Weekthings

My friend Grace always gives the best gifts. Her favorite kinds of gifts to receive are more heartfelt and meaningful gifts. I wanted to her birthday gift this year to be a labor of love because she always gives the most thoughtful gifts to me. We watched Avatar: The Last Airbender together this summer and she loved Appa, so I decided to make her an Appa plushie for her birthday. I made the entire thing from scratch and by hand. It took me a really long time to complete, but I am so happy with how it turned out! (The last photo is of me and Grace. She made me an Appa pillow for my birthday after I gave her this so now we both have handmade Appa gifts)

Reconstructing clothing into new garments has been a hobby of mine since before quarantine. Here are some projects that I did during quarantine. Below is a series of before and after pictures of the preexisting clothing and the clothing that I transformed it into.

Here is my painting breakdown for the Totoro house painting!

I have always thought it would be so cool to dress up as a Kyoshi Warrior from Avatar: The Last Airbender for Halloween. This year, I told myself that if I found the materials that I needed to make the costume at our local thrift store, then I would make myself the costume. As you can probably guess, I found the perfect blouse and fabrics to create this costume. Apart from the blouse, I created the costume from scratch including the headpiece. I also did the makeup for the costume as well.

Here is my breakdown for my Sailor Moon piece! When I worked for a brief period in a game shop over the summer we had a shipment that came wrapped in Japanese newspaper. I brought it home with me and decided that it would be a cool background to a piece. I mod-podged it to my frame, and then found three stills of Sailor Moon that I thought were cute to go over it. Here is the finished product!

Here’s a fun time lapse that I did of a still from one of my favorite movies, “Kimi No Na Wa.” It shows the process from finding a canvas at Gift and Thrift, all the way to the finished product. Enjoy!

Here is a quick little breakdown of my painting of Sensoji shrine in Asakusa. When we lived in Japan, it was one of our favorite places to visit. I was excited to try and bring that beauty to life on a canvas!

Here is my painting breakdown for my rendition of the Shinkyo Bridge in Nikko!