EN Arts and Crafts

Avasimme Petterin kanssa taiteeseen ja yhteistyöhön liittyvän nettisivuston osoitteeseen www.hiidet.com. Ajan kuluessa tulemme päivittämään tänne yhteisiä töitämme. Toistaiseksi siltäosin sivu on vielä keskeneräinen.
Sivuilla on myös blogi, johon päivitämme molemmat kuluvan vuoden ajan omaa henkilökohtaista taiteeseen liittyvää projektiamme. Petterillä se on tekstuuri, minulla erilaiset helmet. Sivuston kieli on englanti, mutta valtaosa blogauksista sisältää lähinnä kuvia.

Askarteluohjeita sivulta on turha etsiä, mutta massoista kiinnostuneet saattavat hyötyä jo pelkistä kuvista. Rss-syötteen lisäksi Hiidet voi myös tilata blogilistalta tai seurailla päivytksiä facebookin kautta.

Tervetuloa!
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Same in English

We opened co- operative art pages with Petteri Leppikallio at www.hiidet.com. With time this will be the place where we showcase our co-operative artworks. Thispart of the pages is still under construction.
We also have a blog where weboth update pictures of our yearly challenge. Petteris challenge is about textures, mine about beads.

You can add ourRss-feed or follow us up on Facebook.
If you are from Finland you also can mark us as your favorite blog at
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Welcome!

Ihan muista syistä osui vastaan nimitys koristemaalaustekniikalle: One Stroke painting. Googlettelin odotellessa parin ohjelman asentumista ja löysin hyvän sivun aiheen tiimoilta. Kannattaa katsoa vaikka ei mitään koskaan maalaisikaan.

I was helping a friend with blogger and needed to create a blog to be able to show it. One thing lead to another and I now have a new blog in English. I call it Rather nice crafts.

Did some playing with clay and stamps and paints again. Made this necklace. The stamp was large backround stamp of famous artist signatures.

It has been ages since I have done much with my hands, due to busy chedule and all. Anyway, this is something I stringed while watching some television today. Some polyclay and glass beads in waxed cotton thread. Simple, but I love it.

As I have been hinting, I have been cleaning and reorganizing my "studio" which is a relatively small bedroom in our house. Usually, even after cleaning, its a mess. Well, after visiting Jeanne I desided that it is about the time to go trough this mess with critical eye and organize it all. I mean all of it. It took me about week. I am finally finnished, every single closet and drawer is now gone trough and organized. Not all of them are in majestically uptight position, but still all the clay is in one place, all the cutters are in one box. Etc.

When you come to my room you first see the closet and computer. Then there is a cabin filled with stuff, on top of that are some metallic findings and items, some pens, paper stuff etc. Then the working table is in front of the window giving me the view to outside.


Next to window I have one book case that has boxes filled with tools and accesories like metallic powders and cutter blades etc. The kind of stuff that one needs to remove from the table having 2 and 5 year old kids running around. Next to my pastamachine you can see about 30 cm x 30 cm x 10 cm plastic box filled with misc. small items on the self - the kind that everyone has on their drawer bottom. I will go trough it when I have time, but I had about 10 times more of that stuff before starting, so I am actually impressed myself being able to reduce the amount of coins, bolts and lint to this small bin.



Next to them I have two old office bookcases that are deeper than the ordinary bookshelfs sold here. I have bought some expencive/cheap stackable plastic bins to be able to store my stuff, so the shelfs are filled with them. And yes, as I told you, I bought a lot of stamps while visiting USA When I finally have organized all this stuff I have bought during the 10+ years of crafting, it seems that some items I have PLENTY of. Like cookie cutters - although I usually use only 3-4 of them, the amount of cookie cutters is impressive. Oh well, kids love them. To them that is one of the best assets in my studio




I also have plenty of molds made with Alley Goop and other molding materials. The ones I use mostly are mainly from nature. The clays are organized to 4 boxes by brand. I still have some Premo in misc. colours although I have been using very much smaller palette lately. I even organized my pens!



And yes, I know, you would not believe I did my closets too if I did not show you the picture. This is what is hidden behind the door. Not bad for impossible pack rat like me.


I am SO proud of me!

Oookay, found a link to toilet seat cover art. Got thinking... What about stamping to your toilet seat? Or decoupage ?

I am all questions starting from "What inks to use" and "how to make it lasting and still washable". Any ideas or tips welcommed.

Yeah, its odd.

Art is.

While I was visiting Jeanne on Raleigh on July, I got some influences.
Two of the most important ones are: I am redoing my whole studio to get this all organized. After spending 10 days in Jeannes perfect studio I desided that I will not do crafts until I have this room cleaned, organized and sorted out. I have already thrown away 3 large bags of trash - and I am still saving everything that is worth anything. I still am a packrat. But I want to become organized packrat! I also have one huge bag full of items to be sold in auctions. And hopefully someday I will be able to get back into actual making stuff. Anyway, I am so proud of myself, I have been working SO hard to get this all done, it was a mess and now it is starting to look half decent! Cant wait to show the pictures when it is all done and finnished.

Second big influence is that I have gotten seriously into stamps. I mean seriously. There are not much good stamps available in Finland, the stamps mostly are the cute kind that have some sweet little animals hugging hearts. Not stuff that I am very likely to buy or use just because "cute is not my thing". Besides I considered stamping to be one of those non-creative crafts where you ink the stamp and push it to paper. Thats it. Not very entertaining or creative, really. Oh well. It seems that there is way more there about stamps and about stamping than I knew. The biggest difference is that with good stamps you can vary the designs you make from your items. And then the stamping techniques... I am surprised to realise how much difference there can be with stamps.

The picture on left was my first polyclay postcard. I did it while visiting Jeanne. It has plenty of first timers for me: first polyclay postcard, first time I used "bacround stamp" for clay, first ink stamping on clay, first time using pearl ex tinted tls, first time using powdered pearls (that are supposed not to need a seal), first time doing the stringing for tassel...

Last day here. Did some claying to day, but we did some errands including changed a packet of transfer paper for clay etc. too. On the same trip we went to Sam's wholesale/warehouse store that had everything in huge quantities. People coming in had to show their picture id to be allowed in and even going out you needed to show your recipe for them to check if the items you have in the cart match with the items you have payed. Spiderman is hot, so it is everywhere, even in cakes. The employee of the month had a parking lot next to entry. Obviously she was not either working or did not have a car. We almost got into xrays while getting out of Sam's but instead here is the picture of the house that could have been the accident site.






Had little more time and stopped to thiefs market antique mall / fleemarket. Some odd stuff there... I dont know where theese people get all this stuff (and why) but it really is something else!




And some funny signs and advertisement. Ewwww grill and cows climbing.

After lunch we went to downtown and headed towards artspace. Art Space is a house full of artists studios with window to every studio and lots of artists to meet. Unfortunately on the way there the camera battery died just after I found a sanitary shower (lol). After that we went to have a quick cup of coffee at the house and headed to more things to see with Jeanne. Nice colours on the street on nearby aquarium shop, some fish in drinking class that are suppoused to enjoy their life in it. The shop was otherwise real great, but I am not so sure about this drinking glass fish thing.



Then to fabric shop. Tons of fabrics, tassels and stuff. Did not buy anything (will I get a golden star now) but the fabrics were really high quality and nice.


Then to the nearby small town (name escapes me now) to see jet another beadshop. Nothing worth mentioning, quite little stock, expencive prises, did not buy anything. Next to it was wondrful little home decorating shop. Would have bought tons if I did not have to carry it in a luggage.



Then to the Greshmam lake antique mall where Jeanne has a small booth. This lady demanded me to take picture from her and when I showed it to her she asked to get the print as it was so good picture. Well, I did not take the name so here is your picture, lady from antique mall. Toilet was also decorated...



Then to the mall to get to Barnes and Nobles again. We went to take pictures of some stuff we missed the last time when my battery died. Like some metal-stone floor installation and this fountain. And the childrens cars they have to lend... My battery went dead again so no picture of that cinnamon roll that was delicious.




Managed to get few signs today too