Craft Loving: Crayon Art

How awesome is crayon art! Its so simple but looks amazing! There's a heap of tutorials around but its pretty simple to figure it out.

I've been wanting to try this for months now and finally remembered to buy some crayons at the shops today. Crayons have certainly increased since I last needed them. I paid $10 for 12 pack of crayola! Insane price!! But oh well crafting is not cheap!!

So I gathered my supplies. 

Crayons

Canvas

Hair dryer

Newspaper/plastic 

Tape

I did a trial run which turned out amazing and i figured out i needed the newspaper or plastic. The crayons splatter uncontrollably once they get going!! 

So i set up my canvas so it was at an angle and tapped my crayons at the top. I didn't want the crayons to be stuck on the canvas like some other ones I've seen.

Then set my hair dryer up on high and started to melt the crayons. Its very messy!! And once they start melting it gets crazy quick! I found the orange and purple went really fast and the green took it sweet time. Maybe that's cause it was in the middle?

The crayons dry pretty much instantly and gives a cool textured feel. I carefully removed the remains of the crayons from the top (which went hard again) and admired my new art. 

I love it! How about you?

Purple and greens

Rainbow Explosion! 

Blogs That I Love: According to Matt

I love love LOVE Matt's blog! It's just so happy and colourful! There's a heap of beautifully photographed projects that makes me just want to crochet all day long! 

There's a great mix of crochet and travel photos ( both which i love!)

One project that I'm so inspired from is this beautiful granny stripe blanket. It just looks so cosy and warm! 

And check out this granny square button cushion that is so getting made- soon! 

They have a lot of colourful projects that you can use to get rid of that pesky stash all crochers have ( but might not admit!!) 

Check them out some time!!

Rainbow Blanket

I found this amazing rainbow yarn at Spotlight the other day. It was absolutely georgous and I wanted it right away. It was a bit pricey (for me) at $8 for 100g but I figured it was worth it. I like to have a clear idea of what I'm going to make before I head to the craft store, but this was an out of the blue random trip. I grabbed 200g of the wool and excitedly ran home to google a nice pattern. It was a nice fine wool 50% acrylic 50% wool and I don't usually work with stuff like this so i wanted a nice simple pattern. 

I originally wanted a lacey sort of pattern but couldn't find any that I loved ( or they were way to difficult! So I eventually found a shell pattern at Crochetology which was super easy and simple to follow. So i started the pattern. I chained enough to go nearly as wide as a queen sized bed ( first mistake!) I loved the pattern- super easy to just crochet away while watching a movie and after the first 3 rows there was no more stupid counting! 

When I got about 10 rows down i noticed the nice gradient of the wool was turning into very obvious stripes! nooo!!! I did not like it at all! Also the wool was running out fast and at $8 a ball it was going to cost me a lot to finish!!

So I undid it all. I hate undoing my work. If i count wrong or muck up a stitch i usually keep going but i really didn't like how the blanket was turning out. Now this wool was fine- really fine and fiddly. It knotted super easily and was a general pain to work with. 

So i started again but this time i only chained 88 across. And wouldn't you know it it looked amazing! like a beautiful rainbow gradient. But... i was running out of wool really fast. So i undid it for the 2nd time! lucky i was only a few rows in.

So i started again but I modified the pattern. instead of doing 2 dc I did 1. So now the blanket is not as thick but i'm essentially getting twice as many rows as before. It looked so pretty but was a bit on the small side. When I got to a nice length ( or what i thought was half a ball of wool ) I joined the last stitch then chained another 88 and basically worked next to the original rectangle. I joined by doing a slip stitch into the row next to it and then another slip stitch into the next row. It was complicated at first but i eventually got into a rhythm.

When I finished the next rectangle it still wasn't big enough so I joined the last stitch and chained another 88 and made another rectangle.

And that's where im up to now. I've finished all three rectangles and could finish now if i wished but i've decided to add another three rectangles on top of the current three to double the size. This should give me a blanket just slightly smaller than a queen sized bed. Yay! I'm off to the wool shop tomorrow and am hoping they still have 2 balls of the wool left!!

I'll let you know how I get on! 

Blogs That I Love: Attic 24

If you haven't checked out Lucy's blog Attic24 then you are missing out!

So much crochet rainbow goodness! Love it! She's got some amazing tutorials which are so simple to follow ( she even has photos to help!) Everything that she does is so delicious that I have to limit myself on how much I look!!

The Blooming Flower Cushion is so cute and very simple to make. And it works up fast! Like scarily fast! Its such a cut design that you could work into so many other projects!

Here's my attempts! Stay tuned for an update on what I've done with these!

Another gorgeous project and pattern is the Ripple Blanket- love it! I actually didn't use her pattern ( don't judge me!) But I love it all the same! The ripple is an amazingly easy blanket to work on and its so relaxing to crochet.

 << There's my first attempt. I was trying to use up some of my  never ending stash.


Whenever i need some crochet inspiration I look no further than Lucy's blog.

Hello!

Welcome to my little online blog where I'll be focusing on crochet.

I love to crochet. My mum taught me when I was about 11 then I forgot about it and finally picked up the crocheting hook again ten years later when I was 21. I lost my job and was out of work for about 6 months so to pass the time between job interviews and daily job searching I started to crochet again.

I love the thought of turning a simple ball of wool into an amazing piece of art. I love making blankets. I've tried the whole baby beanie thing and failed. Mainly because I didn't have a baby to model the hats and I couldn't determine the scale and size.

So here I am. I now am working ( at the moment- but who knows how long for) in my chosen career- graphic design. I still crochet every day while watching tv and right before bed and for several hours on the weekend. I live in a very sunny place in Australia where is near impossible to get decent selection of wool and craft supplies but luckily they invented the internet!

Hope you like my blog!