PENANG STREET ART

It's been a couple of months now since I went to Malaysia (where has the time gone!) and with Christmas so soon after I got back, all of the arts and crafts I was doing were appropriately festive so the blog obviously followed suit. I absolutely love Christmas, and love doing Christmas crafts and then blogging about it, but it does mean that I haven't yet had the chance to share my memories and experiences of the places I visited in Malaysia, like Penang; an island on the north-west coast of Malaysia. Whilst in Penang, we spent most of our time in the multicultural capital, Georgetown. Here, we visited places like Chinatown, LIttle India, the clan houses and the clan jetty. It was such an interesting place, full of so many different sights, sounds and smells. Having come from Kuala Lumpur, Penang felt like such an authentic experience of Malaysia. As we wandered around Georgetown, we came across so many paintings on the street walls which I just absolutely loved, so I wanted to share some photos of them with you.

When I got back, I did some research and found out that several of the art pieces and murals ('Boy on the Bike' and 'Little Boy with Pet Dinosaur') are by Lithuanian born artist Ernest Zacharevic, who has been dubbed "Malaysia's answer to Banksy". Many of the pieces were created for the 2012 Georgetown Arts and Crafts Festival. Prior to this, Georgetown apparently had no graffiti or street art whatsoever. Things certainly changed following this though, with Artists for Stray Animals installing a dozen or so feline-friendly pieces, such as 'Love me like your fortune cat' and 'The real Bruce Lee would never do this', for the 2013 Georgetown Festival. The following year, local artist WK Setor created the 'I want Pau!' mural which shows two children reaching out of a window towards a bicycle. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find out who the Penguin graffiti is by, which is a shame, as for some reason I find it so cute - it's like a child pretending to be a lawyer!

What do you think of this street art? 

Have you been to Penang?

Let me know in the comments below!

♥

CHRISTMAS THROUGH A MACRO LENS

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you have all been enjoying this Christmas weekend. I can't believe how quickly it has all gone by; an entire month of preparation (maybe even longer!) and in a blink of an eye, it's all over. Thoughtfully wrapped presents are all opened, carefully chosen foods and wines all drunk and eaten and visiting family, who just embody the meaning of Christmas, are soon to, or have already, returned home. 

True to form, I had a heavy cold over Christmas (hence the photo of the Beechams!) which did dampen my festive spirits slightly (as well as my taste) but ultimately, I still had a really nice time. For me, the best part of Christmas is being with my whole family at our family home; eating a huge Christmas dinner, playing board games, watching festive films together, cat cuddles and enjoying the sheer prettiness of the decorations that adorn the house. 

I'm from an extremely generous family and so this year I was lucky enough to receive a 4-in-1 Olloclip lens  for my iPhone 6 from 'Santa'. I'm always taking photos with my phone and love taking macro photos on my bridge camera so this was just perfect for me. Although perhaps not one for the serious amateur or professional photographer, I've been really impressed with these lenses and so when I wasn't sneezing, I enjoyed snapping the various close up shots of my Christmas above.

How was your Christmas? 

Have you used an Olloclip lens?

Let me know in the comments below and don't forget to share and subscribe! 

♥

5 FAVES FRIDAY // A COSY CHRISTMAS

I hadn't planned to write a blog post tonight but as I'm sat here watching back-to-back christmas films, beside my boyfriend who is so patiently putting up with all my festive traditions (bless him!), with the lights twinkling on our lovingly decorated Christmas tree and scented candles filling the air with the smells of Christmas cookies, I feel completely and utterly festive. So I thought I'd just briefly share with you a few of my favourite things that have contributed to creating my cosy Christmas...

Thorton's Continental Advent Calendar  |  £10.00  |  Thorntons

Geometric Christmas Baubles  |  £3.00 for a pack of 6 baubles  |  Tiger Stores UK

Yankee Votive Candle Cracker Gift Set  |  £8.99 for a set of 3 candles  |  Yankee Candle

Light-up Christmas Canvas  |  £5.00 approximately on materials  |  Made by me :)

Harvey's Christmas Ale  |  £25.08 for a box of 12 bottles  |  Harvey's The Sussex Brewery

What's making yours cosy and festive this year?

Let me know in the comments below!

♥

DIY // HOLLY JOLLY CHRISTMAS CARDS

Just 4 days left to go and I still haven't finished my christmas shopping or christmas crafting. Every year I seem get to this stage, having the year before said to myself that next year will be the year I get myself organised in advance of all the craziness that ensues after mid-december. Although I am in a similar position yet again, I have at least planned and made my christmas cards. I've never really wanted to have a go at linocutting, but after watching this year's Sky Art's Landscape Artist of the Year and subsequently finding a great DIY Stamp Set from Tiger, I decided to have a go at cutting my own festive stamps and using them to make christmas cards for my family and friends.

Although the stamp kit came with some handy inks in three different colours (black, pink and blue), I used acrylic paint so that I could mix up a more festive green. I really enjoyed making these and was pleasantly surprised at how long it took to cut the stamps, which was probably less than 2 hours in total, and how well the stamps actually printed. It really was a great kit to get me started however I'm keen to have a go with more tools on lino and so I'm thinking that next time I will invest in a Lino Cutting and Printing Kit.

Have you ever tried linocutting? Have you crafted any christmas cards this year?

Let me know in the comments below! :)

♥

DIY // FAIRY LIGHT CHRISTMAS CANVAS

It's SO nearly Christmas! If you couldn't tell from my consistently festive tweets and instagram posts, I'm just a *tad* excited. My excitement has been slightly delayed this year because of the amount of work I've had for the course over the past few weeks, which has seriously dampened my spirits, however now it is all done and dusted, the excitement and festive crafts are in full flow! I saw the idea for this on Pinterest quite a while ago and I'm not sure who thought of it first, but regardless, I instantly fell in love with it. After putting the tree up, I realised that the fireplace was in need of some festive TLC and remembered this lovely little idea. I'm forever wishing it would snow during the christmas period, and as it's looking less likely this year than ever, 'Let It Snow' seemed like the perfect quote for me to include.

Canvas  |  Pencil  |  Acrylic Paint  |  Paint brush  |  Craft Knife  |  Fairy Lights  |  Superglue

1. Using the pencil, draw out a festive phrase on the canvas in a stylish font. As I wasn't too fussed about my lettering being perfect, I just drew 'Let it snow' out freehand. If you are keen for yours to be more accurate and more evenly spaced, you could always type out your festive phase in Microsoft Word, print it out and trace it onto the canvas.

2. Mix up the acrylic paints to make your desired background colour. As any reader of ISOSCELLA will by now have realised, I love mint/pastel blues/duck egg blue and all variations of them. Typically then, I mixed up a pastel mint shade using my Daler-Rowney Acrylic Paints in white, green and blue.

3. Leaving the lettering blank for the moment, paint all over the canvas. Using a large paintbrush (one you might use for your walls!) I painted all over the canvas, keeping my distance from the lettering in the middle. I then went in with a smaller paintbrush and carefully painted in between and all around the the lettering.

4. Mix up the acrylic paints to make your desired lettering colour. For me this didn't take very long or involve much thought as I simply used white acrylic paint, straight from the tube!

5. With a smaller tipped brush, carefully paint the lettering. Here, I used two smaller paintbrushes, one flat paintbrush and one much finer pointed tip paintbrush. For the wider parts of the letters I used the flat paintbrush and for the extremely narrow parts of the lettering I used the fine brush.

6. Using the pencil, mark where you want the lights to come through. Again I did this freehand and quite randomly (snow doesn't fall very precisely after all!) but just ensured that I made no more than thirty-five marks, as I had thirty-five lights.

7. Push a sharp utensil through these marks & widen with the scalpel. For this I used a sharp screwdriver however you could easily use a wide needle or pin, etc. Using a scalpel, I then widened each hole slightly as my holes weren't quite large enough to push my lights through.

8. Turn the canvas over & push the fairy light bulbs through each hole. Once the holes were large enough and I'd ensured that I could get a fairy light bulb through, I pushed the rest of the lights through.

9. Pushing the bulbs slightly further through, dab superglue around the bulb base & stick to the front side of the canvas. Because the bulbs were wider than the base of the lights, the lights were slightly loose and didn't sit at a 90 degree angle to the canvas. To resolve this, I pushed the lights up, dabbed superglue around the base and pushed the bulb down until it was fixed to the canvas at the angle I wanted.

10. Sellotape the battery pack & any uncontrollable wires to the back of the canvas. There were a fair few out-of-control wires (and a few unused lights!) and so to prevent them from sticking out I sellotaped them to the back of the canvas at the bottom.

... then, place your canvas, turn on the lights & enjoy!

I'm really pleased with how this crafty project turned out and can see myself using this, and making variations of this, for many years to come!

Is this something you might make?

Let me know in the comments below! Please share and subscribe :)

♥