Craftside

Carla Sonheim's cute drawings come to life in a fun video

To send you off into a fabulous weekend, I have this too cute video clip that Carla Sonheim's son made for her. Carla is the author of Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun.

 

 

For 52 inspiring tutorials you will have a great time trying, grab a copy of:

Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists
52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun

By

Carla Sonheim

Carla Sonheim's innovative ideas are now collected and elaborated on in this unique volume. Carla offers a year's worth of assignments, projects, ideas, and techniques that will introduce more creativity and nonsense into your art and life. Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists offers a fun way to learn and gain expertise in drawing through experimentation and play. There is no right or wrong result, yet, the readers gain new skills and confidence, allowing them to take their work to a new level.

Carla Sonheim is a painter, illustrator, and popular workshop instructor at art retreats such as Artfest, Art & Soul. She has been called a "gifted facilitator" and loves to help adult students recover a more child-like play approach to creating. Carla's "Girls" paintings are in showcased in numerous galleries nationwide, as well as in private and corporate collections around the world. Visit her at www.carlasonheim.etsy.com and www.carlasonheim.wordpress.com!

How to attach silverware handles to a handmade book from the book Adventures in Bookbinding by Jeannine Stein

I'm not sure whether it's more fun to make mixed-media journals and books or use them! Either way, here is a fun tutorial on how to use recycled silverware to make handles for a handmade book from the book Adventures In Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books.

Click on this page from Adventures In Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books to enlarge and read all about how to turn silverware into handles for a custom-made book.

Like making books (and using them)? Well then grab yourself a copy of:

Adventures In Bookbinding:

Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books

by

Jeannine Stein

Each project in this book combines bookbinding with a specific craft such as quilting, jewelry making, or polymer clay, and offer levels of expertise: basic, novice, and expert.  Illustrated step-by-step instructions and photographs demonstrate how to construct the cover pages, and a unique binding technique, easy enough for a beginner to master.

Each project also features two other versions with the same binding geared to those with more or less experience.  The novice version is for those who have no knowledge of the craft and want shortcuts, but love the look.  For the quilter's book, for example, vintage quilt pieces become the covers so all that's needing in the binding.  Or if you're interested in wool felting use an old sweater.  This offers great opportunities for upcycling.

The expert version is for those who have a great deal of knowledge and proficiency of a certain craft - the master art quilter, for example.  For this version, an expert guest artist has created the cover and the author has created the binding.  This offers yet another creative opportunity - the collaborative project.  Since crafters often get involved with round-robins and other shared endeavors, this will show them yet another way to combine their skills.

No other craft book offers the possibilities and challenges that Adventures In Bookbinding does.  Readers will return to it again and again to find inspiration and ideas.

Jeannine Stein has been making books for more than fifteen years, exploring bindings, mediums, and techniques. In addition to teaching book-binding, she is an award-winning journalist, and she has written extensively about paper crafts-artists' books, scrapbooking, rubber stamping, and letterpress. She is the author of Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books with Recycled and Repurposed Materials (Quarry Books 2009).

Craftside UK: Feeling vintage

I’m not sure what it is but there seems to be a strong link between people who love vintage style and people who craft. So any crafters in London this weekend are in for a real treat as the Southbank Centre plays host to Vintage festival. Kicking off on Friday 29^th July and running until Sunday 31^st July it’s a three-day party celebrating the 1920s through to the 1980s with music, fashion, film, art, design and dancing, plus a vintage marketplace which I’m sure will be a treasure trove for all types of crafters looking for stylish additions to the wardrobe or inspiration for new projects.

And for anyone not in London there’s always the fabulous Sew Retro book for your vintage pleasure.

Natalie x

In honor of the 1000th craftastic post here at Craftside!

Yes my crafty peeps! This is my 1,000th post, and in celebration, I am sharing with you some eye candy in the form of a page from the Quarry book 1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes and a free recipe for fondant along with a chance to win a copy of 1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes.

Simply leave your answer to the question:

What is your favorite dessert?

Leave your answer in the comments section of today's post by midnight ET Thursday, August 4, 2011 and you are in the running!

My favorite yummy treat on this page is the idea of serving cupcakes in martini glasses with drink umbrellas!

Click on this page from 1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes for the recipe for fondant and a great chart to calculate how much fondant you need per tier size of cake:

More about the oh-so-pretty book:

 

1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes

By

Sandra Salamony and Gina M. Brown

This exciting 1000 collection presents glorious full-color photographs of delicious, decorated desserts. From extravagant wedding cakes and clever birthday cakes to cupcakes and cookies that are miniature works of art, these delightful delectables provide endless inspiration for anyone who loves decorative baking and entertaining. An appendix in the back of the book includes basic recipes for cakes, frostings, and fondants.

Sandra Salamony, author of 1000 Jewelry Inspirations, is a creative director, writer, and artist living in Traverse City, Michigan. Her sister, Gina M. Brown, is an architect and textile artist, also living in the Traverse City area. They are coauthors of 1000 Artisan Textiles (Quarry Books, 2010).

Interview with Charles Haine, author of The Urban Biking Handbook, on the online radio show Down and Dirty

We're mixing it up again here at Craftside! This time, it's with a link to an interview with Charles Haine, author of The Urban Biking Handbook: The DIY Guide to Building, Rebuilding, Tinkering with, and Repairing Your Bicycle for City Living on the online radio show Down and Dirty. Charles' interview runs from 14:00-24:50.

More about the book:

The Urban Biking Handbook:

The DIY Guide to Building, Rebuilding, Tinkering with, and Repairing Your Bicycle for City Living

by

Charles Haine

Cyclists are everywhere, the cautionary bumper stickers tell you. More than ever before, bicycle culture is everywhere, too: from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine, city planners are making big changes to city infrastructure for the increasing numbers of people who are leaving their cars at home (or deep-sixing them altogether) and upgrading to two wheels. Biking in the city is no longer just for bike messengers with a death wish.

The Urban Biking Handbook is a hardworking, illustrated guide to the cycling lifestyle. Not only does it teach tons of repair and maintenance techniques, it shows such popular skills as converting a multiple-gear bike into a fixed-gear bike (or fixie), building your own wheels, and how to build a Frankenbike from parts scavenged from several bikes. All the techniques and projects are framed by spotlights on urban bike culture worldwide: profiles of bike mechanics, bike builders, bike artists, and more.

Charles Haine has been a bicycle mechanic for over a decade. He learned to fix bikes at a bicycle co-operative at Oberlin College, followed by stints at several bicycle shops in his hometown of Washington, DC, including Blazing Saddles and Citybikes, and time at both the Bike Spot and Bikecology in Los Angeles, CA. He is currently the chairman of the Bicycle Kitchen, a non-profit bicycle education space in Los Angeles, where he has also been a volunteer for 7 years. He has taught beginning and advanced bicycle mechanics to countless numbers of both the general public and also other volunteers at the Bicycle Kitchen to help them hone their mechanic skills and better serve the community. In his spare time he gets into arguments about how to properly address brake squeak. Visit his web site at http://www.bicyclekitchen.com.