Homemade Christmas Presents

I love giving gifts, creating gifts, and of course receiving gifts!

Christmas is for me a lot about family.  I care about getting the right presents for them.  I don't buy something for the sake of giving a present!  In fact, people I love will often get a present from me when it's not Christmas, their birthday, or some other present giving occasion, just because I have seen something perfect for them, or that perhaps made me think of them.

This year I have tried to buy handmade, or make my own.  Twitter, Facebook, various Blogs, craft fairs and Etsy have over the year given me endless inspiration.  I use the 'Add to favourite items' on Etsy to remind myself of gifts for people, and the 'Add shop to favourites' to bookmark shops by friends, inspirational shops and suppliers.  All this has helped me track down the perfect gifts for my friends and family!

1. Lolly print by Sean Mort via HelloDODO

My sister spyed this gorgeous print at The Renegade Craft Fair earlier in the year and fell in love with it.  But with a small budget and small flat she couldn't justify buying it.  She's now moved to a slightly bigger flat, so what a perfect present!  HelloDODO had written up a blog post here about the fair and I was able to buy the print via Sean's website. Perfect.

 

2. Jewellery by Wear Me Out @ The Handmade Makers Market in Oxford

The Handmade Makers Market was in fact my first 'real' craft fair - HURRAH! You can read about the day here.  Myself and Chloe seemed to have a mutual love of each others crafts.  My sister declared she loved everything, so I selected a matching necklace and set of earrings for her main Christmas present.  'Wear me Out' jewellery is made to be worn everyday - none of that keeping it for best malarky!  With that in mind I chose something I knew would go with everything and was suitable for work too - she's got no excuse!

3. Tote bags inspired by a conversation with Anna Jane Searle on Twitter

I've followed Anna for quite a while now on Twitter and love her jewellery in her Etsy shop.  She also has a gorgeous illustration style that is clearly well liked as she's had issues recently with people stealing her designs for t-shirts!  We were having a chat about this and the outcome was that I should try out some designs of mine on tote bags :-) and I am so glad I did!  I did 4 tote bags for some of the ladies in my life (Mum, sisters, friends) instead of gift bags - they pretty much cost the same!  As well as this I put some of my Untapped Cities building illustrations onto some for the craft fairs I did and had a great reaction, which was ace.  So Anna, thank you so much for the inspiration!

4. Handmade soap.  Kit bought from Soap Basics

I can't quite remember how I came up with this idea...but it went down really well.  I got a mix of clear and opaque, green and purple, pumice powder and poppy seeds, grapefruit scent and see breeze scent.  Wrapped each in waxed paper and hand wrote a nice label for each :-) I only got a standard rectangle shaped soap mould, but there was a little gem mould in it too!  So cute!  So I was able to do a bag of mini soaps for a friend of mine who is 8, she loved them.



5. Felt iPhone case with felt sourced from Piglet's Pincushion

I had intended on buying one of these from a shop on Etsy but after postage and tax were added, it was just a bit much for a present I wasn't sure would be used or not.  I then came across a tutorial (here!) and decided it must be fate as I had some felt already from a previous project, and got to work!  It was loved, and I think he does actually use it :-)

 

6. Knitting wool bowl by Little Wren Pottery

Browsing Etsy I came across Victoria Baker's lovely shop and thought that these bowls were such a great idea, I knew my Mum would love it too!  I didn't think that my Mum would particularly like the snail design but liked the garden theme so I got in touch with Victoria to make me one with a leaf design instead and the text 'Just keep knitting' round the side.  She was very easy to talk to and happy to do a leaf design for me.  I ended up getting two, one for my Mum and one for a friend :-) Gorgeous bowls, so lovely, and my Mum was amazed.

7. Cross stitch iPhone case by Miso Funky @ Renegade Craft Fair

Another one for my Mum.  She really is into her knitting and cross stitch!  I thought this was a great present, and will certainly get people's attention when she finishes it!  Looking on their website there are more designs and objects to cross-stitch too :-)

8. T-shirt by Tim Easley

I've followed Tim on Twitter for ages and love his selling blurb!  Makes me laugh out loud the things he comes up with to give you a reason to buy a magnet/tote bag/t-shirt/print - it's great!  When I saw this design, I knew my boyfriend would love it - he's a huge fan of The Big Bang Theory series.  The t-shirt came with other goodies too (which I kept for myself :-p ) and is a lovely quality.

9. Ship in a bottle screen print by HelloDODO

Two friends of mine love boats, sailing, and travelling in general and this print just seemed perfect for them.  Such lovely colours, the yellow I think is a great contrast with the blue.  It's going to look fab in their new house too.


So.  Did you go handmade this year too?  What did you make/buy?

Risograph Printing

Two Times Elliott run a Risograph printing social night once a month in West (ish) London.  I've followed them for a while on Twitter and Instagram and decided enough was enough - time to have a go myself!

  

With the Manchester Artist Book Fair looming over me and no new books to speak of it seemed logical to illustrate a small book to print using the 'Risograph' technique.  Now, I really didn't know much, but I had seen posts and flyers by Two Times Elliot so I had a general idea, and picked up that it may be similar to screen printing.  With that in mind I designed an A6 book that could be created from an A3 page (which is the size printed via 'Risograph') with simple folds and a single cut.

I used Lisbon as my inspiration as after spending 5 days there in August, I really loved the city and it's colourful buildings.  I opted for 4 single page illustrations and one double page spread as well as a front and back page - all of which could be cut up individually incase the fold and cut technique didn't work out!

It just happened that I had friends visiting from California, so I persuaded them to come along with me for company and for something different to do :-D The Great Western Studios was easy enough to find, and somewhat challenging to navigate within, but over all a great place - I'm only sorry that we were there so late so no one else was around!  I selected 2 paper stocks (as I couldn't make up my mind) and went with a contrasting purple ink that was a lovely dark shade.

I'm so impressed with how quick and easy the whole process was, and the results were great!  Personally my favourite is the 'gold flecked' paper, but I had many compliments on the more textured grainy stock as well.

I'm pretty sure that I'll be back next month - MUST do a new design now :-D

25for25 is just what it says on the tin - 25 prints for £25 (+VAT) - you can book via eventbrite, and bring a friend if you're too chicken to go by yourself as I was!  Everyone was friendly and helpful and didn't mind all of my emails making sure I had 'got it right'.

Excellent, thanks guys!

p.s. Look out for the finished book at the Manchester Artists Book Fair!

Gocco Printing

Whilst looking for ideas on workshops to do for my sister's birthday (see my last post here) I put a little shout out on twitter to see if anyone could recommend any or point me in the right direction.  The lovely Vicki of 'Accidental Vix' responded with a Gocco Printing workshop that she had booked onto in a few weeks time.  I was introduced to Vicki through Rob Jelinski and the Sketchbook Project.  And we've kept in touch since, offering feedback and support to each other and others involved in the projects.

This workshop seemed great, so while I offered it up as an option to do with my sister I knew I was going to do it even if she picked a different option!  £40 for a 3 hour workshop, and to come away with a screen that you can use further at home, as well as prints from the workshop and lots of lovely new knowledge about Gocco printing!

Above here you can see Vicki's lovely gocco prints.  She was thoughtful enough to bring along some baby grows to print onto as well as all the paper provided in the class.  I love the introduction of the little hearts sporadically over the surrounding area. 

You can visit Vicki's shop here and follow her on twitter here.  I met Vicki through doing the sketchbook project, and we fast became twitter friends, enjoying our arts and crafts and helping to support and promote each other.

My gocco print wasn't quite as successful.  I'm so used to printing with silkscreen that I didn't quite get it right.  However, I haven't given up yet!  Being able to take the screen home with me and re-use it, I'll be pracitsing to get it perfect.  The design i used was apparently a little tricky, but Xtina who runs the class managed to print it and was glad I'd opted to push the boundaries of gocco printing a bit as she now knows that something like my design is possible, where as before might not of been attempted.

If you'd like to do a Gocco printing workshop you can find the information in Xtina's shop here.

A little something for you!

Hello All!

So since joining Twitter, Facebook and having a Blog, I have entered a fair few competitions, met loads of people (some in real life as well!), enjoyed supporting other illustrators and artists, and I am so grateful for the support that you also give me.

As a little thank you, and as it is the season for giving...for a lucky participant I shall put together a little package of goodies for you to get through the post.  If you have any special requirements then you can let me know but ultimately it will be a surprise!  And yes, I shall post to ANYWHERE!

In order to be chosen you need to leave a comment on this blog post, or tweet to me ( @charlsvallance ) which of the following books is your favourite, and tell me why, as well as why you would like to win!  I shall choose the winner the old fashioned way by putting everyones names in a hat and selecting one :-)

Row of Houses

Wake up and Smell the Coffee

(Delft) Blue

Birds, Boats & Buildings

(THE AMAZING FOLDING BOOK!)

Buildings

Statues of Europe

You have until Sunday 18th December 12noon :-)

Thank you everyone!

X

Wake up and Smell the coffee

This Drypoint printed Artists Book was inspired by my time spent working at Seasons Cafe Deli in Old Amersham, near were I live.  It consists of a front cover, 6 prints of different coffee and a contents page on the back page which tells you of the contents of the different coffees seen in the book.

I've used drypoint printing technique with Chine Colle to attach tissue paper/newspaper to areas of each print.  To do this I apply glue to the tissue and pass it through the press with the print plate when it gets printed.  The whole book is actually on one sheet of paper.  This makes making the book less time consuming, meaning that if you are interested in buying a copy then it works out cheaper than it may of done!  Nice huh?

I made an edition of 12, last year infact, I think it didn't get talked about because I was giving one as a Christmas Present!  However, now you can buy it as a gift too.  It's for sale in my Etsy shop HERE.

The Red Gallery aka Material

My lovely little '(Delft) Blue' Amsterdam book has made it into a shop - HURRAH!  Lucy, from The Red Gallery spotted it at The Whitechapel Gallery, London Art Book Fair and got in touch to sell it at both their London shop and their Ludlow shop too.  I am so excited about this!  I got to the shop quite late so the photos are a bit dark, but you can see what a nice space they have and all the other great books and artwork they have for sale by various artists.

You can find The Red Gallery @ 1-3 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3DT

And the Ludlow shop @ 131 Corve Street, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 2PG

Alternatively you can have a browse on their website: www.materialmaterial.com

The Amsterdam book has had the pleasure of being in this shop a month or so now, it looks like it's made itself at home nicely.  This week I dropped off a few of my 'Down Your Street - Old Amersham' books as well as a selection of my Christmas cards for some lucky Londoners!

All of these are also available in my Etsy shop if you can't make it to The Red Gallery or are not local, which you can find at www.etsy.com/charlottevallance


Thank you for reading,

X

Woman's Museum in Hoh Chi Minh City, propaganda posters.

I saw these woodcuts in Vietnam, only rather than actually printing with them they paint onto the different areas that have been cut out or onto the flat areas to strengthen the piece as a painting instead of a print.

Drypoint on Envelopes

I thought I would try something a little different now.  I like to use tissue paper in my prints to add colour but sometimes the tissue doesn't stick very well to the paper and comes off.  This gave me the idea that I don't HAVE to print onto watercolour paper ( which is the paper normally used as standard) but onto maybe a piece of tissue paper itself.  I did try it onto tissue paper but I found it dodn't work on such a large image, so then I thought of these envelopes, which I am planning to use for an artist book (really small dinner money envelopes), and I think they have worked really well!  Some came out quite grainy, but I think this works as well, just gives them an older look to them.

Lino Printing - Time For Tea!

I used a variation of cutting away from the lino and mixing 2 colours of ink to get these prints.  So that even though the second print shown is a single layer print the change of tone in the center of the print gives it a bit more depth.  Where as the first print gets this depth because its two layers of print, one darker than the other and inbetween printing these layers I cut away at the lino so the original colour would show through still.