100 Days of Studio Scenes: Days 1-10

The basic idea of the 100 Day Project is very simple: you choose a creative action and you do it once a day for 100 days.

I've attempted it a few times now and each time I've been overambitious and not taken into account how overcommitted I already was... and I've not lasted very long as a result! 

This year I'm keeping things nice and simple with #100daysofstudioscenes, a daily, honest behind-the-scenes update from my home studio. Works in progress, craft supplies, peeks at my workspace, plus the ups and downs and messes of running a creative business during these weird times. 

I've been skipping a day here and there but am over 30 days into the project now and I'm loving how it's turning into a little diary of the day-to-day running of my business. I'm going to collate them into posts here on my blog in blocks of 10, so those of you without Instagram can follow along and so I'll have a nice record of the project to look back on.

DAY ONE:

"At the moment I'm keeping the pressure off myself by working on lots of projects simultaneously, picking up whatever I feel like working on, avoiding setting myself targets, just gradually nudging everything forward bit by bit. Most mornings, if the light is good, (which it has been a lot lately, hurrah!), I take a little batch of photos. 

This is what I had lined up ready to photograph this morning: lots of in-progress projects for my blog, newsletter, and shop, waiting to be photographed so I can then sew the next step... ready for more photos tomorrow!"

DAY TWO:

"Yesterday I took photos then stitched loads of stuff ready to take more photos today... and today I have taken no photos. What I have done is sit on the spare bed in my PJs working at my laptop all day (working in timed blocks with short breaks to do some of my lovely new jigsaw puzzle) (I call this variation on the Pomodoro Technique the Puzzle Technique, I find it both relaxing and motivating!!) 

I've scheduled FOUR blog posts (not from scratch, mind) and edited a whole bunch of photos, including some for my next newsletter freebie: a tutorial for sewing cute felt teacup and teapot brooches 

I'm so pleased with how these snaps turned out, they show the project off really nicely and I hope they'll tempt lots of people into signing up for my newsletter I'd hoped to be posting this pic saying "I just sent out this tutorial to my subscribers! Yay!" but, alas, I'm not quite there yet. That's top of the To Do list for tomorrow.

In the meantime, I thought you might like to see how this photo looked before I edited it (swipe to see an unedited pic from the same batch), I don't have any fancy editing software but it usually does the job."

DAY THREE:

"I'm having a day off! I often end up doing a bit of work even on my days off but today I am trying to be very strict with myself (I'll let you know tomorrow whether or not I succeed!) My main creative project today = finally sorting out some happy snail mail to send to my pals"

DAY FOUR:

"Some proper messy realness for you today! I'm mostly working in the spare room at the moment, in part so I can close the door on all this chaos at the end of the day. Please note that there's stuff on the floor as well as the spare bed, I've got a pile of laundry in here too (top left) and in my commitment to showing you the unvarnished truth I haven't even moved that snotty tissue out of shot, haha."

DAY FIVE:

"I'm having trouble balancing self care and self-employment at the moment - maybe you guys are, too? Today I've thought a lot about all the work I could and "should" be doing right now (like finishing up this new pattern, destined for my newsletter subscribers) but instead of doing any of them I've mostly just sat about feeling stressed and overwhelmed and guilty about not getting anything done. 

I also baked a cake though (delicious!) and went for a walk (sunny!) and that's not nothing. Fingers crossed for more productivity (and cake, and sunshine) tomorrow."

DAY SIX:

"After a couple of days of feeling very unmotivated, yesterday I got LOADS of work done. Hurrah! I finished the teacup & teapot brooch tutorial, sent it out to my newsletter subscribers, and got all of this lot prepped for their next set of step photos. It's too gloomy today for taking decent pics but the moment the sunshine comes back I'll be ready for it."

DAY SEVEN:

"I'm putting together some paper crafting packs!. I started assembling them yesterday from a whole bunch of lovely vintage books, maps, and other paper-y bits and bobs (see my paper pack highlight for a sneak peek of the contents!) I'm also adding a few fun extras like colourful yarns for making gift tags, and vintage buttons. Each pack will be £5 + postage (UK only at the moment, sorry, as I can't get to the Post Office), let me know if you'd like me to message you when they're available!"

 

DAY EIGHT:

"Yesterday I decided that my paper crafting packs needed a few vintage buttons... luckily I had a small selection to choose from, haha!

I bought this massive stash of button-y goodness last month, back when the idea of lockdown was just a faint possibility. It feels like a lifetime ago now. I really enjoyed finally having a rummage through these, I think vintage button packs might be coming soon. WATCH THIS SPACE."

DAY NINE:

"Aaaand the paper packs are go! Each pack contains a different assortment of pages and clippings from vintage books, plus a vintage Cluedo card, two reproduction trading cards featuring trains, 10 vintage stamps, some yarn, and 3 buttons (see my paper packs highlight for a closer look at the contents). Each pack is £5 each, 2nd class UK postage for 1-2 packs is £1.40, and there are just 11 packs left! Message me if you'd like to make a purchase, let me know your email and the quantity you'd like and I'll send you an invoice via PayPal asap. First come first served!

In other excellent news: I've found a local postbox where I can send bigger parcels, so if there's anything listed at @lauralupinsells you're interested in, too, let me know and I'll send everything together. P.S. I can also post to countries in the EU, just ask and I'll give you a quote for the postage."

DAY TEN:  

"Thank you so much for your amazing response to the paper packs, you guys! I love them and am thrilled you're excited about them, too, and I can't even begin to tell you how nice it feels packing up and posting parcels again!!

It's also a huge relief having a bit of extra money coming in during this stressful time xxx

(I took this photo this morning but spent yesterday sorting out paper pack orders and parcelling them up so I'm counting this as yesterday's #100daysofstudioscenes pic)."

More updates soon, or you can follow along on Instagram HERE.

The 100 Day Project 2018: 100 Days of Felt Food

This year's #The100DayProject begins on Tuesday, April 3rd - are you joining in?

The idea of the project is that you pick a creative action, do it every day for a hundred days, and share your progress on Instagram (or elsewhere online) via the main project hashtag and using a unique hashtag for your own project to collect all your pics together.

100 doodles! 100 portraits of cats! 100 photos of flowers! 100 embroidery stitches! 100 paintings of Brutalist architecture! 100 days of potato printing! Small or large, quick or time-consuming, relaxing or challenging, you choose what works for you.

Last year I decided (on a whim and very much at the last minute) to join in for the first time with #100DaysofFeltStuff... and lasted less than a fortnight. It was an amazing thing to be part of, though. I connected with so many awesome makers, learned some really important lessons about my perfectionist tendencies (frustrated tears were shed!) and the pieces I stitched ended up being some of my favourite work that year. 

So, I'm trying again this year with the slightly more focused #100DaysofFeltFood.

I've had fun making felt food in the past (including these felt fruit tutorials and last year's felt Jaffa Cake), and I feel like this topic will give me lots of variety without hitting that "oh gosh I could make anything but what???" panic which I suffered quite a bit of last year.
 
I'm hoping with a bit of planning, I can flex my creative muscles without tearing my hair out and make it all the way through the 100 days this time. Fingers crossed!

I'll be sharing daily photos on my Instagram Stories, and posting updates in my main Instagram feed - as well as on Facebook, Twitter and here on my blog. So if you're keen to see what I'm making but don't use Instagram don't worry, you won't be out of the loop.

UPDATE: It looks like the direct links to my hashtagged 100 Day Project pictures aren't working if you're not logged into Instagram, which is rather annoying. If you don't have an Instagram account you'll still be able to follow along with my new project by browsing my main feed here, and you can see most of my designs from last year here.

May in Pictures: Summer Travels, Foxgloves, & My Little Ponies

Time to look back at what I got up to in May!

My May was a busy one, but I had some breaks from my ongoing flat renovation and was able to squeeze in some lovely Nice Days Out.

I spent a weekend in Bristol and Bath, enjoying some free events as part of the Residents Weekend (I might not actually live in Bristol but I have a Bristol-area postcode, which totally counts!) and meeting up with friends.

I've been back to Bristol many times since I moved away from the city over a decade ago, but this was the first time I'd been back to one of the areas I used to live in: Clifton Village. It was deeply weird being back in Clifton after so long, and to add the the weirdness I immediately bumped into someone I knew from University! Clifton was looking just as lovely as ever, of course, especially with the #wisteriahysteria in full swing.    

The warmer weather (and some gorgeous sunshine!) meant lots of opportunities for walks on the beach and exploring places like this wonderful local nature reserve. (I'm loving living here so much, you guys). 

  
On a trip home to see my folks, I spent the day in nearby Reading and explored the excellent Museum of English Rural Life which I'd shockingly never visited before despite going to school just around the corner. The main gallery is fascinating but I especially loved the archive upstairs where you can peek into cabinets jam-packed with interesting things, and this fabulous little gallery devoted to Ladybird Books (swoon). 

 

One of the joys of visiting my parents is getting to see all the wildlife in their garden, including the badgers who show up to eat peanuts most evenings.

It's also great to see my niece and baby nephew. My mum has been clearing out the loft recently, and sorting out lots of toys for the next generation to enjoy - including our My Little Pony collection. (Did you have any of these when you were a kid?). So many 80s nostalgia feels. 

Later in the month I combined another family visit with a day in London - I do love being back in the southwest but I miss all those galleries and museums and beautiful parks rather a lot.

 

I was delighted to spot those foxgloves when I'd just delivered my Foxglove Wreath to The Village Haberdashery that morning. The felt foxgloves were a real challenge to design, but I was delighted with the end result and everyone's kind comments. It's so nice sharing things and getting such a positive response in return. (Click here for the free foxglove wreath tutorial)

 

In May I also got back into reading Actual Books, after a patch of mostly reading Harry Potter fanfiction. I'll be blogging sometime soon about my recent reads (as you might have noticed, my New Year's Resolution to both read more and blog about it each month has not been going entirely to plan).

 

Another project that's not gone to plan: my 100 Day Project. Long story short, I got sick (ugh) and then I got a horrible attack of creative block (double ugh) as my blogger's block expanded to envelop all my creative outlets (ugggghhhh).

I hoped to jump back into the project in mid-May and made a start with a felt puffin (for day 12) but then life got in the way again, I was busy with messy decorating projects, have been generally feeling a little worn out, and am still suffering a bit from the curse that is creative block... which is all deeply frustrating.

At this rate I will probably have finished my 100 Days of Felt Stuff in a few years time (haha), but I'm hopeful I can get back into it soon. In the meantime though, hurrah for puffins!

 

This was a funny one because the sketch came together really quickly (and just how I pictured it in my head) but translating it into a 3 inch high felt bird proved much trickier. I felt quite exposed sharing it at the time, but now I'm rather pleased with him. I really need to remember how this kind of thing keeps happening, and to stop being so hard on myself when I make things I don't think are quite "perfect".

Want more colourful, crafty updates? I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me. You'll also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

April in Pictures: a Creative Challenge and the Perils of Perfectionism

Better late than never, it's time for my April Instagram update!

April got off to a great start, with a couple of days of gloriously warm weather. The English weather in spring (especially on the coast) can be notoriously unpredictable, so I've been trying to make the most of the good weather when we've had it.

I'm continuing to go on lots of walks exploring my new neighbourhood, sharing photos on my Weston-super-Magic account (I post rather erratically there but it's great not worrying about when I "should" post or how my follower count is doing - it's purely a little collection of some of my favourite snaps from my walks).

Sadly it was rather chilly later in the month for the latest Made by Mrs M Photowalk, but we all had lots of fun regardless and took approximately a gazillion photos of London along the way. I still haven't edited most of my photos, but Kate's shared lots of awesome ones over on her blog.

This is definitely my favourite shot from the day - the sun came out just in time for our visit to the Barbican, which was looking as wonderful as ever. The Barbican is one of those love it or hate it bits of architecture, and I am firmly in camp "love it". 

Back at home, I had fun playing with threads...

 

 

... jazzed up a gift with some simple paper polkadots...

... and designed the latest wreath in my series for The Village Haberdashery: a fabric-wrapped wreath bursting with bright spring flowers.

 

I also decided to take part in The 100 Day Project: a global challenge where people do a creative task every day for 100 days and share the results on Instagram. I thought long and hard about what to do for this challenge and eventually chose #100DaysofFeltStuff, recreating one "real world" object in felt each day.

If you've been following me on Instagram you'll know that I've not kept up with the daily part of this challenge at all, but I'm pleased with the results so far - both the finished pieces I've made and what I've learned from the process.

I'll be honest with you guys, I regretted starting this challenge almost immediately. I loved making my first felt object (a slightly ridiculous felt washing up sponge) but photographing it was a nightmare. I realised that as well as giving myself the (difficult, and time-consuming) challenge of making a 3D object each day I'd also voluntarily signed up for the utter stress-fest of taking decent photos of the blinking things.

Frustrated tears were cried. There may have been a bit of sulking. I definitely considered scrapping the whole plan altogether - either backing out of the whole challenge or downgrading it to something much simpler that I could do with less effort. But I decided that I was more interested in the creative challenge of making these objects than in having a daily photo to share so I'd try to make things when I could, and then have a little photoshoot for the finished pieces when I had the time and some decent light (and when I'd worked out the best way to photograph them).

On Day One, I made a felt washing-up sponge, which made me laugh a lot:

 

On Day Two, I made a felt jaffa cake - I gave up trying to photograph this one and took a video of it instead. I mistook this for the real thing several times, which was very pleasing! You know you've succeeded in recreating a bit of food if you're actually tempted to eat it.

On Day Three, I made a felt lipsalve and discovered another challenging part of this project: sharing pieces which normally wouldn't see the light of day as I'd consider them flawed prototypes. My perfectionist tendencies were being tested - in a good way, I think!

At the time I was slightly mortified having to share this and could have given you a long list of what was "wrong" with it but now I look at it and just think "a felt lipsalve! how fun!"

On Day Four, I made a felt highlighter pen.

 

On Days Five and Six, I made an empty embroidery thread bobbin and one wrapped with felt "thread".

I then decided to mix things up a bit, adding some of the 2D pictures that are more my usual style. (3D objects are hard, guys! I also wanted a bit more variety, and to use this challenge as an opportunity to get a few old designs out of my sketchbooks and into felt-y reality).

So, for Days Seven and Eight I made a duck and a goose.

For Day Nine, I made an eraser.

Day Ten, a Barn Owl.

And Day Eleven, (my favourite so far) a Kingfisher.

I was (and still am) delighted with how all these turned out! I don't know what, if anything, I'm going to do with them all but the process of designing and making and sharing them has been very worthwhile.

Unfortunately I then got sick (ugh) and other life stuff intervened and I ended up pressing "pause" on the project for the moment, but more on that another day...

Want more colourful, crafty updates? I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me. You'll also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

The 100 Day Project 2017

Have you heard of #The100DayProject?

It's a global art project which anyone, anywhere can take part in.

You choose a creative action, do it every day for 100 days and share the results online. You can read more about the project and how to take part here. This year's project starts tomorrow (April 4th) and I'm joining in for the first time.

It took me a while to choose what I wanted to do for my action: something quick and simple? or something more complicated? Trying something new? or developing existing skills?

In the end I decided to opt for something challenging but flexible: I've decided to do #100DaysOfFeltStuff - recreating one "real world" object in felt each day.

Choosing "stuff" rather than something more specific means I'll have lots of creative freedom and can choose something small and quick on busy days (and bigger, more challenging things on my days off!).

I'm really looking forward to this project: flexing my creative muscles, solving a whole bunch of design problems, and making a daily space for creativity in my schedule. I also can't wait to see everyone else's projects and follow along with the project hashtag on Instagram.

I'll be sharing daily photos on my Instagram Stories, and posting updates in my main Instagram feed - as well as on Facebook, Twitter and here on my blog. So if you're keen to see what I'm making but don't use Instagram don't worry, you won't be out of the loop.

Here's to 100 days of felt-y goodness!