Silhouette pictures - Pinterest Wednesday

Happy Pinterest Wednesday!

For this week, I came across this pin that I loved:

https://pinterest.com/pin/365706432211901944/

I googled 'silhouette' and came across a few that I thought would work well and this is what I came up with:

I think this would work really well with fabric also, and again is something that I'm going to play about with. It would be really nice to have more detail on them I think. Perhaps adding contrasting accessories (like flowers on the branches of the owl picture). I love the 'hello' on the original image.

Have you tried this yourself? Please let me know if you have, I'd love to see how other peoples have turned out =)

Emily Joan and Kate Miller Jewellery

Hi guys, I wanted to write this blog post as I have been thinking for a while about what direction I wanted to go in with Emily Joan. I'm trying my hand at many different creative processes at the moment to expand my skills and want to experiment alot in the future with different mediums. I originally started Emily Joan to help support myself through my Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (which I start in September) and then through my Fashion & Textiles degree, which I am hoping to start 2014 (2015 at the latest) I also started it to help pay the mortgage and household bills.

I am currently attending jewellery and fused glass classes. I had intended to sell (and blog about) the jewellery as part of Emily Joan, however, I feel that selling and blogging homeware and jewellery together, with all their different categories may come across as a bit confusing, so I have decided to split it into two and have Emily Joan and Kate Miller Jewellery.

Emily Joan will include all my vintage, upcycled, handmade home blog posts and accessories and Kate Miller Jewellery will include all my jewellery (fine jewellery, upcycled, etc). I have just purchased the domain www.katemillerjewellery.co.uk and it is currently being registered. I will work on a blog and website for that as soon as I'm able to.

My Facebook pages for both are as follows, please give them a like if you haven't already ♥ 

Emily Joan

Kate Miller Jewellery

Thank you,
Kate xxx

Colouring in for adults - Pinterest Wednesday (On Saturday)

Hi guys, sorry for the delay in the Pinterest Wednesday post. I really enjoyed this one and have been working on a few this week.

Here is the pin that gave me the idea: https://pinterest.com/pin/365706432211316483/ It links to a page where you can download a couple of freebies:

All set, with tea and chocolate cornflake bites for an afternoon of colouring =)

Work in progress

Work in progress

Completed

This is the first one I did

and this is the second. I really prefer this one, so decided to cut it out and mount it on some black card.

The two together.

Decided to try another

I really like this one as it reminds me of a stained glass window

I saw this one too and had to try it.

I decided that I wanted to go with a 70's colour theme with the oranges and greens on the background pattern

In progress

Nearly finished!

I decided to do a very light yellow for the background. I really love this piece, so have decided to cut it out, mount it on black card and frame it to hang in our living room.

I really enjoyed this project, it kind of takes you back to being a kid. The first 2 patterns are the free to download patterns that you can access via the Pinterest link. The other patterns were all found via a google image search for 'adult colouring in' and unfortunately I have no way of finding out who created them, otherwise I would credit their work. I don't own any of the patterns, I simply coloured them in, so these will not be offered for sale. I do intend to experiment drawing some patterns of my own that I may put up to sell at a later date. I thoroughly recommend giving this a go yourselves though, it's great fun!

Heart painting - Pinterest Wednesday

I have decided that my 'Pinterest posts' will now become 'Pinterest Wednesday' posts.

I have been working on this painting today and really like the way it has turned out.

I painted this on a 30x40 cm stretched canvas, using acrylic paint. The stems are drawn in with a green sharpie pen. I got the idea from this pin on pinterest:

https://pinterest.com/pin/365706432211887941/

I decided to put my own spin on it. I have a love for hearts, I have lots of them around my house, so thought I would try that instead of the circles. I am going to paint a few more of these canvases and put them up for sale, so I will probably do some circles, some hearts and perhaps some other shapes.

Here are some photos that I took during painting:

Painting the outside edges

Adding white to the paint to blend into the centre

Starting to paint the hearts

I then drew in the lines with the sharpie pen to complete.

If you see any pins on pinterest that you would like to see me attempt, please post below, or let me know on my facebook page - Emily Joan

Upcycled China - Pinterest Post

Every week, I have decided to attempt something I have found on Pinterest. For this week, I decided to pick upcycling china. I admit, I'm cheating a little here as I did an evening of this with the fabulous Esther Coombs at Aspex Gallery earlier in the year. I really enjoyed myself, so decided to give it another go!

Here are some pins from pinterest:

http://pinterest.com/pin/365706432210839234/

http://pinterest.com/pin/365706432211436505/

http://pinterest.com/pin/365706432211700551/

http://pinterest.com/pin/365706432211700556/

I bought a porcelain pen from Hobbycraft (which unfortunately broke after I used it on one mug!) so I didn't get to create as many as I wanted to.

I have a couple of espresso cups and I love my coffee strong! so I decided to write 'weeeeeeeeee' on the bottom in a spiral. 

I love cups and mugs that have a cheeky design on the bottom.

The instructions of how to bake the design on the china seem to differ, depending on what pens or paints you use, but I followed the instructions given to me by Esther:

I really enjoy giving old items a new lease of life and thoroughly enjoy putting my own stamp on old crockery. I have sketched a few designs and will be working on this more, with view to listing some at a later date. If anyone has tried this themselves, please let me know how you got on with it? If you have a blog link, please post it below, I'd love to see what others have come up with xx

Where have we been?

Hi guys, first please let me apologise for the delay in posting this first post on our new blog/website (our previous blog can be found here). The reason we changed back to blogger is that we can use our domain name without having to pay extra to do so. Unfortunately Wordpress wanted to charge us.

The past month has been a weird one for us (as a family) with lots of ups and downs. For those that don't know, my life is very centered around animals, especially our pets (or as I call them, our furry family). We have taken in many pets over the years that have been looking for new homes and this month has been especially hard, both emotionally and financially. One of our dogs started having problems with his back legs, which led to him having an MRI scan at the fantastic Fitzpatrick Referrals.The scan showed that he has a very large blood clot running through his aeortic artery which is stopping blood flow by 50% into his back legs. Our fantastic vets, Sanctuary Vets in Farlington, Portsmouth, referred him to see a blood specialist at Anderson Moores in Winchester. He is now on medication to try to reduce the clot, gentle exercise and will be having regular scans to see if the clot is reducing. All 3 vets have been remarkable and have saved our dogs life, I cannot thank them enough.

As well as our dogs health problems, one of our rabbits unfortunately passed this weekend.

Because of trips back and forth to the vets, looking after all the animals and doing my degree coursework, I have unfortunately not had much time at all to put into Emily Joan. I'm hoping things are starting to slow down now and I will be finishing an essay this evening (tomorrow at the latest) so I will be able to start to manage my time better and start working on some awesome craft projects I have set up. I also have lots to list on my Etsy shop and will be using Facebook more often.

Here is some of my photography that I had left over from our first craft show last month (I will be booking more shows soon, watch this space!)

I just wanted to say a huge (and belated) thank you to everyone who came down and said hello at the craft show! I really appreciate the support and was blown away by the compliments about my photography. You guys are AWESOME!!! It's been over 10 years since I did an access course in Photography at Portsmouth University. I was enrolled on the degree, but life got in the way and I decided to get a job and move out of home instead of persuing it. It's now a hobby of mine and something that I'd like to do more of.

I've always been a very creative person, so you can expect an array of different creative projects from me through Emily Joan. I am also attending jewellery courses at the fantastic Making Space and will be launching my own jewellery website seperately from Emily Joan at a later date. Emily Joan will, not only be my little shop on the internet for all my much loved vintage, homemade and upcycled items, but I also intend to use my blog for crafting projects and anything arty I can share with you.