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ted barns and craft projects julie posted by julie kirk at 08 01 9 comments labels rainbow theme crafts email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday 12 march 2015 make your own colourful rainbow embellishments i can t promise a pot of gold at the end of it so self satisfaction will have to do hello hello i ve had this how to planned for months ever since one of these that i made years ago dropped out of a crafty bits bag and i was reminded of its colourful cuteness then just this week i received an email from pinterest filled with rainbow craft ideas for a st patrick s day party and decided that now was definitely the time to get this post written as it s st patrick s day on tuesday 17th march so if you are planning a st patrick s day party you ve still got plenty of time to make a few of these to use as cup cake toppers decorations bunting etc and if you re not and you just want to use them on birthday cards get well cards scrapbook pages tags and more then you ve got all the time in the world btw until that pinterest email landed in my inbox i had no idea that rainbow crafts were a big part of st pat s i did know about the green guinness but i don t have a tutorial for making that so this will just have to do for today if you like what you see then please do save pin or share if you don t have a die cutting machine or dies then i m sorry genuinely it s annoying when you don t have all the things used to make something you quite fancied trying isn t it but not all of my crafting tutorials use a die cutter so maybe have a browse around my pinterest tutorial board or just generally through my blog you could always draw around 7 different sized glasses plates bowls etc or draw 7 different sized auto shapes in microsoft word then print and cut them out and use them as templates or you could always be friendly to someone who does have a die cutter maybe your local crop or crafting group has one for anyone to use ours does it might just be the push you need to get out there and meet some fellow creatives here s a gift tag i made featuring one of my happy handmade embellishments i thought that using it alongside the mix of kraft and black helped add a smart counterpoint to the whole technicolor spectrum aspect i d love for this quick and easy rainbow craft how to to reach lots of creative eyes and hands so if you liked it please do pin it to pinterest or share the post with friends thank you and be sure to send me links to your own versions either here on my blog or via my facebook page if it s a bit quiet over there this weekend it s because i m going to be offline for a short while i ll reply as soon as i can happy rainbow making my little leprechauns julie d posted by julie kirk at 07 00 3 comments labels rainbow paper craft tutorial st patrick s day email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday 9 march 2015 a dozen lessons i learned at a bookbinding workshop hint they re not all about binding books hello you as i mentioned in february s month in numbers post i extended my bookmaking skills last month by taking two workshops one was online in the form of videos created by christy tomlinson but the second was offline in the real world alongside other living breathing people who moved this one was hosted at the navigator north studios in dundas house middlesbrough and was taught by artist chris morton and because i m part over thinker and part introvert i left it until the last minute to take the plunge and book myself into the class heading out to a new environment always has its stresses the previous week i went to check i could definitely find the entrance to it on my own twice but after applying my usual rule if you miss out on the opportunity will you be more relieved or frustrated otherwise known as pardon my asterisk sh t or get off the pot i decided that i d kick myself if i didn t go plus it had been a while since i scared myself and that s what i need from time to time to keep moving and because it s what bloggers do i m going to share the experience with you here and because that s what i do i m going to share all of the experience and not just the shiny end results which by the way were these i know impressive isn t it like super professional did she really make that impressive i wouldn t blame you if you re sceptically thinking that as someone pathologically allergic to precision i make junk journals for goodness sake the clue s in the name i couldn t possibly have made those myself and to be frank if i hadn t been present when i made them i d have doubted it myself and yet i did but hang on we re leaping ahead let s begin looking at what i learned from the experience by rolling back to a few days before the workshop lesson 1 when i m anxious i might maybe sort of have a tendency toward the hyperbolic exhibit a a conversation in the kitchen me will i be ok him of course you ll be ok why wouldn t you be me because i m going to be trapped in a room with strangers for 7 hours him laughing shaking his head wondering how he got so lucky to be living with me me what him trapped ok so maybe the notion of being trapped was somewhat melodramatic but i just like to think things through thoroughly beforehand and for the record while fortunately i didn t feel trapped with my fellow bookbinders i did however get locked out when i went to the toilet and i had to knock pathetically to be let back in so y know i was sort of right to be worried after all for my next lesson let s hop to t he night before the workshop lesson 2 that radiator pipe in our bathroom is lethal i know that as tips and hints go this one is pretty specific but while reaching for a clean towel after my shower i burned my leg and it hurt a lot i was so shocked by the pain i burst into tears and had to be consoled by james whose jumper took the brunt of the mucus filled hysteria and then spent 4 hours holding a bag of ice against the burn wondering how i was going to be able to sit through a workshop with a blistered knee rubbing against my jeans subsequently my shoulder went over night probably from holding an ice pack against my knee for 4 hours leaving me waiting for pestilence or a plague of frogs to arrive to show me that this enterprise was doomed and i d be better off just staying home apologies if you hoped this post was going to be useful to you in a general way or even in a specifically bookbinding related way but hey if you re ever in my bathroom with bare legs you ll thank me for this warning although fyi if you are ever in my bathroom with bare legs you ll better be sure i invited you if not there ll be police involved lesson 3 strangers are just as recognisable as familiar faces when vicky one of the navigator north directors and organiser of the days events came down to let me into the building she looked at me looked down at her clipboard and said cheerily are you julie then ticked me off the register seeing as how we d never met before and how i didn t chat to her on facebook beforehand and how there were no photos or links to my blog in my email to her when i signed up for the workshop i stood there wondering how on earth she knew i was julie did she somehow know my blog had she seen my avatar somewhere well no when all the other participants arrived they all started chatting to one another and to vicky which is when i realised she knew who i was because i was the only one she didn t already know so erm i guess i m not famous after all lesson 4 i don t have to try to be someone i m not so yes everyone there seemingly knew everyone else but there s been enough clear sky between me and the school playground for it not to lead to a spiralling panic about feeling left out but i am aware that when amongst a group of people i tend to be quiet and that some people think that quiet people introverted people people like me should make the effort or worse still come out of their shell the same people clearly use themselves as the benchmark for normal and would no doubt be baffled by the thought that they should sometimes make the effort to say less and at first i wondered what people would think of me if was quiet and i almost pushed myself into making an effort but then i thought y know what this is my saturday my day off it s something i m looking forward to learning about and i paid for this with my money so no i m not going to stretch myself or push myself and my shell will stay just where it is thank you i m going to enjoy this workshop for me in my own way and if that means being quiet most of the time then that s just fine this doesn t mean i took a vow of silence i was perfectly friendly after all i do really like people and i spoke and laughed and thoroughly enjoyed the class alongside the others here s my workspace i just let myself off the hook and did it in my own way like everybody else does lesson 5 japanese midori style folders are following me around i wasn t entirely certain what it was i d be making a this class there d been a description but no example images but i didn t mind i was happy to be surprised and just pick up some new skills and when i say happy obviously i mean i d eventually be happy after having worried that we d be making something really complicated and i d never be able to follow the instructions and i d feel silly and make a mess and everyone would do better than me but yeah happy anyway this is what i ended up successfully constructing woo yay go me for our first main project while chris morton s instructions below call it a rubber band bound book cover it was to all intents and purposes a midori style folder the idea is that rather than make a notebook sketchbook etc which when you fill it you have to replace the whole thing these kinds of folders can hold separate smaller books which when filled can simply be swapped out for a fresh one they re also great for keeping various different style of books eg a journal a sketchbook a planner together in one handy decorative folder for travelling chris showed us how in this particular style of hard backed folder he d created to teach us the internal booklets which i haven t yet made are simply held into place with elastic bands it s a great idea a bit like a fileofax i suppose and serendipitously enough midori folders were also the focus of the christy tomlinson class i downloaded earlier in the week clearly i m meant to be making these there s no escaping it if this has intrigued your journal loving gene then there are lots more midori examples on pinterest lesson 6 i can be precise when i need to be i mean in the 6 hours we worked on our two projects the small folder above and this larger to fit a4 sized one i didn t once tear anything drop anything get glue where glue wasn t needed or glue anything to the wrong side of anything or my clothes in fact the tutor commented that we d all done really well saying that not only were we the fastest group he d taught but that we d also used the least amount of wet wipes i could have wept with pride heck i even managed to finish off my corners like this how d that happen that said chris had already cut everything to size for us all beforehand i can t vouch for the accuracy of it all if i d had to measure everything myself but yes i was surprisingly competent a thought which leads me on to my next few lessons lesson 7 i don t know what i am but i knew that already naturally it being an arts organisation and all the word artists flew about from time to time during the workshop and there were definitely a few people there who fitted into the category of artist and one of those asked me so are you an artist and i couldn t find it in me to say yes so i said i think that s stretching it a bit and gave her a brief list of the kind of things i make now don t think this is a case of false modesty on my part i m not fishing for compliments here i just don t particularly see myself as an artist so what am i well i ve been pondering on this not only since she asked but since i was about 7 and appropriately enough like the folder we made my career is rather portfolio in character an academic support assistant well that s what it says on my university contract but i m only one of those for 2 days a week in term time so what about the rest of the time a crafter for sure i ll take that i have room full of paper and sticky tape to back me up on this one a creative entrepreneur mmm well apart from not liking the word much yeah ok i suppose running my etsy shop fits that category and then there s a blogger writer well i hope so because here i am blogging writing and if i had to pick one thing that defined me i think i d go with this one funny how thinking about what doesn t feel like a good fit can lead to finding something comfier but hey fellow crafters maybe we need to celebrate our craftiness a bit more lesson 8 we crafters don t give ourselves enough credit for how skilled we are i don t think it s just me i ve been writing tutorials for craft magazines for years now and making mini books journals altered books and stuff for longer than that and yet why did i go into this workshop feeling like i d be out of my depth ok yes it s partly because i m an over thinking over achieving type but i don t think i m alone amongst those of us who are comfortable with the term crafters in not taking time to reflect on just how accomplished we are lots of the techniques we used in the workshop were already familiar to me i d picked them up along the crafty way some call them artists books pamphlets or refer to it as bookbinding and it all sounds proper and arty and we do the same things and just call them mini books we have so many transferable skills learned form crafting but which can be applied far and wide in the creative realm that i wonder if those of us who say we re just a crafter are really doing ourselves justice remember my push up bra approach to blogging class well in the lesson called the mcfly approach part 2 i listed many of the technical skills we pick up simply by dabbling as a blogger and seeing it in black and white really brought home just how much we ve taken our skills for granted maybe it s now time we did the same for our crafting capacities if you wrote down all the techniques you ve tried as a crafter i d be happy to bet that the list would be as long as your ink splattered arm lesson 9 i need a japanese book screw who sniggered i m having something of a bookmaking extravaganza at the moment and i d spent much of the week running up to the workshop reading online reviews about long arm staplers and japanese hole making tools trying to decide if i needed either or both and if so which particular brand which is where i d built on my vague knowledge of just what a japanese book screw also known as a screw punch or a book drill was good for but if you ve never heard of one then it s basically it s a silent setter crossed with a yankee screwdriver if that helps you...