Posts Tagged ‘crafts’

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Tiger Face Painting Suggestions

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Tigers are very popular animals because of their grace, agility and power. Children may not see tigers in this light depending on their age and degree of understanding obviously. Young children see them on TV and they seem like little more that big pussy cats and older children, especially in the Developed World, probably do not comprehend the terror that a stray tiger in the region can instigate.

Despite that more individuals like tigers than loathe them. This is one of the factors why the tiger face is very popular as a pattern for face painting for children’s parties. Face painting has been common with many cultures for thousands of years although most people would imagine that it is a contemporary phenomenon.

Think about ancient cultures like America’s Native Tribes and their war paint. The ancient Celts in northern Europe used woad as war paint and make-up. Aborigine Australians used face paint and so have Asians from India and Pakistan to China and Japan where the most well-known wearers of face paint are the Geisha girls.

Tigers are basically Asian animals, so it is no wonder that Asians have venerated this huge wild cat for thousands of years and began using it as a technique in face painting.

If you want to try painting a tiger face onto your child’s face, be sure that the paints that you use are safe for purpose and definitely do not contain any lead. However, there are special face painting kits available that should all be trustworthy.

First of all, clean the face of any natural oil and perspiration and then dry it. If the child has long hair, tie it back until you are finished. Some face paints are applied with a damp sponge, so we will go with that method for now. First apply a white foundation around the eyes and where a man’s beard would be.

Next apply yellow to the centre of the face including the nose but not the end of the nose. Paint an orange border around the edge of your work to separate it from the hairline and clothes. Then comes black; applying it with a brush, paint on a couple of stripes, the whiskers and the tip of the nose. The last step, if required, is to add a bit of golden glitter to better catch the light.

With a little practice, a tiger face can be painted on almost as quickly as the paint dries and you could work on several children at a time, applying say, the white, to as many kids as it takes for the first one to dry.

As stated above, there are plenty of face painting kits on the market. Look out for Crayola. They provide a cheap kit for about $12 and it comes with paints, brushes, sponges and instructions. There are others too. You can remove the tiger face paint with household baby lotion or baby oil on a wad of cotton wool.

I have described the basic ‘tiger face’, but there are lots of varieties. look at the Disney cartoon tigers for inspiration or go to the zoo to see how truthful they were at Disney.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on many subjects but is presently involved with hello kitty face painting. If you would like to read more, please go over to our website entitled Kitten Cannon 3.

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Knitted Baby Blankets

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

What can you gift the parents of a new-born baby who have everything? Parents who have already had a baby or two will already have objects like a crib, baby’s clothes, a pram and most other things, but the one gift that is always appreciated is a personalized or handmade knitted blanket. Home knitted baby blankets are much better than shop-purchased baby blankets and can either be handed down or kept to give to the baby twenty years later as an heirloom.

Up until fifty years ago, many people, such as aunts and grandmothers knitted and it was fairly common to see hand-knitted baby blankets. This all but died out in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, but handcrafts have seen a resurgence in the new millennium. This has to be a positive sign. Coupled with this is the fact that contemporary wools, yarns and other fibres are more sturdy and safer than ever before.

That means that a hand-knitted baby blanket is a better gift than ever before. There are dozens of colours and textures which makes it easy for the knitter to match any theme that the parents may have decided on for the baby’s nursery.

A hand-knitted quilt or blanket is a very special gift which can either be passed down to the next baby or can be put away to be a present for the ‘baby’ at a later date, in the same way that a bride might put away her bridal gown for her daughter if she ever has one.

Whilst you are deciding on a design for your baby blanket, you ought to make safety your prime consideration. That ought to include thought for the size or the blanket. The blanket has to fit the cot exactly so that there are no dangerous folds or gaps. The weave should also be tight enough so that small fingers and toes cannot get caught up in them.

It is not a good idea to have beads sewn into the blanket either. This is because babies soon begin teething and you do not want your baby to bite off a few beads and choke on them. Traditionally, parents used blue colours for a boy baby and pink for a girl and although that distinction blurred for a couple of decades it is being respected again so you will have to find out the sex of the baby – subtly if the knitted blanket is going to be a surprise gift.

There is no parent in the world that would not treasure a hand-knitted blanket or quilt for their new baby. It is a very special present that really will be considered as an heirloom to be passed down through the family or kept as a very extraordinary twenty-first birthday gift. Embroider your name in a corner so that the person you gave it to will always remember you as well.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with Valentines Day Gift Baskets. If you have an interest in romantic gifts, please go over to our website now at Romantic Gifts Ideas

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Bedding For Your Dog

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Bedding is very significant for a dog, particularly a puppy which has just been taken away from its mother. In fact, if you can arrange it, it is a good idea to leave a blanket with your puppy while it is still with its mother and siblings, that way the blanket will remind him of home, which will be a great consolation to it in its early days of loneliness.

The best material to use for your blanket is wool. Wool is absorbent and so retains some moisture and smells, which will help the animal feel at more home. Wool is also pretty tough and warm, not that warmth is really a major concern for a dog that lives in the house.

There is no need to purchase a purpose-made blanket for your dog. You can cut down an old blanket of your own, a metre square is about correct. This is big enough for any dog, will fit in a dog basket comfortably and is yet not too big to go in the washing machine every couple of of months. If you do not want to run to the expense of using a blanket of wool, you could make use of an old towel, as towels are also absorbent.

Most dog owners permit their pets to sleep in the house and some even permit their dog to sleep on the bed. If you allow your dog to sleep in the house, it is best not to feed him after around six or seven o’clock or you will have to let him out or take him out late at night.

It is better to feed your dog twice a day than just once and be careful of leaving food down all day, especially if there is no-one at home during the day to let him out.

If you decide to leave your dog in the garden all day and night, you will have to provide even more refuge for him. A kennel or dog house is the best way of doing this. A kennel ought to have a wooden floor which is a few inches above the ground.

You could put a few inches of straw in the kennel for your dog to make his bed and you can put a blanket or two in there too. Do not worry about what you think it ought to look like, your dog knows best in these matters. If you can not run to either blankets or towels, believe it or not your dog will be just as happy with crumpled up sheets of newspaper for bedding. Newspaper is soft, absorbent and astonishingly warm, which is why tramps use it. It is also cheap and easy to replace when it gets dirty after rainfall.

A dog instinctively tries to form a nest to sleep in. I am sure that you will have noticed that dogs walk around in a circle three times before lying down. This is to flatten the grass before lying down and they do it whether there is grass beneath them or not. If you supply some form of bedding he will not be wasting his time.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of subjects, but is now involved with Personalized Throw Blankets. If you would like to know more, please go along to our website at Woollen Blankets.

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Woodworking Projects You Can Do At Home

Monday, August 1st, 2011

More and more individuals are turning to making household goods in their free time as a hobby. Some people make rugs or throws, others make pots and others are turning to woodwork. Wood working is a very satisfying hobby or craft. It is also therapeutic after having done your day job and when you have finished, you have something useful that you can be proud of. You could even sell it. Both men and women are turning to wood working projects for recreation.

The majority of these new weekend carpenters are not professional trades people and so they want help with a wood working project like a bench or a cabinet. This help comes most often in the guise of wood working plans. A good set of wood working plans will give a narrative of what to do first, an exploded drawing of the item to be made and all the necessary dimensions. These details will really help the wood working project to go smoothly.

The first thing to do, obviously, is decide what you want to make. If this is your first wood working project, do not be over bold. Do not leap right in there and pick an ornate display cabinet. The best items to begin with are a bench, a dog kennel or even a bird table. Once you have finished this task, you can progress to something more difficult with improved confidence.

So, having made up your mind on a wood working project, you should look for a set of plans for that article. You will find woodworking plans in DIY shops, hobbyists, craft shops and on the Internet. If you look online, look for a specialist in woodworking plans so that you know that they will be comprehensive in every detail

The next task is to totally familiarize yourself with the plan and the project. You will need to come to a decision which timber you want to use and how many lengths of the different sizes you will need. This information could be provided on the plan. You should order or buy in everything you need (except glass) right from the beginning. You will also require glues, nails, screws and tools. Check which tools you will need for the job and buy or borrow them. This information may be provided on the wood working project’s plans too.

When you have assembled your materials and your tools, you should make sure that the tools are in good condition. The saws and chisels should be sharp. Put a new blade in your craft knife and make sure your tape runs smoothly and that the end is not broken off. It is very irritating, once you get going, to have to stop and sort your tools out, just when you would like to use one of them.

Finally you can begin. It is a fantastic feeling. Try to plan your time too. Neighbours are not going to want to hear your power saw cutting after dark, so try to get that sort of thing done in daylight hours, you can assemble the parts quite quietly later on in the evening.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, bench woodworking plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

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How To Make Dolls’ Dresses

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

A great deal of folk get a real kick out of making dolls’ dresses and other clothes whether they be for their own dolls, a relative’s or for sale. However, as with each hobby or craft there are a few ground rules, a couple of dos and don’ts which will help you enjoy your new hobby straight from the beginning until you gain enough experience to create your own judgments. In this article we will explain the fundamentals of how to make dolls’ dresses.

The first thing to do to make making dolls’ dresses easier is to think that you are making a new outfit for yourself. This is easier for you because you already know yourself and have improved from making mistakes in the past, but how well do you know the doll for whom you are going to be making clothes?

If you are making clothes for your own doll or for retail, this is not a problem but if you are manufacturing dresses for a friend’s doll, it would be a wise idea to see her, hold her and get a feel for her before you purchase any textiles.

You might prefer to get a pattern for a doll’s dress if this is your first one, but you can probably make it up as you go along, or be really professional and create a few sketches with notes first.

This is certainly very useful, because you can change the pattern in light of experience and create notes about problem regions. Who knows, once you have twenty of them you may be able to publish them.

The equipment that you will require to facilitate manufacturing dolls’ dresses is in essence the same as any tailor or seamstress would need. That is: a sewing machine, pins, needles, shears or a rotary cutter, glue, pinking scissors, thread, tracing paper, pencils and a marking chalk or pen.

You will almost certainly require other items too depending on what you intend , but they could include: ribbons, elastic, sequins and lace. Then you are ready to make your sewing machine for use. If you have not used it for a time, give it a quick service as instructed in the handbook that came with the sewing machine.

See your handbook if you do not know how to set up your machine to pin tuck otherwise look it up on the Net. It is a good idea with some textiles to spray the fabric with starch before you start this stage.

When you have finished your doll’s dress or even before that point, you should take into account whether the style calls for any lace, ribbons, embroidery or sequins. You can create or purchase tassels if they are required.

You can get a lot of fun out of making dolls’ dresses for yourself or a niece and the look on their face whilst they realize that you have taken the time to make something so special and unique only for them and their doll is reward enough.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with Silver Cross Dolls Prams. If you want to know more, please go over to our web site at Doll Prams.

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What Was Punch Magazine?

Saturday, July 9th, 2011

In all probability the first name that springs to mind when thinking of the history of cartoons is that of Punch.

It was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published between 1841 and 1992. It was started in July 1841 by Henry Mayhew who, with Mark Lemon, was accountable for the editing, and engraver Ebenezer Landells who took care of the illustrations.

Its initial sub-title was The London Charivari, after a French satirical humour publication known as Le Charivari. Revealing their satiric and humorous intent, the two editors took the name of the anarchic glove puppet, Mr. Punch, of Punch and Judy fame as the title of the new publication.

However the name is also a play on words regarding the name of the co-editor Mark Lemon, in that “punch is nothing without lemon”. Mayhew did not stick with the publication for long. He ceased being joint editor in 1842 and became “suggestor in chief” until he departed in 1845.

Punch was responsible for the word “cartoon” in the sense of a comic drawing. In fact one of its most famous cartoons, drawn by George Du Maurier, the grandfather of the novelist Dame Daphne Du Maurier , gave birth to the phrase ?it is good in parts, like the curate?s egg?. The phrase derives from a cartoon entitled “True Humility”.

It pictured a nervous-looking curate taking breakfast in his bishop’s house.The bishop says, “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr Jones.” The curate replies, “Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!”

Yet probably its most well-known cartoon is entitled ? Dropping the Pilot? . This was a political cartoon by Sir John Tenniel, first published in March 1890. It depicts the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, as a shipping pilot, stepping off a ship watched by the German Emperor Wilhelm II. Bismarck had recently resigned as Chancellor at Wilhelm’s insistence.

After a very difficult beginning with much financial trouble and lack of market success, Punch became a must-have for British middle class drawing rooms because it not only displayed a sophisticated sense of humour and but did not contain the offensive material so prevalent in much of the alternative satirical press of the time.

The Times utilized small parts from Punch as column fillers, giving the magazine free publicity and indirectly granting a degree of respectability, However respectability was truly achieved when it was learned that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were to be found amongst it readership.

The circulation of Punch peaked during the 1940s at 175,000 but thereafter fell into deterioration, until in 1992 ,after 150 years the magazine was compelled to close.

In 1996, the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed became tired of the numerous criticisms he had to endure from the publication Private Eye and bought the rights to the Punch name with a view to using it to combat his antagonist. He relaunched it later that year, but it never achieved any degree of circulation or profitability and in May 2002 it was declared that Punch would at long last close for good

If you want one of our unique, hand-painted, custom cartoons or caricatures from photos suppled by you please click on this link History of Cricket. If you would like to know more, please go to web site at Custom Cartoons.

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Are Free Woodworking Plans Worth It?

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

If you are going to create a stick of furniture, especially if it is fairly complicated or you have never made anything like it before, it is a good idea to get a set of wood working plans. These furniture plans are not dear and free woodworking plans can be found too.

However, it is prudent to be wary of free wood working plans as they may not be accurate and you will have little recourse to complain if they were free or even pirated. Free wood working plans could be fine, but you do not want to find out that they are not half way through the task.

A good set of wood working plans, free or not, will give a clear exploded view of the object to be made and a narrative explaining the different steps and procedures. The plans may also make suggestions about the timber and tools to use, the length of time it could take to make in man hours and the difficulty level.

If you want a large collection of wood working plans, there are CD’s around which have 14,000 on them for $30-40. They are a good bargain. Other places you could look are online forums, the library and craft or DIY shops. Shops are almost certainly the dearest alternative.

Once you have chosen an object to make, you should think about which design you would like. A kitchen cupboard could be hardwood or softwood. It could be a Welsh dresser or a Scandinavian design. It could be modern, traditional, Georgian or Victorian, to name but a few.

Once you have answered these questions you can go searching for your wood working plans. You might be lucky or you may have to find the middle ground if you cannot find exactly what you fancy. This is why I think that it is better to buy a CD of plans that have been sorted into a database, so that you can easily find out what is available in your collection.

You could search for ‘kitchen cupboard’ and 100 woodworking plans might recommend themselves to you. Or you could type in ‘Victorian Welsh Dresser’ and only get two suggestions. The point is that you will not be wasting your time chasing a pipe dream, when there are no plans available for the exact item you are looking for.

When you have a set of suitable plans, I think that it is better to get them blown up, or maybe that is just because of my eyesight. However, it is a nuisance to have to take off your safety goggles to put on your spectacles every time you need to check a size. This is easy from a CD because the majority of printers have a capability to print poster size. If yours does not, take the CD to a printer’s, an architect’s or a technical office. They will be able to print A1 directly from the CC.

Then you can affix this enlarged wood working plan to the wall or an easel and you are all set to start making your furniture in style.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, wood furniture plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

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Wooden Garden Furniture As A Long Term Project

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

What do you do when you get a bit of extra time on your hands? If you are an outdoor person, that could be when the winter comes and the nights draw in or otherwise it could be in the summer when the days are longer, depending on the kind of person you are. In either instance, do you look for a project to fill your time? A lot of wood workers do. They look for a long term wood working project.

Working out your next long term wood working project is not at all hard if you have a garden. There is always something to be added or renewed in a garden. Maintenance is never over.

If you want a long term wood working project for indoors, then I suggest a dining table with eight matching chairs or, if you are very skilled and painstaking, an ornate display cabinet.

However, getting back to our medium level, long term wood working project of wooden garden furniture. Hardwood garden furniture is the best because it will last longer than softwoods such as pine, if it is well maintained.

However, timber like Red Wood, Mahogany, Maple, Oak and particularly Teak are very costly, because their source is restricted in many areas of the world.

Therefore, the first thing to do when searching for a long term wood working project, is to decide what sort of timber you can afford to use. Then, when you have the finances ready and know of a stock of the wood you want, you can get a good set of wood working plans for that job. You can get these plans from a hobbyist or craft shop, a DIY store or online at a specialist Internet web site.

The wood working plans will probably give you an indication of how much timber you will need, but if it does not, then you will need to work it out from the exploded diagram and the dimensions on the drawings. This is not difficult, just a little time-consuming.

The plans might also suggest which nails, screws, glues and tools you will need to have at your disposal before you begin. I think that it is better to have everything in one place, before you start, with the exception of any glass you may need.

It is also a good suggestion to make sure that you have all the tools necessary for the job and that your tools are in good working order. The saws must be set well and sharp; chisels should be of the right size and sharp as should be the planer and the router.

Put a new blade in your knife as well and check your supply of sandpaper in the various grades. You should also have preservative on hand to treat those cut ends and seal the backs of everything.

It is a real gift that most people would like to have: the ability to select a long term wood working project, stay with it and produce a beautiful, unique set of fine wooden garden furniture that will last your family for decades.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, bench woodworking plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

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Woodworking Projects – Decking

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Timber, or wood, is still the first preference for furniture and other home and garden projects like decking. However, there is a large variety of sorts of timber to select from. The first alternative is whether you will use hardwood or softwood. Hardwood is a lot more expensive, but it will not decay as quickly as softwood.

Both hardwood and softwood are attractive or can be made to look attractive with a suitable finish. Softwood generally takes more looking after, but can last just as long as hardwood, if it is sealed properly. If you want to paint the wood, then softwood is the better choice, because hardwood does not permit paint to soak in very well, but it will take staining, oiling and thin varnishing.

Once you have decided which type of timber you are going to use, you can think about which variety you want to use. If you are going to use hardwood, you have many alternatives, such as teak, mahogany or oak et cetera. If you choose softwood the most common timber used is pine. Whichever you eventually use, select each length of timber with care. You do not want warped, curved lengths of timber or lengths with an unwarranted number of knots in it. A good carpenter will inspect each length individually.

Then you will need something to hold the decking down. Nails or screws? Screws are almost certainly best because they will not come loose if the timber dries out. If you are using softwood, it will be OK to use stainless steel screws, but if you are using expensive hardwood, then I would use brass screws.

You will probably need three inch screws and they should be neatly countersunk, so that the screw’s head is just below the surface of the wood. You can then plug it or not. Yes with steel screws, not with brass screws, but it is really up to your personal preference.

Prepare the area before you start. It is almost certainly best to use a concrete or slabbed base. This should be level and above the normal flow of rain water in your garden. If it does get wet, as when you wash it down, the water should fall through the boards and then flow away. You do not want it to stay under the decking so that mosquitoes can breed in it.

It is not difficult to lay a wooden deck, but it a good idea to obtain a set of decking plans to work by. They will make certain that you do not miss a stage. They will also give you good advice and tips about which materials to use and how to finish your deck so that it does not rot quickly.

Once you have laid your own decking according to the plans, you could put an advert in the local paper and hire your services out to neighbours and locals. Everybody loves the idea of lounging out on their deck or porch in the evening and once you become a regular customer at the builders’ merchant or lumber yard, you may qualify for substantial discounts on materials, which will make your pricing more competitive.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, wood furniture plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our website, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

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Selecting Home Decorating Fabric

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

If you want to redecorate, you should be thinking about the textiles that you will use in your redecorating scheme. There are quite a few fabrics that can play a function in a redecoration project, such as carpets, some wall papers, such as flock, furnishings, cushions, lamp shades and wall hangings like tapestries and embroideries.

You can use the fabrics in these objects to create a decoration theme more than any other set of objects. You can buy old furniture, but it is expensive, you can buy old paintings, but they are costly, but fabrics can be new yet still convey different atmospheres for little money. Think about the fabrics and colours that you would need to express primitive, Eastern, Hispanic, Victorian or contemporary themes.

Let’s say that you would like to decorate your home in a Victorian style. It is the case that it would be right to have some old furniture, but what will definitely make the style scream ‘Victorian’ is the textiles. You have to think of Victorian houses: they were fairly substantial (unless you would like to live in a hovel), and they were drafty.

This meant that the textiles were heavy to hold back drafts. You could hang flock wallpaper, have weighty, lined curtains, lamp shades with tassels and heavy bedding with a real eiderdown or patchwork quilt.

The funny thing is that although Victorian textiles were very weighty, they tried to make them look very feminine, or perhaps that was why they tried to make them look more feminine. However, men provided the wages and women ran the home in those days, so that might be why too.

Therefore, there were lace edgings, lace trims, tassels, beading, velvet and brocade. Embroidery exam pieces can sometimes be picked up quite cheaply , but they are frequently handed down through families too.

A contemporary style or theme would have lots of bright and frequently contrasting colours. An extreme variation of contemporary style is minimalist with plenty of black and white but with perhaps one splash of yellow in a corner somewhere. This style can be hard to achieve, can be unnerving, but can be dazzling too. It is reminiscent of the Sixties.

Some people endeavor to recreate an Eastern or Oriental style, but you have to be wary because otherwise you will end up with something that no Easterner would recognize. A bit like Charlie Chan and western style curries. You will be told to use pictures and figurines of elephants, tigers, dragons, carp and geese or ducks. This is all very well if you want to persuade your Western friends that you have an Oriental theme of decoration, but not many Orientals would recognize it.

It is very difficult to get this theme looking authentic unless you are from the Far East or you get an Easterner in to assist you. Jades and silks could form a part of this styles along with some figurines. Be very wary of attempting to imitate a style you know nothing of.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with the waterproof mattress pads. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.

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