Sherbet Dreams

While I was still in the swing of things and I still have time to breathe, I decided to make my sister a dreamcatcher. And here it is!

I found a gorgeous string in a paper craft store. It's made of twisted tie-dyed paper in this gorgeous pastel shades of pink, yellow and blue. So pretty! My sister likes a lot of white (think Ayumi, hence the previous almost-all white collage I made for her a few years back) so I decided to use white embroidery yarn instead of the blue cotton I used for myself. The white feathers, silver and white beads go perfectly with it =D.

This one was fairly easier to do, but a more fiddly because it is an inch smaller than the previous one. Somehow or other I still messed up the middle a bit, and the whole weave is slightly off centred from (what I believe) pulling the yarn too taut. The next one I do I'd like to try waxing the thread before weaving. I hear that it will strengthen the thread as well as make it less flexible. 

  I still couldn't find a pretty enough bead for the middle. I'm trying to find a gold star bead, but though it spawns aplenty in my imagination, they appear to be scarce and almost impossible to find in reality. Does anyone know where I may find them? I've tried searching most jewellery and bead stalls in shopping malls, but with no luck. 

I did find a pretty stall in Mid Valley that sells vintage-ish  charms, but talk about pricey! They seem light enough for dreamcatchers, though I don't believe I'd get them unless it's for someone really special =P.

The little blue beads I bought from Daiso are lovely though! I love how they look so pearly and iridescent; they remind me of mauve bubbles. So pretty <3 And this time I stuck three gold stars on the middle feather just for additional magical luck =D.

These past few weeks have been so full of events I can barely remember what happened. But it's been fun and annoying and frustrating and silly altogether so yeah. Story of my life =P. 

I wanna go shopping and give my wardrobe a makeover. Which reminds me I have a blog makeover that is long overdue and I should shoot myself for procrastinating, lol.

Have a good weekend everybody~! *waves*

Catcher in The Night

Good morning everybody =D. Today I woke up exceptionally early- 9.30 am! XD. I usually sleep in on weekends, but somehow I woke up today and all the things I need to do were already booted and running in my mind so I just couldn't get back to sleep. I always have a hard time sleeping, and dream-filled nights and waking up at odd hours at random intervals throughout my sleep is not something unusual. So I decided what I really needed was a dreamcatcher!

Dreamcatchers are of Native American origin, and in the original name for them they are known as spider or dream snare. They look like spider webs, and usually a bead would be strung in the middle of the web to represent a spider. They are hung above beds and are thought to protect the sleeper from nightmares. It is common belief that good dreams would pass through the dreamcatcher and slide down the feathers to the sleeper, where else bad dreams would be caught in the web and disappear at the light of day.

I actually wondered where to buy a dreamcatcher, but upon running the search engine in my mind for any relevant shops or stalls, no results were found =P. So, I thought of the next solution: make it myself. And as you can see from the photo above, I actually did it. I made myself a dreamcatcher =D. I Googled and followed a couple of tutorials, and I bought the materials and went straight into it.

The feathers, beads and light blue cotton thread I got from Daiso (yay for five ringgit items! =D). I still have plenty left over even with all the first attempts. The suede laces I found at some random jewellery stalls in malls. I searched hardware stores for metal hoops/rings, but was unsuccessful. I almost got Esmond to make one for me in the workshop, but surprise surprise I found just the very thing I wanted in Art Friend =D. All things considered, I think this little baby was constructed under 20 ringgit =D.



It was so much fun to make =). I had a hard time at first, having to cut away the thread and start over a few times before I got the hang of it. The thread had an annoying habit of getting all tangled up even if you barely touch it and it got fiddly as I went closer to centre and the loops became smaller. I would actually like it to be a bit finer, with more loops, but for a first time this one seems intricate enough =). I'd like to get some waxed thread for the next one I make and maybe experiment with different laces for the frame =D. I saw some online that used yarn instead of suede or leather and they looked more contemporary and colourful.

On a side note, Copic provides a .ase file for Illustrator. You can now have the entire colour swatch of Copic markers to use for your digital works =D. Just download the file and drop it into your Presets > Swatches folder. You can download the file and other Copic thingies at the Copic website.

I'll stop here for now. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday everybody =D. A new week of work and play ahead of us! Here's to sweet dreams and good days =).