miscellaneous pics

Tunnel of Hope by DW and the Benevolent Society (Sydney VIVID festival 2013). Bees by Jon Voss (VIVID festival 2013). Rubber duck by Florentijn Hofman in Darling Harbour (Sydney Festival 2012).

etsy/crafty links

going through a handmade plush phase (etsy)! will remember to browse those sections next time i'm in kino!


anyway, here are some etsy sellers that i've come across and couldn't stop stalking their sites and saving pics of their creations (i'm not crazy).
- My Paper Crane (plushies: etsy, website, flickr, Kidrobot collaboration: on blog & shop)
- amiamour (amigurumi/crocheted toys & patterns: etsy - including this REALLY cute Kero (from Cardcaptor Sakura) amigurumi!, website)
- Memi the Rainbow (rubber stamps & other things: etsy, blog)
- Dandyrions (super cute bear rug coasters and "wrapped fox" shirts! etsy)
- SarabiRose (crochet-hats for cats! etsy)
- Pysselbolaget (mouse toy/coin purse tutorial on blog)

fimo rilakkuma-さん

before & after baking:

felt sloth

made this for an upcoming friend's "silly headgear"-themed party ;D (yes, the sloth will be sloth-ing on my head XD!)

it's supposed to be a three-toed sloth, but i didn't want the claws to poke my head / fall off from being handled too much, so temporarily (or more likely, permanently, since i'm too lazy to add the claws) it's a no-toed sloth!

as usual, i used pipe cleaners to make the internal scaffold: one for the body and a loop at one end for the head, and one each for the forelimbs and hindlimbs (looped around the body pipe cleaner). and then i just wrapped a bunch of wool fibres around the pipe cleaners, kinda like applying a thick bandage, and then just poked it with the needle until it's tight enough. and then just kept on building with more wool fibres until it had the right shape and the right colour. and i also added some green wool on the surface, since sloths are so slow-moving that they have moss growing on their fur XD!

community service announcements from Jeremyville! currently displayed in TGV

kino bag!

got this super cute and sturdy canvas tote from Kinokuniya today! it was $7 and they had a bigger one too with an illustration of a girl.



i love how kinokuniya looks at the moment, filled with wonderful illustrations by charles santoso (click here for a link to his blog post with photos). i wonder what they're gonna do with all the posters when they decide to change the decor... i so want one!

(anyway, i should have more posts here in a few weeks - still have to do a few more placements for uni. pray for good weather this weekend peoples T__T i have to drive 10 hours or so to an area that's currently flooding in various spots. fingers crossed it clears up enough by then..)

felt brooches

made these needle & wet felted brooches recently as gifts.

this rose brooch idea was taken from the spotlight inspiration room website. basically twirl some wool fibres with whatever shades of colour you want into a small circle, and needle felt them onto a felt sheet (i used dark green). then cut around the needle-felted fibres to make a rose shape. do the same thing, but with green wool fibres and cut it into a leaf shape. sew the leaf & bloom together. sew beads onto the centre of the flower. and finally sew a brooch back / safety pin thing on the back.

this next one was taken from the felting for baby book by saori yamazaki (amazon, book depository)


this one is just a matter of needle-felting two balls, doing the same with the green leaf as the previous brooch (but this time i wrapped the green wool fibres all around the felt sheet, instead of just needle-felting it on to the front side). to attach the two balls together without seeing any stitches, i just ran a threaded needle (cream/pale colour) through both the balls' centres a few times, but making sure to make only a small distance between where the needle exits and re-enters the ball, so that i can just cover the thread that is visible on the surface with some wool fibres (just grab some surrounding fibres to cover the thread & needle felt to cover it). and then did the same thing to attach the leaf to the balls. and then sewed on a safety pin back (sew it higher than what's in the photo, or else the brooch will be too heavy & droop when it's worn).

i actually tried both a dry and wet felting method to make the second brooch. so i needle-felted the fibres into a ball, then i dipped/soaked the ball into some soapy water (a small container of warm water with a small drop of detergent - not too much or else it'll get really bubbly). then i transferred the soaked ball into a zip-lock bag (or just a plastic bag) and squished it a few times in the corner of the plastic bag so that the soapy water can get all the way to the centre of the ball (basically the soapy water acts like the needle to lock the wool fibres together). then i squished the ball in a towel/cloth to get excess water out.
i repeated this process a few times, adding new layers of roughly needle-felted wool on top if the ball wasn't big enough.

i thought this method would be as easy as what's shown in this blog, but no. you can't just magically shake a bunch of wool fibres in a container of soapy water and it somehow transforms into a neat ball.
but oh well, i ended up making the leaf the same way. the advantage of this versus just plain dry-needle-felting is the fibres/ball ends up much neater.

ok. back to studying. bye.

uni has started :( - not really for the material itself, but the long hours and therefore workload. sadly aimless browsing of the internet will lessen. here are some pretty pictures to fill the future void.





sources: david ryle, irene suchoki, jördis!

my milk toof book - behind the scenes!

annie leibovitz & artexpress

today i went to see annie leibovitz: a photographer's life 1990-2005 at the mca.


the highlight for me was the video that was played in a small room (went for quite a long time too!) which had footage of some of the shoots, scenes with her family where she is taking their photographs, and also herself and other artists/journalists giving commentary. besides photos of 'celebrities' and other famous people/artists/creators, the exhibition also showed some of her personal photos of her family and friends, especially her friend Susan - at first we were confused about who she was, and which Susan she was (there were a total of 3 Susans!) and i was surprised at how intimate/how much information was given about her life. well, seeing as the exhibition is titled that, i guess it's fitting! there were a few serious subject matters (though the notes displayed said that she didn't want to call herself a 'journalist', because journalists don't take sides, so rather she was a 'photographer'), but i liked the celebrity subjects the most. i find it so interesting to look at an image of someone you've seen before, but in a different light. towards the back of the exhibit were A4 papers showing images of each print categorised into years, all displayed behind glass on two long walls, there were also images here that weren't displayed, which was a bonus :)
my favourite image would have to be this one of jim carrey pulling a face. i can't help but laugh everytime i walk past it x)

source: nytimes

this image seriously does no justice to seeing the real thing, the scale and seeing it on actual paper is so much better! i also love how some of the photographs displayed showed the edges of the developing paper (if that's what it's called).

afterwards, we went to see the ARTEXPRESS exhibition at the art gallery of nsw (final works of year 12 visual art students that were chosen from the whole of nsw). previously i've only ever seen them showcased in the david jones store window displays, but to see so many types of media used in the museum and also the level of work was just so impressive!
these 3 were my favourites - images taken from the artexpress website, and some photos i took of the first artist - click for larger image (click on the artists' names to see a description of their work)

jacob zinman-jeanes
it looked like it should be in a picture book!



peta lilley
the paper cuts and the birds were especially wonderful! i also loved the eggs in the paper nests, which had (sad relationship) stories written on them.


katherine mcnamara
she hand stitched things onto her photographs and the outcome looked like a child's imagination come to life!

curvy @ the galeries - rilla alexander print!

a few months ago, the galeries had an exhibition to celebrate the release of curvy 7 (book which showcases female illustrators/artists from around the world).
they also had displays for a number of illustrators, showing some of their works, and i was lucky enough to win one of the art prints! the one i wanted to win was by rilla alexander (her flickr here) and when i saw what i received in the delivery, i was pleasantly surprised to see that the print was an even nicer than the one i remembered! (unless i totally had the wrong one in my head).
this is titled Canapy.


i can't wait to frame it under glass XD

links!

(some are quite old)

the oatmeal: how to suck at facebook, 10 reasons to avoid talking on the phone.
the cherryblossom girl: venomous villains!
cuteoverload: i am not making a snowman!, dramatic audition
handmade weddings: vintage superheroes conquer the world
van gogh tilt-shift
map envelope
printing on post-its
drunken watermelon on tap
in new york, even the walls have USB

mirazozo

from the opera house site:
Mirazozo is a large scale, inflatable sculpture constructed of translucent vinyl and made up of labyrinthine tunnels and inspiring spacious domes. A sensual world of liquid light and colour, it is a multi-sensory space that welcomes, inspires and affects everyone who enters. Under the direction of Alan Parkinson, Architects of Air have designed and constructed 15 luminarium which have toured the globe, being experienced by audiences at over 500 exhibitions in 37 countries.

can't wait to experience this!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
i hope 2011 will be a good year for you X)

sleepwalking in tokyo (again!)

HAVE A WONDERFUL XMAS EVERYONE!

sleepwalking in tokyo