#craft tutorials

This post is another one on art forms from around the world. So far, we have explored Street Art, Mexican Folk Art, Chinese Kites, Japanese origami, the Sand Drawings of Vanuatu, Kintsugi from Japan, and Egyptian and Papyrus paintings. You can go back and read those posts if you missed them. Today we want to learn about Russian Matryoshka dolls.  They are an emblem of Russian folk culture and…

Find an image that you want to try to adapt, the simpler the better. This is mine from 2019:

First you want to reduce it to black and white. If you want to try and do some advanced shit you can actually give yourself three colours: black (untouched), white (cut away), and gray (shaved down), but just black and white is easier. Once you've simplified it to that colour scheme, put a circle or oval around the outside of your design and connect the edges to it as thickly as possible in as many places as possible.

Then you want to start to think about structural stability. Look out for "islands," little areas of black surrounded by white, since these are impossible. Sometimes you can fix these by inverting the colours of the whole design and therefore turning them into holes instead, but you can't have any floating bits. Another way to simplify and add structural stability is by connecting things together, for instance moving a character's pupils down so they extend up from the bottom of the eye, or extending their teeth so they join to both edges of their mouth. Also watch out for extremely thin black parts, thicken any lines you need to so they'll hold together better. There can be suspended parts that hang across the middle, like the wings or ears in this one, but they have to connect at both ends, nothing should be dangling from the top. You can mess w/ the colours a little or add new lines to support if you need. Here’s how this one’s design came out:

Print your design out on a regular piece of paper, the long way, as big as you can so that it takes up most of the paper. You're going to tape this on later and use it to transfer your design onto the pumpkin.

Now cut out a circle in the top of the pumpkin around the stem w/ a knife. It can be good to cut at a slight angle inward so that the lid will rest on the hole and not fall in. Scoop out all the pumpkin guts! You can save the seeds if you want to roast and eat them later, or just toss them out. Carefully scrape out the inside edges of the pumpkin just a little to get rid of any dangling stringy bits.

Now tape your design onto the biggest, flattest face of the pumpkin. Once it’s taped on, use a poker tool to poke holes carefully all along every line. Lean towards putting them slightly on the outside where lines are thin since you’ll cut away your guide holes. After the entire design is poked into the pumpkin, take the paper off and spread some flour over it so that the flour sticks in the holes and makes them more visible. You can also connect the dots lightly w/ a pencil.

Now you’re ready to carve! If you’re doing the three colours, scrape down all of the gray parts w/ a scraper tool before you carve out anything. Otherwise just go vertically top to bottom, slowly cutting along each line w/ a saw tool, but carefully cutting out any fiddly small holes like the eyes or mouth in this one before you do the big gaps around the edges between the design and the containing oval. Once it’s all cut, shape some tinfoil into a little holder around the bottom of a candle, put the candle in the bottom of the pumpkin, light it, put the lid back on, and turn out the lights!

If you want to learn hand embroidery but don’t know where to start, I’ve made a stitch guide that’s perfect for you! You can start stitching today!

A quick DIY punk t-shirt painting tutorial inspired by @irlkenku's ask!

I work in costuming, so I’m like... always 100% down to share my process! Though I can’t guarantee this is the best or fastest way to do this (I think I spent almost 30 hours on this thing between creating the stencil, sewing the shirt, and all the painting :X OOPS), it’s what worked for me! Meat Droids Shirt process under the cut:

(Meat Droids concept and design credit to @keldabekush )

Make your own cuddly Star Wars Bantha toy

Need something crafty to do during your quarantine? I show you how to craft your own bantha using fake fur, felt, buttons, pillow stuffing and easy sewing instructions. 

DIY GLOW IN THE DARK CLAY!!!

The long time followers of this blog are probably well aware of my obsession with miniatures (and if you’re new here: Hi, I’m Wei and I love everything in 1:12 scale... or smaller). I’m particularly drawn to teeny tiny flora, and this is in part due to the fact that my mum has a thriving plant collection, but sadly I just don’t share the same green thumb. My solution: a hoard of tiny faux plants that will never wilt, some in ‘wicker’ pots no less.

Today I want to share how I make these little woven pots, in case any of you guys also have a budding romance with miniature plants and are in search of the *perfect* pot covering. The technique shown below can also be used to fashion tiny baskets, and my partner thinks these pots look like thimbles although I have my doubts about their functionality... Anyway, without any further ado, let’s get crafting!

So it seems like a lot of people on Reddit love my Fire Emblem Heroes paper dolls, so I decided to make a tutorial on how to make your own!

So the things you will need are:

- A computer with Wi-Fi

- A printer

- Paper

- Scissors

- Tape

- Glue

First, visit the Spriters Resource page for Fire Emblem Heroes and select your character. We will be making Linde for this tutorial.

Download the spritesheet and print it out on a piece of paper. I use two pieces of paper for both sides, but that’s completely up to you.

Cut out all the pieces you need, disregarding any extra clothing pieces/hands/heads.

First, assemble the body pieces together.

Next, assemble the arm parts.

Next, assemble the leg parts.

Add a couple of accessories on, and then put them together. Now assemble the head pieces. If the character is a male or a female with short hair, disregard this and just plop the head onto the body.

Place the assembled pieces onto a tiny sheet of paper, preferably from the scraps you made via the spritesheet.

Cover the doll up with tape.

Cut the doll out. When cutting, stop halfway and open the cut out bits of the doll and put glue on it. Do the same thing for the other side.

And you’re done! You can try putting together the other side but it’s totally up to you. I hope you liked my tutorial!