an analogue Christmas

This Christ­mas I only took a few pic­tures with my phone, the rest I took with a Diana Mini (a film cam­era). I’m real­ly enjoy­ing not being able to imme­di­ate­ly see what I’ve cap­tured, and wait­ing to see the results, and end­ing up with sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er pho­tos. It all makes pic­ture-tak­ing a much more inten­tion­al activ­i­ty for me.

So I just want to share with you a few of my favourites :D

Some of these are from the fall. Here we are, with friends at Nuit Blanche. Some major streets were closed for the “all-night art thing”, so we were able to take a leisure­ly stroll in the mid­dle of the night down the mid­dle of a street­car track.

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This was one of the Nuit Blanche instal­la­tions at Fort York. Tak­en with long expo­sure, made more dra­mat­ic with light leaks. The lights moves from the canons down the hill. I wished I had record­ed the sounds and music that went with it too. It was beautiful.

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Kind of a con­fus­ing pic­ture but I real­ly like it. It was actu­al­ly a dou­ble expo­sure of baby’s breath in a vase and me wear­ing a mush­room cap.

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Here’s a bet­ter pic­ture of me in the mush­room cap (found at Ikea! Best thing ever :D). One can­not be stressed out while wear­ing a mush­room cap and sip­ping tea.

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The annu­al San­ta Claus parade! We haven’t been for a few years but this year a friend was in the parade so we were hop­ing to wave at her from the side­line. Sad­ly, we missed her, with all the fes­tiv­i­ties going on and chil­dren run­ning around. But I’ve got some mul­ti­ply-exposed pic­tures to cap­ture the (some­what over­whelm­ing) hol­i­day cheers! (Because I was also run­ning out of film, was try­ing to take in as much as pos­si­ble :P) Here we have a cou­ple of pos­ing clowns…

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and a princess in a giant skirt and a giant bon­homme de neige.

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And rab­bits! And tea par­ty amidst the giant mushrooms!

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And final­ly, San­ta! With the band play­ing around him…

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And we also went to the annu­al Christ­mas Mar­ket at the Dis­tillery. Very mag­i­cal with the lights. This one is my favourite shot from the market.

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There was a very giant Christ­mas tree, but the pic­tures I took of the tree turned out rather dark because the Diana does­n’t have a very strong flash. So, tree with more string lights.

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The cheer­ful crowd :D

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In the build­ing where all the artist stu­dios are.

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And some fam­i­ly time. Got to do some hol­i­day yarn craft­ing with my cousin (who is 8, so I’m more like an aunt than a cousin…). Here are the pom pom pets we made, all lined up for a group pho­to :D (a granny rab­bit, a pan­da and a pig)

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Hav­ing some tea and tri­fle at grand­ma’s, a year­ly tra­di­tion :) (I love how it cap­tured the cream dis­pers­ing in the tea)

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I just start­ed anoth­er roll of film for new year and lunar new year — stay tuned for more Diana pic­tures! :D Until then, wish­ing you good health and much joy in 2015!

 

holiday skirt

I made this some­times in the fall, did­n’t have a chance to wear it until the hol­i­days :D

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The pat­tern was from this book. I added the but­ton pan­el because I was­n’t sure the fab­ric would have enough stretch for the fit­ted waist open­ing to go over the hips. It turned out a bit big on me but I like that it looks woven. Here’s a clos­er look at my blue/light blue/brown colour pattern :)

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More posts on hol­i­day craft­ing to come! Hope every­one has had a rest­ful and joy­ous hol­i­day season!

 

 

sparkles sparkles sparkles

I don’t usu­al­ly wear nail pol­ish. I actu­al­ly don’t own any nail pol­ish before this. I don’t real­ly like how it feels on my fin­ger­nails, if that makes sense… Though I do like see­ing it on oth­er peo­ple’s nails.

And it’s spark­ly, and comes with built-in brush­es! It’s the best craft mate­r­i­al ever.

So! I had an idea to turn some hum­ble but­tons into spark­ly ear­rings with nail pol­ish. And it worked!

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Fes­tive and spark­ly but not too flashy, and VERY sim­ple to make. Makes a nice last minute gift too :) It will take more than a minute though, the dry­ing in between takes a bit of time. So I would do oth­er things in between, like sleep, go to work, eat, watch TV, work on oth­er crafts, etc. Do refrain from sit­ting there and watch­ing it dry, like I did when I made the first pairs, because I just could­n’t wait to see how it would turn out! Noth­ing wrong with that. Except for the headache that the nail pol­ish fumes gave me :S

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I made a cou­ple of pairs for the phys­i­cal shop and some as gifts :)

I used:

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Nail pol­ish — a metal­lic opaque colour and some glit­tery vari­eties (I got these from the dol­lar store for $2 each)

Ordi­nary round buttons

Ear­ring posts and backings

E6000 glue (or GOOP works well too, from my experience)

Gloss acrylic var­nish (not pic­tured, because I don’t think you need it, I just have it on hand. It can be bought at art sup­plies stores and craft stores. I got mine at Michaels)

What I did:

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Glue ear­ring posts on but­tons with E6000. Let it dry/cure overnight.

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Stick the ear­rings on a piece of foam (I used a new kitchen sponge). Paint on first coat with opaque colour. Care­ful­ly put on a good, thick lay­er with­out it spilling over the edge. The nail pol­ish will sink into the but­ton holes and dents will appear, so just put on more thick coats after the each coat is dry to the touch (about half an hour), until the dents disappear.

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And now put on thick coats of the spark­ly colours. I did 3–4 coats, wait­ing about half an hour between each coat, build­ing up a bit of a dome shape, like so…

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I fin­ished off by paint­ing a thin coat of gloss acrylic var­nish around the sides of the but­tons and a lit­tle over the top, just in case the nail pol­ish peels off the but­tons, like it would on fin­ger­nails… but I don’t actu­al­ly think it would peel off with such thick lay­ers of pol­ish. But just in case.

And ta-da!

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Sim­ple, right? And would­n’t it look awe­some with dif­fer­ent shapes but­tons, and dif­fer­ent colours of glit­tery nail pol­ish? I’ve seen some that comes with star-shaped glit­ters! If you do give it a try, I would love to hear how it goes!

Wish­ing you a very hap­py weekend!

 

this week’s awesome finds

’tis the sea­son for (quick) hand­made gifts! :D

Ok, maybe this one isn’t so quick… but I love the sim­plic­i­ty of garter stitch. And the accom­pa­ny­ing neck­lace is prob­a­bly a quick-make! From yarn.com.

 

This is so very beau­ti­ful. And looks to be quite easy to make in large batch­es (prob­a­bly also works with store bought gin­ger­bread and cake, for peo­ple who don’t bake, like me. I know, it’s not the same as home­made gin­ger­bread and cake, but some of us just aren’t great at bak­ing). I espe­cial­ly love the ones with the gin­ger­bread ani­mals. From My Name is Yeh.

 

Also in a jar — deli­cious soup! Just add water! Who does­n’t like warm soup in the win­ter? From She Uncov­ered.

 

I think this is pret­ty hilar­i­ous, in a very fes­tive kind of way. From Sug­ar & Cloth.

 

For the mac­aron lovers in your life. (good thing the mac­aron lover in my life does­n’t read my blog :P) I imag­ine using Mod­el Mag­ic would make it feel very much like a real mac­aron. From Adven­tures in Fash­ion.

 

These hand­made hand warm­ers stay warm about 20 min­utes, per­fect for wait­ing for the bus on win­try morn­ings. And unlike the dol­lar store vari­ety they’re reusable and there­fore friend­lier to the envi­ron­ment. From My Crafti­ly Ever After.

 

Glit­tery gum­drops, so cheer­ful, and extra fan­cy when they’re home­made. From Bak­erel­la.

 

I think these mag­net­ic tin snow globes are genius. From A Girl & a Boy.

Hap­py hol­i­day craft­ing!! :D