The festival essential when you're celebrating music and culture in the UK has to be the welly. You can go posh with Jimmy Choo snakeskin wellies, trendy with Dragon's Den Wedge Wellies or you could go crafty and customise your own.
The wellies pictured above were spotted at this weekend's V Festival by Osoyou's Jessica: the pink polka-dot glitter wellies were sprinkled in shiny stuff and varnished to keep them dotty, and the studded boots were made from parts of a Primark bracelet and a tube of trusty superglue.
This set of acrylic welly paints from Boot Kidz is also available for welly transformation.
Your festival feet will never be dull again.
The craft involved in fashion seems to be crossing over into the world of art more and more often. Fashion as art and craft as a means to making fashion more individual and unexpected are stepping into the limelight across the web. A fine example of both these things can be found in the work of Nicole Dextras.
Nicole, an artist working from her studio on Granville Island in Vancouver BC, uses fashion as part of her art. Her Iceworks involving garments encased in ice show the transitory side of life and a walk through her Weedrobes features some stunning garments that put the figleaves of the past to shame.
The artist also teaches from her studio as well as volunteering for local art organizations.
A fascinating look at art, craft and fashion all rolled into something inspiring.
Craft failure: we've all been there. The 'thing' in your crafty hands is an aberration and nothing like the pretty project you had in your head. When you think about it though is there really anything wrong with what you make? If it's handcrafted and you've put your time and love into it surely it deserves a little adoration, right?
These were precisely the thoughts of crafter Kim Werker when she created something hideous at a craft party one fateful day. It was a release from the bonds of trying to make something pretty, prissy and perfect. She loved that freedom so much she wanted to share and thus Mighty Ugly was born.
Werker encourages you to "Take an hour or two and say SCREW IT to trying to make something pretty. Go out of your way to create something hideous."
It's become something of a eye-squintingly yucky craft movement. You can send your submissions along to the blog, stick your ugly offering on their Flickr group or just hop along to the blog and read all about the ugly of others.
Ugly is the new cool. Love it.
The crafty graffiti train doesn't seem to be slowing and all over the UK crafters are going guerrilla with their makes. One lady doing it with plush style is the mysterious Mrs Smith and I have to say her recent foray into comfy crafty subversiveness is scarily impressive.
The people of Plymouth were mostly amused (with one or two disapprovers who fear soggy seating) to find the sundial in their town centre had been unexpectedly unholstered in the dead of night by a crafty crusader known only as Mrs Smith.
Her website doesn't tell us much, except for the fact she is a fan of covering everything, including her small dog, in fabric. She also states "If some sourpuss takes them down and makes off with them, I just make some more." A worthy adversary to the world of cold concrete and uninspiring public spaces.
See the full story on the BBC here.
Mrs Smith, we salute you and your stitching.
When you feel the need to say what you really mean while keeping your message aesthetically pleasing then a bit of cross stitch with attitude might be just the thing for you. There's an Etsy seller who is not only thinking what you're thinking, she's stitching it too.
Purple Hippo's Etsy shop invites you to join them in some Snarky Fun Cross Stitch.
Legends such as the sunshiney "I hate people" and several less printable sayings can be found stitched all pretty and framed all nice.
If you feel like passing on your rage, disillusion and bubbling resentment then it doesn't have to be ugly.
Find Purple Hippo's shop on Etsy here or become a fan of her stitched rage on Facebook.
"Kevin Abraham-Banks, a 37-year-old trucker with a shaved head and dragon tattoos, passes time at truck stops with his cocoa and knitting." is a fabulous line to read in an article about how the recession is affecting long-distance truckers.
The New York Times's Jennifer Levitz talks to several trucking driving dudes who are filling in their driving downtime with a bit of cabside crafting in her article "Idle Pastime: In Off Hours, Truckers Pick Up Stitching".
Despite the article's tendency to pick out the more 'girlie' quotes from the drivers themselves (I'm sure they said manly things too that have merely gone unquoted) it's good to see that craft is finding its way into the most unexpected of places.
While some may be horrified to think of a beardy trucker making off with the best merino at the local yarn sale, I find the idea of big burly blokes picking up stitches on a lonesome highway inspiring. Craft and let craft I say.
As long they leave at least some of the good yarn for the rest of us.
It's all very well making something lovely and putting it in pride of place in your home. Or whipping up something wonderful and passing it on to a grateful pal. The thing is that once it's done you're proud of your creation and you want to share it with the masses.
You have two options. You can either take it door to door around your neighbourhood and see if you are lucky enough to find someone who appreciates you art and hopefully not someone who looks shifty and is possibly hiding bodies under the patio. Or you can take a kick-ass photo and then use the wonder that is the worldwide web to pimp it to the world from the comfort of your home.
Not too clever with a camera? Fear not. Let Leethal, crafty queen with a camera, give you a shove in the right direction.
Her blog has a marvellous selection of tips on taking photos of your craft with or without a lightbox. Using tin foil, natural sunlight, cardboard boxes and some clever positioning you can create your own little photo studio.
She also helps you out on how to make your own lightbox so you can go all Annie Leibovitz with your handmades without splashing the cash.
Come on, crafty creations, vogue!
digg this |
del.icio.us this
| 
Stumble It!
