Amigurumi: Cute Chick

Today was such a lazy Sunday so I decided to do crafts once again. I took out one of my favorite Japanese crochet craft magazines. I bought this at a local bookstore for a really great price. 

The magazine contained pictures of different crochet projects. A lot were about Amigurumi (the Japanese art of creating crocheted stuffed toys). There were also projects about how to make really useful objects like containers, wallets, hair accesories, and even kitchen related items like pot holders and such. 

I decided to make another Amigurumi chick. I already made three before but I gave them away to some friends of mine. I believe that Amigurumi should be shared or gifted away. I like making people smile using my crafts. 

The process started by crocheting the body. I used the pattern included in the magazine. Japanese patterns are quite easy to understand once you get the gist of it. Even if I had limited knowledge in Japanese, I was still able to create the base.

I filled the base body with fiber/cotton and then I crocheted the wings and the cute top next.  The parts are to be sewn together to create the completed chick. It took me an hour and a half to finish everything. 

I added a triangular orange felt cloth for the beak and sewn two beads for eyes. The end product looked really cute. Although I think my chick was a little bit too obese compared to the ones featured in the magazine.

After I finished everything I took it outside for a little photo shoot. I've named it 'chickidee'. That name is quite dear to me since my mom used to call me that when I was kid.   

The long vacation is ending soon. I'm quite sad that the Holy Week has come to a close. I still have one day of vacation left. Even if I dread coming back to the office I am still happy. This long weekend was my most productive yet. I was able to relax, do a lot of crafts and also was able to clean my room. I guess I'm improving bit by bit. 

DIY Chocolate

Mai gave me this really cute DIY Chocolate kit a day before we journeyed to Singapore. Since I love making crafts, I was really excited to make this once I had the time to do so. The packaging is quite cute and colorful. Although I find it funny that it claims that its contents are made out of 99% cacao when its clearly a lie. 

 

The pack contained four sheets of felt cloth, different colored threads, a needle, and a container for the finished 'chocolates'. It also included an instruction booklet that was written in both English and Japanese. A paper guide helped me create the shapes that I needed to cut out of the felt sheets.

The cut outs are then sewn together by hand. It took me quite some time before I finished the shapes needed to create the fake chocolates. These are then filled with organic cotton stuffing and decorated with thread or or different colored felt cut outs. 

There were six chocolate shapes all in all. My favorite would be the one with almond/pistachio 'nuts' sewed on top. Making the fake nuts was quite a challenge since it was so small and I had to also fill it with stuffing so that it wouldn't be flat.

 

It took me about three hours to finish everything.I'm quite happy with the result and the 'chocolates' are now proudly displayed in my room. 

Thanks Mai for giving this to me! I really appreciate it.

Art Inspirations: Life In A Bell Jar

Finding inspiration is very important to me as an artist. Often enough I find ideas by reading other artist blogs, looking at wonderful pictures taken by photographers all over the world, or just by plain surfing through the archives of Etsy.com.

I want to start blogging about the people who inspire me as an artist, people whom I believe needs to be recognized for their wonderful works of art. And as a start I would like to feature my sister's blog.

Here comes the mice!

LIFE IN A BELL JAR was started a year ago by my sister Larisa Feliciano. Her blog focuses on her craft of making hand made needle felting Mice and Gnomes and creating the tiny bell jar worlds where they reside in. She describes herself as 'a curator of teeny tiny universes'. 

The Bell Jar Village

There really is something magical about her craft.  She loves to create Mice and Gnomes made out of felt, wool and clay. It reminds me of the fairy tale books that we used to read when we were kids.

Strawberry Sam

The Frog Pond Symphony Orchestra

Her blog turned a year old just a few days ago so this feature is also a celebration of sorts. I'm really proud of my sister and her art. It makes me think that being artistic really runs in the family.

Oh by the way, she's also opening an Mice and Gnome Adoption Agency some time this year. Its still a work in progress but once its up and running please check out her Etsy account and feel free to purchase some cute critters. Each one of these creations would be one of a kind and definitely worth every penny.

Finished Amigurumi Project and Rainy Days

I finished the Amigurumi WIP that I have posted about before. I was supposed to give it to a friend but I decided to give it to my sister instead. My loving sister, Larisa, visited us for the Christmas holidays. I rarely see her up close since she now lives in Australia, miles and miles away from our family home so I'm really glad that she had the opportunity to fly back.

Photo taken by my sister, Larisa Feliciano

She named the bear "Peaches" because of the yarn's peach pink color. I just realized that I had sewn the mouth a little bit off kilter but its okay since it gave the bear a little bit of personality. Peaches looks like she's grinning and I'd like to imagine that she's also giving off a wink even if she only has two black beads for eyes. I also sewn a lace collar around her neck and fastened a bow to give it a lovely fashionable vibe. A big blue button sewn on top of her head acts like a small beret hat.

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Today has been such a lazy day. It rained non stop since the early morning and I didn't feel like doing anything other than play games on my laptop. I'm now halfway through Return to Ravenhearst, a hidden objects game that is absolutely addicting. I only paused the game in the afternoon when I noticed that the rain stopped.

I took the opportunity to go outside and take pictures before the rain started again. The sky was still a bit cloudy when I took some pictures in the garden. Raindrops really do make lovely pictures.

I loved the effect that the water droplets made against our lemongrass plant's leaves. The second picture I took even had a perfectly formed round droplet.

I really do love flowers more than anything in the world. I would never get tired of taking photos of them. They just give me a happy feeling. Bloomed flowers even look prettier with rain drops.

I guess this photos also reflect what my favorite color is. It is quite obvious that I love pink. My favorite photo for the day would be this giant pink Gumamela. At this angle it looks like Peony but I assure that its a Gumamela flower. I love the way its petals are arranged in delicate ruffles.

I do hope that tomorrow would be a rain-free day. The weekend will end today and tomorrow would be another Monday morning. Here's to hoping that this week would be better than the last.

Journal Writing and New Acquisitions

I've always loved writing on journals. There is just something therapeutic about unleashing my thoughts on a piece of paper. I started journal writing when I was in grade school. I can't remember who gave me my first journal but all I know is that I wrote on it everyday. I would write about what happened to me during school days, about my achievements and my failures. I wrote about my crushes; fictional and non-fictional. I wrote about how I wanted to punch the people who bullied me back then.

I have gone through about six journals all in all. Every one of them are kept safely in my desk. Sometimes I would read them just for laughs. Journals really do show how much a person changes through the years. I do think that I have changed for the better, although there's still a big room for improvement.

The last journal that I had used was bought two years ago when I visited my sister in Australia. I bought it at the Melbourne Airport just before I left the country. Its funny how fast time flies. Now that notebook's pages are filled with my scribbles and personal musings and it was time to buy a new one to replace the old.

I bought this notebook because I thought that it was so pretty. Pink is obviously my favorite color so its no secret as to why I loved the over all design. The pages inside were also designed with cute drawings of cats, teacups and flowers. Just perfect.

Isn't it cute?

The size of the notebook is about 5 x 7 inches. Its just the right size since I always carry a journal around in my bag. I usually write on it before I start the day or before I start on a project at work. Writing helps me to flush out all the thoughts in my head and even helps me to plan out what to post in this blog.

Speaking of blogging. I also bought something helpful yesterday.

I bought a digital camera.

I already own a NIKON D40x Digital SLR camera but I needed a smaller, more portable option to help me take pictures. My DSLR, which I had aptly named as Nori (Yes, my camera has a name. All my things have names), is such a pain to lug around even if takes fantastic pictures. I usually commute around Metro Manila so I can't bring Nori with me. Not only that, its really dangerous to bring out a big expensive camera out in the open and I'd rather not attract any attention. The only time I can use Nori is when I'm travelling in a car and I can only do that during weekends.

My new camera is just a simple point and shoot. Nothing too fancy. It's small enough to fit into a pant pocket and is really quite easy to carry around. Its a Nikon Coolpix S2500. Guess why I love this camera...

Meet Creampuff, my new Digicam!

It's pink! And it takes clear pictures.

I totally fell in love. It was also priced reasonably. I bought it only for 4,500 php. Quite a bargain if you think about it. Here are some sample pictures. I took these photos just this morning when I was on my way to the office.

Someone gave some cupcakes at my work place and it looked to cute that I just had to take a picture. And yes, it tasted as good as it looked. Yum, yum!

So that's it for now. Bye!

Welcoming A New Year

I love the concept of welcoming a new year. It sends me a sense of hope that maybe this time around life would be better. I do have to admit that 2011 hasn't been kind to me. A friend and two loved ones passed away this year. Half of the time I felt as if I was just being swayed by the tides of fate rather than living the life that I wanted to live.

This year I want to start anew. I have a lot of plans in mind and I do hope that they would push through.

Since this is an art blog, I really want to start the year by posting a lot of pretty pictures.

I took these photos during my Christmas holiday in Tagaytay. My family stayed overnight in my grandmother's vacation house in Tagaytay. The climate was wonderfully chilly since the place was up in the mountains. Different kinds of flora not normally found in Manila flourished in that area,

The house was situated on top of a hill. You have to walk down a winding road and pass a bridge in order to get to a place that I would like to call as "The Secret Garden".

The garden really is just an small area where flowers had grown wild. Pink, red, white and orange flowers bloomed everywhere. It was quite a pretty sight to behold.

A small stream flowed at the side. It really was a hidden sanctuary. Its hard to find something like this where I live. I'm used to tall buildings and carefully planned landscapes. The beauty of this wild natural garden is absolutely breathtaking.

Aside from pretty flowers, there were also other plants that were not normally found in Manila. There were a lot of different ferns, vines, and trees that could only thrive in cold weather.

There was also a quaint plant whose fruit looked like small delectable cherries. Although I don't know the name of this plant, I'm quite sure its fruit isn't edible.

I also had some interesting finds. There was an abandoned spiderweb with a lot of water droplets clinging to its strands.

And a silver spider weaving a web within a web. Its like inception isn't it? The spider's body looked jewel like. It was as if it was made out of emeralds and spun silver.

Such a beauty! I'm usually scared of spiders but this one really piqued my interest and left me in awe.

I still have a lot of pictures in my SD card (and I'm planning to post those in my private facebook account) but I'll end this post with a picture of me, my mom and Auntie Elin. We posed by an enormous evergreen tree.

That tree was huge!

That's it for now! Till next time!

Amigurumi and Inspirational Music

My late grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was six or seven years old. My fondest memory would be running to her room after school. I would sit beside her, my eyes observing her with delight as she crochets a jacket or a table runner. I still have one of the clothes she had crocheted for me. The yarn had already shrunk and it doesn’t fit me at all but I still keep it in my closet, a fond reminder of my grandma.

About a year ago, I’ve stumbled upon the concept of AMIGURUMI. It is a Japanese art of crocheting or knitting small stuffed animals. I love crochet and cute things that make me think of happy memories so it’s no wonder that I tried my hand in making some Amigurumi last year.

A Family of Chicks, made by me.

I stopped creating these cute crochet animals because of the lack of time. I was busy with work and a lot of things but I always wanted to create more Amigurumi. So when Luie, a friend of mine, pointed out to me that there was a store in Glorietta 5 that sells materials for crochet and knitting I bought some new yarns and craft stuff.

Amigurumi Bears, Made by me

I love the colors! I have always been fond of candy colors and pastels. I already have some projects in mind where I’ll be able to use these cute yarns. In the meantime I also started crocheting again using the yarn I already have back at home.

My yarn loot!

I’m planning to create a bear again. It’s a Christmas gift for a friend. I hope she’ll appreciate it.

My Work In Progress (WIP)

I’ll post the finished product once I’m done but for now enjoy some beautiful music from James Iha. I stumbled upon this song by accident and I absolutely love it! Who would have thought that James Iha, the guitarist for Smashing Pumpkins, would create a really cool solo album. His songs are about love, dreams and melancholy. The music makes me think of lazy summer days. Check it out.

Three Cheers to Art Delightful!

Two weeks ago I was able to paint again. I used prang water colors and used a beautiful photo of clovers for inspiration. It took me about three days to finish it and I’m really quite happy with the result.


I’m really relieved that I can still paint. Two years had passed since the last time I held a paintbrush. I actually experienced a really extensive artist block so I’m really quite happy that I was able to create something wonderful and so pretty to look at.

This painting is titled as ”Clovers". Yup, not that unique a name but I just think it’s perfect.

This artwork of mine inspired me to create this blog. I wanted to a place to showcase my work, to document my journey as an artist and what is happening in my life. I want to share my inspirations, my memories of my travels, and my undying love for Japanese fashion. So don’t be surprised if you see fashion posts or photos about where I’ve gone to during the weekend. Even if the blog’s title is about art it doesn’t mean that it is just about ‘art’.

Art Delightful will always be a blog about my life.

As an effort to make my blog uniquely ‘me’, I opted to create my own layout. I designed and painted the header image with prang watercolors. After that I scanned it and added the additional typography elements with Photoshop.

The design included all the things that make me happy: Flowers, my camera, my paintbrushes, ribbons, my sewing machine (although it’s represented by two spools of thread), and a cup of tea. I used pink as the main font color and side background theme. Anyone who knows me personally would not be surprised. I love that color with a passion. Pink has always given me a sense of loveliness. It’s cute isn’t it? I’m pretty happy with the result of the over all design.

Please stay tuned for more art projects. I’ve got a lot planned for the next few weeks. Till next time!