Week 4: Handmade

This is my third and last presentation  this semester so let me present my hobbies. Today you will learn how to create something from nothing with minimal effort and skills.

You may ask why I chose it as a hobby, the answer is quite simple: for me the best presents are those which are handmade, because they show that a person which made them and then gave them to you made an effort and took time to do it. Besides, you are the only person in the world who has that handmade thing :)

Decoupage

Difficulty: easy.

This is a technique of decorating almost every surface (wood, metal, glass, fabric, ceramics or plastic ) with fragment of the pattern cut from the napkin or special rice paper. (to be honest normal paper is good to - you just have to use more glue :) ) Covered surface will look like a painted one. In my opinion it is quite easy and probably in every house you can find tools to decoupage. If you are interested in the topic here is a simple tutorial how to create a bookmark from things you probably have within your reach :)

You will need:

1. A piece of ‘hard/technical’ paper. A cover of a notebook is good enough, but a cloth tag is great for it, because in most cases it is in a good shape and you do not have to cut it.

2. Scissors.  If you do not have it you can tear up the pattern.

3. Glue for paper (if you do not have it look for an egg - the white of an egg is good glue!)

4. A napkin with the desired pattern - if you do not have a nice napkin you can print some pattern on normal paper.

5. Lacquer for preservation of the pattern. If you do not have such thing look for a colorless nail polish. If you do not have that either don’t worry it is not so much important.

How to:

1. Cut from piece of the technical paper your desired shape of bookmark or take your cloth tag and remove price tags - surface of it should be clean.

2. Cut or tear some pattern from the napkin or the piece of paper which you had printed.

3. Glue the pattern to the base!

4. If you have lacquer you can use it to preserve  the pattern. Usually you will have to put about 3-5 layers of it to your decoupage to make it completely waterproof - it is important if you are decoupaging glasses or any ceramic things  - because sooner or later probably you will want to  wash it and still have you pattern on it:)

Another decoupage examples:

Scrapbooking

Difficulty: normal

In my opinion this is a kind of decoupage but for different purposes - it is creating cards or photo albums from pieces of patterned fabric and a lot of imagination. Creating it is quite simple but I think it takes much more time and talent to make something nice. I love buying for my family cards created by scrapbookers! Please take a look at these little pieces of art:

Polymer clay

Difficulty: hard/nightmare

I know you could be surprised that I put “playing” with polymer clay on such high level of difficulty, but keep in mind that I’m not saying about creating suns and trees like in the kindergarten, but about real pieces of miniature art. So working with clay is really nightmare - you have to be really precise and know some tips and tricks to make your art realistic.

Please take a look at this: (I have chosen a picture which shows you how little these things are...)

You may ask what for? What for should I create this little inedible food? Some artists create jewelry from it:

Others are decorating phone boxes, headphone cases, etc…

Here is a tutorial how to make miniature bread and baguette.

1. Do you like handmade things? Or do you think they are only a waste of time?

2. Have you ever done anything by yourself? Did you enjoy it or was it a nightmare? (Things like "laurka" for your parent still count :) )

3. Do you know any other examples of handmade stuff?  

4. Maybe you can sew or knit? Share your experience!