Crafty stuff.

Occasionally I take a break from embroidery, and play with other crafts involving paper, or pen and ink. Today I decided to make paper Kokeshi Dolls, from a tutorial which I had seen here on Cards By Paula Blog. (I was going to put a link here, but it has disappeared from the internet at the moment.) Paula showed several ways of using the Kokeshi paper dolls on cards, but I just used the resources I had on hand.


As well as the paper dolls, I was itching to try out a range of Calligraphy inks I had purchased this week. A beautiful paper and ink shop at Doncaster Westfield is closing down, and most stock has been discounted between 20% and 50%. Noodlers Inks are one of the best calligraphers' inks around; they have a fabulous range of colours, but because they are $22.95 a bottle, I'd never bought any. But when I found they had been discounted by 20%, I decided to lash out. It took me ages to decide which colours I wanted, but I finally settled for five, which cost me just under $100 all up (gulp...)


I used two pens to write the sentences above, rinsing the pens out with each new colour, but not changing the nibs, so I wasn't able to vary the lettering style much. But it didn't matter, as I just wanted to see what the colours were like. This photo is a bit washed out; the inks are brighter than what they look here, and will look even better once I have thicker nibs and can experiment with lettering styles.

This was done using another brand of ink I'd bought some time ago. I was practicing various letter forms here, and it looks rather messy. I'd like to write that whole verse out again one day, using just one letter form.


This practice sheet is using the same ink as above, and the squiggles underneath were done in callig. felt pens.