Bugs and flowers

How do. Today I have old work to show you. VERY old work. This dates back to about 2007 when I lived in a horrible rancid flat in Whalley Range which had A LOT of problems. Among them were an assortment of bugs, or 'insects' as they are usually known in the UK. Specifically, cockroaches. Ughhhh. Are they even insects? I think I considered them to be a robot army of diseased vermin GIANTS, even though they were just going about their business. In my kitchen.

They made me cry. The only thing I could think of to do was to make some beautiful bugs (I'm just going to call them bugs ALL RIGHT) out of old carrier bags, sequins, wire and things. The beautiful bugs will win, I thought.



In actual fact they DID turn out rather beautiful, and I am proud of them. This was a time when I wasn't really up for showing my work to people, but I wish I had now.



I took these photos in my parents' back garden, with my old camera which had a wicked macro function. The cats kept getting in the way and I even had a visit from a butterfly who stuck around to have his picture taken! Sweet!







So I still have some of these bugs, I made zillions and gave a lot of them away. They are coming to the craft fair with me on Saturday, if you'd like to have a peep. Don't forget guys! St Clements Church in Chorlton, 10am til 4. Yayyyyyy! I am getting hysterical now because I'm in a hurry. Just COME, all right. I will see you there.

Some monsters what I forgot about

Oh hi there. I was just idly looking through some of my photo folders, marvelling at how disorganised they are, and I realised that I had NOT showed you some VITAL ITEMS. This is very important! I had better show you RIGHT NOW and CAPITALISE some words while I am AT it!

Erm

Well first up, this is Cara and Siobhan.



Cara wanted monsters to celebrate their 5th anniversary: the perfect present. They are very cute aren't they! I love making monsters with red hair, for some reason. I think it's because I can make it mega bright and that's my MO. Anyway, Cara advises me that they love them and that is that.

Hooray!

Okay, secondses: this is my sister Caroline.



Caroline is VERY beautiful and fancy. She enjoys being bedecked in jewels and lace and looks spiffing at all times. We are not very similar. Check out this real ruby that I got especially.



Swit swoo Caroline.

This next one is Gruff Rhys. I forgot I made this and actually don't know where it is.



I went to see Gruff Rhys ages ago and he DJed afterwards at Islington Mill where I would have had ample opportunity to freak out and not talk to him, but the last time I saw him there was no such opportunity. I guess I will stick it on Folksy, it's a pretty cool monster. The big mouths are such an integral part of the monster style, that when I make one without it looks really bonkers to me. I wanted to concentrate on his jumper, you see. The swirly pattern is supposed to resemble the patterns on Gruff's guitar.

Ohhh-kay. What else. Digging in old photo folders is fun!

Oh my gosh. This is a dreadful photo, but I will show you anyway. It's Roger, you guys!



Roger wanted a monster for his nephew, a Roger monster, so the baby could play with the monster and then meet Roger and be all like, WHHAAAAT. That's why all the eyes and glasses and everything are made out of felt. It's my attempt to make the monster baby-proof. I can't believe I never took a proper photo of this, he's got wicked DMs which are missing off this crap one. Roger, if you read this and you have any better photos, please email them to me? He did show me one photo of the baby laughing his head off at the monster which was MINT.



Okay, last one for now. This is Jim. He made my website, which if you haven't seen, you should totally go and look at in a minute. If you don't care about the monsters, you should go for the web design. Although, if you don't care about monsters, what are you doing here you daft toilet.

Anyway, Jim's girlfriend Alice requested this one to go with hers (red-haired, wicked bright) and apparently his favourite shirt is this checked orange one. Do you know how hard it is to knit a gingham pattern on a monster 4 inches high? I think I did an all right job of it but I gave up by the time I got to the collar.

Oh Jim made Alice's website too, it is here. She's like this completely amazing recyclist and craft workshopifier.

Well that'll do. I'm doing a couple of craft fairs in the South Manc area soon, come along. The next one is the Chorlton Arts Festival one, in St Clements Church, Manchester Road, Chorlton. 26th November, 11-4 I think. Tell your mates! It's gonna be CRAZY. I love you xx

Fresh Prints

Hey hey. I have been printing. You may have already seen these if you follow me on Twitter, but here they are again with some more writing around them.

I had an urge to do some lino prints a while ago, I love them. I'm really drawn to things which have been made by hand, using some laborious process or other, and lino printing gives such a vibrant, clear result, it's perfect for making posters. A good printed poster is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. I guess screen printing might be a better method but I don't know too much about it to be honest. I will endeavour to find out because it's actually super. I mean, look at this one. Yeesh.

What better than to print some Helen Makes posters? Bear in mind I haven't done this since I was at sixth form college and I made a cut of a zebra so I would only have to use one colour.

This is Effort Number One.



Here I only HAD one colour, following a hasty impulse trip to Fred Aldous. You may note that I left my website off, that was an accident. It was supposed to be on the monster's shirt, but I started cutting it and then realised I had done the lettering the right way round, which is to say the WRONG way round. Total rookie mistake. I used my trusty rubber stamp to put the URL on afterwards.

This one is roughly A5 size so it has a bit more detail in it, particularly in the hair area. I really like this.

Numero Deux: voila!



This is in French because I decided to make flyers to send to Nic in France. I don't know what she's done with them. They're about A6 sized. I got another colour in between-whiles and even managed to get it to line up! Yeeoooww. I don't know if my French is correct either, can anyone actually tell me? I think it is. I hope so, I don't want to be Helen Makes Mistakes.

This is the English version, a bit different but also the same.



The lines are thicker, it looks bulkier and somehow simpler than the French one. I don't know which I like better. I will keep at it but I think these are pretty good for a self-taught novice.

Finally: this isn't all lino cut, but I LOVE it. I love Bob Ross. Ugh, I want to print EVERYTHING now.

Well there we go.