Personal News and a bit of Crafting

Hello again! I'm sorry I didn't do the Wednesday update last week. I'm glad to see Alex had plenty of crafting news to make up for it. The explanation for my hectic week is pretty simple, Brandon got a job in Ann Arbor and we moved him into an apartment out there. Also, my brother Max passed the bar and I drove home to attend his court ceremony! Everyone is moving forward, it's an exciting time all around.

After Brandon moved out, I wasn't quite sure if he brought his camera with him or left it behind, and now I can't find it. So, this week's photos were taken with my cell phone. I apologize for the poor quality.

My next big project is Gini's graduation announcement cards. She asked for a big "W" for Western Michigan, and something to show that she's a biology major. She's into plants, botany is kind of her thing. So I chose vines.

This is the sketch I did on trace paper

Wow. These photos are worse than I thought. I need to find that camera. Sorry guys.

Here is the linoleum all inked up, ready to be carved.

I may change the placement and size of the leaves as I go, some of them are a bit off. But other than that, I just gotta chug away and get it done. I'm really happy with how it has turned out so far.

Another big project I've got going right now is cleaning out the spare bedroom in my apartment, because there is a possibility that after graduation next month, Gini might be moving in with me! It will be nice to have someone else around, now that Brandon is gone. It's pretty quiet around here.

The first step in cleaning the house was getting my vintage hats up on the wall, and out of the way. Every time I moved stuff, they were getting crushed. Plus I just love how they look on the wall all together.

Again, sorry for the photo quality.

After I get Gini's graduation announcements printed and my apartment cleaned, I can focus on the next big step for Nimble Toad, which is Marmalade Dog 15 here at WMU. We had a company meeting a while back, and we all agreed that this is a big milestone for us, so we're each trying to move our crafts and inventories more in the direction of cosplay and gaming genres.

My big decision on this front is how much I'm going to continue with block prints and knitting, and how much time I want to dedicate to learning other, more useful crafts. By more useful, I mean more relevant to - what else? - my favorite geeky genre, Star Wars. After giving a small pep talk to the group about finding a genre, a product, or a craft that they can do constantly and never tire of, I had an epiphany. That genre for me is Star Wars.

So I've decided to take a crack at prop replicas. My first project is Han Solo's belt. Alex is just lately getting into leather working, so he said he would help me with this project. We met for a while yesterday to look at source photos and come up with a game plan.

It's a surprisingly complex item, but essential to any Han Solo costume.

I think this is a great item to offer, because the rest of the costume (excluding the blaster, of course) is relatively easy to make yourself, but not everyone can just whip up a leather belt, and serious cosplayers will want to avoid pleather or other less realistic alternatives.

I really hope this project works out. It's opened up a whole new world for me in crafting. I'm very excited to dive into star wars props, and I'm definitely glad to have Alex by my side while I'm doing this. He is just as obsessed with accuracy and durability as I am, which I think are qualities any cosplayer can appreciate.

I'll be sure to take 'in-progress' photos once we have materials. This is a big project for me, and I definitely want to document the process.

That's all for this week! I'll take photos once I start printing Gini's graduation announcements.

Ancient History

Brandon and I went to visit my family a few weekends ago, and while at my mom's house, I picked up some of my old linoleum block prints. I thought I'd share them with you.

I first learned to carve linoleum about 2 1/2 years ago, in an art class in college. The final assignment for the class was to make a book (I hope to get more seriously into bookbinding as Nimble Toad grows) and fill it with some of our favorite techniques from the class. The book had to be cohesive somehow, not just a random collection of drawings. So, I decided to tell a story with pictures. The book included four block prints.

I tried to use the background texture to punctuate the actual picture.

The book tells the story of a girl falling asleep in class and dreaming about various things, including ninjas and Jedis.

This is one of my favorite charcoal drawings.

I used the theme of writing words related to the dream being illustrated across the page. It fulfilled the requirement of demonstrating my pen-and-ink skills. I know, it's kind of a cop-out to just write with the pen instead of draw, but I really disliked pen-and-ink.

Hilariously enough, I posed for a photo so I had something to go off of when doing that charcoal drawing:

Yes, I own Jedi robes.

Here are some of the block prints on the page:

Here she is, after waking up with a start at the end of class. She's a bit embarrassed.

The really exciting thing about finding these old prints was being reminded that there is a third type of linoleum! I've been struggling with beginners linoleum, which is too soft and too flexible, but can be cut into small pieces (which is great for the kind of work I do) and regular linoleum which has the right firmness, but is mounted on a wooden backing, which makes it impossible to cut (except with a band saw, which I do not want to bother with).

Check out the backing on the linoleum from my art class:

It's woven!

This is perfect! It's firm and sturdy, but it can still be cut down into smaller pieces. I need to find out where I can buy this. Does anybody have any advice for me? I'm going to send my old art professor an email right away. ^_^

Have a good week. Happy crafting.

Shop Item: Personalized Note Cards

Amanda here. I'm really excited about posting my first paper craft item in the Etsy shop. I decided to take a previous craft I did for Val's wedding and post it as a commission item. I'm especially excited to have used some of the best photos I've taken for this blog.

Remember this?

You can view the Etsy posting by clicking here.

I'm excited to be getting back into paper crafts. I hope to continue to post more of them in the future. Next on my list: personalized notepads!

Catching Up: Crafting Projects

Amanda here. I'm sorry it's been so long. I should warn you before I go on a blogging hiatus. Things have been crazy around here, and I haven't had much time for crafting. But I do have a few projects to show you.

Firstly, I finally posted my lovely fall cowl. I finally got some new photos of it. I wanted to show the colors just right.

It's so cozy and warm, and I love the colors. I'll be sad to give it away.

So, that's for sale in the shop right now!

And I finally got started on my notepad project. I finished my first notepad, which is a gift for my dad for his birthday. Here it is, all wrapped and ready for him to open:

I really hope he likes it.

I printed his initials on every page, then pasted them together at the top with padding compound. I need some more practice with the padding compound, but I have some scrap pieces of paper, so I'll make myself some spare notepads and try to refine my technique. I may adjust a few details about these notepads before I put them up on Etsy. Also, I need more block prints! If you have an idea for a design you'd like to see on a notepad, please leave a comment on this entry and I will certainly give it a try! I'm hoping these notepads become a common item in the shop.

Next up, I finally started working on a block print for our business cards. I just took the Nimble Toad logo and shrunk it down, and traced it. Here's what I have so far:

It's a bit messy at the moment. I plan to clean it up before I start carving.

And with that, hopefully we'll have business card designs soon. I haven't yet decided how I want to go about making those. I'll probably be enlisting help from other Nimble Toad members on this one.

That's it for the crafting update. Stay tuned for my recent personal projects. Perhaps that will shed some light on why I haven't been around lately.

Knitting, Block Prints and Notepads

Amanda here. I'm sorry it's been so long. Things are crazy around here. Brandon and I are still trying to get settled in the new apartment, I'm getting used to my new job and working 5 and 6 days a week, and I'm also rebuilding the rat cage. Of course this is all on top of rewriting my resume and researching grad schools. So I haven't had much time for crafting.

But I do have a few new projects to show you. Starting with a piece of merchandise I hope to post in the etsy shop very soon. I wanted to learn a new knitting technique, so I tried circular knitting. I had never done it before, and it turns out it's quite simple. In many ways, it's actually simpler than regular knitting.

I found a small ball of yarn that I had been saving for a special project. It's got that great knobbly texture, and check out the lovely fall colors:

Turquoise, crimson, tan, light purple and brown.

It's pinched off at the side, and tied down with some lace that I cut into a little flower.

I was thinking it would be cool to use the same pattern for a shawl or wrap, with a different closure.

So, I'm going to try to get some better pictures, then that cowl will be on sale in our etsy shop!

Next up, I made a couple of green obi-style belts. This one is for Val, so I may have her model it for pictures for the etsy shop, because it doesn't fit me.

This is the same yarn I used for the bracelets that are now on sale in our etsy shop. I just love the color.

This belt is WAY too small on me, but it should look awesome on Val. I also made one in my size that I plan to sell. As soon as it's finished I can photograph it and post it on etsy.

I have a ton more of this yarn left, so if you want to order a belt, please send me a message, either on etsy or by email!

Lastly, I'm very excited to post the beginning stages of my Dad's birthday present. It's a new project for me, I just got the materials in the mail last week. I'm making him a personalized notepad. Here is one of the pages:

I'm really proud of how this linoleum print came out.

Of course, cutting the block print is the hard part. But now that I've finished that, I just need to cut all the pages to size, print them, then paint on the padding compound. This is my new material. It's used for book binding, and I've never used it before. I'm very excited to start.

Despite the fact that cutting the pages should be the easy part, I've been running into problems with the type of paper I chose, as well as the paper cutter at the local Kinko's. So, I might change my strategy. But once I've worked out the problems with the paper, it should be done in no time.

The exciting announcement here is that, once I have my process down, I am going to be making lots of these little notepads and putting them in the etsy shop. They're totally customizable, so think of a print you would want on your notepad, and send me a message! I can't wait to start carving all kinds of block prints and making all these little notepads. It's a really great way to get my block prints out there and advertise what I can do. Hopefully soon I will be able to make some bigger paper products as well, but for now I'm starting small.

Here's another picture with my thumb as a size reference:

But I can make the notepads any size. Just tell me what you're looking for and I can come up with something unique, just for you!

I can also make books, I just don't have any examples to post right now. The limiting factor right now is time. It's frustrating being so busy, when I have so many projects I want to work on.

I really hope my dad likes his birthday present. That block print is probably one of my best ones yet.

Well, back to work. Happy crafting, everyone!

Amanda: what I've been crafting lately

I've been concerned that I don't have enough crafting going right now, with our etsy shop opening just around the corner. I went looking for inspiration, and I think I found a little bit... I just need some momentum.

I got some graph paper so I can plot out block print designs, and started messing around with a piece of beginner's soft linoleum:

I threw the calla lilies in there for fun. Those and my Harry Potter Gryffindor scarves are the two things I have at present that I know I will be posting in the etsy shop in July.

I decided to start with some popular nerd symbols, namely the weighted companion cube:


and the heroes unwound, single-helix symbol:

This beginner's linoleum is messy. It leaves a lot of little flaky bits when I'm working with it. I still can't decide which kind I like better. I'll just have to work with them both some more and see how it goes.

The other two small prints in the top picture are old projects. They were trial runs for a project for Val's wedding that we eventually abandoned. They're tiny Star Wars prints; the rebel alliance symbol and the galactic republic symbol:



These are all very rough prints. As you can tell, they haven't been inked yet. I need to do some test prints before I decide whether they're good enough to sell. My guess is that, at present, the only one good enough is the Heroes symbol.

I really need to learn to take my time carving these, especially when I'm using beginner's linoleum. It's so easy to mess up a perfectly good block. But the practice is good for me, even if I end up discarding these. I'll show you when I have some prints to share.

I also have some knitting news. Brandon (my boyfriend) and I went garage sale shopping the other day, and I got some really fantastic yarn at an estate sale. We also got some cookie sheets and Brandon got some small mixing bowls. But I'm really excited about this yarn:



It's a really standard gauge, I got about 4 or 5 skeins of it... and just check out that color!


Green is my favorite color, and this one is so rich. There are a million things I could do with this yarn. And I have so much of it! Any suggestions?

I have one big project that I would really like to have a prototype of before July, but with Val's wedding coming up, I don't think I'll have it done before then. Maybe I'll work on it during July. It's a treat for D&D fans... Here's your first hint: Think of a campaign you did that was truly epic. You had a great character, and you want something to remember it by. If all goes well, I'll have the perfect product for that occasion in a few weeks' time.

Val's Thank-you cards (Amanda's old blog)

I finally finished the "H" block print! So, I drove up to Lansing and hung out with Val for a day. We went to Staples and she bought some cardstock. I cut the sheets in half, then used my (Martha Stewart) bone folder and folded them into little cards. Then it came time to start printing them!

I was in Farmington staying at my mom's place this weekend because it was my stepsister's baby shower on Saturday. I gave her the baby blanket I knit (which I forgot to get a final photo of, sorry!) and she liked it. So, I knew I was going to have some time on Friday night while I was staying with my mom, so I brought the block print and my printing gear, and set up shop in her living room (as usual).





We used her clothes-drying rack to hang them overnight to dry.

Some of them were a bit off center, or too crackly or too heavy. I'm printing way more than they need so I can toss the rejects.


I'm back in Kzoo and I decided to do another batch today.


The printing part is the easy part of the process, carving the prints takes much, much longer. To print them you just have to roll the ink out on a smooth surface(That paper is laminated, it's all I have at the moment. I'm just using it up until I can get something better.), then once you have a nice, even coat on the roller, you roll it onto the block itself:



Then, center the paper carefully and press down:



It takes a little bit of time and rubbing around, feeling to make sure you've hit every portion of the pattern. But the results are great! Cue the super artsy blog photo!


Yay for thank-you cards!



I'm pretty excited about this project. While Val isn't a customer, this is my first large project - and my first real project for someone else. It turns out it's really easy to print a large number of prints, and it means less ink goes to waste, since you have to use enough to roll it out - no matter whether you're printing 50 or just one.

A rookie mistake (Amanda's old blog)

Hello! Sorry it's been so long. Life has been too hectic for crafting. But I did start a knitting project today. I hope to have photos of that later.

I'm just checking in really quickly and uploading some photos for Val to check out.

You know that "H" block print I was doing for her thank-you notes? Well, I made that same rookie mistake I keep making. Yeah, I carved it backwards. You see, when you do a block print, the image should be backwards in the linoleum so it prints frontwards. But it looks so pretty frontwards, I keep carving it that way. I REALLY need to work on that.

But I decided to do a test print anyway, just in case this style isn't what Val wants. So I have some photos. If Val likes them, I will re-carve it (properly) and re-print it. And then I can be done with that hard linoleum block I hate so much. I'm using the soft stuff from now on.

Here are the three prints I did:


Yeah. I know. Backwards H. It's a bit disorienting.


So, there are a few areas I want to touch up. Namely the curve at the bottom - it's not smooth enough, it looks more like an ink droplet. Also the right side (which SHOULD be the left side) is too thick. I could still fix that on this one, actually. And that bottom rectangular part didn't turn out as uniform as I would have liked.

I really think I can fix all these things on a second try. I'm really proud of this print - except for the backwards part, of course.



Ta-ta fa na!

Actual Crafts? On a craft blog? (Amanda's old blog)

My dad commented today that this so-called craft blog has sort of degraded into a rat blog. And he's right. Things have been hectic lately, and I haven't had much time for crafting. But I managed to fit in a small project today, despite the fact that this week is pretty jam-packed for me. I think it's a definite example of 'if you want something done, give it to a busy man.'

My roommates Stacy and Eric are getting married in a couple months, so Stacy has got her plate full with lots of wedding projects and planning. Yesterday, she was looking at designs for their guestbook. She found a graphic of a calla lilly that she really liked. She showed it to me and asked if I could do a block print of it for her! We also discussed the possibility of me actually making their guestbook for her, which would be really fun.

I happened to have some linoleum lying around, so i took one of my smaller pieces, cut it in two and made 2 prints. The first print was a bit too heavy, also it was facing the wrong way. I still like it. I think I can clean it up and make it a bit more delicate. The stamen in the flower turned out beautifully.


This is what it looks like when it prints.


And here's the actual linoleum block after I inked it up.

I love the woody texture in the background of block prints. But stacy didn't want that, so I had to carve it deep so all that would print is the flower.

The second try was aimed at getting it facing the right direction, and also making it dantier and more detailed.


This is the print - sorry for the strange angle. Lighting in my living room was not very good today.


And here's the block print. This one is so pretty, I really like how it turned out.

I'm pretty impressed with myself. The second try turned out really nicely. I was very patient with it - I knew Stacy wanted something delicate, so I had to be careful. She didn't end up liking the second print because of the little spiral at the base of the flower. She also changed her plans for the guest book later today, but I was glad to have the inspiration. She gave me a design, specific instructions, and incentive to be very delicate with my work. Now I have 2 new prints for my etsy shop when it opens in July! I'm very excited about this.

I'm thinking my next few block print designs will be:
-A dagger or sword (or both)
-the Heroes symbol
-Some Star Wars symbols, like the rebel alliance and the galactic republic symbol.


I'm glad I finally have crafts to share with you! Sorry dad, about all the rat updates. They're just so cute. ^_^