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.

Related Posts

1. Tea Light Paper Cover
2. Pretty Japanese Patterns
3. Hand-made Round Up

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?

Related Posts

No related posts.

It was so much fun to look for such kind of almost unnoticeable stuff, as you know, they are out there everywhere, but they hardly exist because you never particularly look for them, see them, touch them or pick them up.

Despite the very unpleasant weather, being so windy and freezing cold and barely anybody out there (today is ANZAC public holiday), we enjoyed ourselves so much to be able to close to all of these nature treasures, different sorts of pine cones, brown, yellow and green, long or short, big or small, dry or still wet, beautiful falling tree branches, pretty pine needle leaves, late autumn colours……

It only took me a couple of demonstration for V to get a hang of what we were doing. Then she was off on her feet, went picking until she filled the bag with pine cones and branches to the point that she could not carry the weight any more.

She absolutely loved it. My husband and I love it too, thinking to make it one of our weekend activities.

All the pine cones and branches will go into the metal tub near the slow combustion in our home. We are preparing for a cold winter by filling up the tub with fire wood, pine cones, old newspaper and small tree branches…..

As we headed towards to countryside, the beautiful country view unfolded in front of our eyes. Valleys with autumn colours, mountains in distance with layers, endless grass land, little or big ponds, sculpture-liked bald trees, assorted native plants and flowers, beautiful country stone houses, windmills, farm equipments, and of course a lot of farm animals, from horses, cattle, to sheep, dogs, even alpacas (one of my favorite little animals).

Vivian always say “hello” to them, then would say “bye bye” when we had to leave, which was so funny. She even requested to have a ride on horse today which really amazed me as it was completely out of blue, and I don’t remember  we have ever given her any idea about cowgirl or “horses are ridden-able”

We are sort of in debate ourselves to accept the fact that she is actually very close to be a country girl. Given that it only takes 5 minutes drive for her to see cows and sheep, she certainly is not lack of experience on country life at all.

Shall we have to get a horse for her?

Related Posts

1. Melbourne Cup
2. Braidwood and My Country Moments