Monday, February 7, 2011

January Design Challenge Projects


This was the inaugural month for the W.E.S.T. design challenge, and we have some great projects to share with you! We worked with the theme of winter forest. It is so interesting to see what direction a couple of words will take creative people in.




Nancy of Nancy Blokland Pottery created these gorgeous mugs and plate. Nancy was inspired by the tranquility of winter and the muted colour palate found in this season. She writes:

"I often find that winter is a blurry sky, cloudy time. The colours I chose for the plate and the mugs are muted and soft, like snow. I am happy with them, subtle as they are in their suggestion of a winter forest."


Lisbeth of Daisy Patch Designs knitted a sweet DS cozy for her son and a beautiful cabled hat and mitten set. Lisbeth had this to say about her projects:





"I made the Nintendo DS cozy for my 5 year old son (a special request he made, how could I refuse) and listed it on my Etsy site as a made to order cozy. I think that cozies were part of the Etsy January challenge but may not fit so much in the winter forest theme...




As for the hat and mitten set, I bought the wool at an estate sale. It was very soft (and vintage). I ran into a few problems finishing up the right mitten as I ran out of wool. Try and find some vintage wool!!! So I had a skein of extra virgin wool that was very close in colour that I used to finish the project. It was a close call! LOL
My set is something you would wear on a wintry walk in the forest.
I listed it on my site however, my husband took a shine to it and decided to buy it for himself."

You can find the DS cozy and a very similar cabled set at Daisy Patch Designs.



I've been wanting to change up my packaging for sold items in my etsy shop for awhile, and this was a great opportunity to create something new. My winter forest inspiration came from our drive to The Pas to visit my in-laws this January. If you've ever made this trip, you know how lonely this road is. It's literally nothing but snow and trees in the winter. The landscape is absolutely pristine, and incredibly beautiful. I wanted something that would look wintery and since I've been seeing birch bark almost everywhere it's really grown on me. So far, I've been using them with white tissue paper wrapping finished with natural hemp cord as ribbon. These are balsa wood decoupaged (for lack of a better term) with birch bark and then varnished.

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in January's design challenge!

1 comment:

  1. wonderful work gang! what a pleasure to read about all your wintery thoughts and inspirations!!

    ReplyDelete

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