I've been poorly sick, again...

So, apologies for my lack of posts, I've been rather poorly. AGAIN.

Got a really nasty cough which needed antibiotics but it also made my asthma flare up and all the coughing made me tear a bit of lung and dislocate my ribs and spine so I've been put on steroids and I haven't coughed once today which is incredible!

Well, I'm trying to think of what I've been doing other than being ill.

I did my second craft fair which was fun

Here was my setup for the day:

I also made myself a front support (rather than back support) chair so I can lean forward to work without slouching

It doesn't look too different but it's a different shape to what you'd expect with more padding.

Here's my diagram of it:

I've also invented a way of having some more desk space in my flat with having some desks on runners coming out from underneath my shelves. The plans look something like this:

I did some henna on people and drew some designs

But the most exciting thing that has happened is my 3doodler pen finally arrived! It's very exciting. I backed it on kickstarter back in March and have been waiting patiently for it since then and it is amazing.

I'm going to do a video of me making something at some point but here are a few of the bits I've made so far.

This is a glow in the dark "plutonium muffin" for Corrie to mark the second anniversary of her blog.

Still trying to shape this one but I love the idea

Anyway, that's all for now, folks! Hopefully there won't be so much of a delay before the next instalment!

Janet

Craft fair aftermath

So we last spoke on Sunday? I think I told you about my fun times at the craft fair, written from my bed as I nursed my poor, overworked back.Got into a bit of a pickle with my back, had to get my dad to come round to make me some food because I couldn't move. A very important lesson for next time, don't neglect my joints while enjoying myself doing craft things. I think I shall add my back support and some valium to my craft fair kit.

Anyway, I still managed to get down to Brighton to see the lovely JT. I actually managed to spend a whole day awake with no naps while down south! It was a good day. I spent that day making JT buy lots of cushions and pillows for me so I can get more comfortable when I'm there.

I also took my shrink plastic and pencils down so I've got some earrings ready to cook so I can actually send the ones I need to send to Emma after I melted the previous pair!

Earrings I sent last week, and a bag and a t-shirt, went down well with their respective recipients which was good! And I've made a sale on Etsy! It's been a good week.

I've also been having a play at some craft projects with my smallest (although not that small!) cousin Eve who is reading over my shoulder as I type this so I had better be nice to her :P

We made cake decorations from fondant icing:

We did some pumpkin carving:

There they are in my parents' house's window.

My cousin got a bit sinister... Repeatedly!:

I did some henna:

Sadly it didn't really take as well on Evie as it could have done. I think it needs some good moisturiser and it'd take better.

Mine stained pretty well:

I've also ordered some oil based marbling inks because I thought they'd be really awesome on earrings so watch out for some in the near future. 

I'm going to attempt sleep again now, I'll check in next time I have something interesting to say!

Janet

P. S. I think this sloth might be my spirit animal.

My first craft fair is DONE

Hello there, internet dwellers.

It's done. It's over. I did it. 

With my beautiful assistant, Corrie, I have done my first craft fair! 

Suitably colourful I think!

What's more, I broke even, and I think I was the only person there to do so. Sadly, not many people came. Probably because it was half term and the weather was poor, less people came than otherwise, and also it was the first craft fair there so I think they were all factors to the poor turnout. I sold two pairs of earrings, one to my dear mummy and one to my friend Lubna, and a phone case to my sister in law. I did a henna tattoo on a small child, one on a fellow stall holder, one on Corrie and one on me.

Overall it was a really positive experience, if a little disappointing in terms of turn out. It made me realise how much I like doing this! It's been a stressful week, but I love making things, and I love other people liking the things I've made, and if they want to buy them, that's even better! I also love doing henna on people. I think I'm getting better at thinking on the spot about designs, as shown by the last picture. A heart is not something I would usually do, but I think that turned out really well, and I'm also impressed with how dark this henna is. I've put the remaining cones in the freezer to preserve them as the colour is awesome. I think I'll definitely be buying from that supplier again.

When I got home last night, I sent a few emails about other craft fairs and I've got a table (subject to me completing the form!) at a shopping and pampering evening in Kenton on the 8th of December. The stall cost is £25, but I'm fairly confident I can make that back. I'm going to be offering henna, a small amount of jewellery and t-shirts. I'm going to do some more hand painted ones for that event as I imagine it will be people looking for slightly more luxurious products than my printed t-shirts, not that they aren't nice, but they're better for a different audience I think. Slightly longer to prepare for this one anyway :D

My back has been rather angry with me today for the abuse that it has suffered this week, so another thing I have learnt is that I really need to give myself more time to do things, and not take tables at craft fairs with a weeks notice, however much I want to do it!

I think I'm going to spend the next few days asleep (subject to the forecasted storm noise!), and then I'm seeing my lovely family and helping my cousin make a Victorian costume. I think she's going to be a chimney sweep/beggar child! Also hoping I get to take her trick-or-treat-ing! 

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

Until next time...

Janet

P. S. Corrie took this lovely picture of Mau!

Time's UP!

Ok, it's just gone midnight, I've packed everything I think I need for tomorrow other than my insurance documents which I'm printing now, and the stickers, which I haven't designed yet, and I'm not entirely sure I'm going to.

I've done a stock check and I have:

• 30 t-shirts
• 64 pairs of handmade plastic earrings
• 39 pairs of silver earrings
• 15 phone cases
• 8 bags
• 2 pashminas
• 2 small scarves

Total: 160 pieces of stock!

I think that should be more than enough! I also have 5 cones of henna, and two cones of henna/jagua mix so I can do two toned designs.

I also have a very sore back and a very sweaty face! I was going to have a shower tonight so I don't have to get up even earlier tomorrow, but I think that I'm just going to sit here and be lazy instead, possibly design some stickers, and do a check over the to-do list to see if there's anything I'm missing!

See you on the other side!

Janet

P. S. Don't leave shrink plastic in the oven too long!

Designs

Hello, good people.

I've had a bit of a cold and a temperature today so I've been sitting around doing some henna designs to keep myself amused.

I thought you might like to see!

And I tried to think about how I would display them, and here was my result!

Also, this is the full development of my jagua

I'm a little disappointed that it's still definitely blue rather than black, but it's a very strong stain!

You can also see some henna there over the little finger, that's some Zubeda henna (I made the cone myself!) after having sat for 24 hours.  I've put some more on my middle finger at the moment so I can see what the stain is like after 48!

I had LOTS of fun yesterday... sifting some Israeli henna when I'd sifted nearly all of it and my contraption fell apart and mixed all the sifted and coarse stuff together again. I was so angry with myself! Oh well, I sifted it all again so I've got a full box to use. I'll probably mix some up tomorrow to check the colour :)

Anyway, hope you're all well, or better than I am!

Janet

P. S. I drew on my leg too. I was pretty sure it wouldn't stain, and I was right, so there's no trace left but it gave me a chance to test some designs on skin that I didn't want to stay!

Ongoing experiments

Hello internet, 

Just thought I would update you all (and also leave myself something to refer to when I wonder what on earth I did with Jagua and the henna on my hand) on the experiments I have been conducting. 

This is the ~12 hour stain of Jagua!

It's really blue at the moment, which is pretty cool but it should carry on developing for another 36 hours or so so I'm really excited to see how it turns out!

Sadly I made a bit of a boo boo and smudged it, and while I patched it how I would have done with henna, it obviously stains differently and has left a big smudge. I'll have to remember that. I might do a test patch on my foot or something to work out how I can best correct mistakes!

I also found yesterday some achingly beautiful designs by Henna Trails so did an inspired design on my left palm

Here it is, with paste in place.

I then looked into seals as I had been using hair spray but it doesn't really work that well. I thought I needed something flexible, non toxic which stuck to skin fairly well but peeled off when needed. 

I had a brain wave: PVA!

I began a new experiment.

I worked out that the best ratio of PVA:water seems to be 3:1 and then I chucked in a load of glitter. Probably a bit too much because this is what it looked like after I had dabbed the seal on with a soft paintbrush:

Looks a bit mad, but it did work really well! No glitter or henna in my bed this morning!

And this is what it looked like when I peeled off the glue today:

Sadly not too dark but it will develop with time.

I also mixed up some Pakistani henna with just water, as suggested by the seller on eBay when I complained that the stain was rubbish, and I've mixed some zubeda henna up too, so we shall see what the stains look like from those later this week!

Right, I'm off to have some food, a nap, and regain some spoons.

Over and out.

Janet

P. S. The spoons are explained here, it's kind of long but it's a really worthwhile read http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/wpress/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

Experiments

I mentioned in my last post that I'd been doing some henna experiments and I'm going to tell you what they were. 

In my henna art course, I was given a recipe to mix my henna powder with, supposedly to create darker stains. It basically involved boiling up three tea bags in a small amount of water, reducing it down and mixing the henna powder to a paste with that along with a few drops of eucalyptus oil.

This is the boiling process!

Now, all the recipes I'd seen online said that using tea made no difference and that the useful bit was lemon juice as you needed the acidity to release the dye. 

Being the scientifically (ish!) minded person that I am, I thought I would test this mix against the one Henna Caravan use which involves mixing the powder to a paste with lemon juice. 

I set to work!

I'm using here some finely sifted Pakistani henna I got on eBay.

Left is the tea mixture about to be prepared, and on the right is the henna caravan mixture. 

I left the mix for 24 hours in air tight boxes and then (after some learning how to make cones in class) I piped some onto my right hand.

Here is the result:

On the left is the tea mix, and the right is the lemon. I think the results are pretty conclusive that lemon worked better with this stuff, HOWEVER, neither of the stains were very good at all. I don't know it was dodgy henna so I will have to do more experiments but I don't think I'm going to be bothering with the tea mix too much.

I currently have two more experiments underway. In my henna class on Thursday I made up some purely lemon juice and Moroccan henna. It got put into a cone immediately and so left almost no stain when I played with it in class, and a little bit when I played with it the following day. It's now been 5 days and I've got a bit of it on the inside of my wrist to see how well it stains after that long left in the cone. I suspect leaving it in an air tight container would have done better!

My second experiment is using a gel derived from a fruit called Jagua. It's a bluey black gel, difficult to get fine lines with, but it should develop into a very dark black stain without any of the nasty chemicals in so called "black" henna. Just in case anyone is thinking of using "black" henna - please don't! It uses PPD which is only FDA approved for hair, not for skin and prolonged contact like in henna and can cause chemical burns to the skin. NOT WORTH THE RISK!

This is my Jagua. You can also see here the faded experiments of last week! I shall post an update of its progress! It's pretty expensive, but there seems to be a large market for black henna tattoos, so it might be worth a try or two!

Only points so far is that it's taking a horrendously long time to dry!

Other things I did last week was work out a better way of sifting my henna. The usual way involves muslin or cloth, a spoon and a lot of patience! Something like this:

After a little bit of researching, I hatched a plan involving a cup, some screen printing fabric (because that's what I had), a few coins and an elastic band:

Excuse the mucky hands. The way it works is you fill the cup about a third to two thirds full of your henna powder and a few coins and then simply shake it over a bowl! So very quick and not a problem on my wrists like the other way!

This is my beautifully screen sifted Pakistani henna (SS P). You can't see how fine it is, but this is a picture of the coarse left over henna powder

I'm saving it because it can be used on hair and while I don't want to use it, I might Freecycle it when I've got more, or alternatively pipe some thick designs at some point!

Anyway, apart from my henna experiments, I've had a lovely week with the boyfriend including meeting some of his mates in Bouremmouth. I took the opportunity to draw on someone...

Obviously mine was the flowery stuff, not the tattoos!

Anyway. I'm going to go practice some more with henna. Hope you're all well!

Janet

P. S. 

Isn't JT just SO pretty...... o.O

(They are not his glasses, I am very glad of this!)