HBD Edgar Allan Poe! Check out The Stitchy Button on etsy for your own custom-made bunnies and dolls, dragons, unicorns, and much more! You can get coupons, art, and a cute “Featured Bean” every month by becoming a patreon member!
serious question: why is there no writer/literature merch? or if there is, why is it not as popular or normal as musician or other artists merch?
I would love to get a shirt with my favourite poem in a fitting font and maybe a matching graphic to support a writer. Or a poster of an iconic book cover. Or a patch with a little quote.
We make a lot of patches and buttons for bands and album covers and song lyrics. Why not literature? Why not novels?
And this goes for myself too - I´ve been thinking about this for a long time and have been meaning to make myself something to reming me of my favourite novels, but I´ve only made two things - a shirt with Vonneguts illustrations and a patch with a quote from Dracula. But I wanna make so much more.
tldr SHOW ME YOUR NOVEL/BOOKS/POEMS/LITERATURE MERCH! please and thank you
You ever get the feeling that sometimes the universe thinks the time is right for a specific project?
Earlier this week, heavily inspired both by @rattusrattus3 and their collage box youtube tutorial, and the gorgeous corvid boxes posted by @korva-the-raven, I decided to make something similar myself. THE DAY AFTER that decision was made I found this wooden chocolate box in a charity shop for £1.99. It could not be more perfect for purpose.
I had been thinking the collage part would be difficult as I "don't really keep interesting bits of paper." As it turns out, the hell I don't.
That same evening I found this stash in my old art folder. I thought all I had in there were a couple of greetings cards.
Of particular use were the William Blake and Exploring the Gothic art exhibition guides. These are both really high quality prints and contain some gorgeous artwork. Thankfully I have a paper guillotine so I could cut out the pictures really neatly.
This is what I ended up with. I could make several boxes just from these!
Korva's boxes have individual compartments made out of matchboxes which are also decorated. I don't have any matchboxes, but then I recalled that I know how to make an origami box - I had a friend in school who was Japanese and her mother taught me. So, what if I was able to find some nice paper and make small boxes to go inside? Again, the universe provided...
These are from a pad of scrapbooking paper, 24 double sided sheets, 30x30cm (12x12 inches) for £4. Very thick and high quality and excellent for making sturdy boxes that are fit for this purpose. I didn't love all of it but these designs are beautiful, and I will have more than enough for this project and tons left for the future 😁
I thought to save it looking too "busy" I would just use one plain colour and one floral. Since the internal boxes need to be quite small I thought a smaller print would work best, and paired that with a plain purple. I used the guillotine again to cut the paper into squares that were the right size (after a trial run with some cartridge paper to make sure they would fit) and...
This box is super easy to do, probably why I still remember how to make it after being taught at the age of 5! Here's a tutorial.
Meanwhile the outer box got a couple of coats of black acrylic paint.
Then it was time to decide how to arrange my collage pieces. I quickly came up with this for the inside (Edgar Allan Poe themed, the large picture is an illustration to "The Raven" which is super appropriate for a corvid box, and the small one in the top right has lines from the poem "Lenore"). I'm still unsure about whether I will also do the base as its going to be covered most of the time anyway. I may just line it with more of the floral paper.
The outside was harder, but I've gone with some anatomical drawings, plus a couple of space-fillers which look pretty.
The edges are a little narrow so I'm not going to collage those for now, but I might see if any of the charms from my shiny things box would look good glued onto the sides instead.
Unfortunately I can't finish it just yet, as the only thing I haven't been able to get is modge podge - every shop I went into said "we used to have that but don't stock it anymore". So I ordered some online and I should have it within a few days.
Then all I'll need to do is decide how I want to fill it, I have lots of items to choose from 😁
Huge thanks to those who inspired this, it has been a project that I've absolutely loved, and I'm going to be on the lookout for more nice boxes so I can make another, I still have plenty of supplies!
Costume time! I feel like Halloween is one of the only times where it’s socially acceptable let your “weirdo” flag fly 😆
This is just one of a few costumes I’ve played around with and decided to take some fun photos of it. I’m a huge fan of Edgar Allen Poe. So when I saw this mask, I instantly thought of his poem The Raven and had to try it out as a costume. What are you going as this Halloween? 🖤
Also on another note, I wanted to thank everyone who checked out my newest release Ring of Fire on Bandcamp❤️🔥 The love and support means the world to me! If you haven’t had a chance to listen to it, it’s a totally free download on my Bandcamp and I’d love to hear what you think! Hope you all having a fun Halloween weekend! 😎