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Friday 1 February 2013

White Rabbits

White Rabbits, a first of the month tradition in my family didn't get off to a great start, I unfortunately woke up feeling under the weather this morning. To make me feel better I thought I would document my latest projects in my personal endeavour of creativity for some inspiration to rejuvenate myself.


A few months back my mother bought me a wood burning tool kit, however I never seemed to have the time to get round to experimenting with it. During the early research stages of one of my projects - 148 DVA Integrated Design focusing on the Moon, I came across an old love of mine - Button Moon. A possible concept for our webpages came together with the main idea of having a hand crafted theme.


The characterisation of household objects always appeals to young children and their imagination, coming from a close family centred around children I decided to find some adorable design ideas for future gifts, toys etc. I figured that by experimenting with this new medium in a personal project will also help in my professional work and could lead me to new experiences to follow up in future projects. With so many possibilities I found a few inspiring examples featured below. 





Wooden spoons - Personalise for baking days with me and playing house with name/initials and imagery. I love the tribal design of the first example for my own use.




Wooden spoons - Create puppets/bookmarks by characterising the spoons with faces, create personalities for playing with or to use in the kitchen also. 


Wooden Buildings blocks - My family values traditions and old fashioned toys for nostalgic purposes, wooden toys dating back to the Victorian era seem to be a favourite. I believe simple wooden dolls houses, shops, kitchens, pull alongs, food sets and cots over modern technology allows children to enjoy their childhood with a pure and innocent aspect.


I believe that thoughtful presents are always the best kind right down to wrapping, in a post before Christmas - Its beginning to feel alot like Christmas! I featured my wrapping skills. I love this wooden tag and it would look perfect in the country kitchens of my family members for keepsakes.  



Other country living inspired designs - Buttons, Pegs, Wooden plaques with inspiration messages, personal messages, names of family members, names of rooms, important dates could all look effective on a piece of wood framed by the bark. 


A definite ambition of mine will be to create a personalised initial stamp for sealing letters with wax.


Purchases from yesterday - wooden rolling pin, spoon and pastry brush for under £1 which I hope to characterise and experiment with different techniques, tips and tones from the burning tool. I will post with my progress and final outcomes and hopes for future projects.


Lightbulb moment,  A bright idea

Since staring university and living on my own for the very first time, it has given me a strong sense of independence and made me think about budgeting and recycling as much as possible. Living at home and having my mother and papa be responsible for running of the household I've never been exposed to it.  One thing i've never had to think about recycling is lightbulbs before but i've always had an aesthetic love of them and industrial inspired interior design. Recycling has become a very popular influence in design creating new innovative ideas (reference to above project and button moon), recently recycling lightbulbs crafts have emerged and seems a waste to not experiment with my left over bulbs. Inspiring examples of recycled lightbulbs are below. 


Lightbulb vases - fresh flowers as a garden feature, or inside for decoration, fill with personal items and create an installation or mobile in a baby's room.


A ship in a glass bulb


Candles


Wind string/twine around the bulb and create pears - place in a glass container for an autumn table or placement settings.


Hot air balloons - cover with paper and add a small basket with string or ribbon, place small toys, models or animals in the basket for a cute nursery feature/installation.


Painted bulbs transformed into baubles for christmas, decorations for any celebration or general decoration in the house.


I choose to experiment by painting my light bulbs to hang on my tree, which I featured in my Out the door it might be snowing... post. In my mind this was the safest, easiest and cheapest method to transform my light bulbs, it will also be a great and cheap idea for gifts. My progress so far is below, I hope to finish these this weekend.



I used a collection of colourful nail varnishes I had to hand to paint the glass, as the light bulbs won't be lit up you can use any paint but the cheapest and quickest I found was nail varnish.


Tip - stand the lightbulb in blue/white-tac so it is easier to paint and will allow you to leave it to dry.

I plan to do this with every light bulb that blows out from now on in the hope to have a collection I could string together like bunting. I will post my progress from this weekend as my lightbulbs will be completed and dried by then. Hopefully these projects will help me to find inspiration in the very mundane of objects and help in my professional projects to find inspiration from anything. Could this be a personal style for my artwork/ illustrations of recycled items?


NAP x

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