Turning Japanese............

Some inspiration for the January design theme .......whatever form it may take!

Sterling Japanese maple tree pendant : By Wire girl

Robot thank you card by: Boto designs
Green origami flower ball by: Julzbooks
Japanese tattoo platform wedge by:Virtual exchanges
Red Bamboo mural decal by:Single stone studios
Kawaii sakura tee shirt by: Namu
Cherry branch plastic ring by: Tiger Lily designs
Sake cups by : Pottery by Jolene
Harajuku girls via: Japanese street fashion

Enjoy!

I've also created a little button for the challengers. So if your taking part, your welcome to pop it on your blog too.

I'm not very technological with html codes etc, so just copy and paste it and link it back to this post: http://finkihandmade.blogspot.com/2010/01/monthly-design-challenge.html
so peeps know what your taking part in.
Jay xx

January's design theme...

It's time for the monthly design challenge to begin.

Thanks to random org.com the lucky number chosen is number 2.

If we flick back a post or two the categories reveal that number two is........

Turning Japanese

1: Planes, trains and automobiles

2: Turning Japanese
3: Weird science
4: Birds of fancy
5: Music and dance
6:Graffiti
7:Wild west
8: Fantastic Flora
9: food, glorious food
10: Seeing circles
11: It's hip to be a square
12: Steam punk
13: Technological
14: European travels
15: The great vacation
16:I see red, I see red, I see red....(or whatever color we choose this month)
more...
17: Space....the final frontier.
18: Circus
19:Romance
20:The animal kingdom
21:Our furry friends

The challenge is open to everyone and can be interpreted any way you see fit.

Inspiration may come in the form of bold geometric prints, feminine blossom designs, quirky 50's gadgetry and tin toys, calligraphy, shoes, tacky vintage cosmetic advertising, propaganda posters and more.

Take that inspiration and turn it into anything your heart desires.
Jewellery, clothes, quilts, sculpture, painting, pencil cases, toys, furniture, stationary or even a cupcake!
Your only limited by your own imagination.

Send me pics of your finished works, no matter how great or small, by the end of January and we'll have a bloggy exhibition of all the fantastic craft submitted.

I can't wait to see what wonderful things are created this month.

Monthly design challenge.........

Inspired by the competition Curlypops had last year of inviting peeps to design her alter ego superpops, I'd like to present a monthly design challenge for all the crafty peeps out there.

What inspired me about Cams competition was how you could have 30 amazingly crafty individuals work on the same brief and come up with entirely different things. All of them so unique to the style of the maker.
Sort of reminded me of being back in my art class at school. When the teacher would lay 3 white pieces of crockery on a white podium and have a class of 30 draw it.
Each and every one was so different.

Illustration by Dave Walker: Via the cartoon blog.

Another motivating factor for this challenge is the common interests a lot of us have. Which is wonderful....but due to our loyalty to each other we tend to drop our idea of doing a flying duck thing because we saw that Jan did it, or we drop our idea for a caravan thing because we saw that Mary did it. Even when we know our duck or caravan may well be entirely different to our friends....they are our friends and we don't want to A: steal there thunder or B: seem as though we are copying them.

So I'd like to crush all pre misconceptions of whose idea it was to paint the tree first...... take away the fear of being labeled a copy cat for crafting an owl.......... and invite you all to join in on a monthly design challenge, invite you all to do the same thing.

In effect this will display how we are all so different, even if when given the same brief. How we can all celebrate a love of the same topics with such a unique angle.

You can interpret the chosen theme any way you like. Into a bag, a book, a cushion, a painting, a t-shirt, a necklace......you can sell it, gift it or display it on a shelf.

You can do January themes and skip February's if you like, or you can do them all. The rules are pretty loose on this one.

Email a pic of your finished work and at the end of each month I'll have an online bloggy exhibition to display the works of that months participants.

Your all invited!

Edited to say you can view this months selected theme by clicking 'Here'
and you can add a badge to your blog to let others know you are joining in, by clicking here...