art projects – Rae Nudson

embroidery display update

I have finally added my latest embroideries to my embroidery display!

I am slowly but steadily filling the space above my bed. I love having them in my home–I love any handmade item in my home. I think it adds originality and personality, and I’m of course also proud that I made them myself.

I’m getting quite a collection, and I’d love to keep going. I think they look lovely as a group. The whole is just as good as the parts.

I am working on a project to sew some of my favorite quotes and images from books. You can see the other quotes in my embroidery project here:

God bless you, but… (embroidery no. 12)

When a dome falls over your entire town, cutting you off from the rest of the world, things can get a little stressful. One of my favorite parts of the book (and show!) was watching how people handled that stress–whether it was admirable or terrifying.

This embroidery is from Under the Dome and, well, has language that’s a little NSFW. Click through the jump if swear words won’t offend.

Continue reading “God bless you, but… (embroidery no. 12)”

project life update: apartment

As you guys know, I entered my apartment into the Small Cool Spaces contest last month. (They are judging the finalists now, hop over and take a look!) It was so great to get my apartment in good shape and to show it off. And it was fun again to look back at everything for Project Life.

I used the pictures that I entered into the contest, plus a few that I have posted on here. I also included my shelf and pillow projects because I did those to get my apartment ready.

I used an insert for screenshots of my Apartment Therapy entry and for the first page of my blog entry on the contest. The quote cards are available for free here, on Elise Blaha Cripe’s blog Enjoy It.

It’s about halfway through the year and I’m still doing project life fairly consistently. I’ll likely add another few pages for May that have to do with the trip I took to Washington D.C. But that was so much fun I need some extra time to get it together.

You can see my other project life updates here:

embroidery display

No new embroidery this week–instead I got everything I have already done ready to put on the wall above my bed. A few weeks ago I was struggling with what to do above my bed, and I think this might be my new solution.

To get the hoops ready, I first had to paint them.

Then I placed the embroidery back into the hoops and loosely sewed up the back. And then it was time to hang them up!

#fatcat helped.

It’s been really great to take a step back and see all the work I’ve done so far. I’m really proud of my progress as a new embroiderer and excited to see what I’ve made displayed in one place. I think I can easily add more as I keep going, which was important to me, too.

Back to a new quote next week. After my vacation I’m really inspired and am excited to get going on some new quotes!

This is part of an embroidery project I am working on to sew some of my favorite quotes from books and post the images here each Sunday. Let me know if you have any quote suggestions! You can see the other quotes in my embroidery project here:

project life

I’m obsessed with this blog, Enjoy it by Elise Cripe. Completely obsessed. I love her crafts, I love her writing, and I love love love Project Life.

I’ve tried scrapbooking before when I was younger, but never kept it up. But Project Life makes scrapbooking really easy. Using photo pocket pages, you can easily stick in photos, decorative paper, or anything else that can fit. To me, this makes it more about documenting every day life and less about organizing the layout, which is wonderful but never something I’ve been able to do consistently.

So, I’ve finally gotten some project life supplies and jumped in. My friend Jewels at Oven Lovin has started on this project, too. You can see her project life pages here. With all this inspiration, I’m really excited to have gotten started.

And here’s a page I haven’t quite finished yet

My plan is to do this for all of 2013. It’s been a really great year so far and there’s more really fun things coming up. Like family vacation! And my best friend’s wedding! And my upcoming trip to Chicago this week!

screen printed cards

You know when you’re really frustrated or super excited and you just hit your keyboard in a rush of emotion? That’s what inspired this screen printed notecard. Also my love of punctuation and the way people swear in comics, of course.

Since I took a low-tech screen printing class at the Brooklyn Brainery I’ve been interested in experimenting with screen printing and learning more about it. After I got my very own screen for Christmas, it became a lot easier. My first project was a print of Elvis that is now hanging on my wall. This project is on a smaller scale but I was able to make more prints because I had almost 20 notecards to work with.

I started by sketching a pattern on freezer paper and then cutting out my stencil.

Then I set up my screen printing area so I would be ready to make all the prints at once. I love freezer paper, you guys. I put it down on my table and clean up was so easy–I just threw away the paper! I am also using it to make stencils and it is working great for me so far. Freezer paper stencils, however, are probably not going to last after one use, so if you want to keep your stencil I’d recommend something a little sturdier (like this overhead transparency).

I made a few test prints.

And then I printed away! Here they are drying on my table.

I love these. They are a quick but personal way to send a note to friend (just in time for Valentine’s Day). Plus I think the design is simple and cute. I can’t wait to make more prints!

On a related crafty note, over the weekend I set a goal to accomplish one embroidery quote each week. This weekend I’ll be out of town, so I’ll post more not this Sunday but next. At least that’s the plan, anyway.

family art project

I went home for the holidays, along with my siblings, their significant others, and their kids. My dad told us this week that we had a few projects to do before we could leave town. It would be like summer camp, he said. But for Christmas.

Christmas Camp started with family breakfasts where we learned to make southern biscuits and a book club meeting (more on that later). But one of the coolest things we did all week was a water color blob inspired art project.

We started with a wall filled with paintings of blobs of color. My dad made them for us, he said, so that we could use ink to draw on the painting whatever image we saw in the blobs–kind of like spotting images in clouds. He had some examples.

We each had to complete one drawing and put it back on the wall before the week ended. Well, we got a little carried away. One was just not enough. Soon we ran out of blobs and starting making more.

We used water colors, added some salt for texture, or used a straw to blow the paint for streaks of color–anything was fair game to get colors twisted and turned in juuuust the right way.

We had so much fun. It was so interesting to see what our family came up with, and everyone from grandkids to grandparents all participated. Here are some of my favorites. Don’t forget to sign your masterpiece!