Designer and master-crafter Orawee Choedamphai wants to encourage you to make something with your own hands. “I think exploring things in three dimension makes our brains work differently,” she reflected once in an interview with the Etsy blog. “It gives us freedom to experiment and leaves room for trial and error.”

The owner of craft supply Etsy shop Squish-n-Chips, Choedamphai enjoys experimenting with different materials, colors, and textures, combining different techniques such as watercolor, paper folding, and collage.

“My workspace is always full of clutter, and I prefer it that way,” she admits. “When I’m working on a project, it’s important for me to be surrounded by objects of different textures, colors, sizes, and forms. I don’t plan—I just like to put things together and see how they go, so being able to see and touch different materials is key. I often get much better results when I work with my hands as I’m coming up with an idea, and I hope my supplies inspire my customers in that same way.”

Her shop offers a range of materials meant to tickle your fancy—anything from animal pop-up cards to paper flowers and kraft envelopes. Her carefully selected supplies will introduce you to card making, scrapbooking, dollhouse making, as well as DIY party supplies.

“Some make miniature gardens out of the flowers, and I also have tiny pots, so they’ll do a flower arrangement, or maybe something for a dollhouse,” she relayed. “Some use the flowers to make hair accessories. And for weddings, they might use my paper for cards and some of the bigger flowers for centerpieces. I really love when customers send me photos of what they’ve made. They don’t do it enough!”

Follow her on Instagram for some arts-and-crafts inspiration:

The post Get Onborad the Arts-and-Crafts Movement with Squish-n-Chips appeared first on TettyBetty.

Making what she wants means her practice also includes a heavy dose of experimentation. Mizushima explains for instance how a stop-motion project required her to learn needle felting from all things. “When I started to work on my second stop-motion music video for They Might Be Giants in 2007, I needed to make needle-felted characters and props for the first time,” she relayed. “That’s when I found out that I really love to make 3D stuff with wool fibre, so I started making more, and then I opened my Etsy shop. If I hadn’t got the video job, I probably wouldn’t have started needle-felting.”

“It takes a long time to make a needle-felted piece,” Mizushima notes, “especially for me (I’m a slow crafter). It has also crippled me! (Seriously, I have been having a problem in my shoulder and arm for months!)”

With her artwork taking so much time and effort, her finished pieces are treated like delicate artworks rather than children’s toys. As such, they have been exhibited in galleries in the US, Australia, and Japan, and were featured in books and magazines. But you can find some of her felt creations and prints on her Etsy shop.

The post The Playful Needle Felted Art of Hiné Mizushima appeared first on TettyBetty.

Featuring mainly floral patterns, her collections are a display of love of nature, textile, and color. In fact, color provides a sort of starting point to her work, as Thursday More admits she goes “color hunting” on the internet, as she looks for future references. Aside from color, her designs are also influenced by her mood, imagination, and memories.

“Creating is in my blood,” she admits, noting that her grandmother used to make colorful quilts, while her mother sewed pencil cases and throw pillow cases. “I try to stitch every day, even just for an hour,” she added in an interview with the Etsy blog. “I like the portability, the fact that I can take it with me wherever I go. It doesn’t require electricity. It doesn’t require the internet. With hand embroidery, you’re just in the moment.”

You can purchase her original pieces on her Etsy shop or follow her Instagram for that creative inspiration.

The post Take Some Fashion Risk with These Embroidered Pieces appeared first on TettyBetty.

“My biggest bit of advice is to make a point to draw for at least 30 minutes a day,” Lowery once remarked in an interview with Travel Channel, when asked for creative advice. “For some, that seems really tough (it seemed impossible for me at first), but I think it’s incredibly important. You’ll find your voice and figure out how you like to work and draw. It’s also a great way of recording your progress as an artist.”

Lowery practices what he preaches. Aside from a steady stream of illustrations posted daily, his Instagram also includes tips and tricks on cultivating creativity. A recent series, titled aptly, “Stay Home and Draw (with Mike Lowery)”, features basic instructions on how to create your own flipbook from the comfort of your writing desk.

“When I was little, I had a grandmother who was an artist and she encouraged my brother and me to keep sketchbooks,” recalled Lowery, explaining the origins of his practice. “Later, I had a college professor who required we draw in one every single day. It really forced me to draw a lot. I used my sketchbooks as a place to experiment with how I draw, what I draw and what materials I use to draw.”

Follow his Instagram page for more.

The post Mike Lowery Will Inspire You to Stay Home and Draw appeared first on TettyBetty.

Using only glue to assemble his creations, with no supporting structure whatsoever, his sculptures take after man-made objects—anything from a phone and a typewriter to a life-size car.

“One of the reasons I am attracted by cardboard is that, although it can be an expensive material, people fail to notice it and just throw it away when buying an object, often slightly irritated at the thought of having to dispose of it,” writes Gilmour on his website.

He notes that there’s a widespread idea of having to leave our mark, of expressing our personality by buying this or that object that will best convey our originality. “Almost as if the consumer society had transformed even our personalities into something you can buy,” he reflects. His cardboard objects call attention, therefore, to the former products that might have been kept within them—a deflated shell that was reinflated.

“Cardboard is cheap and easy to find, and using simple tools and techniques it is possible to make almost anything,” notes Gilmour. He might be onto something…

The post The Remarkable Cardboard Sculptures of Chris Gilmour appeared first on TettyBetty.

A hybrid of Surrealism and Pop-Art, her finished pieces reflect her love for pop culture and Hollywood glamor, incorporating into her work anything from vintage Hollywood to 1970s sci-fi, B-movies, and trash TV. Through Rivans’ creative alteration, new film plots and narratives come to be, and an alternative, mashed up universe of sorts, begins to form.

Rivans suggests that her use of collage reflects the complex and fragmented world from which her art arises. But according to her, her attention to beauty and to the harmony of composition gestures optimistically towards the social capacity to piece it back together again.

Ranging in theme and in size, her artwork can take months to complete, as she assembles the cut-out fragments and scraps, laboring over long periods, and making alteration after alteration. But with hundreds of fans both online and offline, her hard work seems to have paid off.

The post Enter the Mashed Up Universe of Maria Rivans appeared first on TettyBetty.

But the creative process that goes behind it is rather technical. “When water boils, its molecules expand,” explained Arnold in an interview with Redefine Magazine. “I place the book in the saturated solution when hot and manipulate the book to my liking. As the saturated water cools again, the molecules shrink and any excess Borax crystallizes. Once the solution has completely cooled and the crystals have grown on the submerged objects, I drain the solution and dry the object without disturbing its shape. The objects will hold their new, transformed shape when completely dry.”

Arnold points out how the crystals transform the books into aesthetic, non-functional objects – removing the textual context. “The books, now frozen with heavy crystal growth, have become artifacts or geologic specimens laden with the history of time, use, and nostalgia,” she says.

The books themselves were found and collected by Arnold over the years. In fact, it was the increase in discarded books and magazines (the result of e-books and digitalization) that prompted Arnold’s series. As such, her books also raise questions about the palpable ways in which time shapes our cultural experiences. “With the addition of the crystal growth, the story within the book remains in memory, but new stories can be created by viewers as well,” she reflects.

The post These Crystallized Books Gleam Like Ancient Treasures appeared first on TettyBetty.

“I couldn’t afford to buy her anything, but I hoped to make up for it with my time,” she explains on her website. And so, she decided to take on embroidery. But learning how to embroider was one thing. Finding contemporary embroidery patterns that weren’t overly simplistic, let alone embroidered doll patterns, was a whole other ball game.

As she was making her own version of embroidered owls for her niece, Galletta soon discovered its calming, meditative effect. She became fascinated with embroidery: the vibrant colors, the countless variety of stitches, and the joy of crafting.

Now, after several years of improving her skills, she hopes to pass on her knowledge to others. Her brand produces DIY. embroidery kits, screenprints, and other goodies. “It was developed in the hopes of giving others the chance to make something precious with their own hands,” writes Galletta. A good enough reason, if any.

But which of her designs would you choose to make for yourself?

The post Make Something Precious With Kiriki Press appeared first on TettyBetty.

“Creativity comes from a long way back and has developed throughout the years in an always present character trait,” Hurkens shared with Surely Simple. “As a kid, I was always busy collecting things, wooden boxes, postage stamps, poetry illustrations, books, paper, but also ladybugs or tadpoles.”

“Some of my favorite things to do is decorating envelopes, making flipbooks and collages and write letters,” she went on to say. “I seriously get happy by unpacking mail and discover a little bit of the world from the person behind it.”

Based in Maastricht, Hurkens works as a project manager at the University of Maastricht. But she also sells bits and pieces from her vintage paper collection at her online Etsy shop.

Take a peek at her cabinet of curiosities:

The post Explore Menw Hurkens’ Cabinet of Curiosities appeared first on TettyBetty.

Scrolling through their rich portfolio, you can’t but crack a smile, with play being the very foundation of their practice. “Play is a tool for working together within a loosely structured arena,” explained Frezza and Chiao in an interview with Art of Choice. “Play forces us to constantly shift our perception into a realm that brings to light the wondrous, the magical, and the humorous in the everyday. Play questions what’s possible and explores new potentials. This experimental attitude is what drives new discoveries. We take our play very seriously, and we apply a rigor and a focus to playful ideas that help projects realize a different potential.”

Other people seem to play along, with their collaborative work featured in solo exhibitions in New York and Philadelphia, as well as numerous group shows around the US, and a variety of art and design venues internationally. The two also founded their own studio in 2011 in New York City.

“When we met, part of getting to know each other was through playing drawing games and doing craft projects together,” they recalled. “We started to take this play more and more seriously, and realized that there was an audience for what we were doing.”

Follow their Instagram page for a pop of playfulness in your feed.

The post CHIAOZZA’s Art is All Fun and Games appeared first on TettyBetty.

Designer and master-crafter Orawee Choedamphai wants to encourage you to make something with your own hands. “I think exploring things in three dimension makes our brains work differently,” she reflected once in an interview with the Etsy blog. “It gives us freedom to experiment and leaves room for trial and error.”

The owner of craft supply Etsy shop Squish-n-Chips, Choedamphai enjoys experimenting with different materials, colors, and textures, combining different techniques such as watercolor, paper folding, and collage.

“My workspace is always full of clutter, and I prefer it that way,” she admits. “When I’m working on a project, it’s important for me to be surrounded by objects of different textures, colors, sizes, and forms. I don’t plan—I just like to put things together and see how they go, so being able to see and touch different materials is key. I often get much better results when I work with my hands as I’m coming up with an idea, and I hope my supplies inspire my customers in that same way.”

Her shop offers a range of materials meant to tickle your fancy—anything from animal pop-up cards to paper flowers and kraft envelopes. Her carefully selected supplies will introduce you to card making, scrapbooking, dollhouse making, as well as DIY party supplies.

“Some make miniature gardens out of the flowers, and I also have tiny pots, so they’ll do a flower arrangement, or maybe something for a dollhouse,” she relayed. “Some use the flowers to make hair accessories. And for weddings, they might use my paper for cards and some of the bigger flowers for centerpieces. I really love when customers send me photos of what they’ve made. They don’t do it enough!”

Follow her on Instagram for some arts-and-crafts inspiration:

The post Get Onborad the Arts-and-Crafts Movement with Squish-n-Chips appeared first on TettyBetty.

Making what she wants means her practice also includes a heavy dose of experimentation. Mizushima explains for instance how a stop-motion project required her to learn needle felting from all things. “When I started to work on my second stop-motion music video for They Might Be Giants in 2007, I needed to make needle-felted characters and props for the first time,” she relayed. “That’s when I found out that I really love to make 3D stuff with wool fibre, so I started making more, and then I opened my Etsy shop. If I hadn’t got the video job, I probably wouldn’t have started needle-felting.”

“It takes a long time to make a needle-felted piece,” Mizushima notes, “especially for me (I’m a slow crafter). It has also crippled me! (Seriously, I have been having a problem in my shoulder and arm for months!)”

With her artwork taking so much time and effort, her finished pieces are treated like delicate artworks rather than children’s toys. As such, they have been exhibited in galleries in the US, Australia, and Japan, and were featured in books and magazines. But you can find some of her felt creations and prints on her Etsy shop.

The post The Playful Needle Felted Art of Hiné Mizushima appeared first on TettyBetty.

Featuring mainly floral patterns, her collections are a display of love of nature, textile, and color. In fact, color provides a sort of starting point to her work, as Thursday More admits she goes “color hunting” on the internet, as she looks for future references. Aside from color, her designs are also influenced by her mood, imagination, and memories.

“Creating is in my blood,” she admits, noting that her grandmother used to make colorful quilts, while her mother sewed pencil cases and throw pillow cases. “I try to stitch every day, even just for an hour,” she added in an interview with the Etsy blog. “I like the portability, the fact that I can take it with me wherever I go. It doesn’t require electricity. It doesn’t require the internet. With hand embroidery, you’re just in the moment.”

You can purchase her original pieces on her Etsy shop or follow her Instagram for that creative inspiration.

The post Take Some Fashion Risk with These Embroidered Pieces appeared first on TettyBetty.

“My biggest bit of advice is to make a point to draw for at least 30 minutes a day,” Lowery once remarked in an interview with Travel Channel, when asked for creative advice. “For some, that seems really tough (it seemed impossible for me at first), but I think it’s incredibly important. You’ll find your voice and figure out how you like to work and draw. It’s also a great way of recording your progress as an artist.”

Lowery practices what he preaches. Aside from a steady stream of illustrations posted daily, his Instagram also includes tips and tricks on cultivating creativity. A recent series, titled aptly, “Stay Home and Draw (with Mike Lowery)”, features basic instructions on how to create your own flipbook from the comfort of your writing desk.

“When I was little, I had a grandmother who was an artist and she encouraged my brother and me to keep sketchbooks,” recalled Lowery, explaining the origins of his practice. “Later, I had a college professor who required we draw in one every single day. It really forced me to draw a lot. I used my sketchbooks as a place to experiment with how I draw, what I draw and what materials I use to draw.”

Follow his Instagram page for more.

The post Mike Lowery Will Inspire You to Stay Home and Draw appeared first on TettyBetty.

Using only glue to assemble his creations, with no supporting structure whatsoever, his sculptures take after man-made objects—anything from a phone and a typewriter to a life-size car.

“One of the reasons I am attracted by cardboard is that, although it can be an expensive material, people fail to notice it and just throw it away when buying an object, often slightly irritated at the thought of having to dispose of it,” writes Gilmour on his website.

He notes that there’s a widespread idea of having to leave our mark, of expressing our personality by buying this or that object that will best convey our originality. “Almost as if the consumer society had transformed even our personalities into something you can buy,” he reflects. His cardboard objects call attention, therefore, to the former products that might have been kept within them—a deflated shell that was reinflated.

“Cardboard is cheap and easy to find, and using simple tools and techniques it is possible to make almost anything,” notes Gilmour. He might be onto something…

The post The Remarkable Cardboard Sculptures of Chris Gilmour appeared first on TettyBetty.

A hybrid of Surrealism and Pop-Art, her finished pieces reflect her love for pop culture and Hollywood glamor, incorporating into her work anything from vintage Hollywood to 1970s sci-fi, B-movies, and trash TV. Through Rivans’ creative alteration, new film plots and narratives come to be, and an alternative, mashed up universe of sorts, begins to form.

Rivans suggests that her use of collage reflects the complex and fragmented world from which her art arises. But according to her, her attention to beauty and to the harmony of composition gestures optimistically towards the social capacity to piece it back together again.

Ranging in theme and in size, her artwork can take months to complete, as she assembles the cut-out fragments and scraps, laboring over long periods, and making alteration after alteration. But with hundreds of fans both online and offline, her hard work seems to have paid off.

The post Enter the Mashed Up Universe of Maria Rivans appeared first on TettyBetty.

But the creative process that goes behind it is rather technical. “When water boils, its molecules expand,” explained Arnold in an interview with Redefine Magazine. “I place the book in the saturated solution when hot and manipulate the book to my liking. As the saturated water cools again, the molecules shrink and any excess Borax crystallizes. Once the solution has completely cooled and the crystals have grown on the submerged objects, I drain the solution and dry the object without disturbing its shape. The objects will hold their new, transformed shape when completely dry.”

Arnold points out how the crystals transform the books into aesthetic, non-functional objects – removing the textual context. “The books, now frozen with heavy crystal growth, have become artifacts or geologic specimens laden with the history of time, use, and nostalgia,” she says.

The books themselves were found and collected by Arnold over the years. In fact, it was the increase in discarded books and magazines (the result of e-books and digitalization) that prompted Arnold’s series. As such, her books also raise questions about the palpable ways in which time shapes our cultural experiences. “With the addition of the crystal growth, the story within the book remains in memory, but new stories can be created by viewers as well,” she reflects.

The post These Crystallized Books Gleam Like Ancient Treasures appeared first on TettyBetty.

“I couldn’t afford to buy her anything, but I hoped to make up for it with my time,” she explains on her website. And so, she decided to take on embroidery. But learning how to embroider was one thing. Finding contemporary embroidery patterns that weren’t overly simplistic, let alone embroidered doll patterns, was a whole other ball game.

As she was making her own version of embroidered owls for her niece, Galletta soon discovered its calming, meditative effect. She became fascinated with embroidery: the vibrant colors, the countless variety of stitches, and the joy of crafting.

Now, after several years of improving her skills, she hopes to pass on her knowledge to others. Her brand produces DIY. embroidery kits, screenprints, and other goodies. “It was developed in the hopes of giving others the chance to make something precious with their own hands,” writes Galletta. A good enough reason, if any.

But which of her designs would you choose to make for yourself?

The post Make Something Precious With Kiriki Press appeared first on TettyBetty.

“Creativity comes from a long way back and has developed throughout the years in an always present character trait,” Hurkens shared with Surely Simple. “As a kid, I was always busy collecting things, wooden boxes, postage stamps, poetry illustrations, books, paper, but also ladybugs or tadpoles.”

“Some of my favorite things to do is decorating envelopes, making flipbooks and collages and write letters,” she went on to say. “I seriously get happy by unpacking mail and discover a little bit of the world from the person behind it.”

Based in Maastricht, Hurkens works as a project manager at the University of Maastricht. But she also sells bits and pieces from her vintage paper collection at her online Etsy shop.

Take a peek at her cabinet of curiosities:

The post Explore Menw Hurkens’ Cabinet of Curiosities appeared first on TettyBetty.

Scrolling through their rich portfolio, you can’t but crack a smile, with play being the very foundation of their practice. “Play is a tool for working together within a loosely structured arena,” explained Frezza and Chiao in an interview with Art of Choice. “Play forces us to constantly shift our perception into a realm that brings to light the wondrous, the magical, and the humorous in the everyday. Play questions what’s possible and explores new potentials. This experimental attitude is what drives new discoveries. We take our play very seriously, and we apply a rigor and a focus to playful ideas that help projects realize a different potential.”

Other people seem to play along, with their collaborative work featured in solo exhibitions in New York and Philadelphia, as well as numerous group shows around the US, and a variety of art and design venues internationally. The two also founded their own studio in 2011 in New York City.

“When we met, part of getting to know each other was through playing drawing games and doing craft projects together,” they recalled. “We started to take this play more and more seriously, and realized that there was an audience for what we were doing.”

Follow their Instagram page for a pop of playfulness in your feed.

The post CHIAOZZA’s Art is All Fun and Games appeared first on TettyBetty.