For those of you that have not heard of The Crafter’s Box, here’s the scoop.
The Crafter’s Box is a monthly creative package that pops up on your door and has everything inside for you to explore a new creative skill and craft an awesome project. Each month is featured by a different artist/maker. A long with a box of supplies you get a tutorial video and can attend a live Q&A at the end of the month. The Crafter’s Box is also a creative community so they encourage crafter’s to share all stages of the project and how you made it your own.
I received a subscription as a Christmas present (probably one of the best gifts ever). December was my first month and Jen Hewett put together a silk screening kit. Jen is a printmaker that designs beautiful botanical inspired prints (right up my ally). Print making is something that I have wanted to try for a very long time so I was pumped to be guided by Jen. Her box included two tea towels to print on, a greenish teal and a magenta ink, a silk screen frame, a squeegee and a adorable flower pattern. After cutting the patterned out, the actual printing took a little finessing. It took few trys to find the perfect angle to hold the squeegee at. I put the flowers in each corner of the tea towel, leaving me the sides to create my own pattern of a vine with little flower buds. The vines visually connect the flowers growing each one to the next and (hopefully) blends in with Jen’s style. This left me feeling like I could silk screen anything! So why not do a completely O.G. design? I do have a second towel.
Since it was December, our Christmas Cacti were in full of bloom. So I started sketching out very silhouette-y shapes of the cactus, and man their flowers are very … particular. The cactus leaves hang, which makes the buds hang down, but then when they bloom they start growing up. It ain’t easy to draw, especially as a recognizable solid shape. But I finally got to something I was happy with. I started to put down the first layers of green and realized that I did NOT leave enough space for the flowers. (D’Oh!) There are a few spots where the flowers over lap with the ones next to them, BUT not everything comes out exactly as you want it to! and thats okay. Lessons learned I suppose. I’m still very happy with how my Christmas Cactus inspired pattern came out. Both of my towels are on alternating display on my oven. People always ask about them and I’m always glad to blow their minds and tell them I made them.
So thats what I learned and experienced with my first crafter’s box. More craftin’ will be coming to you soon.
