Here is the rad vinyl ottoman I bought on my very first thrifting trip in high school. Clearly, I hang onto things! My high school self painted on pretty much everything in her room, so… of course—the ottoman was also painted. First with some acrylics and then sloppily with some bright blue spray paint. Now I totally wish I hadn’t because check out the amazing mustard color it was underneath!

Before!

I have been knitting a cover out of lots of different random wool yarn that I had in my stash. It’s a slightly mod-podge cobbled look but it works for our home. I knitted a cover to match the dimensions of the ottoman, basing the pattern off of the Felted Boxes pattern from Mason Dixon knitting because it has some clever construction details that help the cover to hold it’s boxy shape.

Materials!

After knitting the fabric & seaming it into it’s proper cube shape, I threw the cover in the washer to felt a bit. I wanted to solidify the fabric a bit more and felting seemed to do the trick rather nicely. I blocked the cover on the actual ottoman (hooray for vinyl!) and then stapled all along the bottom edge. I started at the center of each side & worked my way to the corners, taking care to fold them neatly down prior to stapling the heck out of it.

Multi-angled love

& voila— in action, my newly knitted ottoman.

After

Some of my older Gocco prints.

Print Gocco! is an amazing little Japanese screenprinter which is sadly no longer produced. I’ve had mine since 2005 (and have luckily ferreted a decent amount of supplies away) but you can still find them on ebay! I don’t use it very frequently (I think the last time I used it was 2008! For shame!) but have been meaning to bust it out and have some fun. You can see some of my previous results in the photo above. Let’s get to it.

My Materials

So I have my stack of cards (from Paper Source); my original art (skulls!); a screen; some RISO metallic ink; 2 RISO flash bulbs; & last but certainly not least, the Print Gocco B6 Model (the shiny silver part if the flash hood; the blue part is the actual press).

Making my screen

It’s important that your original artwork is a high resolution (300dpi+) and high contrast (black and white!). It’s also equally important that your original artwork is printed with toner—do not use an inkjet! Once you have the art lined up how you want it, you place your flashbulbs in the hood and attach the hood to the body of the Print Gocco (Fig B). To make the screen, you simply press down firmly on the handle and FLASH BANG! The lights pop (one use only—sadness! See Fig DEF) and your screen has been burned. Generally, your original will be stuck to your screen after the burning process (Fig C). I always think of it as a good thing because it means that the burn was successful!

Used flash bulbs

Screen Pre-Inking

I think the screen is really neat. You can clearly see where the toner has “burned through” the screen on all the places that were black. All the area that were white on the original are solid & shiny so the ink cannot seep through.

Inking the Screen

Let’s ink this bad boy! You can see in Fig H that there is a little plastic film that flips over one side of your screen. You want to sandwich the ink in between the plastic film & your screen—this ensures that the ink only presses out on one side & doesn’t get all over your little printer! You only really need to ink the black parts of the design but because this particular design is ink heavy, I ended up inking the entire screen (and using a palette knife to smoosh any extra ink into the right place).

Fitting the Screen

To fit the screen into the machine’s body after inking you have to gently bend the screen/frame to fit in the slots on the top half of the press (Fig J-M). The plastic film side faces your machine & the open screen size faces your printing plate!

Making a print

Let’s make a print! Place card (or paper product of your choice) on the printing plate (Fig N); make sure it’s straight (if you want it straight anyway!). Press the screen down (Fig O). Your printed object will most likely stick to the screen (Fig P). You want to be extra careful when you’re peeling it away from the screen—images smudge/smear and lose their crispness if you aren’t mindful (Fig Q). And tada! we have a print (Fig R).

Drying time!

And then you print madly on whatever you have lying around (I tend to have a collection of blank cards from Paper Source’s sale rack and leftovers from other projects—those orange cards look familiar…) and lay out to dry. I let all mine dry over night. I find that my stacking cookie racks are incredibly useful when I have a high volume of printed pieces drying rather than spreading them out over any flatish surface in our apartment.

Potential upcoming prints!

Who’s next? I am thinking the keys are the next up for printing. What do you think?
You can purchase any of the skull prints from my etsy shop!

Want more Gocco?!
Save Gocco
Etsy Labs did a tutorial too!
Flickr’s Gocco group
A company called Northwoods Studios carries a lot of gocco supplies!
DIY Life on Print Gocco

1. Work when it happens.
If you’re lucky enough to be able to embrace the notion of creation when inspiration strikes. Do so! There’s nothing like jumping in and DOING for an idea to come to life. Or at least get further along in your mind’s eye if your first attempts don’t work. On that note…

2. Keep trying.
If something doesn’t work the first time, try again. Keep trying different variations til you get something that works. Sometimes, I find it best to try a bunch of stuff and then come back to a project a few days later and suddenly a lightbulb will go off. You just have to let your brain marinate those ideas idly in the background of your everyday life.

3. Write it Down.
If you can’t act on a creative impulse as it happens: write it down. Don’t count on your brain to hold onto that idea; it will float away. I’m a listmaker by nature. I write lists of everything. I take notes. Sometimes it’s a checklist, other times it’s just simply putting it down on paper so I don’t lose it in my brain. I currently run around with a filofax for more timely things and an 8-subject notebook for all the other less-time-sensitive things. This notebook is a bible of ideas and chicken-scratch doodle. My subjects:
1. To Do: Everything and anything that needs to get done goes on the list; 2. To Buy: grocery lists & household items; 3. Covet: Things I want to buy. Every girl has to have a wishlist. This is actually really helpful for me to prevent impulse purchases; 4. To Draw: lists of things I would like to draw; some thumbnail/rough doodles of different ideas floating around in my head; 5. Rottencupcakes! Upcoming blog posts; ideas about redesigning the site and other sections I could add. A list of Let’s Make Stuff projects; 6. Apartment Therapy: General nesting. Things I need to do or purchase to make our home more homey & less room-filled-with-cardboard-boxes; 7. To Knit: The long list of all the things I want to knit. Yarns I want to try. Pattern drafting; 8. Freelance: Upcoming projects and current project notes. Yes,  I like this step.

4. Production=creation
Ideas are great! Actual stuff is better! Without your end project/piece/something to show for all the genius ideas you have in your head, all those ideas are still in your head. Make them reality.

5. Make time.
A lot of my projects are just work-on-them-when-I-work on them. For more intensive projects, like using my gocco printer or busting out a whole bunch of illustrations, I find it’s best to literally schedule time for those projects in my planner. If your crafting or art-making is sincerely important to you, you should make time for it. Priorities need to be examined. Decide what is important to you and make your actions reflect that hierarchy.

6. Make yourself accountable.
Rottencupcakes’ blog form is my way of keeping myself accountable. With an editorial calendar, it helps keep my energy focused and directed to a more consistent delivery of content. Content (product) is King. Everything else follows. It is totally awesome to link to all the neat things one finds on the internet (& goodness knows I love seeing what everyone is doing) BUT you have to limit the amount you ingest. Otherwise you’re gorging on the creations of others and not using that time to make your own stuff. For etsy, I tend to post to facebook or twitter or here about what’s coming up in the shop. Saying it makes it real and I certainly don’t want to disappoint.

7. Find your stride.
Have you noticed you get a creative surge at any particular time of the day? Day of the week? I find I create best late at night so I try to do most of my work at night; which works out since I have a full time job as an Art Director during the day. Working full time, blogging and having an etsy shop is a lot of stuff to do! If you find a certain time works for you, try to make room for that!

All in all it’s all about finding a process and series of habits that leads you to consistent production will lead you to greater creation. The more you do anything, the better you get at it. I think it all boils down to what works for you. And the willingness to endlessly discover better ways to do anything.

What about you? Is there any habits or tips that work for you to stay productive and to keep on creating?

Let's Make Stuff: Yakkity Yak.

Hooray! A tutorial! While not an entirely useful item, it’s certainly a fun one! Let’s make a Yakkity Yak bubble to hang on the wall.

Materials

Materials:

• Foam core board (you can purchase this at your neighborhood arts & crafts store—mine was from Pearl Arts before they closed (RIP Pearl on Chicago Ave). Select your preferred size. I decided to go big or go home.
• Pencil!
• Exacto knife & new blades (this is important!).
• Color of your choice cotton embroidery thread (I picked pink of course!)

Step 1: Draw your bubble in pencil on the back of your foam core. Start by drawing a large oval. Keep your elbow & wrist stationary & draw from your shoulder. This will help you to get a more even circle but don’t worry if it isn’t perfect—that’s half the fun! After you’ve drawn your oval (or rectangle or rounded corner rectangle—the possibilities are limitless!), add on the little pointy tail bit wherever you like. I chose to put mine in the lower corner.

Step 1: draw your shape!

You can’t really see the pencil marks very well in the photograph, so I drew over mine with a thick permanent marker to show you more clearly. As you can see: definitely not perfect!

Step 2: Cut out your shape! Use a brand new blade in your utility knife and go slowly. This will ensure a nice clean edge.

Step 2: Cut it out!

Step 3: Pokin' holes!

Step 3: Pokin’ some holes. Due to the size of my bubble, I chose to do two holes. I dug around in my kitchen for a poking implement and settled on a bamboo skewer. If you don’t have one, anything pointy will do. If you’re fancy & have tools, grab your awl & get stabby.

Step 4: Thread some of that embroidery thread through; tie some knots & suspend! Ta Da!

Step 4: Thread & Suspend.

Extra Credit:

• While I chose to leave mine blank, write in a word or two of your choosing. I may end up writing something in it eventually but for now, I will fill in that blank on the computer.
• Paint with chalkboard or whiteboard paint for something you can draw or write on over & over again. Magic!