I made one last week and it was surprisingly easy after I found all the materials but beware, unless you have foam on [...]]]> I’ve been collecting a few rad tutorials and how-tos lately and I thought I’d post about them because you might want to do them too!

A photo of a black and white patterned padded headboard against a dark grey wall behind a bed with white bed linen.

Make a padded headboard.

I made one last week and it was surprisingly easy after I found all the materials but beware, unless you have foam on hand it can be expensive and I couldn’t find flush mounts anywhere! The bedhead pictured is by aimlesslyhome.

Two photos of someone wearing a white singlet dress with white lace trim down the front and sherbert orange yarn fringe.

Make a Leyendecker-inspired dress.

I don’t like the sherbert orange fringe (even though it’s a cool colour!) but I love the ideas in this. You could revamp t-shirts in lots of different ways with these ideas.

A photo of a hand with rainbow stripes and stars on each nail and a unicorn painted on the thumb.

Paint a unicorn on your thumb.

I don’t know if my nails are long enough for this but maybe I could paint a tiny unicorn? Watch the video to see what kinds of tools are used (a skewer!) for your future nail art experiments.

A photo of a small black and silver dog wearing a blue patterned harness.

Make a small dog harness.

We bought Miffy a harness but it keeps coming loose and it isn’t very awesome looking. I’m going to make her all kinds of cute harnesses now!

A photo of a necklace made of box braided tan leather with washers braided into half of it.

Braid a necklace.

This is a nice project for gifts or for doing on a lovely crafternoon with your friends. Honestly WTF also has tutorials for a wrap bracelet and braided hex nut bracelet. Make a bunch and mix them together on your wrist, it looks great.

Image - a pale green frame with a tiny vertical garden of succulents planted inside it.

Make a framed garden.

I’ve loved vertical gardens for so long, and this project is an awesome small scale idea that you can hang on a wall. I want to scour op shops for frames of all sizes so I can make lots of framed gardens to hang on the fence in the backyard.

This gorgeous photo [...]]]> I don’t think anyone noticed the gaping hole left by the Fance this past two Fridays, but I’m bringing it back. Just for you, my adoring readership who didn’t really miss it at all. Who am I kidding? I just like collecting images of fancy stuff. It’s all for me!

This gorgeous photo is an innocent victim of the Uncredited Tumblr Photo crime. Get on my couch, lovely ruffly cushions. Could I be bothered to make some myself? These would be lovely in black and nude mesh.

Tiny Tangerines posted the most spectacular nail art EVER. I have always seen faces in pansies since seeing Alice in Wonderland as a little kid!

That’s Beth Ditto and Miss Amelia right there. If you haven’t met Amelia, I highly suggest you toddle off to her blog right now. I’ve known her via this here internoodle for a fair few years and she’s certifiably fance.

I’m itching to do some paper cutting for the upcoming Disband show after looking at a few old pieces I did in 2008. Hina Aoyama‘s fine, delicate and crazy pieces are so inspiring.

Another uncredited photo capturing fance multiplied. This is the kind of woman I want to grow up to be. ♥

Being an artist and particularly one with a wrist injury, I think a lot about my hands and how useful they are (also how awful it would be if I lost use of them). For years I’ve never really been into decorating my hands with polish because it [...]]]>

Being an artist and particularly one with a wrist injury, I think a lot about my hands and how useful they are (also how awful it would be if I lost use of them). For years I’ve never really been into decorating my hands with polish because it seemed like a waste – nails are for keeping short and clean so they don’t catch on delicate things or mark any of my projects. The other thing is that I have weak nails and nail polish never seems to last more than a couple of days before chipping off and making me look like a grungy 90s teen.

Recently I’ve been reading Super Kawaii Mama and Violet LeBeaux‘s entries on nail art and have been inspired to give it a go. While the 3D stuff is highly impractical for me, 2D techniques using pens and dotting tools are really appealing.

I bought a white Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen the other day, and have experimented a little bit with it but I have a lot of practice to undertake! I think I’ll also try to find and buy an actual dotting tool so I can use the nail polish I have on hand to create designs.

The pen I have is only really good for drawing dots, but I’ve played around with drawing other things and even tried using a toothpick and nail polish. The results weren’t that great, and even using bottom coats and top coats my polish was still chipping after two days! I’ll keep playing around with my nails and I hope one day I happen across the solution. I really want to be able to doodle on my nails the way I do with pen and paper!