Craft and Presents

I have always enjoyed making things, partly for the satisfaction of beggining a project and seeing it through to completion and actaully having something tangeable that I have bought into existance. But also partly because I love to give away things that I have actually put effort into(which for me means having made it myself) to the people I love. I think for this reason the gifts that I treasure most are ones that have been made by the person giving them.

here are some examples:

 

These beauties were given to me on my 18th bithday, the one on the left from an avid recycler and her man friend, hence the '18' has been cut out of an aptly named book 'The book of choclate'  which, I'm assured, would otherwise have gone to waste.

The one on the right was given to me by this lady who happens to have a bit of an artistic flare of her own ... as you can see from the card!

so as I was saying I appreciate gifts like these alot, which is why I still have these cards, which is why I was able to whip out my camera and take the above picture mid blogging sesh!

One problem I have found with craft and generally hand made things is that they are somewhat perishable, I guess this is one more reason that I like photography; by uploading these pictures I have effectively immortalised these amazing gifts.

which moves me smoothly onto another present I reviced, this time for christmas 2009:

 

This was a combintation of making and buying pre-made in a present, the picture in the centre I took and sent to that recycling lady - mentioned above, who in true recycling style took my picture, printed it, framed it and gave it back to me for christmas - Brilliant! The frame is from IKEA, the only reason I know that is because they put a little lable on the inside, the only reason I was inside, was to stick on the extra 6 pictures ( 3 above and 3 below)

This has made me think of yet another good quality of presents, though one that is possibly much harder to achive. The ability to add to or build upon or even create from scratch using the initial present.

Here are some examples of things I have made instead of just reciving, unfortunatley I only got my camera recently and so was not able to document many of the things that in heindsight I would like to have had a record of.

 

 

So... reading the collage like a book, starting in top left:

1: This was my DT project in year 10 for my GCSEs, it is an oak box, made with dovetail joints. The purple stuff inside is plastic, heat moulded to the shape of the cross and covered in a layer of (fake) felt. The cross itself was made by pouring molten pewter into a wooden mould.

2: This is a kawasaki-style origami rose made with origami paper that my mother got me for christmas.

3: This is the box with the lid on, the cross on the lid is protruding by about 1cm and is used as a handle, it is made of mahogany.

4, 5 & 6  : These are various stages in the construction of a christmas card that I made for some of my friends. The pattern on the front is a celtic knot, definied by being 1 continuous line that follows the pattern of '1 over 1 under' which you might not be able to pick up in these small pictures.

7: Another christmas card, again with celtic knots, the '1 over 1 under' rule might be a little clearer in this picture.

8: Some preliminary celtic knots, drawn with graphite sticks. I designed the top one myself and used It in the making of another card ( birthday this time ) but I didnt have a camera at the time of making the card so no picture of the finished product... just imagine the design in silver ink on purple paper. The one below it I copied, it is a variation of a celtic love knot.

9: Last but by no means least, this is one of the first celtic knots that I drew, it took me several hours to design and a few more to draw, this was my initial vision of what my pewter cross would look like, although I actually only drew it  3 years after having made the pewter cross.

Finally, I recently recived a belated 18th birthday present which I happen to think is fantastic, not everything in the picture is from the same person but the majority are gifts:

 

List of all things in picture:

Belated 18th present items:

several sheets of coloured card, several black envelopes, pritt-stick, super fine gold and silver pens, wax for sealing letters. (not in picture-  sticky back foam numbers and stars)

Gift from mother: 

asorted coloured pens

Other random stuff I have aquired:

scissors, selotape, graphite sticks of varying softness, ruler.

wow, this was long, I could keep going but I will spare you.