Silhouette art with old book pages

A friend recently wallpapered her study with old book pages, it looks fantastic. At one time, I would have considered tearing pages out of a book to be a terrible crime but now I think it's a great way of repurposing old books which are falling apart.

I decided to make an art work combining old book pages (from an ancient copy of Pride and Prejudice which I bought for R10) with the silhouette of one of my favourite authors: Virginia Woolf. I had an old canvas that I decided to use for this project but you can just as easily use (very) firm cardboard or a piece of wooden board. I covered the canvas in the book pages using mod podge. I spaced the pages quite carefully before I stuck them down, but this isn't really necessary. Then I waited for them to dry before beginning on the silhouette section.

The silhouette section needs to be quite carefully spaced and measured out. I decided that I wanted to have 8 faces on my artwork but this depends on the size of the canvas/piece of cardboard that you are using. I measured the canvas and marked it in pencil into 8 equal sections. For the paper silhouettes I chose 4 pretty pieces of paper that I had (it's better paper rather than cardboard, as cardboard is difficult to cut silhouettes into neatly). I made the silhouette by printing out my image in the right size on paper, sticking onto cardboard and cutting around this with my craft knife. Then I simply traced this onto my pieces of pretty paper and cut out the silhouettes. I stuck these on using mod podge. For the painted faces I stuck masking tape around the edges of the squares. I then placed my template on each square and traced around it. I then hand painted around these pencil marks using acrylic paint. I think it would be easier to place the template cover the rest of the artwork in newspaper and spraypaint it (repeating for each square).

This was the finished result:



  

 

 

 

I think that there are lots of ways that this project could be personalized, some are listed below:

1. By colour (gold could look great).

2. By theme (I could have taken the book theme a few steps further).

Enjoy!

 

 

Chalk Board Tea Pot

A friend gave this lovely tea pot shaped chalk board from Typo for my birthday.

It's pretty and a great kitchen decoration but quite pricey. I decided to try and make my own. Thin wooden tea pot bases (which are sold for mosaics) are available at art and some hardware shops, I bought mine at a stall a Hobby X. Chalk board paint is now available in a variety of colours and brands. The great thing about making these yourself is the options when it comes to colours. For the twine/string to hang the pot from I used the handles from a fancy shopping bag.

 

 

I have given a few of these as gifts and people have really liked them. They are lovely kitchen or bedroom decorations.

 

Enjoy!

Decoupage with Block Pictures

I first got the idea of decoupaging using block pictures from this beautiful vintage wrapping paper:

I loved this as soon as I saw it in the store. I knew that it would be perfect for a wooden box that I wanted to cover. I didn't want to just cover my box completely using the whole sheet, I find that this often leads to air bubbles forming in decoupage projects. So I decided to individually cut out the images and then Modge Podge them onto the box (I apply Modge Podge with a sponge so it spreads evenly). I neatly aligned the edges of the pictures and could also paste images over mistakes. I was quite pleased with the end result.

 

 

The idea of decoupaging using block pictures in a particular theme was one I liked. I wanted to decoupage an old box I had to store my hair accessories. I found some lovely paper with opera themed images for this project.

 

 

 

I realized that I could combine images from several different sources. I found some great calligraphy script wrapping paper which I combined with various images of pens and writing. 

 

 

 

I completed all of these projects using wrapping paper before I discovered the really fantastic free printables that can be found on the internet. The great thing about these is that you can adapt the scale to your decoupage project. Some of my favourite printables can be found here.

 

Enjoy!

 



 

 

Introduction

This is my space for blogging about all things crafty and craft related. There are some crafty things, like decoupage, that I have been doing for years and others like scrapbooking/journaling that I have started very recently. I have found that there are lots of fantastic blogs and websites by people in the USA but very few by South Africans (this may be because I haven't looked in the right places). It's useful to know where to buy things from at home.

I can never resist a pun and therefore the title is a play on words with the author H.P Lovecraft's name (I love books) and loving to craft.