Hat Pattern Book Update!

 It is spooky month, one of my favorite times of year! I love it when the leaves start to change and the air gets really crisp. I have a great month of stuff planned, art I'm working on, art and patterns I'm excited to release and looking ahead to the next few months in my studio.

To kick off this month, I've got an update for you all on the hat pattern project! I have been plugging away and have FOUR new patterns that are ready to be released. They will be going live in the Crafted by Life Designs Etsy Shop, and they are the Bunny, Thing 1 & 2, Batman and TNMT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle) Hat patterns!

As a big thank you to my patreon supporters, anyone who is a paid member as of today will be receiving a message to your inbox- allowing you to select one of these four hat patterns for FREE! (This may not come out immediately following this post, I do have a day job and also take advantage of scheduling posts to save me from forgetting them)

Are you a free member but wish you could get these freebies? Sign up for my patreon today! I'm going to be releasing somewhere around 50 hat patterns in the next year, and my paid supporters are getting one every time I do a drop of new patterns! In addition to that, you'll gain access to my paid supporter pattern library, which includes an ever growing list of patterns (I try to add new stuff every month!)

Join here today:  patreon.com/AtmosphericNoiseStudios 

Check out my Tikky Takky!

So I've done something I never thought I would do.  I have jumped outside of my comfort zone and started a TikTok page - an "ArtTok," if you will.  So far I don't have too many videos out, but I have a bunch of content that I have already recorded and am now putting together to share, as well as a bunch of new ideas that will be featured in the coming months.

I hope that you will check me out!

@atmosnoise

Update on the new website and what's to come!

I figured after a couple of months of really hard work, it's time for another update on the new website and all the new happenings in my atmosphere!

First up, the website:

Visit me here: Atmospheric Noise

I have been doing a lot of work to get this to a happy place.  After decades of work on art in all formats, I have files all over the place and thought I had an organizational system that suited my work, but I'm discovering through this process that I don't really have things the way that I would like them.  Much of my time has been spent going through my back catalog of work to figure out what items that I want to feature and sell on my website.  I decided that a lot of my work done in certain periods was all thematically similar, so I've decided to break them up into what I'm calling "curations."  Similar themes, gathered together and featured for a period of time.  As my current work is filled with flowers, I started with a curation called "wild flowers."  I personally love this as my first curation, and it's filled with some great stuff and more to come!  I've got four more planned curations and probably a bunch more that I'll figure out as I work through this organizational project.  For now though, the website is live, it's organized well, and my art is now available for purchase there, under my control, instead of someone else's.  

Eventually, all of my "non-printable" art/work will be available for purchase here.  At this point in time, I still plan on keeping all of my paid patterns and printables on my etsy shop rather than moving them over to the new website.  I do plan on featuring some of my patterns on the website, but you'll still have to go to my etsy shop in order to purchase.  I will also be building up my digital product catalog on my Patreon site as well for more exposure. 

Next, updates to my Patreon!:

I got behind on practically everything to do with my Patreon site over the past few months.  I have recently gotten back to posting and now I am back on track.  This month is one of the best months to join me as a paid subscriber - I just released two new Patreon Supporter ONLY patterns that you won't want to miss: 

These two new silhouette patterns can only be found in my Patreon pattern library, which is available to all of my $5 subscribers!

Additionally, my hat project (you'll get the joke if you join the Patreon) is in full swing and this month will be the first month that all of my subscribers get to pick a free pattern PDF out of the newest patterns!  This post will be coming out in a week, and only those who are members when the post gets released will get the freebie, so join up today!!!

TikkyTakky!

Yes, I know it's called TikTok, but how else am I supposed to troll on the teenagers in my life than calling it the TikkyTakky?!??!  And yes, I finally joined. I have no followers yet, so I would really love it if you would come and support me as I begin sharing more videos about what's going on in my studio world!  I'm currently working on a super fun new series that I plan on sharing in the next few weeks, and there will be FREE patterns that come from it! :)

I think that's about everything - but let me re-iterate that it is a GREAT time to be one of my supporters! 

Valentine's Boxes {Craft Project}

*This post was available as an Early Access offering from my Patreon page.  If you would like to get first access to free tutorials, patterns and more, please check it out!  https://www.patreon.com/AtmosphericNoiseStudios 

Everyone has been there.  It's the night before Valentine's day and you need a box to take to school and receive all your treats in, but you didn't plan ahead and now you need to rush to cobble something together.  I'm here to tell you, it doesn't need to be difficult and you can make something cool with materials you have in your own house.

Valentine's Boxes Craft Project

Materials Needed:

A cereal box

Brown Kraft paper

Stickers or colored papers

Scissors

Glue

Start with your cereal box and cut a hole where ever you would like people to insert the Valentines.  We did ours on the front side of the box.

Wrap the box in Kraft paper like you would a present, but apply glue under the paper so it adheres to the box.  Find the hole you cut in the cardboard box and cut a slit in the middle of it.

Fold the paper into the box and glue down for a nice opening.

Let your child use their imagination and place stickers, paper cutouts and draw on the box as they want to.

I added a piece of ribbon to the top of the box to serve as a carrying handle.

Enjoy your Valentine's box that you made in less than an hour!!

Trying Something Weird and New

 I've been experimenting with different techniques lately and one of the things that I've been interested in is combining yarn with resin.  I ran a few experiments and wanted to share them with you here!

I started with a scrap pink granny square that I had lying around, a grey star and a hank of really crazy yarn that I wasn't sure how I would use in any other way.  I chose a square mold that will fit the granny square perfectly, to test how it would look in the square, I am just choosing to see if I can harden the star with resin and how it looks, and for the crazy yarn, it's going into an orb to see how it reacts.

I'm going to start by saying that the results were not what I was expecting. Each yarn seemed to have a different reaction to the resin, with some interesting effects.

First up, the granny square.  As the yarn absorbed the resin, it took on this translucent effect that I was not expecting.  If you notice, the whole color of the yarn changed to a totally different pink! I am wondering if I can seal the yarn in any way - starch, some spray sealant?  I actually like the effect that happened, but I would like to know if there is any way to preserve this kind of yarn.  

The grey star.  This one I just wanted to see what would happen if I coated the shape in resin.  The color changed somewhat, darkening with the resin application... but the shape was retained.   It is very hard, and interestingly enough, you can still see the fiber details of the piece.

Last up, the orb.  I only took a few strands - a blue, ,a green, a pink and an orange, soaked them in resin and placed them in the orb, filling it further with resin.  This one came out completely dark, but had some really interesting aspects to it.  I want to try this again with less yarn, to see if it looks more interesting in the orb.  I struggled here again with resin bubbles.... which I believe is just telling me that I need to go ahead with my purchase of a vacuum chamber if I want to keep trying interesting experiments like this one.

I'm not really calling any of the pieces here a total success.  I do like the granny square and I'm currently using it as a coaster.  The star may find its way on to some three dimensional piece of art that I have yet to create... but the orb is going on the pfft shelf in my studio, where it might become something else, or it might just sit there as a dusty relic of something I once tried.  

I think there will definitely be more experiments in this realm, once I get the vacuum chamber.  I think mixing in this type of medium really requires that total removal of bubbles, especially some of the shapes I'm creating.  

I hope you've enjoyed this weeks chaos!!