowed glass paints to add a simple wildflower design.
My niece Erica started painting some sticks.  I did the blue one.  
She now has a whole bundle.
I had some fun with paper clay and made three little stylized birds.  I painted them blue(duh) and gave them a brown glaze - but forgot to take a picture!
Most fun of all was this project i did with my friend Z, my sister D, my niece E, her aunt T and cousin T2!  We took empty pendant bezels and filled them with papers and doodads then added two part Ice Resin.  the key is to let them sit out of harm's way for at least a day and resist the urge to touch them!
Here's how fantastic they looked with added ball chain.  
And finally as a special gift to my sister and brother in law, Z and I created this whimsical paper  origami boat and fish mobile for the little cottage.  Such a fun project and such a fabulous vacation.  
Big thanks to my sister's family (missing my nephew Evan from this pic) for hosting us at Lake Hughes, Quebec, Canada.  I'll be back next summer for certain....!