Watercolors

I signed up for a monthly subscription art supply box, SketchBox, a few months ago.  It is really fun because it encourages me to try new mediums that I have either never tried before or been too afraid to really embrace before.  For example, my very first box was filled with watercolor paints and an awesome watercolor brush that holds water.   I have experimented with watercolors before, but only casually, and because I spent the money on the box, I felt motivated to give the paints a real try.  It took a lot of learning and fiddling to get it right, but I love them now.  I might even try a landscape some day soon. (But don't get too excited, I'm still pretty terrified of muddy watercolor horizon lines.)

As those of you who follow me on instagram (@griffindrygoods) know, I started out with my favorite subjects, vegetables!  What else?  The eggplant was the first veggie I experimented with.

When I was happy with the way they looked, I moved on to asparagus.

I jokingly called them the Hulk veggies because of the color palette. Next came carrots, and boy did they take a long time to do.  After the eggplant, I decided that the outlining with micron pens should come before the watercolors, so I spent hours drawing each individual leaf on the carrot tops before I got around to adding color.

And so, my Salad Series was born.  It snowballed from there, here are the rest of them without discussion.

How do you get yourself inspired to try new things?

Wedding Invitations

John and I wanted our wedding invitations to reflect our character and interests.  We also are using our favorite fictional universes at our wedding reception, so it made sense for the invitations to match.  I have previously posted about this, here and here.  While it was my original intention to make six complete paintings, and as a result, six invitation options, I only ended up using two designs.  I made a Doctor Who inspired invitation, and a Firefly inspired invitation.

In the Doctor Who invitation John is the doctor and I am a companion, (inspired by Donna in "The Runaway Bride" only in that she wears a wedding dress.

In the Firefly invitation, John is Simon and I am Kaylee, a character you all have seen me play before.

I love how both options turned out and of course, we had them printed by Moo.

Save the Dates

My wedding to John is coming up in  just a few weeks now.  You may have noticed my absence here and on Hungry Griffin for several months.  I have been planning and organizing and it has been taking up a large amount of my time and attention.  I will of course have some diy projects to share once the wedding is over, as I have done quite a few in preparation.  As a sneak peak, I thought I would share our save the date cards with you.

John and I have been together for seven and a half years and we have been engaged for the last three.  We are aware that this pace is not the traditional one, but we both wanted to take our time.  We thought we would incorporate that into our save the dates.

This was my original sketched out idea for the cards.  I made it late one night after John and I came up with the idea and I didn't want to lose it.  It actually is quite similar to how the actual cards turned out.

We had a good time with it.  I bought us some "mature" clothing for us at a thrift store, some old glasses (neither of us could see a thing through them, and I bought John a bubble pipe.  The knitting and newspaper were easy.

We had a lot of silly options to choose from, but we love the one we went to and the cards turned out great!  We got them printed at Moo.

Camera Strap

Recently my mother passed on one of the things I remember most fondly from growing up, her Nikon.  It was made in the late 1970s and it has real heft, something I miss in newer cameras.  The camera is in great shape, all of the gears and buttons still operate and there isn't even much wear on the body.
While the camera itself is in fantastic shape, the strap was another matter entirely.  The two layers of the strap had separated and the leather/faux leather (I am not sure) was looking pretty beat up and worn out.  I decided to do a little revamp.

What I ended up doing was tearing out the remaining stitches between the two layers and tidying the loose threads left over from wear and tear.  I then covered the leather strap with a beautiful red cotton with a sunburst pattern, and reattached the two layers.  I left all the original hardware as is, including the two leather ends of the strap.  I think the effect is nice.  The strap retains the character to match the camera, but the color is bright and the strap is secure.
What old things could you give a lift?

TARDIS

Who loves Doctor Who?  I do!

I've been working on a nine inch tall TARDIS.  It's for the wedding, so I won't give specifics on how it will be used, but I can give you some sneak peaks.

I made it from cardboard and paper mache with a top piece made of sculpey.  I gave it a coat of white paint as a primer so that the paint color would really pop.

The hardest part was the lettering for the Police Public Call Box signs.  I printed the sign for the door on the computer.

What kind of crafts take up your time?  What's your favorite TV show?

February

It's February in San Diego, and I feel like I have a lot going on.  It doesn't feel like February in any other place I've lived.

I just got back from a week in Portland with my sister, brother-in-law, and their now five week old baby boy.  It was so nice to see them all, and to feel really useful, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of that little boy.  When I got back, it was to a pile of reply cards from our wedding invitations.  The wedding is coming along.  It is less than four months away and I am really starting to dig in now.  In fact, one of my major projects for the month is sewing tablecloths and napkins for the reception.

The checked fabric is for the tablecloths, the solid blue for napkins.  How do you like my makeshift ironing board.
John and I are also considering a bit of redecoration in order to create better (read tidier) storage, and to maximize seating.  My sewing projects have kind of gotten out of control, even taking over some of the floor now.

I'll let you know how that comes along.
I have a sewing date for tomorrow, so maybe I will have something fun to share after that.

Catching Up

Hello all.  It has been quite a while since I wrote a serious post, and I am sorry for that.  I have been running around the last few weeks and it has been hard enough just crafting, without writing about it.  First off, I spent a weekend at my sister's for her baby shower.  The whole family is very excited for her son's arrival, so a lot of my crafting has been baby-centric for the last few months.  My mother came for a visit after that, and we played tourists for the week, visiting art museums in Balboa Park, the San Diego Zoo, and of course the beach.  Then came Thanksgiving which ate a week of my life so easily, and finally, John's parents came to visit at the beginning of December.  While all the visits and trips were exciting and fun, the near month of hosting or being away was exhausting, and I feel like like the ground is finally under my feet again and I have space to share what I've been up to.

I've completed two paintings, this abstract one, and one of the San Diego skyline at night.  I haven't been satisfied with the photos of the skyline paintings that I have been able to take, but I do have these two detail shots:

I am really happy with both paintings, and hope to list them both on my etsy shop when I can get some better photos.

I have also been enjoying making baby clothes.

This cute cardigan.

And this onesie.  The great thing about baby clothes is that they are so quick to make that I finish one and can move onto the next quickly.

I also make a paper mache box and painted it to look like a Super Mario cube.

I expect that we will be using this as our ring box for the wedding because the companion cube is too big to really put in a pocket.

Well, now you are pretty much caught up on my recent crafts.  What have you been up to since I last posted?  Any big Christmas crafts?