Next Up...

Ummmm, this is meant to be a drawing of a traditional Irish sailing boat called a Hooker ("who-ker"!), but it looks kinda like it could be ANY old sailing boat, right? Hmm.

Etsy!

Oh-emm-gee!

I am now officially an Etsy Seller...actually I have been for a while, but these few pictures below appear so y'know, I ain't bragging!
Hopefully that will soon change - I'm reading up on all the hints and tips for good photographs and remain confident that THAT is all that is wrong with my product. Ha!

Oh, I'll have to get back to the shop name - firstly I don't quite know what my shop name is, and secondly it'd be NICE to have it looking all nice and whatnot before divulging that information :p

RESULT

Well, it isn't that dramatic really, in fact it's quite anti-climactic - or is it just that I am AWFUL at lighting for photographs?!
Anyway, these are a few attempts at different coloured cards and papers. I also had a simpler idea for the layout - I mean, I have limited ambition and imagination so I'm just printing the images and text using my cheap old laser printer, which obviously doesn't print on card. Sooooo, I want to combine the printed paper with the card, and I did it by cutting slots in the card and weaving the paper through to hold it in place; in these photographed cards there are 5 cut slots, so that the image is framed on the front of the card and the message is framed on the inside of the card, using one piece of paper printed both sides and no glue or other fiddly bits. The simpler version has just one slot cut into the crease of the card, and the paper slipped through.

I thought I was being smart and creative...but is it just silly?!

Finished Product?

I wonder?
Shape, check; vanished shadowy lines, check; end of my patience, absolute check!

Step 2: Refined

Because in fact the trees out here in Connemara have a really distinctive shape, hunched away from the winds off the sea...and I think this is a closer match to that shape.
The funky shadowy lines, however, I can't pretend have any artistic relevence - they are left behind by my wrinkly tracing paper and cheap scanner! Modern technology my tóin!

Step 1: Connemara tree card

So, it began with this - my first attempt at a Connemara-esque wind sculpted tree, my idea being that I will make and sell cards with Irish language messages and a couple of hand drawn images to make them authentic-like.

Another new start...

This is the equivilent of repeatedly turning the key in the thus far unresponsive car of my blog-life and hoping that THIS time there'll be a little life in the engine...

So, out with 'Long Winding Binding' and in with 'paperpennies'...I am zooming out from my focus on binding, and onto general crafts (with a preference for paper!), with the intention of eventually getting around to a few different things.

Like following this post with an actual, legitimate, constructive entry, covering more than my inability to post sn entry.

Lord!

Fingers crossed :D

New Title FAIL

So far...

But at least I did get the vibe right - this is a hella long road to these mythical bindings ;) ...but I have in part been justified, so I choose to think of this as just a super long new beginning.

Title Ta-Da

Not "Long Winded Binding", haha, but Winding - ie, I get it that I procrastinate as if my life depended on it, and being as yet unable to get the better of this bad habit I have to embrace it...in my Blog title.

But actually I do have something done, and I will get it up soon...good start!

Recycled Blog!

Christmas being so last month, and the Christmas craft fair the blog was named for such a non-starter, that a new title is is order...but...I don't have one yet!

Such is my confidence that by next post I WILL have a new title and a new project to go with it that for now and posterity I say "Goodbye Quantum of Christmas Craft"...

Dropped the Blog Ball!

Ok, Christmas and New Years and all that goes along with both HAPPENED! So not a lot else did!!!!

The title of this blog will be the first thing to go - soon :p

Early Birthday Presents from Muireann!

All talk, no binding

Not a lot happening!
Because I somehow misjudged the amount of green and white sugar paper I had left I think I will try something different with them, which is why they are folded down; that leaves 1 sheet of white, 2 of blue, and 4 of pink, which I think I will make a little A6 sized...something!...from; plus 16 sheets of (relatively) A5 cartridge paper, which I will turn into one bigger sketch book. Maybe. If I ever get started :p

Finished child's drawing book

Done: slightly different from the pink one, though that is the same amount of canvas being used. Tragically I was a bit off the ball today, and missed a sewing hole (because I changed my mind about the pattern after I'd started), and the canvas was a little grubby :(

Maybe I'll like it more tomorrow...

Boys' drawing book

Beginning the next kiddies book, blue and white...