11 Friday May 2018
I wrote about my rag rug a couple of months ago. I must admit that it has lost momentum a bit now that I have mostly worked out the rest of the pattern, but I’m still working on it. Here is the latest progress:
05 Saturday May 2018
A few years ago I made a Bead Habitat. You may have noticed that all the pictures are fairly tightly cropped. This is because I hadn’t finished the edges.
I had intended to frame it as a picture to go on the wall, but my mother objected, saying that it was too tactile for that and needed to be explored closely rather than hung from a wall. After that it got buried under all the debris on my beading table.
As part of my recent tidying, I came across it again, and decided to finish it. I’ve done a bead edging and a backing fabric to hide my workings. I had to try really hard not to embellish the back too!
I’m not entirely sure what it is. It’s a kind of sculptural, 3D painting, abstract, mini landscape, ornament… thing. It’s purely decorative and quite small, so I’m thinking of it as “coffee table jewellery”.
It’s a mixed media piece including some of my polymer clay beads and components, silk covered wire, embroidery and glass beads on fabric.
Let me know what you think it is. Sometimes feel that I don’t make these things, I’m just there when it happens. 🙂
01 Sunday Apr 2018
Posted in jewellery
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It’s unlikely I’ll be making an egg this year, however I have changed my window display to some happy yellows. (Please excuse the fuzzy photo and clunky editing.)
I have just listed this jewellery in my online shop, some of the earrings haven’t been available online before now.
Happy Easter!
27 Tuesday Mar 2018
It’s been a while since my last blog, so here’s a look at my current project. It’s a proddy rag rug. Inspired by hours looking at the rugs in Craftworkshop, I decided to give this a try since I have a lot of scrap fabric.
Rag rug in progress
Of course I didn’t actually look at any tutorials, I just looked at the rugs in the shop and guessed how they were done. I’m using scraps of fleece fabric and a knitting needle for the prodding. I’m not using a frame, but perhaps I should be, since it’s curling a bit on the back. I suspect my scraps are a bit densely packed too, but I think it will be ok since there is a recess at my front door which I am making this to fit into. I’ll just jam it in and stomp it flat when I’m done.
Back of rug
I’m doing an abstract design, just planning it as I go. It’s like a very slow motion doodle and is strangely addictive. Often I find it helps keep me interested if I don’t plan things out too fully. It’s also satisfying finding a way to recycle my scraps of fabric.
If you’d like to see a pro making one, here’s a nice video:
And this pdf tutorial even gives instructions for making the tools you will need.
Update: Here’s a more recent photograph with further progress on my rug.
17 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in fabric
I have done another fabric design for spoonflower. This one was for their limited palette challenge. They provided the colour choices, I chose the pattern. It was only afterwards that I realised the colours were very similar to my blog header image!
I was inspired by those pictures made from sand, water and air bubbles between two panes of glass. When you flip it the bubbles rise and cause the sand to dribble through slowly like an hourglass to form different landscapes (search for sandpicture and you’ll see what I mean).
If you’d like to vote, you have until 20th February 2018. There are a lot of entries, so bring a snack!
05 Monday Feb 2018
Posted in fabric
I haven’t done a blog post in a while – this is because I haven’t been making anything new. Here’s why:
Embarrassingly this mess is not because I’ve just moved house, it’s layers of stuff that I’ve been shifting around to different surfaces so that I can work somewhere else. However since the rest of the room is in a similar state, there’s now nowhere else to shift to. Combine this with my New Year’s good intentions and a birthday marking a new decade, I have been focussing on tidying up and getting things under control. It’s slow going since I can only do a little bit before I feel the panic building and I have to stop and do something else.
Since I don’t want to leave you with such a ghastly image, here’s one of the projects I’ve finally gotten around to doing. These were supposed to be Christmas gifts for my children. Yes it’s February!
My girls were very specific about the designs they wanted so I thought it would be easier to make them than to scour the shops for “a baby white unicorn, lying down, with a purple mane and a golden horn and golden hooves and rainbow wings”. A pink and yellow butterfly was easier, but I figured since I was already making one…
I got my designs printed by Spoonflower on minky fabric. Since the cost was similar to get two fat quarters as a whole yard, I did the two together and filled the background with a design combining the unicorn and the butterfly (this fabric is now available on Spoonflower).
My sewing on the plushies was pretty abysmal, so I decided to practice some more. I cut out a few of the motifs from the background fabric and made an even smaller unicorn.
I had to do blanket stitch around the outside since it was too small for an inner seam. I was tempted to put a bail on this and make it into a necklace, but my daughter has claimed this one too.
I also made another butterfly. I’m not sure if this is a pin cushion or a toy. It’s gone too.
16 Saturday Dec 2017
Posted in My work
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My husband’s Christmas party this year was a masquerade ball so he asked me to make a mask for him. We decided on something inspired by the Green Man.
Green Man mask by Cate van Alphen
The base of the mask is paper mache (I used layers of gum tape) with a final decorative layer of my mono printed papers torn into little pieces. The leaves and acorns are polymer clay and there is a foil backed glass gem in the center. I also sprinkled in a few acrylic flat backs for some Christmas bling.
It was a fun project. I’m tempted to make some more masks although I’m not quite sure what to do with the finished products since I find masks pretty creepy.
15 Friday Dec 2017
Posted in fabric
I have created another fabric design for a Spoonflower design challenge. The theme is Arctic Animals. It features the incredibly rare Arctic Unicorn, based on a request from my daughter.
Arctic Unicorn Fabric design
You can find the fabric here. Voting ends on 19th December 2017, and you can find the contest link here, to see the other entries and hopefully vote for mine too.
27 Monday Nov 2017
Posted in jewellery
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I have just started a sale in my online jewellery shop. The discounts increase based on how long ago I made things, up to 33% off.
Happy Cyber Monday!
Polymer clay bracelet by Cate van Alphen
10 Friday Nov 2017
Posted in jewellery, painting, Virtual Retreat
Here’s another of my lost projects. 
This one was inspired by Syndee Holt’s Mini Masterpieces class on Polymer Clay Adventure.
The project included several techniques including gelli printing and transfers. I didn’t make the exact projects, but I used some of the techniques separately.
I really liked her bezels so, while I waited for my gelli plate to arrive, I created a couple of pendants using some polymer clay domes that I had already made from a mokume gane sheet.
Once my gelli plate arrived, I spent a morning mono printing onto paper to make into greetings cards.
Unfortunately the photos are not great. I just had time to take a few snaps before quickly hiding my paints as it was time to fetch the children from school (it’s extraordinarily stressful when they get hold of paint).
These photos don’t really convey the layers of colour and shimmer from the metallic paint and pearlescent paper that I used. I’ve since taken the cards to sell at Craftworkshop, so I can’t take better pictures. They were loads of fun to do, so I’m sure I’ll do more soon.
