Do you crave to dabble in some form of arts & crafts that you have little to no experience in? What would you like to try? Have you taken any steps to give it a shot? If so, how is your progress?

For example, right now I have a hankering for some cross-stitch. I know the very basics on how to cross-stitch, because a nice lady taught me. However, I have yet to finish a full project on my own. Lately, I just really really want to try again. I thought that maybe, if I start small, I might be able to finish a project and see how that goes. The project I am going to try and start is just a small holiday ornament. I thought if I actually finish it, I might go for it and do the others in the set.

Here is a picture:

painting is what I like. watercolours, mostly. though occasionally i'll use acrylic.

Oh, I love watercolors! I haven't touched them in such a long while, but I also like to watch other people paint with them, too. I think it is very relaxing to watch the colors get mixed with water.

I like how you layered the colors in the sky. It looks like it was a lot of fun to paint, and yet beautifully tranquil.

the one thing I love about watercolours is that they bleed into each other, if they're watery enough, to create pictures without trying, does that make sense?

but that one I did, I wasn't going to do anything else with it, after the pretty colours, but I was bored so a tree, grass and flowers got added. basically, I was testing myself.

been told i'm talented. I don't believe it, tho.

as for the cross stitch, I think you should do all four. they'd be lovely to hang on your Christmas tree.

When I was really young, I made plasticine statues. Silly things like cacti wearing sheriff clothes, a palm tree in the middle of a field...

I tried doing nail art lately. Still needs improvement, and I want to wait until I have time to myself to try painting half-moon nails. Like those women back in the 40s.

Thank-you Stitch_too, I hope I stick with it to do all four. All of the ornaments I use on my tree are handmade, and I think these will really go well with them.

@The OriginalFive — Nail art sounds really cool. I hardly ever do mine, probably because they're so short. The last time I grew them out, I painted them an odd apple green. Then I managed to scare a few people with them. The lady at a drive-in food place nearly dropped my order when I went to take my food from her. I had a few other incidents just like that one around town, and so I just keep them short now.

Half-moons sound lovely. I have an idea in my head of what they should look like, but I am not entirely certain.

Look up Dita Von Teese's nails, like here. I have lots of this sort of red polish, but I plan to leave the moon part blank.

I think my mother's partly jealous of my potential talons and partly worried about my scruffiness. The last time she told me off for nail polish was because I ate finger food messily. So I don't wear it on my fingers often.

Oh, I see! Yes, that is what I pictured.

I have a few projects in mind -
1) a quilt for my grandson. I'm still in the planning stage because I wanted to make it blocks of stripes and blocks of stars or other flag-like things interspersed. In other words, not like any real flag, but imaginary. He loves flags for some reason, but now I'm second guessing myself because whenever he sees a flag or a flag-like object he starts shaking his hands loosely from the wrist with excitement (he's a toddler) and for that reason maybe it's not a good idea to give him a twin bed size flag. I'm always like this - obsessing far ahead to the inevitable consequences of whatever I do.
2) a sweater for my dog. I found a sweater pattern that I can probably adapt to his odd proportions - he has short legs and a long-ish body. It's knitted in the round and I've never done that before, so that's one of the things that's holding me back from beginning.
3} The craft stores sell those little canvases that are 4 inches square and I want to paint/draw/collage/whatever portraits of my 2 dogs and 3 cats, but so far I only did one of them and the one I more or less finished could use some pizazz.

Quilting is another one of those things I would like to try some day. In my mind it seems like such a massive thing to take on, but maybe it isn't so bad if a person just did a little at a time. I would be curious to hear more about it as you get further along.

I have never tried knitting for a dog, but sometimes I get asked about spinning dog fur on my spinning wheel. I haven't tried that either...but only because I don't have a dog. And, also, I'd have to have a suitable candidate.

I think you will enjoy having those portraits in the future. A couple of days ago my son dug out my old sketchbook. In it were pictures I drew of my childhood pets. My son has always heard stories about their antics, and he was absolutely in love with looking at the drawings I had made. I even left some commentary in the margins, and they went along with everything I had told him about them. I wouldn't have imagined that someone would grow to love those drawings so much. So it made me thankful that younger me took the time to make them.

I mostly just color stuff on Photoshop. Not much else.

Re quilting: I've never made a bed quilt - just crib quilts and smaller things. I like the patchwork part - the quilting part not so much.

I like to dabble. For a while I was kinda into knitting, but made several failed attempts at knitting a little pink dinosaur hat for my dinosaur-obsessed little sister, and then after that I gave up. I also dabble in sketches, comics (me and a friend of mine wrote a comic that we shared among our friendship group, it was literally "What if we all had super powers?". He wrote the script, I drew the pictures and sometimes changed the script). I do cosplay once a year (sometimes twice depending on money) and me and my boyfriend make our cosplays by ourselves. Next year I want to be Jolyne Cujoh from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, hopefully by then I won't be self-conscious about my tummy, and I'm not sure what my boyfriends being yet, but we'll probably work on his costume together.

^^Oooh! I would love to see your cosplay creations, Bigsimsfan12! I have only recently learned the word cosplay, but I find it fascinating.



I love Photoshop. I've been working with it since version 2.7. I remember my classmates' faces when we first heard the name of it for the first time. We all looked at each other in wonder and amazement. It was pretty funny, now that I think about it. The teacher described it to us with a hushed, secretive, tone, and we were like...woah!! She blew our minds that day. LOL

@RoseCity — I guess the quilting part is where you add the soft squishy middle? Does it like to shift around?

You baste the three layers (front, batting, backing) together or pin it and then you put it into a quilting frame or hoop and quilt a section of it at a time. I don't feel like buying a quilting frame and also I'm afraid the quilt would just sit in the frame gathering dust. Someone told me once that's what happened with their quilt and at some point she went to move it or actually quilt and there was a mouse family living in the batting. I do have several hoops though.

Ah okay! I could see something horrible like that happening to me too. Things crop up that take away your attention. (Although I have never had a mouse living in my house, but I wouldn't want to tempt any to move in, either.) So, I guess I'd go the hoop route as well. Plus, I'm sure it is cheaper. A frame sounds like it could be expensive.

I've tried so many things (I'm working on a big counted cross stitch - after 3 years, I'm pretty bored with it). Most things I still do, but my attempt at indian bead work -- never could get it.

I build 1/6 scale models of shopping centers. Mainly requires a cardboard box 14" cubed (HWD all 14"), glue, various elements in scrapbooking and papercrafting, paperboard (which can be harvested from empty cereal boxes) and cutting tools.

I was working on a fashion boutique, but I had an accident with hot glue and ended up with a second-degree burn blister. So I'm a little scared to return until the blister is no longer swollen. I give it about 5 days more than when my father originally projected.

I also make PVC\ABS dolls with yarn for hair. This is a nod to a beloved garage sale find. I had a couple of Rainbow Brite dolls, Patty O' Green, Shy Violet and Rainbow Brite herself. I even had the accompanying Starlite plush, where you could attach the velcro on Rainbow Brite to the velcro on Starlite.

Speaking of Starlite, when I listen to Starlite, he reminds me of the monster artisan Finster from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers... But then again, Haim Saban and Starlite's\Finster's voice were working at the same company when Rainbow Brite was produced.

^^ Hopefully your burn will heal up soon. It sounds quite painful. My own house is slowing being filled with models like you describe, only in my case the buildings are warehouses, boat docks, and train stations created by my son. He just got a new glue gun yesterday after wearing his last one out. He uses up my shipping boxes that come in, card stock, and balsa wood.

@grammapat — Yeah, those big projects require such a commitment. However, I wonder what kind of design you picked out. I'm sure it is pretty. Also, I have never tried any kind of beadwork. I am not sure how I would do with that myself.

I can paint badly, and draw at least better. In some opposite world, I'd be a billionaire.

I made one of my friends a little pillow with a cross-stitch Daria from the MTV show Daria on it, I made the pattern myself on the pc.

I draw a little, I used to draw a lot but I don't bother so much anymore. I'm ok, but I haven't made much progress in years, if anything I feel like I've gotten worse. But I was always "that kid" in class who could draw well.

I tried knitting, and I just couldn't get it, but I love crochet. I haven't done it in a while though, I made a couple of little dolls, but I kept trying to make a better pattern to get more realistic looking people shaped dolls, but I just can't get it, I'm not advanced enough, I only know basic crochet.

I also do some chainmail jewellery, and I can do enough to be content, because it's not so much about skill, but patience and materials. I don't have a lot of patience and the right materials can be expensive, but I like messing with cheap materials, so that in the future when we have more spare money, maybe I can actually make professional level jewellery as gifts or maybe even to sell. (the necklace in the picture attached is something I made for someone here on MTS :P, the bracelet I gave to my Nan for Mother's Day)

Right now though, I'm focusing mostly on cross-stitch, mainly because it's my friends birthday soon and I need to make her a gift like my other friends' Daria, but I'm making a Kida from Disney's Atlantis for her. I think I like cross-stitch so much because it's almost exactly like pixel art on the PC, and I love making little tiny pixel art dress up games, that are never seen or played with by anyone but me, lol. I can't shade for dick though, so my pixel art looks kinda rubbish.

Plus I just realised that it's easier and cheaper to just buy string and fold it to make the thread, rather than buying proper cross-stitch thread. So now I have a lot more colours to work with!

^^ Beautiful work! Love your Daria and chainmail jewelry. I once watched a guy work with chainmail, and it looked so relaxing.

I love your 'doubling-up regular thread' idea for cross-stitch. I've seen some of the prices on the professional threads, and I bet it can really add up after a while. Especially for those who are heavily into it.

Thank you

The bigger the aida the more strands thick I go, I'm working on 16 aida at the moment, and 4 strands thick seems perfect for full crosses which I use for outlines, but when I colour I don't do a full cross, I just make it thicker and do it all in one direction, I think it looks cleaner, that's what I did with the Daria. It also saves a lot of thread and the back is a lot neater.

@SuperSimoholic I fucking love Daria.

1) A stuffed toy hedgehog (called Hedge) from one of those sets where you get the parts and you have to stitch and stuff it yourself. Squishyness factor has increased significantly.
2)Stuffed toy elephant who's called Kidney Bean cos the ears are shaped like kidney beans, also from a set
3)I however am most proud of the doughnut I made. It looks like the ones that Homer Simpson likes to eat (brown with pink icing). Months after I finished it, I realised that one of the brown pieces of felt was upside down, so the doughnut isn't the same brown all the way round.
4) A plate, and a few little clay thinngies, which were glazed with the stuff that they use in Japan. (Japanese friend had a birthday and took us to a Japanese ceramics place near her house)
5)Does spray painting an fugly brown frame gold because my mum told me to count?