I love it because it is so fun and easy, only costs minimum to achieve. All you need is a bottle of acrylic medium which I already have on hand, an image from a laser printer and a little bit of patience. Nobody is lack of patience if he/she really has a genuine interest in doing something in his/her life. Am I right?

The photo above shows a black and white pencil sketch work that I found from one book. I copied it on laser printer and then did the transfer. The imperfection due to rubbing off process made the whole drawing very interesting and I actually quite like its aged look.

About 3 weeks ago, I also did a transfer on a piece of stretched and primed canvas with a coloured photo. The result is even better because the adhere to canvas is much durable and operatable than it is to the sketch book paper (FYI, my sketch book is Derwent Safari series 200gsm paper). However, I would not recommend to use this technique if you are very fussy about photo quality or you prefer a crystal clear photograph like my husband. Personally, I really love the idea to use it on canvas, especially it is so expensive to customise your photo printing on canvas nowadays. The difficulty is more around choosing a suitable photo (aged look or imperfect effect) and the size of canvas as I don’t imagine that you can print a photo bigger than A3 if you just use a domestic laser printer, which limits your options.

You can find the detailed process in this great tutorial . It covers everything you need to know. If there is anything I can add, I would suggest to cover the edges of canvas with your transferring image as this will give a depth finish.

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It’s no doubt that bookmarks are going to extinct before paper-based books extinct. However, I love having several borrowed books in hands all the time, and I consider these little accessories as a personal touch in additional to my reading life , a life that I never took seriously but is very enjoyable.

I believe that as long as you READ, sooner or later, you would ask for a bookmark. That’s what have prompted me to create these things recently. Those books on our side table near the lounge deserve a little special treat, something not our grandmothers offered in the past century.

All I have used was plain wooden pop sticks, a 4mm fine tip marker and a set of letter rubber stamps (my new favourite “ingredient”). I stamped two words quotes or make up something I like, I drew a simple symbol or picture, put all of them in a glass jar (used a baby food jar). And that was it. If you prefer a prettier jar, just do something with your jar. I actually used black rub-on decals. They came out all great and cute. Or if you want something fancier, you can stick something on one end of bookmark, like a glass pebble or a 3d sticker. Leave them on your coffee table next to your books, they are simply handy and special.

I reckon I can sell them to raise the money for charity. How much should I charge?

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Pino Daeni: I like this guy’s works so much. They made me completely speechless. I had to hold my breath every time when I saw his work.

I can’t think of any reason why people wouldn’t love his work.

Warmth, nostalgia, love and family.

Richard S Johnson’s Bluebirds

Vladimir Volegov’s Painting: what a pretty little girl!

The woman in his painting. Oh my god!

Their works are so elegant. Love the warm colours, delicate skin tones, the strokes for the flowing skirts and the natural lightings. Even my husband was impressed and asked me why I can’t draw this. Sorry, hubby, I can only handle non-sense silly stuff, not the elegance:-) I’d love to have one or two pieces of these in my home though.

Hope you enjoy! Have a good weekend, everybody!

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I am very proud that I am giving the new life to our three old big square floor cushions that we have had for many years in the house. Initially, I did have thoughts buying new fabric for this project, but I suppose that things just fell into the place for the whole idea. It meant to happen like this. I am glad that I saved the money (on fabric and fillings), transformed the old life into new and didn’t bring any need of occupying the extra precious space at home.

The original idea is from Design Sponge (where else could it be? I absolutely love this website). The project was to make a rainbow pouf, see instruction here. Mine had variation of making 3 different sizes with patchwork ideas, as well as adding some pom-pom trim. I love all 3 different sized poufs stacking together on the floor, and Vivian can pick whichever one to suit her needs for different reasons, e.g. sitting on floor, or sitting on the bench to raise her position for dinner at the dining table… Actually I always wanted to create some floor seating arrangement at home, like ottoman or floor cushions. That’s why when I firstly saw the project, it made such an impression on me.

Some tips for sewing this project:

 1)  Use mattress needle and dental floss to bind in the middle. This was the most difficult part of the project, but long mattress needle saved my life. Dental floss is as strong as fishing line (that the instruction called for). I do have fishing line at home, but just in case you are not into fishing, you might find it helpful to use floss than running to the shop to buy fishing line. I used 4 strands of floss to make sure it is strong enough.

2)  I find it very hard to sew buttons. I need to fix the loose buttons later anyway. It is probably because the middle was all sinking down and it was almost impossible to use a straight needle to run my stitches around the button holes. I wondered if a repair need would work better, as it is curvy. I might fix that problem later.

3)  When cutting your fabric, make sure your have template pieces all slotted in by putting templates in opposite way to use up the “between spaces”. It is easy to do that because the template is basically a triangle.

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It is so inspiring and so eye catching that I just want to have it in hands. Very fortunately this time I’ve also got a CD attached to the book that I can save all the patterns for my own future reference.

I am thinking to use some of the patterns to do some canvas dot paintings, or just use black ink pen to creat a series of them to form some wall art pieces.

Beautiful book!

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