Screen printed art

I'm excited to share the news that art prints are now available in my husband's Etsy shop. 

So you can fully appreciate these prints, let me tell you how they are produced :)

Firstly, he draws the design by hand. No computers, just pencil, pen and paper (his protractor comes in handy too!) Next, the design is screen printed onto paper and dried. Lastly, he colours the design by hand with his beautiful set of Prisma pencils. 

Now, that's what I call authentic art! 

I hope you like them too. There are only a couple in his shop at the moment, but he will add more as he gets the time :)

Busy, making

I've started on the felt play mat for an upcoming birthday. I hand dyed the wool felt and it came up a bit blotchy, but doesn't really matter seeing as it's grass.

I'm not sure what else I'll add in at this point, I tried some trees but they looked silly. Some mushrooms may be my next attempt.

Needle felting a nest for Mother duck and her ducklings (also in progress, nearly finished).

I've also turned some of our screen prints into cushions and bags.

I love the way my hobo style bags came out so I'll probably sew more in this design.

More updates to come, and if you're interested in a tutorial or how to for how to make the play mat, just let me know :)

Gossamer Dreams tonight!

Gossamer Dreams opens tonight 8pm but you can head over and preview everything that will be available right now!

A little advice - if you see something you like, be prepared to be there just before 8pm so you're ready when it opens. A lot of my items sold in the first 10 minutes last time I was a guest so you have to be quick!

Happy shopping and thanks for your support :)

From the print studio..

... aka our dining room table! But who cares if we're printing from the table and washing equipment in the bath, the main thing is that we're printing at last!

We have thought, talked, thought more, talked more and saved money for this for many months and it is finally a reality, we have our first screen and today we printed some fantastic looking fabric!

Husband finally gets to see his designs being used and appreciated and we begin, in a small way, to work on our dream of building something together, making, designing and maybe even one day providing an income for us outside of a "regular" job.

In the meantime we'll continue to hone our skills until we're really satisfied with what we're producing, but these sure are exciting times!

First foray into screen printing

I've been interested in screen printing for ever so long and finally got myself organised to book into a workshop and head down to Ballarat today.

Laura from Learn 2 Screen-Print has recently relocated to Ballarat from Melbourne and has a great studio set up at her home. We started out by cutting some stencils to screen print onto cards.

Our next cut out stencils were printed onto fabric. Husband and I designed the pattern together. It's hard to appreciate the deep red colour due to my night - time photos.

Another one printed on linen. Deep red on linen looks so delicious!

I'm thinking it would look great embellished with threads and beads.

My class mate Lisa chose to print this beautiful design and I was lucky enough to score one to take home :) Lisa is a very enthusiastic quilter and is just as excited as I am about the possibilities this art form offers.

I had a really great day and it's so wonderful to learn new skills that relate to and build on what I already do.

Laura was a knowledgeable and relaxed teacher and I really feel confident enough to start screen printing at home on a small scale - can't wait!