Handmade Imperfection

Handmade cupcake stand

2009-08-31T17:17:00.007+01:00

My parents recently celebrated 30 years of marriage.

In honor of this momentous occasion, Mum decided they should have a casual 'gathering' at home. I of course volunteered to take on the planning and catering for this event and have spent a pretty solid seven hours baking today! I had wanted to attempt to re-create a sort of wedding cake for them as a surprise, but quickly realized that all the structural engineering required inside to hold up a 3 tier cake was going to mean spending far more preparation time than I have on my hands. So I opted for cupcakes on a 3 tiered stand instead.

A quick search for "cupcake stand" via Google will give all sorts of useful results... but for mine I used these as my main inspiration:

I purchased 3 cake boards (sm, med, lg) and 4m of pretty ribbon, along with two terracotta flowerpots, some silver wrapping paper and a plastic saucer (the type you put under a flowerpot).

Using my handy scrapbooking glue roller I stuck ribbon round the edges of all three cake boards, and secured the overlapping ends with a pink drawing pin. The saucer is hidden from view under the lowest tier by a band of silver wrapping paper simply secured with tape.

I painted the terracotta pots using silver gloss paint (leftover from painting the radiator in our guestroom!). Apologies for the strange resemblance to a spaceship here (below)!

Using a hot glue gun I stuck the biggest pot to the bottom of the medium cake board, and the smaller pot to the bottom of the smallest cake board.

I then just stacked the boards and pots and hey presto! Simple yet effective cupcake stand.

The bottom two layers were home to some of the 36 cupcakes I baked and iced over the bank holiday. I made plain and lavender cupcakes, some with smooth 'royal' icing and some with butter frosting, all decorated in pastel colours. The top layer was home to a rather tasty fruitcake.

What do you think?

Out and about in the sunshine...

2009-08-23T16:59:00.008+01:00

Taking a break from all things crafty, the weather this weekend has been just beautiful so we've been out and about enjoying the sun.

Gocco has landed!

2009-07-22T11:56:00.001+01:00

My new Gocco arrived today! Very exciting news for Handmade Imperfection.

It was a bit like Christmas... waiting for Santa (the postman) to arrive with my parcel...

Here it is! lovingly packaged for it's journey to Suffolk.

Clockwise from top left; Print Gocco PG-10, drying racks, flashbulbs and bulb mount, instruction books & video, inks, carbon pen and master screen.

Live, Laugh, Love... a screen printed adventure

2009-07-21T20:07:00.001+01:00

So, for the last week of my night-class I decided to mass-produce as much as I could focused around the "Live Laugh Love" design I had produced.

I had two versions of the design transferred onto photographic screens; one A5 and one A4 sized.

The small A5 screen was used to print onto A5 and taller 105x210mm card blanks, as well as a stash of brown lunchbags I'd been saving up and wondering what to use them for!

I used the A4 screen to print onto pre-cut panels of calico, which I'm planning to use for bags later down the line. One available for purchase on my etsy store right now!

Handmade Imperfection shop is up and running!

2009-06-06T22:49:00.001+01:00

IMG_5297
Originally uploaded by handsomepandafan

Finally! I found the time to get the header graphics for my Coriandr shop up and running, and sorted out some of my latest cards to sell.

This set of 6 screen printed cards with a damask theme are now available to buy at www.handmadeimperfection.coriandr.com

Continuing the seaside theme...

2009-04-17T18:15:00.002+01:00

Southwold, Suffolk
Originally uploaded by handsomepandafan

Actually I am testing the "blog this" feature in Flickr, but thought this nice photo I took in Southwold on Valentines day 2009 would be a nice way to continue the nautical summer theme I'm working on at the moment!

Question is, does Flickr/Blogger have the sense to resize this image for me and make it fit the width of my blog without chopping off one edge?!

Project: bathroom cabinet

2009-04-16T18:59:00.006+01:00

(please excuse the too-large pictures in this post, since switching to Mac I've not worked out how to resize images to fit my narrow layout!)

This past weekend my wonderful Mr found the time to put our revamped bathroom cabinet up on the wall, so I decided it's high-time for a post on the 'making of'. Here's the finished product in all its glory:

This cabinet started life as a medicine cupboard in the bathroom of my great-aunts house. The doors once held two mirrors, which by the time I got hold it the cupboard had long since broken and been removed. My mum had been keeping this in the loft for the last few years waiting for a time it might come in useful when my sister or I were setting up home.

First up I removed the small brackets which were once used to hold the mirror glass onto the doors (and have saved these for use in the future, you never know!) then I primed the doors using white undercoat.

Once the undercoat was dry I painted two top coats of "Morris Blue" emulsion (from the Heritage range 1869 by Craig & Rose). I glued four seaside scene postcards to the doors and sealed them with a layer of PVA glue, hopefully this will be enough to prevent the steam in the bathroom causing the postcards to curl and peel off.

Once the glue was all dry and the postcards seemed pretty well stuck, I attached seashells and some small decorations (left over from a previous project which resulted in a very large smashed mirror after a cat jumped through a window!). I reattached the handles and there you have it!

Just a final picture of the inside - there are two sections each with a small shelf (note the cupboard is upside down in the pic). Jasmine the cat kindly posed with the cupboard to show a sense of scale in this picture...

The cupboard is now safely and securely on our bathroom wall and proving to be very useful indeed. Hurrah!

Stampin' and printin' goodness

2009-04-15T18:12:00.000+01:00

Today was a near disaster work-wise, but just as I reached my lowest ebb I decided on the spur of the moment to check my local college for adult evening classes in printmaking - specifically silk-screen printing, but any kind of "introduction to printmaking" would have satisfied me. Imagine my utter delight when I saw this:

Screen Printing and other Print Techniques with Bill Balleny

Tuesdays 6:30 to 9:00 pm

There are many different ways to make a print - screen prints, linocuts, woodblocks, collagraphs, etching, drypoints and monoprints. For beginners, a practical demonstration will be given of the various print techniques in the first session. Students will be encouraged to experiment with their own ideas and printmaking techniques and above all, to have fun! This course is open to all levels from beginners to experienced printmakers. You will need to bring drawing implements, sketchbooks and plenty of imagination and ideas. For those wishing to pursue photo screenprinting/etching a small charge will be made for photographic stencils. Additional cost of £8.00 per term for materials.

10 Weeks from 21/04/2009

YES!!! Exactly what I was looking for, and not only that, it starts on Tuesday! I called and signed up right away and I can't wait to see what opportunities arise from this. I'm especially excited about the photo-screen printing on offer, I'd love a print Gocco (wouldn't we all?) but can't find one in the UK with an adequate source of supplies since they recently discontinued the entire line. So all in all, a good day actually - I'm super-excited about the new printing class and can't wait to get my hands dirty!

In the meantime why not check my Flickr for pics of my latest completed project - the Seaside bathroom cabinet!

Cake Wrecks...

2009-04-14T19:54:00.001+01:00

Oh dear me... I came across this site during the week and had a good giggle at all the silly mistakes and badly made cakes. Then this happened:

This is what happened when I tried to make my lovely boyfriend a birthday cake at the last minute... using the new 'ring tin' I brought in town this weekend. Boo Hoo! Guess I should've left it to cool before I turned it upside down huh?

So much for handmade imperfection, more like total cake-disaster! Ah well can't be good at everything...

How Handmade Imperfection came to be...

2009-03-27T09:26:00.000Z

While I'm still in the process of finishing decorating my study, and putting the finishing touches to my latest few projects I thought I'd write a bit about how Handmade Imperfection came to be.

I've always been a crafter - no matter if it was trying to make my own costumes, insisiting on decorating my own bedroom, or collecting bits of junk and trying to fashion them into something beautiful.

Shortly after leaving home I brought my first sewing machine, and spent most of the following year making various adaptations of Lord of the Rings costumes for myself, family and a small theatre troupe who were planning to film a spoof of the movies (sadly the film never came to be). When I brought my first house, two years later, I was determined to have a whole room devoted to my sewing and crafting...sadly after a few months the room had to be converted into a spare bedroom and my crafting was relegated to one corner of my own bedroom, plus any odd corners of the dining room.

Lucky for me, all this changed in March 08 when I moved house again, and I have spent the last 12 months decorating and have finally transformed a tiny back-bedroom into the perfect crafting space! While all of this was going on, I stumbled across the Modish Blog, and it happened to be the very week Cathe Holden of "Just Something I Made" was featured in "Modish Handmade Spaces". As soon as I saw Cathe's beautiful craft space, I was even more inspired and driven to create myself a little sanctuary of peace and crafty-tranquility.

After this, I started checking Modish and Just Something I Made almost every day... (I read JSIM pretty much every morning now - usually right after I get my fix on WeddingBee.com!). With my own little "handmade space" taking shape, and lots of inspiration from Cathe's wonderful creations, I have become a more productive crafter, a more aspiring and confident 'artist' and ever keener to try and find enough hours in the week to make a few beautiful things to give or sell.

As I explained back in my first post, the blog name, Handmade Imperfection came from my love of the "uniqueness which comes from something hand-crafted, not mass produced". All the lovely things which so many talented crafters out there are producing right now come under this banner, and I will be sharing some of the most special finds with you all over the coming times.

So, that's my story, I hope you'll check back soon for some more items of Handmade Imperfection!

The writing on the wall...

2009-03-06T18:00:00.000Z

Typical isn't it? The moment I decide to actively try and keep up regular postings, work goes completely manic and there's no time to eat, breathe, or sleep, let alone to blog!

Ok, so this may not be completely true, I have found time to keep up to date with JSIM and Weddingbee, but just not enough time to actually start any of the craft projects I had been promising myself for so long, or to blog about anything else!

I have lots going on now though, having spent the last two weekends attempting to sort and tidy my study/creative space, I've finally managed to smooth over the walls and I'm ready to decorate! YAY!
I wanted to wallpaper one wall in "Isabelle" from Graham and Brown, but since there's a risk that wall might be damp I decided to paint instead. However I still want something interesting, so decided to bite the bullet and try my hand at a mural... It's going to be part 'graphic' part 'inspirational text' - stay tuned.

source

In other news, inspired by Cathe's 'bird nests' on JSIM this week I have ordered some cute little turquoise beads on eBay and I'm planning to do something cute combining them with another gorgeous Cathe share - this vintage image from The Graphics Fairy

source

As well as all that, I'm about to renovate my bathroom cabinet into something a bit more shabby chic and 'seaside'. Pics to follow soon!

xxx

Perfectly lovely origami

2009-02-09T21:48:00.000Z

I know I know, I said this was all about the 'imprefect'... but I have totally fallen in love with these cute origami 'kusudama' on FoldingTrees.com

I love the idea of things made from paper, its amazing how a flat sheet can be turned into such intricate and beautiful shapes.

I have to admit though, perhaps not by my hand - I had a go at making some mini cherry blossoms and ripped up all the paper because my big thumbs got in the way!

Welcome!

2009-01-30T15:42:00.000Z

Hi, hello, salut, bonjour, guten tag, ola!

What is 'handmade imperfection'?
Just think - whenever you see some gorgeous handmade thing, be it art, craft, decor or clothing, the thing I always love the most is that they are slightly 'imperfect'. The uniqueness which comes from something hand-crafted, not mass produced. If you, like me, love to craft, and to look at other people's beautiful handmade projects then please come back soon when I will hopefully have some fun and interesting bits of 'handmade imperfection' to share with you all.

In the meantime, here is a peek at some of my own recent projects: